Press 53

Last updated

Press 53
Founded2005
FounderKevin Morgan Watson
Country of origin United States
Headquarters location Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Distribution Ingram
Fiction genres Short story, poetry
Official website www.press53.com

Press 53 is an independent publisher located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Known for championing the work of short story writers and poets, who face challenges in the publishing industry, [1] Press 53 was launched in the wake of 9-11 when founder Kevin Morgan Watson lost his job at US Airways. [2]

Contents

Notable titles and writers

In 2005, Press 53's first titles were authored by Doug Frelke, a veteran of the United States Navy and the Gulf War. [3] By 2006, the press had reprinted The Land Breakers , an out-of-print classic novel by North Carolina writer John Ehle.

In addition, the press has issued books by poets laureate Joseph Bathanti (NC), Cathy Smith Bowers (NC), Kathryn Stripling Byer (NC), Shelby Stephenson (NC), Marjory Heath Wentworth (SC), Kelly Cherry (VA), and David Bottoms (GA). What the Zhang Boys Know, a novel in stories by Clifford Garstang published by the press in 2012, won the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Fiction and in 2015 earned Garstang the Indiana Emerging Author Award. The story collection "One Last Good Time" by Michael Kardos won the 2012 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for Fiction. The story collection O Monstrous World! by Josh Woods (writer) won the 2019 International Book Awards for Fiction: Short Story. [4]

Annual titles

As a small press, Press 53 publishes around fifteen books annually. [5]

Related Research Articles

The Hopwood Awards are a major scholarship program at the University of Michigan, founded by Avery Hopwood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin J. Anderson</span> American science fiction author (born 1962)

Kevin James Anderson is an American science fiction author. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E. and The X-Files, and with Brian Herbert is the co-author of the Dune prequel series. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award–nominated Assemblers of Infinity. He has also written several comic books, including the Dark Horse Star Wars series Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Dark Horse Predator titles, and The X-Files titles for Topps. Some of Anderson's superhero novels include Enemies & Allies, about the first meeting of Batman and Superman, and The Last Days of Krypton, telling the story of how Superman's planet Krypton came to be destroyed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian literature</span> Field of literature from Canada

Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both geographically and historically, representing Canada's diversity in culture and region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. L. Doctorow</span> Novelist, editor, professor

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Conroy</span> American novelist

Donald Patrick Conroy was an American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs; his books The Water is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini were made into films, the last two being nominated for Oscars. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th-century Southern literature.

Samuel Talmadge Ragan was an American journalist, author, poet, and arts advocate from North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Moffett</span> American author and academic (born 1942)

Judith Moffett is an American author and academic. She has published poetry, nonfiction, science fiction, and translations of Swedish literature. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and presented a paper on the translation of poetry at a 1998 Nobel Symposium.

Lyn McConchie is a New Zealand writer of speculative fiction, picture books for children, a nonfiction humour series, a number of standalone books and many short stories, articles, poems, opinion pieces, and reviews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuala Ní Chonchúir</span> Irish writer and poet (born 1970)

Nuala Ní Chonchúir is an Irish writer and poet.

Gillian "Gil" Adamson is a Canadian writer. She won the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 2008 for her 2007 novel The Outlander.

Kevin Barry is an Irish writer. He is the author of three collections of short stories and three novels. City of Bohane was the winner of the 2013 International Dublin Literary Award. Beatlebone won the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize and is one of seven books by Irish authors nominated for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award, the world's most valuable annual literary fiction prize for books published in English. His 2019 novel Night Boat to Tangier was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. Barry is also an editor of Winter Papers, an arts and culture annual.

Sarabande Books is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1994. It is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with an office in New York City. Sarabande publishes contemporary poetry and nonfiction. Sarabande is a literary press whose books have earned reviews in the New York Times.

Hugh Bernard Fox Jr. was a writer, novelist, poet and anthropologist and one of the founders of the Pushcart Prize for literature. He has been published in numerous literary magazines and was the first writer to publish a critical study of Charles Bukowski.

Edmund R. Schubert is an American author and editor best known for his work in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, though some of his short stories are mysteries, including one that was a preliminary nominee for an Edgar Award in 2006 for Best Short Story. In 2015 he was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Editor but subsequently withdrew himself from consideration due to the block voting tactics which had been used to shape the ballot, stating that "I can't in good conscience complain about the deck being stacked against me, and then feel good about being nominated for an award when the deck gets stacked in my favor. That would make me a hypocrite." He has also written for and edited several business magazines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelly Cherry</span> American writer and poet laureate (1940–2022)

Kelly Cherry was a novelist, poet, essayist, professor, and literary critic and a former Poet Laureate of Virginia (2010–2012). She was the author of more than 30 books, including the poetry collections Songs for a Soviet Composer, Death and Transfiguration, Rising Venus and The Retreats of Thought. Her short fiction was reprinted in The Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and New Stories from the South, and won a number of awards.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2013.

Joseph Bathanti is an American poet, novelist and professor. He was named by Governor Bev Perdue as the seventh North Carolina Poet Laureate, 2012–2014.

Souvankham Thammavongsa is a Laotian Canadian poet and short story writer. In 2019, she won an O. Henry Award for her short story, "Slingshot", which was published in Harper's Magazine, and in 2020 her short story collection How to Pronounce Knife won the Giller Prize.

Kai Cheng Thom is a Canadian writer and former social worker. Thom, a non-binary trans woman, has published four books, including the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir (2016), the poetry collection a place called No Homeland (2017), a children's book, From the Stars in The Sky to the Fish in the Sea (2017), and I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World (2019), a book of essays centered on transformative justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous Australian literature</span> Literature produced by Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australian literature is the fiction, plays, poems, essays and other works authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

References

  1. Wiehardt, Ginny. "Profile of Press 53". About Careers. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
  2. Hudson, Marjorie. "Interview with Kevin Morgan Watson". Crowd the Book. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
  3. "Doug Frelke". www.press53.com. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
  4. International Book Awards 2019. “Full Results Listing by Category.” http://www.internationalbookawards.com/aboutuscontactus/2019awardannouncement.html
  5. Andrews, Nin. "Meet the Press: Nin Andrews in Conversation with Kevin Morgan Watson and Tom Lombardo from Press 53". Best American Poetry. Retrieved 9 June 2015.