Dear Fans of Perugia Press:
This year Perugia Press celebrates 15 years of publishing books by exceptional women poets!
As a new board member, I looked for an answer to this question: With a single book produced each year by a woman at the beginning of her publishing career, what is the reason for the out-sized success of this diminutive poetry press? The answer boils down to the integrity of its leadership and faithfulness to its mission.
Perugia Press’s founder and director, Susan Kan, attends to detail—a level of detail that larger presses can’t afford. The result is a consistent stream of remarkable poetry books, attractively designed and edited with great care. When she founded the press in 1997, Susan set out to publish poetry that would satisfy a literary audience without alienating those who might feel outside the world of poetry.
True to its original mission, Perugia Press has resisted the temptation to expand. It continues to publish one book each year, the winner of the Perugia Press Prize, an annual, national manuscript contest with more than 500 submissions. What a stunning list these 15 years have produced! Books like Kettle Bottom, Diane Gilliam Fisher’s stirring book about hardship and community. Books like Nancy Pearson’s Two Minutes of Light, winner of the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, and Jennifer Sweeney’s, How to Live on Bread and Music, winner of the James Laughlin Award. Sweeney’s was the press’s third book in a row to win a national book prize.
We salute all our poets of the past 15 years and look to a future with more great books. And even with these successes, we still need you to join us in supporting us by making a generous, tax deductible gift. If you already regularly give, please consider toasting us with a 15% increase in your contribution amount.
You can make a huge difference to this jewel of a press as we continue to discover, publish, and launch the work of talented women poets. As poet and fellow board member Eleanor Wilner says, “Excellence comes best this way: one book at a time.”
Sincerely,
Ellen Wise
Director of Development for Leadership Gifts, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Delaware
P.S. In appreciation for your gift of $115.00 or more, we’ll send you our 15th book, winner of the 2011 Perugia Press Prize, Gloss by Ida Stewart, as soon as it’s available.
