Copy of Perugia Press: Tipping the scales of gender inequity in poetry into balance

Founded in 1997, Perugia Press is a nonprofit feminist press that publishes one book each year selected by the Perugia Press Prize, their annual national contest for first or second books of poetry by women and nonbinary authors. This is the second year the literary press will be exhibiting and selling their books at the Northampton Book Fair.

Everything Has Been Moved, Even the Dead by Jen Siraganian (Perugia Press.2026)

Everything Has Been Moved, Even the Dead is a compelling narrative and the first time this voice has been seen in Pergua Press – written by Jen Siragainian this collection weaves a tale of present looking back, it follows the speaker in her history of being an Armenian American woman with a father born in Palestine. A fragmented hybrid collection that traces family history from the Middle East, her grandparents surviving the Armenian genocide, and a son's birth “where death is a neighbor”. 

This book is the third collection of hybrid work that appears in the catalog of Perugia Press. The work includes photographs and artifacts to weave a culturally significant and moving narrative transcending one person's life but rather a whole family lineage with connections of cultural significance in the past and present. Everything Has Been Moved, Even the Dead is a collection sure to cross generations and be read and cherished for generations. 

Jen Siragainian is just as impressive as her latest book, a former poet laureate of California, along with her work appearing in AGNI, Best New Poets 2016 and 2025, The Cincinnati Review, Electric Literature, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, the anthology Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry, A winner of the New Ohio Review Poetry Prize, and The Writing Salon’s Jane Underwood Poetry Prize. Just as exciting as all of her amazing accomplishments, Jen will be present at the table with Rebecca, coming all the way from San Jose.

Perugia Press mission is to celebrate and support women and non binary poets in print and beyond. With an aim to expand the audience for poetry by making books that welcome longtime readers of poetry and those new to poetry. The press, now celebrating 30 years, champions their poets and poetry through their publishing program, in social media, and at book fairs, readings, and events. Beyond this, this press unlike many other presses have put forth a great deal of effort and energy into being able to nominate the books they choose for their annual prize for other national manuscript prizes, from editing to cover design, to other contests, Publisher Rebecca Olander insists on giving these poets help from every angel and every member of the team is involved in helping the poet create something truly special. “I like to put myself in the poet's shoes” she quotes. The press supports their entire catalog of poetry books, not just the latest releases, Olander says. "Poetry has no expiration date," she adds, noting that all of the titles Perugia Press has published are still in print, displayed at conventions, publicized, and available for sale on their own catalog along with local book stores like Bookmoon in Easthampton, Amherst Books in Amherst, Broadside Bookshop in Northampton.

Holli Carrell, author of Apostasies, was selected, from a field of 600 entries, for the Perugia Press Prize in 2025. Her hybrid collection, - interweaving prose, documentary poems, translations, erasures, and spare, imagistic lyrics a mix of poetry, lyric essay, and photographs - recounts her upbringing as a Mormon. Carrell explores Mormon girlhood, the American West, matriarchal lineage, indoctrination, estrangement, and the lingering ramifications of being raised within a repressive and patriarchal American religious ideology. Apostasies aims to recover and reclaim the body by its own definition, the author says on her website. Carrell's writing is "stunning," Olander says. The book is, "compulsively readable," she adds.

To make poetry more accessible, the press has reading companions for each of their books that are free to download, suitable for high school, college, independent study projects, or community based reading groups, Olander said.

This is a "hard time to be a non-profit poetry press," she says. "It is a hard time for free speech, for humanities, for the arts," Olander adds. "But we're celebrating despite all that." As part of their 30th anniversary celebrations, a virtual program or set of streams is planned in the fall of 2026, with the work of all 30 poets represented. Other in-person events are planned in 2026 and 2027 for Western Massachusetts and at regional and national literary gatherings, she says.

          Perugia Press book display (2026)

Perugia Press books have won many acclaimed post-publication prizes, including the James Laughlin Award/Academy of American Poets, the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award, the PEN Center USA Award, and the Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Poetry Prize, among others.

To learn more about the press, their annual poetry contest, and their publications.

Be sure to stop by the Perugia Press booth at the Northampton Book Fair on Friday, November 20th, 5-8pm and Saturday, November 21st, 10am - 4pm. 33 Hawley Street. For tickets and fair information.