Perugia Press: Tipping the scales of gender inequity in poetry into balance
- Mark Brumberg
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Founded in 1997, Perugia Press is a nonprofit feminist press that publishes one book each year: the winner of the Perugia Press Prize, their annual national contest for first or second books of poetry by women. This is the first year the literary press will be exhibiting and selling their books at the Northampton Book Fair
Their mission is to celebrate and support women poets, inclusive of gender-expansive identities, in print and beyond. They aim to expand the audience for poetry by making books that welcome longtime readers of poetry and those new to poetry. The nearly 30-year-old literary press champions their poets and poetry through their publishing program, in social media, and at book fairs, readings, and events, says publisher Rebecca Olander.
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 nearly all of the titles Perugia Press has published are still in print, displayed at conventions, publicized, and available for sale.
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 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 November 21st and 22nd at the Center for the Arts, 33 Hawley Street. For tickets and fair information.
Written by Mark Brumberg on October 28, 2025.
