By STEVE PFARRER
Susan Kan smiles a bit ruefully as she recalls the early days at Perugia Press, when she would deliver poetry manuscripts she’d received to her volunteer readers — “screeners” — for an initial read.
This was before the internet completely took off, and Kan, Perugia’s founder and longtime director, would have well over 400 paper copies of poetry collections to hand off to her 25 readers.
“We had tubs of manuscripts — we’re talking about a lot of paper,” she said.
Today, Perugia Press, like other publishers, relies on electronic submissions and other technological changes that have made the logistics of publishing easier. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the mission of the Florence press: publishing the work of one new female poet each year, following a contest that can attract more than 500 applicants from across the country.
This month, Perugia celebrates 20 years as a women’s press with a number of events — readings, workshops, a Q&A session with poets, an anniversary party — at which several past winners of the annual contest will speak (see sidebar).
And after heading the press since she began it in 1997, Kan is transferring the reins to Rebecca Olander, a poet and editor who also teaches writing at Westfield State University; she’s been involved with Perugia in various capacities for about seven years, including serving on the press’ board of directors.
“Becky brings incredible enthusiasm and passion to this work, and she’s had so much firsthand experience with what we do,” Kan said. “She’s a great choice to take us into the next decade.”
Olander, who, like Kan, lives in Florence, says she feels “really honored to step into Susan’s shoes, for her to show that kind of faith in me. And I feel very invested in the mission. … I want to continue the tradition of excellence she’s built up.”
Perugia’s goals have long been tightly focused — not just to publish a talented new woman poet each year but to advance interest in poetry in general. Rather than trying to publish multiple titles, Kan said, the press has sponsored its annual contest, with a $1,000 prize, to find “the best new women poets out there” and work very closely with them to produce one well-designed book yearly.
As Perugia says on its website, “Excellence comes this way: one book at a time.”
Kan, who has a master’s degree in creative writing and has also written poetry, says she began the press as an experiment. A friend of hers, Valley poet Gail Thomas, was having trouble finding a publisher. Kan, a freelance copyeditor, decided she’d find a way to get Thomas’ work into a book; she worked with Thomas to fine-tune her poems, read up on publishing and layout and worked with printers and artists on a book design.
With some help from the formerly local The Fund for Women Artists, she published Thomas’ “Finding the Bear” in 1997.
“The learning curve was steep, but to see Gail’s poems in a beautiful book made it absolutely worth it,” Kan said. “I wanted to do it again.”
Part of her motivation stemmed from the difficulty poets generally have in getting their work published — and the specific problems female poets and writers face. The Perugia website includes statistics on the historical winners of major literary awards such as the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, which all tilt heavily to men. In addition, the site says, 75 percent of American poet laureates have been men.
“We try to address that kind on inequity in our own way,” Kan said.
To do that, Kan and Olander said, Perugia Press incorporated as a nonprofit and decided to sponsor the annual competition to find new women poets who had not previously published a book, or had only published one.
Kan, who ran the press from her home (Olander will now do it from hers), developed a group of volunteers to read submitted manuscripts and make recommendations for a selection of 16 semifinalists; that latter list is then whittled down to three finalists before Kan, with recommendations from her volunteers, picks the winner.
Kan and Olander (the latter has also worked as a screener) say they’ve developed a strong network of volunteer screeners such as MFA candidates from area colleges, as well as writers and literature professors; though many are local, some are from further afield.
“It’s a really dedicated group of readers,” said Olander, a Hampshire College graduate who completed a MFA in poetry last year.
Between that and the experience Kan says she’s gained working as an editor for 20 years with Perugia’s winners — “They’ve taught me so much,” she said — it’s generally not hard to select the top submissions to each year’s contest.
“The poets who win know what they’re doing,” Kan added.
In fact, Kan and Olander say they see Perugia as a launching pad for female poets, and they point to a number of other awards their authors have won.
For instance, Nancy K. Pearson, who won Perugia’s 2008 prize for her collection “Two Minutes of Light,” has since received a number of awards, including a 2009 a PEN/New England award for best collection of poetry; past PEN/New England literary winners include Andre DuBus. Tracy Kidder, and Mary Oliver.
And Amanda Auchter, Perugia’s 2012 winner for “The Wishing Tomb,” won the 2013 Pen Center USA Award — that recognition goes to writers living west of the Mississippi River — for poetry for that same collection.
Corrie Williamson, a Montana poet who won the 2014 Perugia Press for “Sweet Husk,” a collection of poems that celebrate the natural world in particular, said her book “has absolutely been a boon” to her writing, helping to open doors for more readings and panel appearances and for publishing additional poems in a range of journals.
Perhaps even more importantly, Williamson said in an email, the close relationship she had with Kan during the editing process was wonderful. “I had all of Susan’s attention and care for detail behind the project, and I think it shows,” she said.
Williamson added that she was also given a lot of input on production details like font size and cover art which, she says, many writers don’t get, particularly from the bigger publishing houses.
Financially, Kan said, Perugia has balanced its budget and turned a small profit over the years through entrance fees from its annual contest, book sales, donations and some grants — and Olander says she sees no reason that pattern won’t continue.
“We’re a small but sturdy ship,” she said.
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com