https://www.givecampus.com/schools/AugsburgUniversity/howling-bird-press

Please give generously to Howling Bird Press and support literary publishing! Your donation will help produce and promote our 2019 book while giving students a chance to learn about the editorial profession. Donors of $100 and up will have their names listed in our next book.

Howling Bird Press is the book imprint of Augsburg University’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Students enrolled in the publishing concentration, a two-semester course sequence, do the work of running the press, including editing, marketing, and fundraising, while studying the publishing profession and the book trade. The press sponsors an annual nationwide contest, which is judged by the student editors and senior faculty of the Creative Writing program. The press publishes the winning manuscript.

The author receives a cash prize, book publication, distribution, and an invitation to read at the MFA program’s summer residency in Minneapolis. The contest is open to manuscripts of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction on an alternating basis. Simples,by KateLynn Hibbard, is the winner of the 2018 Poetry Prize. Our previous books are Still Life with Horsesby Jean Harper, winner of the 2017 Nonfiction Prize; The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street by Jacob M. Appel, winner of the 2016 Fiction Prize; and At the Border of Wilshire & Nobody by Marci Vogel, winner of the 2015 Poetry Prize. Howling Bird Press books are distributed by Small Press Distribution; they are available online and in bookstores nationwide.

Thank you for helping us promote creative writing, literature, education, and editing. We appreciate your support!

Cover design and photograph by Steve Foley

By Sarv Mithaqiyan

We are excited to announce the official release of Simples by KateLynn Hibbard, winner of the 2018 Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize, with an event at the Twin Cities Book Festival, October 13, 2018, at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.  Hibbard will read poems, engage in a Q and A, and sign books at 10:30 a.m. on the Rain Stage in the Fine Arts Center on the Fairgrounds.

Hibbard, a professor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, based Simples on extensive research into the history of women’s experiences on the American prairie during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Simples uses free verse and poetic form and persona to examine the lives of women against the backdrop of the Great Plains, with close attention to flora and fauna as well as the goods and materials of daily life. This unblinking look at a historical moment examines hardships both endured and inflicted.

Poet and Augsburg MFA Mentor Heid Erdrich has praised Simples as “a book of remedy and release on the prairies of old. Poems in the voices of women who survive the requirements of their lives as subservient wives, daughters, laborers reveal another life of the settler colonial era. These women code their communications to liberate one another from despair, abuse, unwanted pregnancy, and the heartbreak of lovelessness or longing for love that cannot be. This is not the pioneer woman claiming the prairie, but the prairie claiming the women it teaches to survive.”

Come celebrate the publication of our annual prizewinner at this debut event! Hibbard’s reading and signing also includes a dialogue with Augsburg MFA Mentor Karen Babine, author of Water and What We Know: Following the Roots of a Northern Life and All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer. 

The Twin Cities Book Festival is the preeminent annual conference for book lovers in Minnesota. It runs from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 13, in the Progress Center and the Fine Arts Center of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. It is free and open to the public. Sponsored by Rain Taxi Review of Books, the festival draws 6,000 attendees and features 100 presenters and exhibitors. According to Rain Taxi, this “is not only the largest, most adventurous literary event in the Upper Midwest; it is THE annual get-together for devoted book lovers from the Twin Cities and beyond!” Howling Bird Press and Augsburg University’s MFA in Creative Writing are proud sponsors of this year’s festival. For more information, including the full line-up of speakers, a map, and directions, see: http://www.raintaxi.com/twin-cities-book-festival/

Howling Bird Press has awarded the 2018 poetry prize to Simples by KateLynn Hibbard of St. Paul, Minnesota. The press will publish the book in November 2018, and Hibbard receives a $1,000 prize. Hibbard’s work was chosen in a national competition among more than one-hundred submissions.

Hibbard based Simples on extensive research into the history of women’s experiences on the American prairie during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Simples uses free verse and poetic form and persona to examine the lives of settlers and indigenous women against the backdrop of the Great Plains, with close attention to flora and fauna as well as the goods and materials of daily life. This unblinking look at a historical moment examines hardships both endured and inflicted.

“I started to get in touch with the fact that women’s voices and women’s experiences in this period of history and really in all periods of history have not been voiced as much as I think they should be,” Hibbard says. In Simples, she invites readers to experience the historical struggles of women in a way that is much more accessible than a textbook account.

KateLynn Hibbard’s first book of poems, Sleeping Upside Down, won the Gerald Cable Book Award and was published by Silverfish Review Press in March 2006. Her second book, Sweet Weight, came from Tiger Bark Press in 2012. She edited the anthology When We Become Weavers: Queer Female Poets on the Midwestern Experience for Squares and Rebels Press. Hibbard is a professor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, where she teaches creative writing, composition, and women’s studies. She earned her MFA from the University of Oregon and her MA in Women’s History from the University of Madison. Her awards include the Gerald Cable Book Award, the Astraea Foundation’s Lesbian Writing Finalist Award, a McKnight Artist Fellowship in Poetry, two Minnesota State Arts Board Initiative Grants, a Jerome Foundation Travel Grant, and residencies at Hedgebrook and the Cornucopia Arts Council.

Augsburg University’s student-run Howling Bird Press issues a nationwide call for submissions on an annual basis. Prior to awarding the 2018 Howling Bird Prize to Hibbard, Howling Bird’s editorial board reviewed over 130 manuscripts submitted by writers at all levels of expertise, from beginning poets to well-established authors. Each manuscript was fully read and carefully considered, and the editorial board engaged in extensive discussion about the submissions with Creative Writing faculty members who are also published authors before selecting the winner. Simples was one of five finalists, and the others are:

• The Window, Which Cannot Help But Take Sides, by Jeanne Wagner, of Kensington, California
• A Quarrel of Atoms, by Kathy Ackerman, of Rutherfordton, North Carolina
• Bone Loss, by Kathryn Gullickson, of Northridge, California
• Weather and Other Important Topics, by Carolyn Schueller, of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota

Howling Bird Press publisher Jim Cihlar said, “We had more than 130 manuscripts submitted to our contest, from writers all over the country, many with previously published books and journal credits. With so much impressive material, it was challenging to narrow down our selection to the five finalists, and then choose a winner. We were honored that so many writers entrusted us with their work, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to read and consider it.”

Editors of Howling Bird Press, a student-run publishing house at Augsburg University located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, announce five finalists for the 2018 Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize.

Howling Bird Press received over 130 submissions from over the country, with editors reading all submissions, discussing everything thoroughly. The first round included fourteen semi-finalists, followed by selection of five finalists.

Finalists for the Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize for 2018 include the following:

• A Quarrel of Atoms, by Kathy Ackerman, Rutherfordton, North Carolina
• Bone Loss, by Kathryn Gullickson, Northridge, California
• Simples, by KateLynn Hibbard, St. Paul, Minnesota
• Weather and Other Important Topics, by Carolyn Schueller, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota
• The Window, Which Cannot Help But Take Sides, by Jeanne Wagner, Kensington, California

The winning author will receive a cash prize of $1,000, book publication and distribution, and will be invited to read at Augsburg University’s Master of Fine Art in Creative Writing residency in July 2018.  The announcement of the winning poet and manuscript is anticipated to be released soon.

“Howling Bird Press is a proud literary publisher in the Twin Cities, a metropolitan area nationally recognized as a center of literature and the arts. Founded in 2014, we are happy to contribute our voice to the national conversation by publishing books of consequence,” said Jim Cihlar, Publisher at Howling Bird Press.

Howling Bird Press is staffed by students enrolled in the Publishing Concentration of Augsburg’s MFA program. Students handle all the work of running a publishing house, including acquisitions, editing, graphic design, production, marketing, and distribution, all led by a professor with many years of experience in literary publishing. Find out more about Augsburg’s MFA programs, http://www.augsburg.edu/mfa/.

Published books from previous winners can be found at Howling Bird Press website, http://engage.augsburg.edu/howlingbird/books/.  Follow news updates about upcoming events and calls for submissions at Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/howlingbirdpress/.

The next Howling Bird Press Prize call for submissions will be in fiction, publishing in 2019. Details will be announced in spring 2018, with submissions online, https://augsburghowlingbirdpress.submittable.com/.

Give to the Max Day Is November 16

Augsburg University’s Student-run publishing house, Howling Bird Press seeks funding through the GiveMN.org Give to the Max Day campaign. Our campaign will help support the costs associated with editing, design, production, marketing, and distribution of book titles that win the Howling Bird Press Publishing Prize, which is an annual national competition for authors. Give to the Max Day is November 16.

“Howling Bird Press is a proud literary publisher in the Twin Cities, a metropolitan area nationally recognized as a center of literature and the arts. Founded in 2014, we are happy to contribute our voice to the national conversation by publishing books of consequence,” said Jim Cihlar, Publisher at Howling Bird Press.

This academic year, 2017–2018, students will be judging, selecting, and publishing a volume of poetry. The manuscript-review process is currently under way. The winning title will be announced in early 2018, and the student-edited and designed book will be released later in the year, complete with launch events at Augsburg with the author.

“Every fall, we participate in Give to the Max Day, a day of online giving sponsored by GiveMN. Nonprofit organizations throughout the state participate in this annual day of giving,” said Cihlar.

Howling Bird Press is one of several student-run literary presses in the country. Other universities with their own press operations are Apprentice House Press at Loyola University-Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland, New Rivers Press at Minnesota State-Moorhead, and Ooligan Press at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

Augsburg has raised thousands of dollars through previous Give to the Max Day events. Those who visit the webpage are able to make tax-deductible donations:

https://www.givemn.org/fundraiser/Augsburg-College-Howling-Bird-Press5429befe169e4

Howling Bird Press is a student run publishing house at Augsburg University located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  The press launched in 2014, is located at www.augsburg.edu/mfa, is part of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. If you need additional information please contact Jim Cihlar, Publisher, at Howling Bird Press at 612-210-2656 or by email at cihlar@augsburg.edu.

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We want to read your work! Submit your poetry manuscript to the Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize. The winner will receive a cash prize, book publication and distribution, and will be invited to read at Augsburg’s MFA in Creative Writing residency in July 2018. This chance comes around only once every three years–don’t miss out! For more information, visit our Submittable page: https://augsburghowlingbirdpress.submittable.com/submit

2016 Howling Bird Press Fiction Prizewinner Jacob M. Appel’s The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street is one of SPD’s top 40 bestselling books! On sale at 20% off w/ code TOP40 http://ow.ly/gypw309ubbQ

Howling Bird Press is pleased to announce the winner of our 2017 prize in nonfiction: Still Life with Horses by Jean Harper, which the press will publish in fall of this year. Jean Harper’s first book Rose City: A Memoir of Work won the Mid-List Press First Series Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her work has been supported by residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches at Indiana University East and lives and writes on a hundred-year-old horse farm in northern Indiana. Her website is  www.jeanharper.org

We also send hearty congratulations to the finalists for this year’s competition (in alphabetical order by last name):

Steve Fellner, I Wanted to Eat Lightbulbs and Other Essays

Matthew Ferrence, Field Trips 

Gary Fincke, The Darkness Call

J.L. Schneider, Cusichaca Moonshine

Fred Taylor, Migrating Toward Home

Gail Waldstein, The Mother Factor

We received many wonderful submissions, and we are grateful to all the authors who entrusted us with their work–it was a pleasure to read them all.

Our next contest will be open to poetry manuscripts. Submission dates are April 15 to June 30, 2017, and manuscripts are uploaded at our Submittable page, where further guidelines will be posted:  https://augsburghowlingbirdpress.submittable.com/submit. There is a $25.00 entry fee.

The previous winners of our contests are Jacob M. Appel’s short story collection The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street (2016) and Marci Vogel’s poetry collection At the Border of Wilshire and Nobody (2015).