The Crazyhorse/Tupelo Press Publishing Institute
at the College of Charleston

With over 250,000 new books published in the U.S. every year, there is a substantial demand for well-qualified editors and publishers. To address this demand - and to augment the career prospects of emerging writers - the College of Charleston and the literary journal Crazyhorse have partnered with Tupelo Press, an independent literary press, to establish the Crazyhorse/Tupelo Press Publishing Institute. The institute is a graduate-level program open to writers at any post-baccalaureate level, whether finished with a graduate program in creative writing, currently enrolled or considering attending one. Students may choose to pursue either a credit or non-credit option. The institute will be held in June 2009 at the College of Charleston, in Charleston, S.C., where Crazyhorse is published.

The Crazyhorse/Tupelo Press Publishing Institute unites two important literary institutions: an internationally distinguished, award-winning publisher and a literary journal with nearly 50 years of continuous publication. The program of study is unique in combining the opportunity for a practical internship at Crazyhorse with important lessons on the first book through an intensive, four-week course that chronicles the selection of a winner in the annual Tupelo Press First Book Prize. This year, in addition to the internship and the first books course, the institute is proud to offer poetry and fiction workshops with poet Carol Ann Davis and fiction writer Bret Lott, as well as an opportunity for book-length manuscript review with Tupelo Press Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Levine.

Students enrolled in the institute work closely with, and receive instruction from, Tupelo Press Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Levine and Crazyhorse Editors Carol Ann Davis and Garrett Doherty, in both classroom and real-world settings.

The First Book Prize in Poetry: Pulling Back the Curtain on the Selection Process will combine a traditional study of first books with a look behind the scenes at the process of judging a first-book prize. Over the course of four weeks, students will work with the nationally prominent editors and publishers who judge the Tupelo Press First Book Prize. In addition to observing the judges' deliberations, students will read manuscripts, prepare reader reports for the judges and receive an intimate look at how a first book in poetry becomes successful.

During the institute, participants may also intern with the literary journal Crazyhorse, where they will receive training on the inner workings and day-to-day tasks of producing a distinguished, biannual literary journal. Students will continue the aesthetic work begun in the first-books class as they read the unsolicited submissions at Crazyhorse and consider and debate the criteria upon which literary merit is decided. They will learn about layout, design, distribution, advertisement, web-based outreach efforts and other aspects of the editing and publishing world. They will contribute to the health of a literary journal in a very real way, and will learn much about literary publishing that can translate directly into professional experience.

Students may also opt for a month-long poetry workshop with Carol Ann Davis or a two-week-long fiction workshop with Bret Lott. Both courses will offer instruction in the craft of writing as well as one-on-one feedback on students' work.

Institute participants with completed or in-progress, book-length poetry manuscripts may seek full-manuscript reviews with Tupelo Press Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Levine; in addition, they may opt to attend the institute's first-book course for the week that Mr. Levine is in residence at the institute.

Credit and non-credit options are available at different rates; students are free to choose any combination of courses offered above.
Housing is available on campus; students may opt for month-long, two-week or week-long stays, depending on their chosen course of study.
For tuition and housing information, contact institute director Carol Ann Davis or select from the above Forms box.

Carol Ann Davis directs the undergraduate creative writing program at the College of Charleston where she is associate professor of English and editor of Crazyhorse. Her first book of poetry, Psalm, was runner-up for the 2005 Dorset Prize. Her poems have appeared in recent issues of Agni, The Threepenny Review and The Southern Review. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the South Carolina Arts Commission.
Garrett Doherty is editor of Crazyhorse. His poetry has been published in Poetry, The New Republic, Verse, Slate, Seneca Review, The Southern Review and elsewhere.
Jeffrey Levine is the author of two books of poetry, Rumor of Cortez (Red Hen Press, 2005), nominated for a 2006 L.A. Times Poetry Book of the Year award and Mortal, Everlasting, winner of the Transcontinental Poetry Prize from Pavement Saw Press (2002). His work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Barrow Street, American Letters & Commentary, Virginia Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry International, Quarterly West, Yankee Magazine, The Seattle Review, and many other literary journals and magazines. Nine times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, he has won the Larry Levis Prize from The Missouri Review, North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize and the Kestrel Poetry Prize, among others. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, he is editor-in-chief and publisher of Tupelo Press, an independent literary press based in North Adams, Mass.
Bret Lott is the author of 12 books, most recently the novel Ancient Highway, published by Random House in July, 2008. He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1984, studying under Jay Neugeboren and James Baldwin. From 1986 to 2004, he was writer-in-residence and professor of English at The College of Charleston, leaving to take the position of editor and director of the journal The Southern Review at Louisiana State University. A Fulbright Senior American Scholar to Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv from 2006 to 2007, Lott returned to the College in the fall of 2007. He is a member of the National Council on the Arts.
Contact Carol Ann Davis at 843.953.7269
Cover art by David Ellis; silver enamel and black gesso on tobacco-stained paper; courtesy of the artist.