Do you have a full-length or chapbook-length manuscript in process? Looking for expert guidance on the next steps? Join Joan Houlihan, Nathan McClain, Stephen Motika, and Martha Rhodes for the August 5-8 classic on Zoom.
Why Colrain? Because Colrain is the original manuscript conference (est. 2006), and the gold standard in excellence of program design and pedagogy, honest and useful editorial feedback, depth of experience and integrity of faculty, and, most importantly, results.
Over 200 Colrain manuscripts have been taken, including many with awards such as The Perugia Press Prize, New Issues Poetry Prize, Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, The Bakeless Prize, FutureCycle Press Poetry Book Prize, John Ciardi Prize from BkMk Press, McGovern Prize from Ashland Press, Editor’s Choice Akron Poetry Prize from University of Akron Press, Gerald Cable First Book Award, T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize from Truman State University, Orphic Prize from Dream Horse Press, Levis Prize from Four Way Books, Wick Prize from Kent State Press, Four Way Book Intro Prize, Beatrice Hawley Prize from Alice James Books, Emily Dickinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, Marsh Hawk Press Prize, Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize from Persea Books, Nightboat Books Poetry Prize, May Swenson Poetry Award, University of New Mexico Press WILLA Literary Award…and many more!
Click here for more information to register.
Joan Houlihan is the author of six books of poetry, most recently, It Isn’t a Ghost if it Lives in Your Chest (Four Way Books). Her poetry has been anthologized in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press) and The Book of Irish-American Poetry-Eighteenth Century to Present (University of Notre Dame Press). She teaches in the Lesley University Low-Residency MFA Program and at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Houlihan is founder and director of the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference.
Nathan McClain is the author of two poetry collections — Previously Owned (2022) and Scale (2017) — both from Four Way Books, a recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and a graduate of the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson. A Cave Canem fellow, his poems and prose have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Guesthouse, Poetry Northwest, The Critical Flame, Zocalo Public Square, and the Plume Anthology of Poetry 10. He currently teaches at Hampshire College and serves as poetry editor for the Massachusetts Review.
Stephen Motika, poet and publisher, is the author of Western Practice, published by Alice James Books in 2012. He is also the author of two chapbooks, Arrival and At Mono (2007) and In the Madrones (2011), and editor of Tiresias: The Collected Poems of Leland Hickman (2009). His articles and poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, At Length, BOMB, The Brooklyn Review, Eleven Eleven, Maggy, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Poets.org, Vanitas, among other publications. A 2010-2011 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Resident, he has taught at Naropa University and in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine. He is the former program director at Poets House and current publisher and director of Nightboat Books.
Martha Rhodes is the publisher of Four Way Books, a literary press in New York City where she edits and publishes award-winning poets including Gregory Pardlo (Pulitzer Prize), Rigoberto Gonzalez (Lenore Marshall Award and Lambda Award) and Yona Harvey (Kate Tufts Discovery Award). She is author of five poetry collections: The Thin Wall (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), The Beds (Autumn House Press), Mother Quiet (Zoo Press, 2004), Perfect Disappearance (winner of The Green Rose Prize, New Issues, 2000), and At the Gate (Provincetown Arts, 1995). She has published widely in magazines and journals including Agni, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and TriQuarterly, and her work has appeared in such anthologies as Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women, The New American Poets, Last Call, and many others. Martha has taught at Emerson College, New School University, UC at Irvine, and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence and the Warren Wilson MFA Program.
