Autumn House Press

Autumn House Press is an independent, non-profit literary publishing company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

Autumn House Press

Founded	1998
Founder	Michael Simms
Country of origin	United States
Headquarters location	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Distribution	The University of Chicago Press[1]
Publication types	Books
Official website	www.autumnhouse.org

The press concentrates “on publishing the work of excellent contemporary writers who have a following among readers, but whose work has been overlooked by commercial publishers.” It “is dedicated to producing beautifully designed, well-manufactured books on acid-free paper, as well as electronic texts of comparable quality.” [2] Christine Stroud, Editor-in-Chief, also highlights the benefits of Autumn House being an indie press: "As a nonprofit, we are able to publish books we believe will have an impact on a greater audience, books that will make some kind of difference." [3]

In a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette poetry feature, Bob Hoover writes that "Michael Simms started the operation after he noticed that the 'large traditional commercial presses, had either been bought up or merged and were emphasizing literary titles less. I saw a need for a high-quality poetry press to fill that vacuum.'" [4] Launched in 1998, the press publishes books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by such authors as Ellery Akers, Andrew Bourelle, George Bilgere, Cameron Barnett, Dickson Lam, Cherene Sherrard, Kathy Anderson, Sherrie Flick, Ruth L. Schwartz, Gerald Stern, Chana Bloch, Ed Ochester, Anne Marie Macari, Andrea Hollander Budy, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Frank Gaspar, and Sheryl St. Germain, as well as a number of comprehensive anthologies including New America: Contemporary Literature for a Changing Society, and When She Named Fire: an Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women.

Autumn House also publishes Coal Hill Review, an online imprint that publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and book reviews; sponsors five national literary contests; and collaborates with Pittsburgh community venues to present Autumn in Spring, an annual gala that brings together philanthropic and literary communities to discuss and celebrate poetry. [5]

The press has been honored by annual grants from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Heinz Endowments, The Pittsburgh Foundation, the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, and others. Autumn House Press titles have been reviewed in such venues as Publishers Weekly,[6] Booklist, The Georgia Review, The Hollins Critic, The Jerusalem Post, The Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Thriller Magazine.

Autumn House and its authors have won many prestigious awards and prizes, including a 2013 Whiting Foundation Award for Love for Sale and Other Essays by Clifford Thompson, garnering $50,000 for the author, and annual grants since 1999 from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.

Autumn House accepts various genres throughout the year. The guidelines and deadlines for manuscript submission can be found on their submissions page.

Michael Simms, who is the founder of the press and the previous Editor-in-Chief, is a poet who has taught at the University of Iowa, Southern Methodist University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Duquesne University, as well as in the Chatham University Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. Currently, he edits Vox Populi, an online journal of poetry, politics and nature.

The current Editor-in-Chief is Christine Stroud, who received her MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University. Also on staff are Mike Good, the Managing Editor, and Shelby Newsom, the Assistant Editor.