Boise State University recently announced the closure of Ahsahta Press, the nonprofit literary publisher founded in 1974 and run by its MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Known for the discovery and publication of many notable writers from the Western US, such as David Baker, Katharine Coles, Wyn Cooper, and others, Ahsahta has taken up a mission of championing “surprising, relevant, and accessible experimental poetry that more commercially minded small presses avoid; in making it widely available.”

“Ahsahta has been home to a wide range of extraordinary books,” the university said in the statement, “including many prize-winners such as Anne Boyer’s Garments Against Women (Firecracker Award, 2016), Vincent Toro’s Stereo.Island.Mosaic (Norma Farber First Book Award, 2017), and, most recently, Jonah Mixon-Webster’s Stereo(TYPE), which won the prestigious PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award.” Its illustrious catalogue also includes Brian Teare, jos charles, Rusty Morrison, Kate Greenstreet, Dan Beachy-Quick, and many others.

Boise State Professor Janet Holmes took over as Ahsahta’s editor in 1999, following the press’s founder Tom Trusky. “For the last twenty years, professor Holmes has overseen one of the most respected independent poetry presses in the country, garnering a national and international reputation,” Boise State noted in the announcement. “The MFA program would like to thank professor Holmes for the energy and vision she has dedicated to the press, and for the support the press has given to poets, and poetry locally and nationally for two decades.”

Image Credit: Ahsahta Press