About Alice James Books Cooperative Board Membership

Alice James Books is a highly regarded cooperative poetry press. Poets published by Alice James Books have a unique opportunity to work closely with the press on the appearance of their books, including cover art. Winners of the Kinereth Gensler Awards join the editorial board for three years, attending five meetings in the New York and Boston areas each year, beginning with attendance at the January board meeting immediately following prize acceptance in December. (The winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award has no cooperative membership commitment.)

Board members choose, through consensus, the annual Kinereth Gensler and Beatrice Hawley Award winners. Each poet is responsible for seeing his/her own book through production; advising new authors in the revision process; and voting on press business. In accordance with their expertise and interests, members also serve the cooperative in various other capacities throughout their terms.

Board membership offers the working poet many advantages, including valuable judging and editorial experience, the opportunity to influence the contemporary poetry landscape via the publication of six titles a year, and insight into the running of a top-flight poetry press. Prospective members should look forward to joining a small group of people united by a willingness to work closely and cooperatively toward the goal of selecting the best work from across the spectrum of contemporary poetic voices.

Members on their experience:

One of the most exciting things about Board membership is the opportunity to help bring other poets into print, particularly poets whose work—because of the inherent risks it takes aesthetically or politically or both—doesn’t “fit” comfortably into currently acceptable poetic categories or schools. Working collaboratively on the Board of a publisher challenges me to read across aesthetic boundaries and to question my own assumptions at every point—challenges that valuably contribute, in turn, to my growth as a poet. Many of us, as poets, would like to help shape the poetry world—its priorities, its values, its literary artifacts—and Board membership gives one just such a chance.
—Jocelyn Emerson

Reading contest entries twice a year and engaging in debate with the rest of the Board became an essential part of my work: fighting to give the future of art to good art.
—Sarah Manguso

The time I’ve spent on the Alice James Cooperative Board has been both useful and worthwhile. To be involved with the operation of a press, to meet and discuss manuscripts with a group so committed to the furtherance of excellence in poetry, to see and think about such a wide range of current work—these have been parts of my own development as a poet in the world. And being able to work one-on-one as a “buddy,” or editor, with other poets on their books was particularly rewarding.
—Cort Day