Written by Brenda Nicholas

It’s back to the small press time, and it’s simply not small press talk if we don’t talk The Pushcart Prize talk. Here’s a quick history lesson: The Pushcart Prize has produced literary stars since 1976. Writers such as Jon Irving, Charles Baxter, and Raymond Carver were discovered through the annual process of weeding through magazines and small press nominations. Each year the winners selected from genres such as poetry, short fiction, and essay are published in The Pushcart Prize—Best of the Small Presses.

Speaking of good stories, every good story has an interesting beginning and in this department The Pushcart Prize does not disappoint. According to their illustrious website, the humble beginnings, back in 1976, were spawned from a “backyard shack and staffed by hundreds of unpaid volunteers across the country.” I hope these hundreds of volunteers were not there at the same time, or that this so called shack was enormous and only referred to as a “shack” because it was quickly hammered together from donated scraps of various building materials. Anyhow, the details are immaterial. What’s important to note is that The Pushcart Prize survived three decades defying the odds: hundreds of shack dwelling volunteers poo pooing Random House and other big-gun, air-conditioned towers of profit, for the sole purpose of producing quality pieces of art. Publisher and Editor Bill Henderson says it best:

“Spirit will never be quelled, certainly not by big bucks and bluster.”

Take a gander at the newest edition: 2008 Pushcart Prize XXXII Best of the Small Presses Edited by Bill Henderson