Montana Book Festival 2018

Now in its 20th year, Lost Horse Press was established in 1998 in Spokane, when founding publisher, editor and book designer Christine Holbert was an MFA student in Editing and Publishing at Eastern Washington University. Based since 1999 in Sandpoint, Idaho, Lost Horse Press is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit, independent press that publishes work of established as well as emerging poets, and makes available fine contemporary literature through cultural, educational and publishing programs and activities.  

To date, Lost Horse Press has published 125 books and anthologies of poetry as well as collections of essays and short fiction—all work of high literary merit often ignored by conglomerate publishers, chain bookstores, and mass culture in general. Lost Horse Press has given many opportunities to emerging poets, including winners of The Idaho Prize for Poetry—an annual, national competition offering $1,000 plus publication for a book-length poetry manuscript. The competition, established in 2004 and now in its fourteenth year, is conducted according to the CLMP’s Code of Ethics. Each year, after the entries are screened anonymously by preliminary readers, a different poet of national prominence serves as final judge to select the winner from among a small group of finalist manuscripts.  

In addition to running the Press, Christine Holbert is dedicated to contributing to the community. She has served on the board of the Idaho Center for the Book, organized creative writing workshops, literary readings, and a writing conference for adults—to promote the literary arts in Idaho and nationally. Another program, Young Writers of the Lost Horse, has helped children in elementary grades through high school strengthen their skills and heighten their interest in the process and pleasure of writing.  

Lost Horse also collaborates with the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force to host the Sandpoint, Idaho, celebration of 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a worldwide annual poetry and music event in which local artists in each participating community come together to express their visions for positive change on the local, national and global levels. A signal achievement of the Press, and an expression of its commitment to such change, is the Lost Horse Press Human Rights Series—anthologies proposed, created and curated by editors associated with the Press, and focusing on urgent humanitarian and human rights issues of our era. To date, four anthologies have appeared--editors of two of these (Kwasny and Wright) will take part in the proposed celebratory reading.  

For this event, the five authors will read from their poetry published by Lost Horse Press; tell a little about what it is like to work with a publisher of such quality and commitment to social justice, human rights, and environmental balance; and answer questions from the audience about writing, publishing, and finding a publisher.