Academy of Northwest Writers and Publishers

Established in 1998, Lost Horse Press—a nonprofit independent press—publishes poetry titles of high literary merit, and makes available other fine contemporary literature through cultural, educational and publishing programs and activities. Lost Horse Press is dedicated to works—often ignored by conglomerate publishers—which are so much in danger of vanishing into obscurity in what has become the age of chain stores and mass appeal food, movies, art and books.

The Lost Horse Series for Emerging Writers is dedicated to publishing and promoting the early books of deserving authors whose work is disregarded by conglomerate publishers who require their authors to already have an established audience. Emerging writers—especially poets—have few publishing houses willing to advocate their work. Few publishers will take the literary or the financial risk to publish an unknown author whose work may not bring in a lot of money for the press. Lost Horse Press has published many previously unknown poets and writers. One such title, Scott Poole’s The Cheap Seats, has won several national book awards.

In 2006, Lost Horse Press teamed up with poet, Marvin Bell, to introduce a new series for emerging poets, New Poets | Short Books. “The idea for this series is indebted to Poets of Today,the Scribner series edited by John Hall Wheelock from 1954 to 1962, which published in eight volumes first books by twenty-four poets, three poets at a time under a single cover. . . . "The increased promotion in recent years of American poetry on many levels owes much to a dumbing-down of the art and the proliferation of novelty acts. Yet the country is also chock-full of little-published poets of higher seriousness. This 3-in-1 series, then, is intended to sample a range of poets who have yet to publish a book and have generally gone about their writing in private. It will not be run as a contest, nor will it accept submissions.” Volume V was released in February 2011.

Lost Horse Press has recently developed two other series besides the Emerging Poets Series: a Human Rights Series and the Native American Poetry Series. So far, two human rights anthologies have been released, one concerning global human rights, I GO TO THE RUINED PLACE, edited by award-winning poets Melissa Kwasny and M.L. Smoker, and BEFORE THERE IS NOWHERE TO STAND, an anthology featuring Palestinian and Israeli poets speaking to the struggle that exists in Israel/Palestine. The Native American Series has published Henry Real Bird's HORSE TRACKS and WOLF TEETH and Lois Red Elk's DRAGONFLY WEATHER. Several other Native American manuscripts have been accepted for publication.  

In addition to running the Press, Holbert is dedicated to contributing to the community: She organizes creative writing workshops, an annual writing conference for adults, literary readings, and two annual book contests—The Idaho Prize for Poetry and The Spokane Prize for Short Fiction (in conjunction with Eastern Washington University's creative writing students)—to promote the literary arts in Idaho and nationally.

In 2001, Lost Horse Press and the East Bonner County Library introduced a program—Young Writers of the Lost Horse—to help children in elementary through high school strengthen their writing skills and heighten their interest in writing. These workshops are provided at no charge to Bonner County students and are designed to give children from grades 5 through 12 a fresh perspective on the process and pleasure of writing.

In addition, Lost Horse Press has developed publishing and book arts courses that are now offered at MFA programs of several Northwest universities, including the creative writing programs at Whidbey Writers Workshop and Eastern Oregon University. By offering classes in publishing, Lost Horse Press can enlighten writers about what to expect from a publisher when their manuscript is accepted for publication and to shed light on the rapidly changing field of traditional publishing, self publishing, and digital publishing.