About Hub City Press
Hub City Press is a non-profit independent press in Spartanburg, SC that publishes well-crafted, high-quality works by new and established authors, with an emphasis on the Southern experience. We are committed to high-caliber novels, short stories, poetry, plays, memoir, and works emphasizing regional culture and history. We are particularly interested in books with a strong sense of place.
Our titles are distributed nationally by John F. Blair Co. in Winston-Salem, NC. We publish five to eight books a year. We are an imprint of the Hub City Writers Project, a program of HubCulture, Inc., a not-for-profit arts organization.
Since 1995 we have published nearly 50 books, including works by Ron Rash, George Singleton, Marjory Wentworth, John Lane, Elizabeth Cox, Rosa Shand, Jon Tuttle, and Cathy Smith Bowers. Our books have been edited or judged by The Atlantic’s C. Michael Curtis, The Southern Review’s Bret Lott, Emmy-winner Kwame Dawes, and the University of Southern California’s Percival Everett. Others who have contributed work to Hub City books are: Josephine Humphreys, Fred Chappell, Janette Turner Hospital, Dori Sanders, singer/songwriter Marshall Chapman, and Southern historian David Carlton.
Our books have garnered acclaim from such publications as The Atlanta Constitution, Kirkus Reviews, The Journal of Southern History, Booklist, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Georgia Review. A 15-member editorial advisory committee, made up of writers and editors in the Spartanburg area, reviews manuscript proposals year-round. They also provide valuable editing and proofing work for the press. Members of this board include representatives of the creative writing departments at Converse College, Wofford College, and USC Upstate.
Hub City Press is the publisher of the biennial South Carolina First Novel Competition, whose partners include the SC Arts Commission, the Humanities Council SC, and the State Library. Our books have won awards for design, and our current stable of top-notch designers includes Mark Olencki, Emily Louise Smith, Dave Wofford, Brandy Lindsey, and Corinne Manning.
Each fall Hub City publishes a lead title for the Spartanburg market, which provides our major fundraiser of the year. Hundreds of residents contribute $100 or more to sponsor the book; in return they receive a limited edition hardback, and their names are included in the front of the book. These titles have included Textile Town, Spartanburg Revisited, Hub City Christmas, When the Soldiers Came to Town, For Here or To Go: Spartanburg’s Drive-Ins, Drive-Thrus, and Diners, and Hub City Music Makers, among many others.
Hub City occupies an important niche in the publishing world, offering a small but vigorous voice in the landscape of new literature.
Bookstores becoming publishers? Publishers becoming bookstores? The Hub City Writers Project is on the cutting edge of this national trend, as described by essayist Steve Almond in a Jan. 2, 2012, article on Salon,com.
Our editorial advisory committee is made up of writers and readers in our home community. Its membership includes Kathryn Brackett, Carol Bradof, Kathy Cann, Peter Caster. John Cribb, C. Michael Curtis, Christopher George, Ed Epps, Gary Henderson, Tom Johnson, John Lane, Tom McConnell, Michel Stone, Susan Tekulve, Brad Steinecke, Erin Templeton, Chad Lawson, and Patrick Whitfill. Submissions are read by two members, then considered by executive editor Betsy Teter.
Our sister program, HUB-BUB, has a website of its own. Here you can check up on what’s happening at The Showroom Gallery and Performance Hall and learn about the Artists-in-Residence Program.
Accolades are pouring in for Hub City Press. Brian Ray's Through the Pale Door has received a Gold IPPY Award as the top novel in the Southeast by an indie publisher. My Only Sunshine by Lou Dischler is a runner-up in that category, as well as an Okra Pick from the Southern Independent Booksellers. Expecting Goodness & Other Stories, edited by C. Michael Curtis, was runner-up and received a Silver IPPY as the top short story collection in North America. Out Loud, edited by Ed Madden and Candace Chellew-Hodge, received a Bronze in the GLBT nonfiction category. Kirk Neely's A Good Mule is Hard to Find was nominated for the SIBA Book Award in nonfiction, and Tim Peeler's Checking Out in poetry. Ron Rash's Waking, an Okra Pick, also has been nominated for the Weatherford Award, the top prize in Appalachian fiction.
