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Experience a place where partnerships with other programs acknowledge excellence in writing through residency awards.

Pushcart Prize Jentel Connection
Under a partnership formed in 2009 with The Pushcart Press, the Jentel Foundation awards residencies to writers and poets selected from the highly prized collection of the most distinguished short stories, essays, memoirs and poems selected from small presses nationwide.

The Pushcart Prize - Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America.  Each volume presents an astonishing diversity of writers, some renowned and many destined for acclamation.  Selected from hundreds of little magazines and small book publishers nationwide, the Pushcart Prize continues its tradition of introducing to a wider public the dazzling literary galaxy of the small press by identifying  and publishing manuscripts that are rejected by today’s bottom line, profit driven commercial presses. The annual Pushcart Prize continues to set the standard of excellence for literary anthologies. And each year it is hailed as a touchstone of literary discovery.

 The Pushcart Press has been recognized as among the most influential publishers in American history by Publishers Weekly. Presented with honors from the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers/Barnes & Noble Writers Prize, Publishers Weekly’s Carey Thomas Prize for publisher of the year and others, and acclaimed by readers and reviewers nationwide, The Pushcart Prize series continues to be a testament to the flourishing of American literature in small presses.  As commercial publishers consolidate into a few profit-drive conglomerates, small presses encourage literature that is lasting, important and exciting. Edited with the assistance of over 200 distinguished contributing editors, The Pushcart Prize features fascinating works chosen from hundreds of presses with selections from Snake Nation Review, Ocho, West Branch, Threepenny Review, The Sun, Poetry, The Canary, Noon, New England Review, Smartish Pace, Rattle, Laurel Poetry Collective, A Public Space and dozens more.

Writers who were first noticed in the annual include: Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving, Rick Moody, and many more. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series.

Pushcart Prize Residents