We’re excited to name the winner of the most recent round of our Eludia Award: Elisabeth Carroll of Framingham, Massachusetts, for her fascinating dual-time novel, Agnès & Oscara. The Eludia Award is a first-book award, offered to a woman writer, age forty and above, for a work of fiction, either a novel or collection of stories. We are also pleased to announce the semi-finalists and finalists below and wish to congratulate everyone. As ever, we are in awe of the enormity of talent we receive; and we are grateful to every writer who has submitted to this award. The next round of submission ..read more

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike Photo by Mario Tama We’re into the second half of July. The striking arts workers who are members of the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) continue their strike, and have been joined by members of The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG/AFTRA).    I thought I’d take a little time to gather some information to share with others who haven’t had the chance to inform themselves of what is going on. The issues include fair pay and compensation, ending labor exploitation and labor theft, the threats presented ..read more

“Despair” by Bertha Wegmann The independent small press community is filled with passionate people who love great writing, dedicated people who love helping talented writers bring their work out into the world. We often work on shoestring budgets, are almost always over-extended and running behind on everything. It has never been an easy occupation. It certainly doesn’t make anyone rich. In fact, it is not at all surprising to find a balance sheet completely in the red – cash negative, in other words. But the wealth of this life is to be found in the beauty of language, the excitement of new ..read more

Creator: janiecbros Credit: Getty Images Many of us are shell-shocked, and are likely to remain so for quite some time.  Lockdowns.  Illness, death, occupational and financial meltdowns.  A sense of dread was pervasive.  It has been three years.  Are any of us completely free of that feeling of dread? A new term, “essential workers” came into use; a new respect for those who provide the rest of us with care, service, and support was expressed.  But it didn’t last long.  It certainly didn’t last long enough for our society at larg ..read more

Jeffrey Voccola winner of The Blue Mountain Award for his novel KINGS ROW Jeffrey Voccola, of Kutztown, Pennsylvania has won the inaugural Blue Mountain Novel Award for his novel, Kings Row.** The award carries a $1,000 cash prize and publication with Hidden River Press, an imprint of Hidden River Publishing. Jeffrey received an MFA from Emerson College. His fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Cabinet, Noctua Review, Cottonwood, Beacon Street Review, Folio, Whirligig. His essays have been published in Inside Sources, The Las Vegas Sun, and The Chronicle of Highe ..read more

Jeffrey Voccola winner of The Blue Mountain Award for his novel KINGS ROW Jeffrey Voccola, of Kutztown, Pennsylvania has won the inaugural Blue Mountain Novel Award for his novel, Kings Row.** The award carries a $1,000 cash prize and publication with Hidden River Press, an imprint of Hidden River Publishing. Jeffrey received an MFA from Emerson College. His fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Cabinet, Noctua Review, Cottonwood, Beacon Street Review, Folio, Whirligig. His essays have been published in Inside Sources, The Las Vegas Sun, and The Chronicle of Highe ..read more

Winner of The Eludia Award, Elise Atchison’s Crazy Mountain chronicles a rapidly changing place and community through the diverse and conflicting stories of the people who live in a fictional mountain valley in Montana over nearly half a century (1970-2015). As newly built roads carve through the primal wild, and the rural landscape transforms into subdivisions, McMansions and resorts, conflicts escalate between locals and newcomers, developers and environmentalists, the wealthy and the homeless. Through multiple perspectives we hear the voices of ranchers, real estate agents, carpenters, arti ..read more

Houses by Charles Wyatt “Houses is a fabulous book of stories that keep wandering into locked rooms, to find worlds hidden behind worlds. Its nosy, resourceful characters can’t resist stumbling into the magical-sinister or rhapsodic, demonic or glorious. What witty, astute stories these are-haunting in the best possible way. A masterful collection.” Joan Silber, author of Improvement, Secrets of Happiness, and Household Words ~ ~ ~ Charles Wyatt was the inaugural winner of our Hawk Mountain Award for a story collection. It is an astonishing collection, the style of which is hard to put into a ..read more

We are thrilled to announce that THE SECRET MUSIC AT TORDESILLAS by Marjorie Sandor has been named winner of the 2020 Foreward INDIES Award for Historical (Adult) Fiction. As the editor-in-chief of Hidden River Publishing, and the proud publisher of this wonderful book, I am very happy for Marjorie, who has created a world that every lover of historical fiction should be eager to enter. It is the court of Juana the Mad, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. It was a time when even the court musicians had to face the horrors of the Inquisition and were forced to renounce their own religio ..read more

The Schuylkill River. “Schuylkill” is Dutch for “Hidden River” We’ve been quiet for a while, during the pandemic. But it’s time for some COVID updates: As with many arts organizations, Hidden River has faced some obstacles, some slow-downs, some difficulties, during the pandemic. But we are still here. Submissions to our awards are still being deliberated – and we’ll be announcing the semi-finalists and finalists of a few of the awards over the next two weeks. Our publishing pipeline has been a bit paralyzed, but we are starting to move once again, and will be launching two new titles – The Em ..read more