A Literary Journal of Critical Thinking
In the Samizdat Tradition of Writing against the Machine
A Forum for Examining the Dark Side of the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex
 

Pushcart Rolls Into 25th Year
Unfunded, unsalaried, surviving on a diet of "rice, beans, and spaghetti" and "a couple bucks a day," Bill Henderson, a onetime associate editor at Doubleday, has managed to hit the quarter-century mark with his annual anthology, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. Characterized by the New York Times Book Review as the "single best measure of the state of affairs in American literature today," the collection features the year's best short stories, poems, and essays originally published by small presses and literary magazines. The 25th edition, released this month, includes the most eclectic selection to date, with 74 authors from 54 presses represented.
          In 1972, Henderson established Pushcart Press in response to his increasing dissatisfaction with the "commercial, bottom-line" nature of large publishing houses. The press's name comes from what he describes as "a rather marvelous protest" that occurred that same year. Rallying against what they considered to be ineffectual distribution of their books by mainstream publishers, authors took to the streets, defiantly hawking their own titles from pushcarts on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.
          While Henderson's immediate goal was to publish The Publish-It-Yourself Handbook (1973), which eventually became a grassroots best-seller, his mission soon broadened. In 1975, Henderson established the Pushcart Prize, which honors small presses and journals by publishing their best work in an annual volume. That summer, he devoted his weekends to typing 175 letters to "outstanding literary lights" inviting them to join him as founding editors of the Prize's anthology. Luminaries such as Paul Bowles, Anaïs Nin, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ralph Ellison responded.
          From the very first edition—in which, Henderson recalls, the Pushcart "discovered Raymond Carver"—to the present one, the Prize anthology has helped to foster the careers of such writers as Charles Baxter, Rosellen Brown, John Irving, Ha Jin, Mary Karr, Susan Minot, Rick Moody, and Mona Simpson.
          And the Pushcart Prize has been no less important to the editors of small presses and literary journals. More than four hundred small publishers have been featured in the series, including Bellowing Ark, Oyster Boy Review, Xanadu, Small Moon, and River Styx.
          In order to maintain the anthology's breadth, Henderson has over the years enlisted the aid of hundreds of distinguished contributing editors. These editors have served gratis as nominators and readers in the lengthy selection process. "It's very simple, which it has to be since I'm one guy working in a shack," says Henderson. "They send me a letter that says, ‘Here's what I like from last year,' and then we write to the authors and the presses and get copies. Essentially, the contributing editors send me letters about their enthusiasms."
          After the copies are received, the goal becomes to narrow down the 8,000 or more submissions to approximately 30 prose selections and 30 poems. The process reaches its peak in the months of February and March, when Henderson begins to read and reread the fiction, Anthony Brandt reads the essays, and two poetry editors, rotated each year, cull the verse selections. Poetry editors over the years have included Billy Collins, Jonathan Galassi, Jorie Graham, Robert Hass, Joan Murray, and Grace Schulman.
          As for his own small press, Henderson's modus operandi is to let "one book pay for the next." The press publishes about 3,000 hardcovers and 6,000 paperbacks of the annual anthology, which is distributed by W.W. Norton. While many of the presses and journals that the Pushcart has honored have successfully sought and gained funding from the NEA and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, Henderson has consistently refused to seek funding for his press.
          "One reason is that I'm too lazy to fill out the papers," Henderson says. "And number two is that I don't like to wait for committees to make decisions. ‘Sorry, we lost the grant' is no reason not to publish a book." Though he has nothing against small presses seeking funding, he says, "I would never put my enthusiasm on a piece of paper and ask for approval for it."
          What keeps the Pushcart going? Henderson says, "The writers keep it alive. I would have been out of it two decades ago if I didn't keep receiving these beautiful works of art. The book is new every year because of them. It gives you heart in this culture, which only cares about money, that so much of this spirit lives."

Christina Davis, a poet who lives in New York City, is a frequent contributor to Poets & Writers Magazine.