Thank you for joining us for Raven Talk, Raven’s online podcast. 

We are hosting monthly conversations with writers, artists, cultural warriors. Today, poet Carolyne Wright is talking to Christine Lysnewycz Holbert about  the history of Lost Horse Press, particular books published, and the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series.

Christine L. Holbert: I’m the tall one in the photo!

Christine Holbert, founding director of Lost Horse Press and a founder of Spokane’s Get Lit! Literary Arts Festival, earned an MA in Publishing from Eastern Washington University. In 1998, she established Lost Horse Press, a nonprofit, independent press that publishes collections of poems. She founded the Idaho Prize for Poetry, an annual book contest; organizes creative writing workshops and literary readings; established the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series—translations of preeminent Ukrainian poets, presented in dual-language format; locally hosts 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a worldwide annual poetry and music event in which artists in each participating community come together to express their visions for positive change on the local, national, and global levels. With the assistance of a few interns and one dedicated volunteer, Holbert continues to produce some of the most aesthetically innovative and beautifully designed books emerging from the independent publishing community. 

Carolyne Wright, photo by Erik Rucker

Carolyne Wright’s recent book is Masquerade, a memoir in poetry (Lost Horse Press, 2021). Previous books include This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse, 2017), whose title poem won a Pushcart Prize and also appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009; and the anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse, 2015), which received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. Carolyne has five earlier books of poetry, a volume of essays, and five award-winning volumes in translation from Spanish and Bengali. A Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prizes, she teaches for Seattle’s Richard Hugo House, and for conferences and literary centers nationwide. Carolyne lived in Chile and traveled in Brazil on a Fulbright Grant; and she returned to Brazil in 2018 on an Instituto Sacatar artists residency in Bahia. She has also received NEA, 4Culture and Seattle Arts & Culture grants; and a Fulbright Scholar Award she received in early 2020 will take her back to Bahia after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides in Brazil.

Register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMucOmorT4qGdzAvmZwWRRLkb8JtARLMF-P