Kelsey Street Press

Kelsey Street Press Kelsey Street Press was founded in 1974 to address the marginalization of women writers by small press and mainstream publishers.

From the beginning, we linked our editorial policy to a poetics of allowance that encouraged women to write directly from their own creative imperatives. Other founding goals were to publish a list that reflected the cultural variety in this country and to publish first books by unvetted writers. In the eighties, we instituted a series of cross-genre collaborative works between poets and visual ar

tists. A decade later, as our list included more established writers, we created the Frances Jaffer Book Award for a first book to assure continued support of emerging poets. Our early books were handset and printed two pages at a time on a basement letterpress. Now we are exploring the interactive capabilities of the electronic media. At the heart of the Press remain the pleasures of the written page, books that can be held and carried, and ongoing participation in a continually changing poetry community.

We are thrilled to announce the finalists for the 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize! Thank you for the opportunity to consider you...
05/27/2026

We are thrilled to announce the finalists for the 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize! Thank you for the opportunity to consider your poetry manuscript for the Book Prize.

Our judge, Andrea Abi-Karam, has selected The Refusal to Land by Yanis Iqbal as the winner of the 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize. The editors have also chosen to publish Jasmine An’s Counterpoint as the Editors’ Choice Award this year.
✨

We also wanted to give a special spotlight to the following manuscripts below.

FINALISTS
Language We Fall Through by Jai Dulani
Poemuit by Shantell Powell
Gulf of Treason by Sophia Terazawa

SEMIFINALISTS
the present is a small child by Nefertiti Asanti
GIDDY HEAVEN by Michael Chang
God Forgot to Name This Place by Michael Emerald
Allah Forgive Us by Maryam Ghafoor
Grief Is Shaped Like A Binder by Gabriel Jayroe
Green Card by Jeddie Sophronius
To Salazar & Back by Oswaldo Vargas
A Capricious God by Waverly Vernon
Trans-Electronic Music by Sydney Westley

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We wish you the best of luck in your publishing future and hope you continue to push the boundaries of poetry.

In appreciation,
Kelsey Street Press editors

We’ll be announcing the winners and finalists for the 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize very soon! ✨✨💐 We are grateful to everyone...
04/27/2026

We’ll be announcing the winners and finalists for the 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize very soon! ✨✨💐 We are grateful to everyone who shared their manuscripts with us. We cannot wait to celebrate these authors and their work with you all. Stay tuned!! Keep an eye out for the announcements ✨🏳️‍🌈🕊️

Huge congratulations to Jennifer (JP) Perrine! ✨💐It is such a joy to see Beautiful Outlaw (Kelsey Street Press) recogniz...
04/25/2026

Huge congratulations to Jennifer (JP) Perrine! ✨💐
It is such a joy to see Beautiful Outlaw (Kelsey Street Press) recognized as the winner of the 2026 Oregon Book Awards Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. This year’s judges were Sumita Chakraborty, Timothy Donnelly, and Jenny Molberg, who celebrated the collection for its “scalpel-precise vision” and fierce energy.

A massive congratulations to JP and the whole team at Kelsey Street Press for bringing this essential work into the world.

✨✨If you haven’t spent time with these poems yet, please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy! ✨✨

Congratulations to Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser for their exhibition Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Co...
03/21/2026

Congratulations to Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser for their exhibition Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection. Featuring painting, printmaking, sculpture, and photography from the 1960s to today-celebrating an international, intergenerational roster of women artists and the impact of second-wave feminism. The exhibition marks the major bequest of nearly 150 modern and contemporary artworks from the collection of Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser. Rhapsody is titled after a major work by Jennifer Bartlett from 1975–76, which spurred Cooper and Rosenwasser’s love of collecting and supporting women artists in the Bay Area and beyond.

( art exhibition, bay area art, paintings)

Last hours of and only 1 New and Selected left. Booth 1280
03/07/2026

Last hours of and only 1 New and Selected left. Booth 1280

books 20% off plus a free tote. Booth 1280
03/07/2026

books 20% off plus a free tote. Booth 1280

Come pop in and say hello if you are . We are at booth 1280
03/05/2026

Come pop in and say hello if you are . We are at booth 1280

Join us for an AWP Off-Site Literary Event on Thursday, March 5th @ 8PM at The Lithuanian Hall, Baltimore. Featuring wri...
03/04/2026

Join us for an AWP Off-Site Literary Event on Thursday, March 5th @ 8PM at The Lithuanian Hall, Baltimore.

Featuring writers from Kelsey Street Press, Dorothy, Fiction Collective 2, Airlie Press, and Case Western Reserve University.

Come grab some new books, hit the cash bar, and hear from an incredible lineup of writers.
See you there! 🥂🍰

Address

2824 Kelsey Street
Berkeley, CA
94705

Telephone

(415) 465-2401

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