About Us

Shape&Nature Press is a small, independent publisher of poetry, fiction, and creative literary projects founded in 2011.  Our mission is to publish the best contemporary literature we can find with an emphasis on work that challenges readers, either through content, craft, shape, or ideas.

In addition to publishing traditional books, we are also committed to dreaming up and facilitating creative literary projects that we think open up the literary experience, meaning we want readers to see, touch, taste, read and otherwise engage in literature in ways they haven't done before.  So far, these projects have taken the form of interactive, public art, and have in common the goal of opening literature up to the greater community in new and interesting ways. 

The Editors

MARIA WILLIAMS-RUSSELL is the author of A Love Letter To Say There Is No Love (FutureCycle Press) and the former director of the Green Street Poetry Series in Northampton, MA. Her poems have appeared in Bateau, Boxcar Poetry Review, Sous Rature, Belleview Literary Review, Chronogram, and other journals and sidewalks. She teaches writing and literature at Greenfield Community College, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. In the early 90s, Maria was a member of the SICPA theater ensemble, a gorilla theater group in New York City, where her love of creative projects began.

ANDREW FORBES has written extensively about film and music, including liner notes, radio scripts, reviews, and features. He was a co-founder of and contributor to the literary sportswriting website The Barnstormer. His fiction has appeared in The Feathertale Review, Found Press, PRISM International, The New Quarterly, Scrivener Creative Review, The Journey Prize Stories 25, This Magazine, Hobart, and The Puritan. His debut story collection, What You Need, is due in spring, 2015, from Invisible Publishing. He lives in Peterborough, Ontario. For more information, please visit www.andrewgforbes.com.

REED WILSON'S poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Cortland Review, Natural Bridge, the Summerset Review, and elsewhere, and his book reviews have been published in Poetry International, The Chattahoochee Review, and The Summerset Review. He lives in Los Angeles, and teaches in the English Department and Writing Programs at UCLA.

Our Designer

PHILITHA STEMPLYS-COWDREY has always been passionate about the arts, whether it be her sketches, straw art, poetry or music; creativity is a constant. Surrounded by a family in artistic and creative fields, photography and design naturally came to her. Graduating from the Hallmark Institute of Photography, Philitha launched Ona Lucia Photography, worked as a research analyst for Canon USA, and has worked with top photographers in the Northeast as lead editor, designer, and production manager. After searching through many states, she has found home in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Events Coordinator

DAMON HASTINGS is a graduate of Hampshire College with a degree in Literature. A former editor of Plum and a web design enthusiast, Damon has worked in bookstores, as a freelance copyeditor, and as an associate editor for Shape&Nature. A native of Maine, Damon finds himself planted in Northampton, Massachuetts.

Advisory Board

GIAN LOMBARDO teaches in the M.A. Publishing program at Emerson College. Five of his collections of prose poetry have been published, the latest being Who Lets Go First, from Swamp Press in 2010. He has also translated the poetry of Louis Bertrand, Michel Delville, Eugene Savitzkaya and Archestratos, among others. He lives on Long Island Sound, where he directs Quale Press.

P. AL WILLIAMS is Executive Director of Northampton Community Television in Northampton, MA – www.northamptontv.org. He has 15 years of experience working in all aspects of community media, from production and technical work to administration and consulting. Al has served previously on the board of Mass Access, a state chapter of the Alliance for Community Media, and on the Holyoke Cable Board in Holyoke, MA where he presently resides. He is currently the Vice Chair of the national board of the Alliance for Community Media - www.allcommunitymedia.org. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Boston College with a concentration in writing. Al has been playing harmonica for 20 years, sitting in and working with dozens of regional acts and he has recently begun working towards expanding his repertoire as a visual artist. He is dedicated to supporting all forms of public art and media and works with numerous local arts organizations both professionally and personally. Al also loves beets.

CAROLYN CUSHING has spent over 20 years of her working life supporting personal, organizational, and social change as a group facilitator, non-profit manager, community college teacher, and researcher. For nearly a decade, she has worked with Spirit in Action, a non-profit dedicated to bringing spirit into activism, healing divisions between people and groups, fostering positive vision, and promoting action for deep and lasting change. She holds a Masters of Science in Management from Antioch New England. Carolyn is also a poet and the director of Art of Change Tarot.


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