Founded in 1999 by poet Chase Twichell, Ausable Press (pronounced aw-SAY-bul) is a not-for-profit independent literary press located on the East Branch of the Ausable River in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York. Its mission is to publish poetry that investigates and expresses human consciousness in language that goes where prose cannot. Ausable Press also publishes a small number of prose works directly related to poetry.

We publish four to six books annually. Ausable participates in the Green Initiative; all our books are printed on recycled, acid-free paper.

Our Editorial Policy

One of the things that distinguishes Ausable from many other publishers of poetry is its editorial policy. Although we actively solicit promising manuscripts year round, we also accept unsolicited submissions each June. We recognize that writing is lonely work, and that many poets have few or no connections to the publishing world. We want to ensure that those voices have a chance to be heard. We are also one of very few presses that do not charge a reading fee. (Please click on the Submissions link above for information on how to submit a manuscript.)

All editorial decisions are made by a single editor, poet and founder Chase Twichell, who reads every manuscript that comes in. There are no interns or assistants to help with the culling. Thus, Ausable books are the direct expression of a single literary sensibility and not that of a committee. We also believe that editors, like readers, should evolve, and that, like good readers, good editors should constantly examine and reexamine the aesthetic principles upon which their taste is based. This is what keeps the books of the future an ongoing challenge and surprise.

We are interested in poets who strive to discover what's true, wherever that pursuit may take them, and to express it in language that is, in Pound's phrase, "as simple as possible but no simpler." Thus we publish poets as diverse as Laura Kasischke, Eric Pankey, and Bruce Weigl. Ausable also has a strong interest in the work of new poets, and takes great pleasure in introducing them to the world.