Sixteen Rivers Press is a shared-work, nonprofit poetry collective that provides an alternative publishing avenue for San Francisco Bay Area poets.

History

Founded in 1999 by seven writers, the press is named for the sixteen rivers that flow into the San Francisco Bay. The press was based on Alice James Books

Alice James Books

Alice James Books is an American non-profit poetry press located in Farmington, Maine and affiliated with the University of Maine at Farmington.- History and mission :...

, which created a Boston-area regional collective press in the 1970s.

Beginning in 2001, the press began releasing collections of poems by the collective's members. In 2010, Sixteen Rivers Press released The Place That Inhabits Us, an anthology of poems by non-members that explores different aspects of the San Francisco Bay Area with a foreword by one-time US Poet Laureate Robert Hass

Robert Hass

Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...

. This collection was Small Press Distributor's top-selling book for April, 2010.

The collective received an Access to Artistic Excellence grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2009.

Members

Aside from The Place That Inhabits Us, the press publishes books of poems by its members only. New members are chosen by the existing membership, who choose based on submitted manuscripts and interviews. Each member makes a commitment to participate in the running of the collective for at least three years.

Notable members include Terry Ehret

Terry Ehret

Terry Ehret is an American poet.-Life:She graduated from Stanford University in 1977, and from San Francisco State University in 1984, with an MA....

 and Murray Silverstein

Murray Silverstein

Murray Silverstein co-authored the book A Pattern Language. At that time, he taught architecture courses at the University of California, and subsequently taught at the University of Washington. He had also written several articles on pattern languages...

 and former member Diane Sher Lutovich

Diane Sher Lutovich

Diane Sher Lutovich was an American poet, and writing teacher. She was a founding member of Sixteen Rivers Press, a publishing collective based in Northern California.She was a native of Hibbing, Minnesota.-Works:*-References:...

.

Titles

• Sixteen Rivers Press (eds.), The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed, Foreword by Robert Hass, April 2010, ISBN 978-0-9819816-1-1
• Sixteen Rivers Press, Naming the Rivers: Poets of Sixteen Rivers Press 1999-2008. Features the recordings of sixteen Sixteen Rivers Press authors reading their own work
• Dan Bellm, Practice, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9767642-5-0
• Maria M. Benet, Mapmaker of Absences, 2005, ISBN 0-9707370-8-4
• Valerie Berry, difficult news, 2001, ISBN 0-9707370-0-9
• Terry Ehret, Lucky Break, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9767642-6-7, Independent Book Sellers Award and Northern California Book Reviewers Award nominee, 2008
• Terry Ehret, Translations From the Human Language, 2001, ISBN 0-9707370-1-7
• Gerald Fleming, Swimmer Climbing onto Shore, 2005, ISBN 0-9707370-9-2
• Christina Hutchins, The Stranger Dissolves, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9819816-2-8
• Margaret Kaufman, Snake at the Wrist, 2002, ISBN 0-9707370-2-5
• Margaret Kaufman, Inheritance, April 2010, ISBN 978-0-9819816-0-4
• Lynne Knight, Again, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9767642-8-1
• Jacqueline Kudler, Sacred Precinct, 2003, ISBN 0-9707370-4-1
• Nina Lindsay, Today’s Special, 2007, ISBN 978-0-9767642-3-6
• Diane Sher Lutovich, In the Right Season, 2005, ISBN 0-9767642-0-2
• Diane Sher Lutovich, What I Stole, 2003, ISBN 0-9707370-5-X, American Book Award-winner, 2004
• Carolyn Miller, Light, Moving, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9767642-9-8
• Carolyn Miller, After Cocteau, 2002, ISBN 0-9707370-3-3
• Sharon Olson, The Long Night of Flying, 2006, ISBN 0-9767642-1-0
• Susan Sibbet, No Easy Light, 2004, ISBN 0-9707370-6-8
• Murray Silverstein, Any Old Wolf, 2006, ISBN 0-9767642-2-9
• Lynn Lyman Trombetta, Falling World, 2004, ISBN 0-9707370-7-6
• Jeanne Wagner, In the Body of Our Lives, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9819816-3-5
• Gillian Wegener, The Opposite of Clairvoyance, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9767642-7-4
• Helen Wickes, In Search of Landscape, 2007, ISBN 978-0-9767642-4-3