Susan Kan is founding director of Perugia Press, a nonprofit, independent literary press located in western Massachusetts. In addition to being the editor and publisher, Susan is one the many judges for their national poetry contest, the Perugia Press Prize. Prior to starting the press, Susan earned her MFA in creative writing from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Annually, Susan looks at more than 500 manuscripts. She knows what affects how well a manuscript is received in a contest—from its physical presentation to the overall cohesiveness of the poetry.

Here is the exciting news: Susan is now offering a personal manuscript review service for individualized feedback on poetry manuscripts.

A manuscript review would be helpful if:

• you are ready to send your manuscript out for the first time and want unbiased feedback.
• you have been a semi-finalist or finalist in contests and wonder what is keeping your manuscript from winning.
• you are thinking about the overall unity, musicality, voice, and theme of your manuscript rather than looking for feedback on individual poems.
• you are considering your title, the order of poems, and how sections serve the whole.
• you wonder whether a prologue poem or an epigraph is trendy or right for your book.
• you are looking to transform a seemingly disparate group of poems into a meaningful book.
• you want to know what is involved in shaping a manuscript other than the poems themselves.
• you would like ideas for exercises to help you make these kinds of decisions.

Intrigued? Email susan@perugiapress.com for submission details, scheduling, and fees. Fees are based on a rate of $65 per hour.