News Archives

Posted on July 25, 2026July 25, 2026 by Kimberly Davis

Madville’s 8th Anniversary Fundraiser

Madville is hosting a fall reading series this year to celebrate our Eighth Anniversary!

September 10th and 17th, 2026,
we will be hosting virtual readings
by Madville authors.

Our goal this year is to raise $8888. (For our 8th Anniversary 😉

Gianna Russo will be this year’s Mistress of Ceremonies, and we’ll share the names of the authors who will be reading as we know them. We haven’t quite worked out how you sign up to attend or how we’ll collect donations, but we have a button where you can test the system if you want to donate early!

Here are the readers we know so far:

Julie Liddell Whitehead, Gianna Russo, and Brian Petkash. 

We will update with details!

When you reserve a space, we will email a receipt and a zoom link to the event.

Posted on July 1, 2026July 1, 2026 by kpdavis

Madville’s Writing Retreat that Wasn’t

by Kim Davis (Madville’s director)

You may recall, we briefly tried to schedule a writing retreat in Uncertain, Texas, but cancelled due to uncertainty about travel. Well, guys, I went on Madville’s proposed writing retreat to Caddo Lake and Uncertain, Texas, by myself, and it was wonderful. Sorry y’all missed it. You would have loved Spatterdock Guesthouses and Caddo Lake generally. I ate a lot of amazing fish, and even enjoyed an art opening in Marshall, Texas, with work by famous local artists and capped the experience off with a kayaking adventure among the towering cypress trees.

It was hot, but that did NOT affect my writing time, which was largely spent indoors with air conditioning.

Of course, I’m a native Texan and I’m used to it. We originally chose this time of year because two of our instructors are professors, and we were working around their schedules. Also, it’s the off-season at Caddo Lake, and we could book ALL the cabins at Spatterdock guest houses. And what a magical spot! Getting there is a bit challenging, however, and that was part of the reason we chose not to do the workshop. We were afraid we would not have much attendance specifically because Uncertain, Texas, is off the beaten track. The cell service was nearly nonexistent, and the wifi connection was poor.

I had two small panic attacks while I was there. The first occurred on Thursday evening, when I opened my computer to begin work on the novel I had gone there to finish. The wifi was so poor, I was afraid I couldn’t open my cloud documents. It took about forty-five minutes to get to the three word documents I needed. But I got there in the end, and work commenced with the most wonderful chorus of creatures singing in the background.

The second panic attack came on the final evening after dinner when my friends had gone and I was alone in the parking lot of the restaurant where we ate after our kayaking adventure. My phone wouldn’t connect to the internet and I wasn’t sure I could find my way back to my cabin… I wandered around lost for a little while, but eventually found it!

This 26-second video gives you an idea of how loud tree frogs, birds, bull frogs, and bugs can be in a cabin beside Caddo Lake. What a chorus!

It is amazing what you can accomplish without distractions

My goal was to dust off a novel I started in November 2020, for NaNoWriMo. I didn’t write much new material, though I did write four new chapters before going on this trip. The first draft of the novel was fifty thousand words. I wrote that in 2020, then stuck it in a drawer. I tinkered with it a bit in the intervening years, so I had a second and third draft as well as lots of notes. Then in about April this year, I wrote four new chapters and a revised outline. So, my intention on this trip was to organize all those disparate pieces into a coherent draft.

I read and wrote all except mealtimes for two and-a-half days, and I nearly finished. I have a couple of chapters to add at the end, to make the current draft into a coherent whole novel. I feel really good about my progress. (More details to come as I start looking for an agent and/or publisher!)

But I didn’t go to Caddo Lake to sit inside and write for the entire time

It’s really important for me to point out that I have a good friend from Karnack, Texas, (very near Uncertain), or I would never have known about Caddo Lake or Spatterdock Guesthouses. His name is John Fortune, and he made sure I was well fed while I was there. John is a photographer and a walking encyclopedia, so I saw so much natural beauty and had glimpses of the history of the place I would never have had if John hadn’t driven me around and invited me into his world. I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but here is a gallery with captions to give some idea of the rich history of Northeast Harrison County, Texas. (John contributed to a book on the subject, The Northeast Corner of Harrison County, Texas. It is out of stock on Amazon, but I know John has copies if you want one… It really is an enclycopedia, 435 pages on 8 1/2″ X 11″ stock.)

John Fortune. a man smiling with a gray moustache and sparce hair on top. — Map of Caddo Lake region.

Posted on March 11, 2026March 11, 2026 by kpdavis

Madville goes to Baltimore for AWP26

Banner for AWP26, March 4-7, 2026 picture of a styled city skyline with the word Baltimore over it in white text.

We’ve just returned from AWP, North America’s largest Conference & Bookfair for writers and writing programs. It took place in Baltimore March 4-7, 2026. We saw a lot of friends. There was comedy at our little corner of the book fair, as usual. It seems there was a rogue electric mobility device that was assigned to two of our friends on different days. Of course, both friends tried to stop by to see us. Tried is the operative word here because the evil blue cart had other ideas! I won’t mention names, but one friend plowed through on Friday, and another did the same on Saturday!!! It was good for a laugh, but I did mention it to the security staff, since we are pretty sure the same cart was involved in both accidents.

A feeling of solidarity

The feel of this conference was one of solidarity. Everyone seemed to recognize that our role has become more important over recent months. The books we write and publish and the younger writers and editors we teach have greater value than ever in this time of book banning and media consolidation. We seem all to be holding the weight of responsibility to maintain literacy itself.

The electricity of enthusiasm

We say this every year, but the really good part… The best part of the whole event is seeing our friends. And making new ones! We got a lot of compliments on our books. We sold a lot of books. We took too many anyway, and didn’t have enough of the ones everyone wanted… (Twenty Years of Poem of the Week . com, Momma May Be Mad, The Hummingbird War, and Signed, Sealed, Delivered).

There was a little surprise for Patricia Clark while we were there. She got word that her O Lucky Day has been named a Forward Indies finalist. So we got to share that news with people stopping by the booth.

Screen capture from The Foreword Indies Awards page showing that Patricia Clark's O Lucky Day is a finalist in the poetry category

Posted on February 21, 2026February 23, 2026 by kpdavis

AWP Retrospective

It’s that time of year again, already–AWP!!! We feel like we are hanging on for dear life. Somehow we forget every year how fraught January and February are… no matter how carefully we plan and organize.

What causes chaos at the start of the year?

End-of-year bookkeeping is a beast. Royalty calculations, statements, and then checks going out. It happens every year, and we always think, “next year it’s going to be easy…” But each year brings special challenges. still we’re pretty sure this time. Next year WILL be easier. but the royalty checks went in the mail yesterday. Whoosh! (6 weeks of my life I’ll never get back… and the bookkeeper’s life… You all have no idea how much work goes into getting those statements right. So many small sums of money come and go from so many directions that it takes a specialist or two to get it right, and at the end of the year, no amount of careful recording makes all of it make sense!)

AWPs past

Then there’s the anxiety brought on by memories of AWPs past. So many things have gone wrong. Kim’s first trip to AWP she was very green. She shipped four or five boxes of random books and didn’t read all the convoluted instructions about tax documents and all the rest of it, so spent that whole conference sitting with more experienced poets and authors who published with TRP. We couldn’t really sell books, so we gave a bunch away, and Kim learned plenty just shooting the you-know-what and people watching.

Current Madville authors, Mike Hilbig and Michael Gills stand at TRP's table at AWP 2017. Gills holds his book from that year. There's a bit yellow sign with blue lettering on the front of the table that says Texas Review Press

AWP in Washington DC in 2017. The table for the press with Mike Hilbig standing with Michael Gills.

AWP 2018 in Tampa

In 2018, Kim was at the tail end of her time with TRP, and planning for Madville’s launch. She sat, for the second year in a row, next to Rick Campbell, veteran editor, publisher, and poet, and a friendship developed. It was once more a good time and place to people-watch and learn. An unfortunate connection was made to a printer/distributor who offered what we thought we couldn’t get for Madville as a start-up… full distribution. (Y’all know that old adage about when something seems too good to be true?? But these guys were old school, respected…) At any rate, friendships grew at that Tampa conference and seeds were planted for Madville.

Luanne Smith, Lisa Rose, Kim Davis, Suzanne Heagy, and Laura Leigh Morris

AWP 2019 in Portland

2019 was Madville’s, our big introductory year. And that Thursday morning as Kim was walking into the bookfair to kick the whole thing into gear, she received the email from her printer/distributor that they had filed for bankruptcy and Madville should figure out what to do with their books. We got the books back, but those so-and-sos ate all our money for our first year of operations. But you know… we did what we do… We put a brave face on it and had a good time.

Then there was AWP 2020 in San Antonio

2020 should have been our big breakout year. We were determined to make a grand splash in San Antonio–in our home state. We splurged and took a whole booth space in conjunction with our friends at Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art that is put out by Fairmont State University. And wouldn’t you know? March 2020 marked San Antonio, Texas, as ground zero for the Covid-19 Lockdown.

We had fun anyway, not realizing how serious the situation really would become. We saw old friends, breathed in each other’s general directions, and tried to figure out social distancing. And we didn’t make the splash we hoped we would. Many people were sensible and stayed home, but news was breaking while we were driving to San Antonio. We carried on with our plans, and Kestrel shifted over to an empty booth up the way. We had rented a house and made all those plans… sponsorship reception, reading in the bookfair, parties in the house every night. It was a good time… right up until it wasn’t! Yes, some of us did get sick, but we pulled through.

AWP 2021 was virtual

Nobody knew what to do. To be fair, we were learning how to do things remotely, but this one was a waste of our time, and a very cheap way for AWP to get out of reimbursing us for 2020, which they said they’d do, but did not.

AWP 2022 in Philly

Or… the 2022 SNAFU! We were traveling large to Philly. Luanne Smith splurged again, and bought us the nice sponsorship package with all the bells and whistles. She had a book coming out, you see… I think it was Muddy Backroads that time. And she is one of our board members. Kim, meanwhile read all the instructions from the material handling company, and they suggested quite strongly that we should palletize the books we shipped there because otherwise we would be forced to pay exorbitant fees per box delivered to the booth. Cutting the story short, FedEx were extremely difficult to deal with and didn’t get the books there in time. We had no books to sell at the booth. We had fun anyway, but we really wished they would have just allowed us to claim a loss. But no. They found the books, sent them home, and had the gall to bill us again–several thousand dollars for the pleasure of dealing with them. For future reference, FedEx has no live humans running things anymore. They answer the phone and read from prompts on screen. No decision making capabilities at all. It was really an expensive trip for nothing other than camaraderie, and poor Lu, who paid for it all, barely got to attend due to family issues.

AWP 23 in Seattle

AWP23 in Seattle was a blast. Once again, we had help from Madville board member Luanne Smith, who splurged on a fancy sponsorship package for us. We had a a fabulous location for our booth on sponsors row with Dolly Parton, larger than life to celebrate the launch of our Dolly Parton anthology, Let Me Say This. We had a fun, fun panel about writing poverty, a reception, and an “off-site/on-site” reading that was really nice in one of the hotel conference rooms. Many of the contributors to the Dolly anthology came out to read their work to us, as did the rest of our Madville authors who attended AWP that year.

AWP 2024 in Kansas City

Thanks to Michael Simms and Vox Populi for sharing their space with Madville in 2024 in Kansas City. And thank you to Lee Zacharias for the photos!

AWP 2025 in Los Angeles

Dolly had proven such a success, we attempted something similar with Honkeytonk Sue, a character created by Bob Boze Bell originally, and used to illustrate several poems in our Santa Fe Trail: Chasing the Big West. She was great, but no where near the attraction that Dolly was. The most fun, we think, from Los Angeles, was the University of Utah honors college students who helped out at the booth. They’re all novel-writing students of our Michael Gills.

Category: News