Meet Our Grantee-Partner: Nine Mile Arts
Nine Mile Arts brings great writing to readers without consideration of school, style, or form, with a special focus on Central New York. Through its Propel Poetry initiative, Nine Mile Arts is committed to publishing books by first-rate poets with disabilities.
Propel author Anne Kaier and her book HOW CAN I SAY IT WAS NOT ENOUGH? Photo courtesy of Nine Mile Arts.
Mission: Our purpose is to bring great writing to our readers, without consideration of school, style, or form, but with a special focus on Central New York. This includes writers within and outside the mainstream, writers with disabilities, writers of color, writers with marginalized genders and sexual orientations, and writers from different cultures and religions. We believe that poetry is everyone’s art. With our Propel Poetry initiative we are committed to publishing books by first-rate poets with disabilities.
The late businessman and poet, Bob Herz, founded Nine Mile Magazine and Press in Syracuse, New York, in the mid-1990s to highlight poetry by writers in Upstate New York. As it grew from publishing only a magazine into a publisher of books and a supporter of Upstate writers and writing, it was established as Nine Mile Arts in 2015. The name was inspired by Nine Mile Creek, a 25-mile-long waterway formed 14,000 years ago by glaciers in the region. Like its namesake creek, Nine Mile Arts aims to be varied and surprising, with different writings coming together to form a cohesive whole.
Nine Mile Magazine publishes online twice yearly, showcasing the best work submitted by authors whose poems, energy, and vision seem most deeply imbued with life. It delivers great writing to readers without consideration of school, style, or form, with a focus on writers from Central New York. The magazine publishes writers within and outside the mainstream, with disabilities, with marginalized genders and sexual orientations, people of color, and from different cultures and religions. Nine Mile Arts believes that poetry is everyone’s art.
Nine Mile Arts provides programming, mentorship, and instruction by and for disabled writers, recognizing that ableism, the inability of the abled to imagine the experience of people with disabilities, happens even in literary circles. In 2019, it published a historic 380-page double issue of Nine Mile Magazine featuring Neurodivergent, Disability, Deaf, Mad, and Crip poets. In 2020, with funding from Propel Capital and the Poetry Foundation, Nine Mile Arts started the Propel Disability Poetry Book Series to publish poetry collections by poets with disabilities. Its Propel Poetry Award of $2,000 is granted annually for a book-length collection of poems by a poet at any career stage who identifies as Crip or Disabled.
Propel author Daniel Simpson and his book INSIDE THE INVISIBLE. Photo courtesy of Nine Mile Arts.
A general operating support grant from the Poetry Foundation has enabled Nine Mile Arts to advertise its books. This support has been crucial, as marketing poetry collections is critically important to successful publishing. Additionally, funding from the Propel Foundation and the Poetry Foundation has allowed Nine Mile Arts to publish six volumes of poetry under the Propel Poetry Award logo.
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