Announcing The Charles Frazier Cold Mountain Fund Series

SPARTANBURG, S.C.—National Book Award Winner Charles Frazier and Hub City Press are teaming up on a new series of books spotlighting extraordinary writers from the American South. Beginning in spring 2019, the Cold Mountain Fund Series will publish literary fiction in hardback.

Frazier, best-selling author of “Cold Mountain,” “Thirteen Moons," “Nightwoods," and “Varina,” will provide financial support through the Frazier family’s Cold Mountain Fund at the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. Frazier also will assist in book promotion and make occasional appearances with the Cold Mountain Fund Series authors.

“I have long considered Hub City Press to be one of the very finest independent publishers in the country and am excited to help foster their already excellent offerings of literary fiction,” Frazier said.

Hub City Press, now in its 24th year, is the South’s premier independent literary press. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Hub City is focused on finding and publishing new and extraordinary voices from the South. Among its recent successes are an NPR Book of the Year, a Kirkus Book of the Year, a book longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and coverage in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

“I couldn't be more thrilled at this new partnership,” said Meg Reid, director of Hub City Press. “Charles Frazier has long been one of the South’s greatest writers, as well as one of Hub City’s most ardent supporters. This series will be vital in helping us continue our mission to find and champion the finest fiction the South has to offer.”

The first three books in the series will be “The Magnetic Girl” by Jessica Handler of Atlanta, GA (April 2019), “Watershed” by Mark Barr of Little Rock, AR (October 2019), and “The Prettiest Star” by Carter Sickels of Lexington, KY (April 2020).

“Finding an audience has never been easy for writers of literary fiction,” Frazier said, “so in working with Hub City, my hope is to help amplify distinctive Southern voices and connect them with curious readers.”

Cold Mountain funds primarily will be targeted for more substantial book advances and for book marketing.

Hub City Press titles are distributed by Publishers Group West. Among its published authors are Leesa Cross-Smith, Ron Rash, Michel Stone, Julia Franks, Ashley Jones and others. Hub City annually sponsors the $10,000 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize (judged this year by Lauren Groff), the biennial New Southern Voices Poetry Prize and the biennial South Carolina Novel Prize.