Hub City Writers Project Announces Leadership Changes

Hub City Writers Project will undergo a leadership change beginning April 1, 2023, as current Executive Director Anne Waters moves on to new opportunities after six years heading the nonprofit literary organization. Hub City Press Director Meg Reid will assume the role of Executive Director and Publisher. 

Reid joined Hub City Writers Project in 2013 as Assistant Director, and in 2017 became Director of Hub City Press and Programs amid the press’s move to a national distributor. Reid has been an integral part of Hub City Press’s rise as a nationally significant publisher. Since 2017, Hub City Press books have made regular appearances in national newspapers, including at least eight mentions in the New York Times Book Review, as well as the Wall Street Journal, magazines like the New Yorker, and on NPR and Good Morning America. Books have won many awards and been longlisted for awards like the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and The Story Prize and have been translated into German, Italian, Vietnamese, Korean and many other languages. Reid was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree in 2021.

“I've watched Meg absolutely find her niche at Hub City over the last decade, and I know she’s ready to lead,” says Susan Myers, chair of Hub City Writers Projects’ Board of Directors. “We are beyond lucky to have her immense talent and experience to guide the organization with a clear vision.”

“Meg has devoted the past decade of her professional career advancing the mission of Hub City Writers Project,” says outgoing Executive Director Anne Waters. “She has done a phenomenal job as Director of Hub City Press, and I expect she will do the same as Executive Director and Publisher. I look forward to seeing what she and her extraordinary staff achieve in the coming years.”

“The work I’ve done for Hub City over the past ten years has fundamentally changed the way I think about the world and has fostered in me a belief that inclusive literary communities are vital in all places, large and small,” says Reid. “I’m deeply honored to have the chance to lead the organization into its exciting next chapter.”

As the head of HCWP’s leadership team, Reid will develop a mission-driven business strategy and overall artistic vision for the organization, leading from a firm set of values, based on equity, community partnerships, and transparency.

Since its founding by Betsy Teter, John Lane, and Gary Henderson in 1995, Hub City Writers Project’s mission has been cultivating readers and nurturing writers through its independent press, community bookshop, literacy outreach, and diverse literary programming. Hub City Press has published over 100 high caliber literary works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, as well as books of regional history, and is the distributor of Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy Quarterly magazine. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Hub City Press books have been widely praised and featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Hub City Bookshop has twice been named one of the South’s best bookshops by Southern Living, and was named 2019 Bookshop of the Year by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. 

Contact kate@hubcity or visit hubcity.org to learn more.