Who We Are

The Fishouse

The Fishouse in O’Donnell’s backyard, Pittston, Maine, 2004.

Founded in 2004 by Matt O’Donnell and Camille Dungy, From the Fishouse is an IRS-registered nonprofit that promotes the oral tradition of poetry. Our free online audio archive showcases emerging poets (defined for this purpose as poets with fewer than two published books of poetry at the time of submission) reading their own poems, as well as answering questions about poetry and the writing process. Our mission is to use online technology and other media to provide the public with greater access to the voices of emerging poets, and to provide an educational resource to students and teachers of contemporary poetry. While Fishouse focuses on poets at the beginning of their careers, we always jump when the opportunity arises to record more established poets, so the site also features many well-known names. Additionally, many poets on the site have joined the ranks of the “emerged” since we first posted them on Fishouse.

 

From the Fishouse takes its name, and the spelling of “Fishouse,” from the writing cabin of the late Lawrence Sargent Hall. Hall renovated the former codfish-drying shack and wrote in the space for fifty years. Within the Fishouse, he wrote his Faulkner Award-winning novel, Stowaway, and his O’Henry Award-winning short story, The Ledge, named in 1999 as one of The Best American Short Stories of the Century. The cabin was rediscovered in 2003 on Hall’s property, just as he’d left it when he died ten years earlier, down to the thesaurus and decanters, photo of his dog, Jack, and even firewood for the stove. With the generous permission of Lawrence Hall Jr., O’Donnell took ownership of the cabin and moved the Fishouse to the woods behind his home to use as his own. 

 

Staff

Editor & Executive Director:
    •    Matt O’Donnell

 

Board of Directors:

    •    Curtis Bauer, Translations Editor
    •    Gabrielle Calvocoressi
    •    Camille T. Dungy, co-founder
    •    Charles Flowers
    •    Aaron Kitch, president
    •    Jeffrey Thomson
    •    Anthony Walton
    •    Emily Warn
    •    Nicholas Wickes, treasurer

 

Past Members of the Board:
    •    Willis Barnstone
    •    Robert Cording
    •    Robert Denton
    •    Sarah Gambito
    •    Rigoberto González
    •    Lola Haskins
    •    Ted Helberg
    •    James Kelley
    •    Cindy Stocks