The Summit Series
The CMICH Press Summit Series is a not-for-profit publisher of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction books. We select the books using a careful process of review by Press staff and an editorial board.
Each year, we publish one book representing a distinct focus: fiction by Michigan authors, for example, or poetry from Midwest writers. The focus changes each year.
Summit Series 2024 Prize Winner
The 2024 Summit Series Annual Prize is Stephanie Carpenter with her novel Moral Treatment.
A native of Traverse City, Michigan, Stephanie Carpenter spent much of her youth exploring the then-vacant State Hospital that inspired Moral Treatment. Her collection of stories, Missing Persons, won the Press 53 Award in Short Fiction and was published in 2017. Stephanie’s work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Ecotone, The Missouri Review, Big Fiction, Witness, and other journals. She holds a BA from Williams College, an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. Formerly on the faculty at the University of Michigan-Flint, she’s currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Michigan Tech University.
About Moral Treatment
“Pubescent insanity.” In 1889, this is the diagnosis given to Amy Underwood, a 17-year-old with a history of erratic behavior: self-harm, running away from home, stealing, drinking. After her beleaguered father and stepmother commit her to a state-run psychiatric hospital in northern Michigan, Amy must fend for herself among patients and doctors whose motives and manners she doesn’t understand. But as she adapts to the hospital, she begins to grasp her predicament. If she learns to control her behavior, she will be “cured” and sent back to her father’s claustrophobic home. If she doesn’t, she’ll become a chronic patient, integral to the hospital community, but forgotten by those on the outside.
The asylum’s 65-year-old superintendent, “the doctor,” governs every aspect of hospital operations…or so he thinks. A life-long practitioner of “the moral treatment,” the doctor is devoted to its principles: that the insane can be cured with good food, sufficient rest, healthful activities, wholesome influences—and morphine when necessary. But these remedies are slow and uncertain, and those closest to the doctor—his assistant physicians, the hospital’s board of managers, his wife—are impatient for change. Meanwhile, the rapidly-growing hospital is becoming too large for one person to oversee. As the doctor’s control slips, he must consider what waits for him outside the institution that shapes his identity.
Both a coming-of-age story and a story about the challenges of aging, Moral Treatment vividly imagines an era of idealism, crisis, and transition in mental health care in the United States.
PURCHASE THE WINNING SUBMISSION
Moral Treatment
By Stephanie Carpenter
The Summit Series Submissions
Each year, the Summit Series of the CMICH Press will conduct one contest guided by a changing theme/focus. The winner of the annual contest will have their submission published by CMICH Press.
The second annual Summit Series contest will accept book-length submissions of poetry. The contest is open to writers who are from, have lived in, or live in Michigan. There is no length requirement. Works that have previously appeared in magazines or in anthologies may be included. Translations and previously published or self-published collections are not eligible. AI authored manuscripts are not allowed. To avoid conflict of interest, employees and Board members of CMICH Press are not eligible to enter.
Prize
The Prize includes publication by the CMICH Press Summit Series. In the unlikely event that no suitable manuscript is found among entries in a given year, CMICH Press reserves the right not to award a prize.
Judges
Finalists for the CMICH Press Summit Series annual prize will be chosen by the Summit Series Editorial Board. The winning manuscript will be chosen from the finalists by our final judge. Selection criteria will be consistent with the focus of the annual series contest; in 2025, the focus is Michigan writers of poetry.
The final judge for the 2025 contest is TBD.
Guidelines
Submissions for the 2025 contest are now open! They will close at midnight on January 1, 2025. Submit a previously unpublished manuscript of any length directly to summitseries@cmich.edu. Electronic submissions only.
The manuscript must be anonymous. The author’s name or address must not appear anywhere on the manuscript. The title page should contain the title of the manuscript only. Pages should be numbered consecutively. Files should be uploaded as a MS Word document or PDF.
Please include a separate cover letter, including a brief biography and your name and contact information.
Include a $25 submission fee. Submission of more than one manuscript is permissible if each manuscript is submitted separately and accompanied by a $25 submission fee.
Summit Series Contest Submission Fee
$25.00
CMich Press Summit Series Editorial Board
Each year, the Summit Series of the CMICH Press will conduct one contest guided by a changing theme/focus. The winner of the annual contest will have their submission published by CMICH Press.
The CMICH Summit Series Editorial Board is comprised of CMU faculty and authors from throughout the United States. Board members review reports on and samples of projects submitted for publication consideration.
Editorial Board Members 2024-2025
Steven Bailey, English: Creative Nonfiction
Jeffrey Bean, English: Poetry
Darrin Doyle, English: Fiction
Robert Fanning, English: Poetry
Matthew Roberson, English: Fiction
Rights & Permissions
To reprint CMICH Press material in a book, course pack or any other print or digital publication, please contact summitseries@cmich.edu.
What Information Do We Collect?
CMICH Press Summit Series collects the information that you provide when you register on our site, place an order, subscribe to our newsletter, or fill out a form.
When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your: name, e-mail address, mailing address, phone number or credit card information. You may, however, visit our site anonymously.
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy you may contact us at summitseries@cmich.edu.