Nick Courtright

Nick Courtright (born 1981) is an American poet, scholar, and publisher. He is the author of the book of literary criticism In Perfect Silence at the Stars: Walt Whitman and the Meaning of Poems , and of the poetry collections The Forgotten World , Let There Be Light, Punchline, and the chapbook Elegy for the Builder's Wife. His poetry has appeared in The Southern Review, Boston Review, Massachusetts Review, Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, New Orleans Review, The Literati Quarterly and many others. He is the Founder and CEO of Atmosphere Press, a hybrid publisher based in Austin, Texas.

Life
Nick Courtright received his B.S.S from Ohio University before earning his M.F.A. from the Texas State University MFA program. He earned a PhD from The University of Texas. His first book of poetry, Punchline, was published by Gold Wake Press in 2012; the book was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. The book was inspired by William Blake, Walt Whitman, Federico García Lorca, and Wallace Stevens, as well as the Bhagavad Gita.

Punchline has been critically praised, with one reviewer citing its "Grand, sweeping themes (mysticism, physics, mythology, cosmology)...crafted into terse lyrics, as if Emily Dickinson had revised Leaves of Grass on her tiny desktop, under an ominous light." Another praised the book's "the-universe-is-expanding soul-searching that's fueled insomniac nights for as long as that universe has had a name." It has also been called a "stunning first collection of poems, invok[ing] the everyday as a point of entry to compelling philosophical questions." Prior to the release of the book, the Best American Poetry website referred to Courtright's work as "vital stuff. This is real, and it’s happening right now."

From 2007-2013 Courtright wrote for the culture website Austinist, serving in the latter years as interviews editor. He taught in Austin, Texas at The University of Texas, and Austin Community College until 2019.

In 2015 he founded Atmosphere Press, a hybrid book publisher. The five founding principles were Honesty, Transparency, Professionalism, Kindness, and Making Your Book Awesome.

He has two sons, William and Samuel, and his partner is the poet Lisa Mottolo.