FARMINGTON – Alice James Books, a nonprofit poetry press, has received a $35,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The press is one of seven Maine arts programs that will receive a total of $175,000 from NEA as announced this week by U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

This grant can be used for operating expenses, said April Ossman, director, on Tuesday.

Publication of six titles a year, she said, involves design, marketing and production as well as requiring the screening of 1,000-plus manuscripts each year.

Approaching their 35th anniversary, Alice James Books was founded in Cambridge in 1973 but moved to the campus of the University of Maine at Farmington in 1994, she said. It was started as a cooperative feminist press to give women writers better access to publishing and more power and involvement in the publishing process.

It’s a true cooperative, she said, because once an author became a member, they were involved with everything from typesetting to marketing and design for two years. Membership came with publication of their work.

Since then, the press has evolved to include two full-time and two part-time staff members with an editorial board made up of cooperative members who help screen the 1,000-1,200 manuscripts during their three-year commitment.

While historically considered a feminist press, she added, the press, founded by five women and two men, publishes male authors and has grown to about an equal balance of men and women authors.

Manuscripts are chosen through regional and national competition, she said. The regional, Kinereth Gensler Awards, are open to writers from New England, New York and New Jersey as they become active cooperative members involved in editorial decisions.

The national, Beatrice Hawley Award, is open to anyone in the U.S. but writers are not required to commit to the cooperative work, she said.

A founding member and Maine’s poet laureate, Betsy Sholl, Ossman said, has been solicited and recently approved for publication of her new work, “Rough Cradle.” The Kinereth Gensler awards this year were given to Idra Novey of New York for “The Next Country,” and Carey Salerno of Boston for “Shelter.”

Affiliation with UMF brings the press free housing and text support while the press in return trains 12 to 14 students each year as publishing interns. Most of the students involved are working toward bachelor in fine arts degrees, she said. UMF is one of approximately 12 colleges in the country that offer the degree.

“It’s good for them and good for us,” she said speaking of the arrangement with UMF. Many interns have told Ossman that they chose UMF because they wanted the experience of working with Alice James Books.