The primary mission of Free River Press is to create an enduring collection of Americana, a literary mural, a mosaic, written primarily by people without literary ambition. It is folk literature, for almost every writer contributing his piece to the mosaic focuses on experience, not on style. Each writes to communicate a way of life or a way of doing things that has passed or will pass from this land of unceasing change. It is a means of not only preserving national heritage, but of creating a conversation among Americans.

For the past nineteen years Free River Press writings have given people in urban areas an intimate look at rural life in the Midwest, the Mississippi Delta, the Southwest. Future publications will give rural peoples a close-up view of urban and suburban living. The first of the urban volumes, Big City: Stories from New York, will be published spring 2008.

Free River Press began life firmly rooted in print but is now in the process of taping its writers for radio as a means of bringing the American conversation to more people. Someday, perhaps, radio will be as important a medium for Free River Press as print publication.