While committed to publishing individual poets from across the United States, Gunpowder Press launched the Shoreline Voices Project as a way to increase the visibility of the many talented poets living in the Central Coast of California, including Santa Barbara County as well as Ventura, Kern, and San Luis Obispo Counties.
Shoreline Voices poets have collaborated with Santa Barbara Botanic Garden (Out of the Ground, 2023, edited by David Starkey and Chryss Yost), Santa Barbara Public Library (Big Enough for Words, online, 2019, edited by David Starkey, George Yatchisin and Chryss Yost), Santa Barbara Museum of Art (To Give Life a Shape, 2017, edited by David Starkey and Chryss Yost), and Lotusland (Rare Feathers, 2015, edited by Nancy Gifford, Chryss Yost, and George Yatchisin, and Buzz, 2014, edited by Nancy Gifford and Chryss Yost).
In 2021, Gunpowder Press published While You Wait, edited by Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Laure-Anne Bosselaar as part of the Shoreline Voices Project. While You Wait includes 80 Santa Barbara County poets. Inspired by the vision that poems could be available to readers in waiting rooms throughout the county, the book project expanded during the pandemic when shared reading materials seemed risky. As a result, the poems are also freely available online. With generous community support, Gunpowder Press was able to donate copies of While You Wait to over a thousand healthcare workers at Sansum Clinic, as a token of thanks for those who worked to protect and comfort our community during the pandemic.
Over 130 writers from the Central Coast have contributed poems to Shoreline Voices anthologies, including: Carmen Alexander, Ronald A. Alexander, Alison Bailey, Lori Anaya, Lisl Auf der Heide, Diane August, Barbara Bates, Rick Benjamin, Ann Bennett, Domenica Bianca, Sarah Blakely, Elizabeth Blakeslee, Gudrun Bortman, Jessica Bortman, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Sally Anderson Boström, Steve Braff, Kurt Brown, M. L. Brown, Christopher Buckley, Molly Jane Burns, José María Carpizo, Carolyn Chilton Casas, Katherine Casey, Eric M. Castro, Susan Chiavelli, Kundai Chikowero, John Chilcott, Clayton Clark, Garth Craven, Jacqueline Craven, Susan Read Cronin, Fran Davis, Pamela Davis, Carol DeCanio,Marsha de la O, Margarita Delcheva, Michelle Detorie, Camille Diehl, Danielle Diehl, Natalie D-Napoleon, Kurt Duran, Andrea Ellickson, John Elliot, Kimbrough Ernest, Joshua Escobar, Paul Fericano, Tessa Flanagan, Mary Freericks, Maya Shaw Gale, Louise Borad Gerber, Christina Gessler, Friday Gretchen, Cie Gumucio, Ellen Hayward, Roy Hildestad, Barbara Holguin, Linda L. Holland, Rebecca Horrigan, Hannah Huff, Ibn Salma Ibrahim, e. j., Eliot Jacobson, Finn Janssen, Luci Janssen, Richard Jarrette, Kristin Kane, Ellen Chavez Kelley, Peggy Kelly, Isabelle Kim-Sherman, Gabriella Klein, Lois Klein, James Ph. Kotsybar, Wendy Wilder Larsen, Nancy Lee, Zachary Liebhaber, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Perie Longo, Jacqueline Lunianski, Glenna Luschei, Teddy Macker, Jasmine Marshall Armstrong, Juliane McAdam, Anita McLaughlin, Gracie Meinzer, Claudine Michel, Kathee Miller, Delia Moon, Anne Neubauer, Enid Osborn, Christina Pages, Melinda Palacio, David Peacock, Dairine Pearson, Christine Penko, Scot Pipkin, Peg Quinn, Diana Raab, John Ridland, Tamara Zdenek Riley, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, Shelly Rosen, Linda Saccoccio, Fernando Salinas, Nicolasa I. Sandoval, Lauren Schweitzer, Susan Shields, George HS Singer, Barry Spacks, Greg Spencer, David Starkey, Roslyn Strohl, Patti Sullivan, Kevin Patrick Sullivan, Daniel Thomas, Emma Trelles, Jace Ryan Turner, Sydney Vogel, Isabelle Walker, Kaelie Walker, Mark Walker, Joseph Warren, Mark Whitehurst, Norma Wightman, Carol Ann Wilburn, Michael Wilds, Bruce Willard, Paul J. Willis, Ann Michener Winter, George Yatchisin, Estella Ye, Olivia York, Chryss Yost, and Marilee Zdenek.