Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce the results of the 2017 Open Reading Period. Following is a list of the winners, finalists, and semi-finalists chosen from this year’s submission period. Our staff has selected the following manuscripts for publication as part of our 2019 catalog: Divining Bones by Charlie Bondhus, Blood Stripes by Aaron Graham, Roughage by Leah Silvieus , and Afakasi | Half-Caste by Hali F. Sofala-Jones.
Charlie Bondhus’s second poetry book All the Heat We Could Carry won the 2014 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. His work’s appeared in Poetry, The Missouri Review, Columbia Journal, Hayden’s Ferry, The Bellevue Literary Review, and Copper Nickel. He has received fellowships from the Sundress Academy for the Arts, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat in Scotland . He’s Assistant Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College and poetry editor at the Good Men Project. He lives in Asbury Park, NJ.
Aaron Graham hails from Glenrock, Wyoming, which boasts seven bars, six churches, a single 4-way stop sign, and a population of 1159. He has twice served as the editor of the Squaw Valley Review and currently is assistant poetry editor for The Tishman Review. Graham is a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where he served with The Marine Corps’ Human Intelligence and Counterterrorism Task Force Middle East as an analyst and linguist. He is an alumnus of Squaw Valley Poets and the Ashbury Home School and was the Cecilia Baker Memorial Visiting Scholar at Seaside Writers. His poetry has won the Penumbra Prize and f(r)iction Magazine‘s Best Poem for Summer 2017, and he has been nominated for Best of the Net. Aaron is currently finishing his PhD in Literature at Emory in Atlanta, hosting elaborate tea parties for Disney Princesses and his daughter Alexi, and holding down an English Lectureship at Kennesaw State University.
Born in South Korea and raised in Montana and Colorado, Leah Silvieus now travels between Florida and New York as a yacht chief stewardess. She is the author of Anemochory (Hyacinth Girl Press 2016) and has a second chapbook, Season of Dares, forthcoming from Bull City Press in 2018. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami, is a Kundiman fellow, and currently serves as Books Editor at Hyphen magazine.
Hali F. Sofala-Jones is a Samoan American teacher and writer from Georgia. She’s earned an MFA in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Her poems have been published in Nimrod International Journal, The Bitter Oleander, CALYX, Blue Mesa Review, online at The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She is currently a Lecturer at Georgia College where she teaches courses on Multiethnic Literatures. Outside of teaching and writing, she enjoys introducing the world to her toddler, playing Assassin’s Creed, and cooking for friends and family. Afakasi | Half-Caste is her debut poetry collection.
FINALISTS
Graveyard of Numbers – Anne Champion
Lessons in Breathing Underwater – H.K. Hummel
Bury Me in Thunder – syan jay
In case it’s catching it quick that’s important – Leah Claire Kaminski
Hue & Cry – Diane K. Martin
The Missing Hour – Allison Morton
How to Know the Flowers – Jessica Smith
SEMI-FINALISTS
Handbook for Introverts – Lindsay Bell
The Suicide Animals – Kim Bridgford
Drowning in the Floating World – Meg Eden
Familiar Strays – Katy E. Ellis
It’s This – Laura Foley
Blow – Mag Gabbert
Swan Hammer – Maggie Graber
Gamine – Laura Page
The Book of Dirt – Nicole Santalucia
Mostly Human – Sheila Squillante
A River Always Ends in a Mouth – Danielle Susi
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