Knoxville, TN–Sundress Publications is pleased to announce that Fox Frazier-Foley is the winner of our third chapbook competition. Among a record number of strong and engaging manuscripts, Frazier-Foley’s collection, Exodus in X Minor, stood out. Judge Beth Couture had this to say about the chapbook:

“I’ve read Fox Frazier-Foley’s Exodus in X Minor about ten times now, more, and I still don’t quite know what to do with it. I go back to it, read bits and pieces and whole poems, roll images and phrases around like blood red berries in my mouth, and every time I think I have a handle on it, I realize I just can’t grasp it. I mean, I understand the poems. They make sense to me. I could, I think, teach them if I had to. But I don’t get them. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing. This isn’t a book you ‘get.’ It’s a book that gets you. It grabs you on the first reading and doesn’t let you go. It haunts you. You dream about it and wake up sweating, shaking, like you’ve been chased all night by a strange animal, one you can’t quite identify. You catch glimpses of it, and it’s beautiful, but you never see it completely clearly. You’re desperate for it to reveal itself, and a little terrified. It has teeth, and a huge brain. Exodus in X Minor–this sharp, elusive book–is smarter than I am, and it scares me in the best way possible. These poems unmoor me, and I’m so, so grateful for the challenge, for the lack of comfort they provide.”

Fox Frazier-Foley is a Los Angeles-based poet who hails from upstate New York and northern Virginia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Paterson Literary Review, Western Humanities Review, Jerry, Denver Quarterly, THEThe Poetry Blog, Luna Luna, and Spillway, among others. She is a creator and Managing Editor of the small press Ricochet Editions and has served as Poetry Editor of Gold Line Press. She was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Binghamton University, received her MFA from Columbia University, and is currently a Provost’s Fellow and PhD candidate in the Literature and Creative Writing Department at University of Southern California. She is an initiate of Haitian Vodou.

We are excited to announce that Sarah Ann Winn’s Portage was also selected for publication – both collections will be available later this year on the Sundress website at http://www.sundresspublications.com.

Other Submitted Chapbooks of Note

Finalists:
Sarah Ann Winn – Portage
Deborah DeNicola – Presence
Rachel Bennett – Mural Quadrant
Lois Harrod – Large Reclining Nude
Lauren Gorden – Breadcrumb Trails

Semi-Finalists:
M. Mack – Traveling
Rosemary Bensko – Sex Makes Us Something Else Entirely
Carly Jo Miller – Apostle Songs
Alice Ladrick – Autobitchography
Maggie Rosen – Carolina Theatre
Joseph Eggleston – Prophets’ Murmur
Bianca Diaz – The Underwater Hotel