Tag: winner

2023 E-Chapbook Contest Winner Announced

Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce that Heather Qin‘s chapbook, Nomad, was selected by Rita Mookerjee as the winner of our annual e-chapbook contest. Heather will receive $200 and publication.

A photo of the author of "Nomad," Heather Qin.

Heather Qin (she/her) is a writer from New Jersey. A Best of the Net nominee, her work has been recognized by The New York Times, Narrative, and Hollins University, and can be found or forthcoming in Sine Theta Magazine, Pidgeonholes, and Diode, among others. Besides writing, Heather loves classical music and reading.

We are also excited to announce that Moni Brar’s chapbook, Migrant Wish, was this year’s Editor’s Choice. Moni will receive $100 as well as publication.

A photo of the author of "Migrant Wish," Moni Brar.

Moni Brar was born in rural Punjab and raised on the land of the Tse’Khene peoples. Hailing from a long a lineage of illiterate subsistence farmers, she spends much of her time contemplating land, loss, language, and longing. She is the recipient of a Banff Centre Residency, the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal, the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award, and The Fiddlehead’s Poetry Prize. Her writing appears in Best Canadian Poetry, The Literary Review of Canada, Passages North, and elsewhere. She believes art contains the possibility of healing. Instagram: @monibrar

Zaynab Bobi’s Sixteen Songs of Loss was also selected for publication.

The entire Sundress team would like to thank Rita Mookerjee for serving as this year’s judge.

A photo of this year's judge, Rita Mookerjee.

Rita Mookerjee is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Worcester State University. In 2020, she was a Fulbright Research Fellow in Kingston, Jamaica. She is the author of False Offering, forthcoming from JackLeg Press (Fall 2023). Her poems can be found in The Baltimore Review, New Orleans Review, The Offing, Poet Lore, and Vassar Review. She edits poetry at Split Lip Magazine and Honey Literary.

We would also like to thank everyone who sent in their work. Finalists and semi-finalists include: 

Finalists

Torey Akers’ Good-Time Girl
Madeleine Bazil, Snake Season
Zaynab Bobi, Sixteen Songs of Loss*
Michael Colbert, Are Bisexual Men Real: Case Studies
Devaki Devay, IT ISN’T IN MY HEAD BUT IT IS IN A FIELD
Griffin Epstein, i don’t believe in sex
Javeria Hasnain, Sin Poems
Crystal Ignatowski, Rabbit Hole
Bryan Okwesili, PRAYER AT THE FEET OF A HOMOPHOBE WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER
Sara Puotinen, Mood Rings
Fiona Stanton, The Voluptuary
Rachel Trousdale, A Long List of Small Mercies
Ellen Welcker, WHICH THE HORSE

Semi-finalists

Owólabi Aboyade, Lee, Young Lee
Sage Agee, Manifesting Boyhood
Colleen Alles, Alewives Returning
Jazmine Aluma, RAW TO THE TOUCH
Susan Barry-Schulz, Prednisone Season
Noah Benham, a night journey into day
Ashley Bunn, living amends
Finnian Burnett, Red Shirts Sometimes Survive
Kristen DeBeasi, A Hallelujah Escaping
Chiara Di Lello, Tender
Cat Dixon, Daring to Stay Adrift
Sheila Dong, The Monsterchild Primer
Emily Duffy, Miradouros
Kristin Emanual, Rescuing Chimera
Gabriela Frank, midday:abyssal
Jade Gaynor, GOD & MEN & THE MOON & SUCH
Lynn Gilbert, My Ear is a Magnet for Music
Cat Green, Just Stay Alive
Dina Greenberg, Prayers for the Lost and for the Living
Sarah Herrin, Your Body Is A Crime Scene
Emily Kiernan, Fissions
Meg Kuyatt, Obsolete Hill
Charlotte McManus, Long Fingers
Casey Moore, Sturdy
Sodïq Oyèkànmí, a theatre of wounds
Max Pasakorn, On Mothers, Drag Queens and Gold
Michelle Petty-Grue, Blue Velvet Couch
Heather Pulido, Good Damage
Laura Ring, Last Seen Leaving
Shei Sanchez, Ruminations of a Nomad
Mervyn Seivwright, Chasing Cherry Blossoms
Alex Shapiro, The Chamber of Commerce 
Ashley Steineger, In the End Only This
Para Vadhahong, From Star to Island
Laura Vazquez, Downtown Puerto Rico
Natasha Wolkwitz, Mess Choir
Kenton Yee, The Octopus of Happiness

* Selected for publications

Sundress Publications Announces the Light Bill Incubator Microgrant Recipient

Sundress Publications is pleased to announce that the recipient of the Light Bill Incubator Microgrant is Vincente Perez. They will receive $500, a slot in Sundress’s reading series, and a residency at the Sundress Academy for the Arts in Knoxville, TN.

Vincente Perez is a poet, scholar, and writer working at the intersection of poetry, Hip-Hop, and digital culture. He makes work that refuses binary thinking, which allows him to be in conversation with people, places, and things that refuse to make sense in a Western framework.

He is currently a PhD Candidate in the Performance Studies program at UC Berkeley and holds a BA in Anthropology and Comparative Race & Ethnic Studies from The University of Chicago. They were a 2021-22 Poetry and the Senses Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Arts Research Center. Their poems have appeared in Poet Lore, poetry.onl, Honey Literary, Snarl Magazine, Digging Through the Fat, River and South Review, and more.

We would also like to recognize our finalists: Isaac Akanmu, Jakky Bankong-obi, Trace Howard DePass, Sedi Eastwood, Kei Vough Korede, Tamara J. Madison, Jessica Mehta, henry 7. reneau, jr., and Timi Sanni.

Robert Long Foreman Chosen for Publication from Sundress Publications

An image of the author Robert Long ForemanSundress Publications is pleased to announce the manuscript chosen from our inaugural fiction competition is Robert Long Foreman for his exquisite collection of short stories, I Am Here to Make Friends.

Of the collection judge Saba Razvi, author of In the Crocodile Gardens (Agape Editions) and four other collections, had this to say, “Robert Long Foreman has a particular knack for instigating a curiosity in readers about things they might not otherwise think to explore—guns, pigs, bug bites, childbirth, death dreams, and the strangest parts of human intuition. In his new collection I Am Here to Make Friends, Foreman captivates us with each story, keeping us guessing about what will happen next and how we will respond to the actions of characters that remind us of ourselves and our friends, and the choices we would make only in secret. In crisp, compelling prose, this fiction collection’s journey into the psyche is a multifaceted odyssey into the storytelling impulses and cravings that whisper within us in the quiet hours, and its uncanny allure keeps us turning page after page, anxious to know what revelry and revelations wait beyond each turn.”

Robert Long Foreman has won a Pushcart Prize and the hearts of his wife and daughters. His first book, Among Other Things, a collection of essays, was published by Pleiades Press in 2017. His first novel, Weird Pig, is coming from SEMO Press in 2020. His short stories and essays have appeared in magazines like Agni, Copper Nickel, Willow Springs, Crazyhorse, Electric Literature, and Barrelhouse. He lives in Kansas City.

We received a large number of impressive manuscripts for our very first fiction open reading period and are delighted to have found the first of many winning publications to come. 

Finalists

TURMERIC & SUGAR by Anna Vangala Jones
PATRIMONIUM by Angie Pelekidis
OUTSIDE OF NORMAL by Jessica Barksdale Inclan
FURTHER: A NOVELLA AND STORIES by Deb Jannerson
AFTER ANY NUMBER OF THINGS, WHAT’S ONE THING MORE? By Kimi Traube

Semi-Finalists

COLLECTIVE GRAVITIES by Chloe Clark
PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE by Farah Ali
COLD CIGAR SMELL  by Viviane Vives
TALES IN MAGHREBI LANDSCAPES by Mary Byrne
STRIPPED by Leah Griesmann
IN JOSAPHAT’S VALLEY by Joshua Bernstein

Look for I Am Here to Make Friends in March, 2020!

A 501(c)3 non-profit literary press collective founded in 2000, Sundress Publications is an entirely volunteer-run press that publishes chapbooks and full-length collections in both print and digital formats, and hosts numerous literary journals, an online reading series, and the Best of the Net Anthology.

Website: www.sundresspublications.com      Facebook: sundresspublications
Email: sundresspublications@gmail.com          Twitter: @SundressPub

Hannah V. Warren Wins Sundress Publications 2019 Chapbook Competition

Hannah V. Warren Wins 2019 Chapbook Contest

 

Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce that Hannah V. Warren with her chapbook, [re]construction of the necromancer, was selected by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello as the winner of Sundress Publications’ eighth annual chapbook competition.

Hannah V. Warren is an MFA graduate of the University of Kansas and, currently, a creative writing Ph.D. student at the University of Georgia where she studies fairytales and other speculative narratives. Her poetry has recently appeared in Prism Review, Whiskey Island, Bear Review, and Room Magazine.

Angela Narciso Torres’ chapbook To the Bone was chosen as this year’s runner-up and will also receive publication.

Angela Narciso Torres is the author of Blood Orange, winner of the Willow Book Literature Awards for Poetry. Recently, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, Missouri Review, Quarterly West, and PANK. She is an MFA graduate of Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers and Harvard Graduate School of Education and has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Illinois Arts Council, and Ragdale Foundation. She currently resides in South Florida where she is faculty for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival as a manuscript consultant.

Congratulations, also, to this year’s finalists and semifinalists!

Finalists
“Dispatches re: Year One,” Sarah B. Boyle
“A Field Guide to the Natural Disasters of Southern California,” Charles Jensen
“Counting Softly the Seconds,” John LaPine
“Backstory,” Lisa Mase
“Unerase,” Fargo Tbakhi

Semifinalists
“our lady of deciduous teeth,” Chelsea Bodnar
“Breadcrumbs,” Lois Marie Harrod
“If You Had Left Your Brain Alone,” David James
“Church of the Unnamed Subdivision,” Jennifer Schomburg Kanke
“Tumbling After,” Sara Wagner

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A 501(c)3 non-profit literary press collective founded in 2000, Sundress Publications is an entirely volunteer-run press that publishes chapbooks and full-length collections in both print and digital formats, and hosts numerous literary journals, an online reading series, and the Best of the Net Anthology.

Website: www.sundresspublications.com      Facebook: sundresspublications
Email: sundresspublications@gmail.com          Twitter: @SundressPub

Sundress Releases Wind on the Moon by Katie Burgess

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Sundress Releases Wind on the Moon by Katie Burgess

wind on the moon coverSundress Publications announces the 2019 release of Wind on the Moon by Katie Burgess, our 2018 Chapbook Competition winner. The stories in Wind on the Moon fit together seamlessly, creating a world that’s as real to us readers as it is enchanted with love and grief.

Katie Burgess uses playful form and familiar tales to distill the most complex family dynamics: a daughter reckons with her mother meeting her lover in the language of a math textbook. Adam and Eve become a husband and wife who “always did encourage each other’s bad behavior.” In the final story, the act of writing conflates with the creation of the universe, our narrator critiquing the work of a god: “I liked how in your first draft everything revolved around the Earth. That makes a lot more sense if the people there are going to be important.” And Burgess shows us the importance of all people, encouraging empathy and the desire to get to know every character, every person, no matter how insignificant they may seem at first. Burgess writes with an honesty so clear it aches. Wind on the Moon is one of those chapbooks you can’t wait to share with everyone you love.

Of the work, George Singleton, author of Staff Picks said, “I’ve never read in the literary biographies how Lydia Davis and Donald Barthelme hooked up, but the result is clear: Katie Burgess. Wind on the Moon is an amazing collection of short, jaundice-eyed, hilarious, sly, insightful, intelligent stories that the world needs now. One problem: This collection needs to be about ten times as long. These characters are human, human, human. They navigate in times that are increasingly disconcerting. They triumph and/or fail. I don’t know when I last read a collection of stories that made me think, ‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Exactly.’”

And Diane Roberts, author of Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America said, “From the guys who faked the moon landing to what really went down in the Garden of Eden back in the day, Katie Burgess’s sly and sharp stories take you on a trip through the secret soul of America. Her prose shines like polished steel and cuts like an obsidian blade. She’s as funny as David Sedaris and twice as bold, giving God editorial advice and taking down the college industrial complex. Burgess is a writer on her way up. Read her now and be cooler than your friends!”Katie Burgess Author Photo

Katie Burgess holds a PhD in creative writing from Florida State and is editor-in-chief of Emrys Journal. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, New Orleans Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Reductress, among others. Her essay, “Rahab’s Thread,” was listed as “notable” in Best American Essays 2014 and was anthologized in Southern Sin: True Stories of the Sultry South and Women Behaving Badly (In Fact Books).

Download Wind on the Moon for free today!

 

2019 Poetry Broadside Contest Winner Announced

Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce the results of the 2019 Poetry Broadside Contest. The winner’s poem will be letterpress-printed and made available for purchase in our online store. Orders for our broadsides will be open later this spring.

Picture1This year’s winner is Lisa Kwong for the poem “Searching for Wonton Soup.”

Born and raised in Radford, Virginia, Lisa Kwong identifies as an AppalAsian, an Asian from Appalachia. She is a distinguished creative writing alumna of Appalachian State University and holds an MFA in poetry from Indiana University (IU). Her poems and creative nonfiction are forthcoming or have appeared in Best New Poets 2014, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, the minnesota review, Banango Street, Still: The Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Appalachian Heritage, Pluck!, The Sleuth, and other publications. Her honors include poetry scholarships and fellowships from Indiana University, The Frost Place, and Sundress Academy for the Arts, where she was the 2017 Appalachian Writer-in-Residence.

Finalists:
“The Inception of Bees,” Trista Edwards
“Columbia Gorge,” Brenda Yates
“Violence of Lush,” Elisabeth von Uhl
“Self-Portrait as Etola,” Itiola Jones
“Aubade Without Ice,” Amelia Gorman
“We Will Take Life After Death,” Ashley Inguanta
“A God Lives in the Amygdala,” Jennifer Martelli

Semifinalists:
“Self-Portrait with Sun God and Charred Bodies,” Jessica Lynn Suchon
“How I Knew She Was Mine Before She Was Born,” Katy Ellis
“This is the Beginning,” Rachel Cloud Adams
“To the Drone All Objects Are Beautiful,” Amy Miller
“Second Story,” Halee Kirkwood

 

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A 501(c)3 non-profit literary press collective founded in 2000, Sundress Publications is an entirely volunteer-run press that publishes chapbooks and full-length collections in both print and digital formats, and hosts numerous literary journals, an online reading series, and the Best of the Net Anthology.

 

Email: erin@sundresspublications.com                                    Twitter: @SundressPub
Website: sundresspublications.com                                         Facebook: SundressPublications

2018 Chapbook Contest Winner

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Katie Burgess’ Wind on the Moon Named Winner 
of Sundress Publications’ 2018 Chapbook Competition

Sundress Publications is delighted to announce the winner for our seventh chapbook competition, Katie Burgess. Her chapbook, Wind on the Moon, rose to the top among many other outstanding works.

Stacey Balkun, Chapbook Series Editor of Sundress Publications and author of Jackalope-Girl Learns to Speak, had this to say about the chapbook:

“The stories in Wind on the Moon fit together seamlessly, creating a world that’s as real to us readers as it is enchanted with love and grief. Katie Burgess uses playful form Katie Burgessand familiar tales to distill the most complex family dynamics: a daughter reckons with her mother meeting her lover in the language of a math textbook. Adam and Eve become a husband and wife who ‘always did encourage each other’s bad behavior.’ In the final story, the act of writing conflates with the creation of the universe, our narrator critiquing the work of a god: ‘I liked how in your first draft everything revolved around the Earth. That makes a lot more sense if the people there are going to be important.’ And Burgess shows us the importance of all people, encouraging empathy and the desire to get to know every character, every person, no matter how insignificant they may seem at first. Burgess writes with an honesty so clear it aches. Wind on the Moon is one of those books you can’t wait to share with everyone you love.”

Katie Burgess holds a PhD in fiction from Florida State University. She lives downwind of a mayonnaise factory in South Carolina and performs with Alchemy Comedy Theater. She is also editor in chief of Emrys Journal.

It is also our pleasure to announce that Amy Watkins‘ Wolf Daughter was selected for publication. We were thrilled by all the great works submitted this year and would like to thank everyone for participating.

Other submitted Chapbooks of Note

Finalists
Rachel Federer- Lunar Fragments for the Scorpion Child 
Gail Griffin- Virginals
Jayme Russel- Threadbound
Amy Watkins- Wolfdaughter*

Semifinalists
Rachel Heimowitz-The Story of Dark Matter
Jed Myers- The Wire Said
Sara Ryan- but pink but want but blue

*Also selected for publication

VIDA Residency Fellowships Winners Announced

VIDA Residency Fellowships Winners Announced

Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is pleased to announce the winners of the VIDA fellowships for the fall residency period, Raena Shirali and Nicole Connolly. SAFTA paired with VIDA, a research-driven organization aiming to increase issues in contemporary literary culture, to offer these fellowships for two women writers in any genre. This year’s winners were chosen by guest judge Elissa Washuta.

View More: http://giniaworrellphotography.pass.us/rshiraliRaena Shirali is the author of GILT (YesYes Books, 2017), winner of the 2018 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. Shirali’s honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Philip Roth Residency at Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry, and poetry prizes from Boston Review , Gulf Coast, and Cosmonauts Avenue. Raised in Charleston, South Carolina, the Indian American poet earned her MFA from The Ohio State University. She currently lives in Philadelphia, where she is a coorganizer for We (Too) Are Philly, a summer poetry festival highlighting voices of color. Shirali also serves as Poetry Editor for Muzzle Magazine and is on the editorial team for Vinyl.

Author Photo

 

Nicole Connolly lives and works in Orange County, CA, which she promises is mostly unlike what you see on TV. She received her MFA from Bowling Green State University, and her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in such journals as ANMLY, Fugue, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and Glass: A Journal of Poetry.

Applications for spring residencies at SAFTA are now open and can be found at sundressacademyforthearts.com.

Poetry Broadsides of Ina Cariño’s poem “Feast” Available for Pre-Order

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Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce that broadsides of Ina Cariño’s poem “Feast” are available for pre-order. “Feast” was the winner of our 2017 Poetry Broadside Contest. The broadsides will be printed at Sundress Academy for the Arts on a full-size working 19th century Challenge copy of a C&P old-style letterpress.

The broadside publication of “Feast” is now available for pre-order for $15 at our online store.

Ina Cariño photo.png

Josephine “Ina” Cariño’s work has appeared in such journals as New American Fiction (New Rivers Press), One (Jacar Press), and december. She grew up in the mountains of the Philippines, a folkloric and aesthetic background to many of her poems. Cariño currently resides in Raleigh, NC, where she is pursuing her MFA in creative writing at North Carolina State University.

Like much of Cariño’s work, “Feast” is built on childhood memory, the natural world, and the interplay between life and death. The broadside edition combines her work with an original piece by Mariana Sierra, graphic designer at Sundress Publications.

Feast photo

 

Order yours today at: https://squareup.com/store/sundress-publications/item/feast-by-josephine-ina-carino-broadside

Find out more about our publications, contests, and submission calls at sundresspublications.com.

Katherine Riegel’s Letters to Colin Firth Named Winner of 2015 Sundress Publications Chapbook Competition

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Knoxville, TN– Sundress Publications is pleased to announce that Katherine Riegel is the winner of our third chapbook competition. Among a record number of strong and engaging manuscripts, Riegel’s collection, Letters to Colin Firth, stood out. Judge Nicole Oquendo had this to say about the chapbook:

“Katherine Riegel’s Letters to Colin Firth is a chapbook that refused to let me forget it was there, creeping, waiting for me to read it again. On the surface, the writing was boldly funny, and I never once felt alienated that the letters weren’t addressed to me directly. I knew they were for Colin Firth, for Katherine, for me, and for anyone else willing to take part in the journey they lay out.  Over time, the letters reveal a quiet depth that sneaks in and spreads itself thick across each page. The density of it speaks for itself. Start reading for tea and trip to England, and stay for a run through the tar pits of grief. Don’t worry; I’m still stuck, too.”

Katherine Riegel is the author of two books of poetry, What the Mouth Was Made For and Castaway. Her poems and essays have appeared in a variety of journals, including Brevity, Mead, and The Rumpus; five of the pieces from this chapbook recently appeared in The Offing. She is co-founder and poetry editor for Sweet: A Literary Confection and currently teaches at the University of South Florida. Visit her at www.katherineriegel.com.

We also are excited to announce that Jessica Rae Bernamino’s The Desiring Object OR Voyager Two Explains to the Gathering Stars How She Came to Glow Among Them 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

Jessica Rae Bernamino – The Desiring Object OR Voyager Two Explains to the Gathering Stars How  She Came to Glow Among Them*
Dana Kelli – Push
Kate Peterson – Grist

Semi-Finalists

Amy Ash – Echo, Unravel
Yu-Han Chao – Triptychs on a White Belt
Declan Gould – Creating a Chain Reacting
Erin Radcliffe – Bottomland
Jennifer Stein – A Girl in Three Acts

*Selected for publication