2021 Novella Prize Winner Announcement
CONGRATULATIONS to Nathanial White, winner of the 2021 Novella Prize with their manuscript CONSCIOUS DESIGNS!
Thank you to all the writers who submitted novellas (a total of 245!), to our fearless final judge, Keith Banner, our editorial intern Elizabeth Brueggemann, and all of the Creative Writing Program at Miami University and Miami University Department of English students, faculty, and friends of the press who were our first readers! CONSCIOUS DESIGNS will be published in Spring 2022.
NEW POETRY
February 2021
"Like peacock feathers with uncompleted faces, oozing color inside the egg, then strangely able to make logic of their shapes...these poems by Kathleen Peirce are from the other side of what is seen to be the whole, and beautiful."
—Fanny Howe
NEW FICTION (2020 novella prize winner!)
March 2021
By recounting one woman's real-time witnessing of a couple's experience of stillbirth, Born Sleeping explores the ambivalence that lies at the heart of human relationships,
the difficulty of comprehending others' realities, the voyeurism of being on the outside of trauma and the disturbingly cool, detached eye of the writer.
Born Sleeping is a strikingly blunt and intense account of a character's emotional resistance and awakening as she confronts a family tragedy. The narrative develops like an extraordinary CT scan of the feeling mind and especially the feeling body, to reveal deepening layers of emotion and personal empathy. It is contemporary writing at its most unflinching.
—Philip Salom
NEW POETRY IN TRANSLATION
––Geoffrey Squires
“The massive volume of Rumi’s Divan-e Shams resembles a vast field of wild flora in which the person in search of flowers to make a bouquet can easily become confused and lost. Geoffrey Squires has not only accomplished the daunting task of picking those flowers, but also domesticating them for the garden of English poetry, and has miraculously managed to retain their original scent and hue. With his free verse renditions, in these translations he beautifully captures the whirling dance of Rumi’s poetic language and music.”
––M. R. Ghanoonparvar, Professor Emeritus of Persian and Comparative Literature, The University of Texas at Austin
“This book should consolidate Squires’ international reputation as one of the most accomplished and sensitive translators of ancient poetry—both Persian and Irish—for the modern reader.”
––Augustus Young, author of Light Years and Heavy Years
