The WTAW Alcove Chapbook Series Prize Results
WTAW Press is pleased to share the results of the 2023 WTAW Alcove Chapbook Series Open.
The quality of submissions we received was outstanding. The prize winner is Promiscuous Ruin by Julian Mithra, who receives an honorarium of $250, publication and 25 copies of their book.
Borrowing sensibility from docupoetics, where lyricism works to comment on an archive, and drawing upon Theodore Roosevelt’s “Daniel Boone’s Move to Kentucky,” Promiscuous Ruin is a rich, expansive and wholly original book, and Julian Mithra’s voice is a treasure. In the bygone era of a decaying frontier, deer hunters Lemuel and Lars hitch up as backwoods companions. Each troubled by missing mothers and flinty fathers, they thwart attempts at intimacy, funneling these impulses into fantasies of violence and revenge. Occasioned by brief moments of sublimity, the two edge closer to a blizzard of repressed desire. Only the deer themselves might cede medicine for earthbound wounds.
Reviewers are welcome to contact us for review copies.
WTAW haș selected the following five finalist chapbooks to publish in 2023.
Finalists (listed alphabetically according to authors' last names)
Outtakes, Joanna Acevedo
Something I Could Say, Stephanie Austin
Mississippi River Museum, Keith Pilapil Lesmeister
Sarra Copia: A Locked-in Life, Nancy Ludmerer
Eggs in Purgatory, Genanne Walsh
We would also like to honor the following chapbooks and their authors.
Semi-finalists
Annetta in Style, Stacy Bierlein
Delivery, Martha Coats
Attachment Disorders, Alice Hatcher
The Slough, Natalie Nebel
The Rest of Us, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera
Neurotypical, Meghan Williams
Honorable Mentions
American Filigree, Fatima Alharthi
Therapy, Sean Bernard
Imaginary Places, Alicia Bones
Applications, Anna Mantzaris
A Natural Man, Reggie Scott Young
Find these authors at their websites and on social media. Stay tuned for information about publication dates, book launches, and author events. Sign up for our newsletter and/or follow us on social media.
The first 3 Alcove Chapbooks, including prize winner Promiscuous Ruin, will publish in early March and are now available for preorder in our shop. For a limited time you can receive all 3 at a special price.
Announcing the Kevin McIlvoy Book Prize
In honor of Kevin "Mc" McIlvoy, who passed away suddenly on September 30, 2022, WTAW is pleased to establish the annual Kevin Mc McIlvoy Book Prize for an unpublished book of prose. The award will offer a cash prize, publication, and book contract. The competition will take place in 2023, date to be announced, and Nina McConigley, Joan Silber, and Peter Turchi will judge the competition. More details will follow in the coming months. Watch our newsletter and social media shares.
Mc was the author of One Kind Favor, a novel he said he knew was the most important work of his life. During his six decades of commitment to his art, he published five other novels: At the Gate of All Wonder (Tupelo) , Hyssop (TriQuarterly Press), Little Peg (Antheneum/Macmillan), The Fifth Station (Algonquin Books), and A Waltz (Lynx House Press); a short story collection, The Complete History of New Mexico (Graywolf); a book of short fictions and prose poems, 57 Octaves Below Middle C (Four Way Books); and, most recently, numerous poems. His short fiction appeared in Harper’s, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, and many other literary magazines.
We will continue to be honored by Mc's testimony about his experience publishing with WTAW Press.
As I’ve said to you—and to everyone I know—I have never, ever had a more positive experience from beginning to end (contract to editing; pre-publication promotion and planning: publication planning and preparation and next-stage promotion; post-publication and mid-stage promotion; late-stage promotion that includes nominations for prizes) than I have had with WTAW. Your enthusiasm and wisdom and absolute commitment have been inspiring to me—and confirming to me in my overall life as an artist.
I do not say any of this lightly; after all, I’ve worked with 11 different editors/houses (including Avon and Harper Perennial editors for paperback editions) for my 8 published books, and I’ve had many kinds of good experiences along the way.
Find Kevin McIlvoy's ONE KIND FAVOR and more great books in our bookshop.
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