Subscriber News: August 2024
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Koss. Her poetry chapbook Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is available for pre-order from Diode Editions. From the book blurb: "Koss pens inventive textual routes through life transits, forging head-on through the debris with unflinching vision and grit in a timbre that shifts from existential dread to dark comedy. Part dirge and part survival story, Dancing Backwards transmutes the rubble of trauma, abandonment, grief, and suicide loss into a queer, hybrid elixir, their lived story worthy of telling."
Congratulations to Megan Williams. Her memoir One Bad Mother: A Mother's Search for Meaning in the Police Academy (Sibylline Press, forthcoming September 2024) was a finalist in the Memoir category of the 2024 Pacific Book Awards. Sibylline Press specializes in novels and memoirs by women over 50.
Congratulations to Julie Tallard Johnson. Her inspirational book The Clue of the Red Thread: Discovering Fearlessness and Compassion in Uncertain Times was recently republished by Shanti Arts. From the book description: "Johnson, longtime student of author, teacher, and activist Parker J. Palmer, offers numerous practices and strategies for navigating what she calls the greatest adventure of our lifetime: going inward to discover who we truly are, then returning outward to blossom into a fearless and compassionate citizen, living with integrity while both keeping hold of the red thread in our own lives and moving forward to pass it on to others." Julie tells Winning Writers, "Thank you for your most resourceful newsletter. I share it with my writers and always find something useful for myself!"
Congratulations to Mark S. Robinson. His memoir Black on Madison Avenue was shortlisted for the 2024 International Rubery Book Award. Read an excerpt from Black on Madison Avenue, the Memoir category winner in our 2023 North Street Book Prize, in our contest archives.
Congratulations to Aadil Farook. His collection of mystical Islamic poetry, Romance with God, was published by Wipf & Stock in June. Diane Donovan at California Bookwatch calls it an "authoritative collection...incorporating the best strategies and powerful language of free verse into a wider-ranging celebration of and tribute to Islam and those who have walked its path to change the world as well as their own hearts and minds."
Congratulations to Joan Gelfand. Her memoir Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution (Post Hill Press, 2024) won first prize in the "History: United States" category of the 2024 International Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. Discover all of her books on her website.
Congratulations to Samantha Terrell. Her latest poetry collection, On the Wing, is now available from Jane's Studio Press. The book includes illustrations by publisher Jane Cornwell. Read a review at East Ridge Review. In other news, her poem "Anticipating Spring" was on display for National Poetry Month at the Broome County Artisan Gallery in Binghamton, NY, alongside work by other local poets. Her poem "Bloodroot" was published by Academy of the Heart and Mind. Her next poetry collection, Delta Function, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press this fall. The Broken Spine positively reviewed her collection Confronting the Elements (JC Studio Press, 2023).
Congratulations to Eva Tortora. Her poem "Hummingbird" was one of 15 winners in a National Poetry Month contest from Poets for Human Rights, and was published in their email newsletter. Her writing also appeared in AdBusters in July. Her artwork is being sold on display at Cure Pharmacy in Toms River, NJ. Check out her YouTube channel "Eva Juliette Success and Cupcakes" for poetry and positivity videos. You can contact her through YouTube to purchase artwork.
Congratulations to Gary Beck. His poetry collection Virtual Living was recently published by Cyberwit. This book looks at the human relationship with communications technology.
Recent Publications
Winning Writers contest judge Dare Williams will be teaching a free online workshop titled "Odd Fragments: Cento and Cut-up" at noon Eastern time on September 13, as part of Sarabande Books' "Zine Lunch" weekly workshop series. Register for the Zoom link.
Erika Dreifus's essay "At the Movies with Margaret, My Sister, and Me", a reflection on the film adaptation of Judy Blume's classic young adult novel Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, was published in Paper Dragon. Her essay "A Tale of Lists and Blacklists", about antisemitism and pro-Palestinian sentiment in the literary community, was published in Hadassah Magazine.
Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin's collaborative short story "Humans" was published in Prime Number Magazine #251, a publication of Press 53.
David Kherdian's memoir Friends: A Sequel is now available on Amazon.
Judy Juanita's story "Dottie Meets Ouida", an excerpt from her novel-in-progress, was published in Konch Magazine (Spring/Summer 2024). This issue also included a review essay by Chris Stroffolino about Judy's story collection The High Price of Freeways (Livingston Press, 2022).
Steven Cordova's collaborative poem "The Coroner Is a Crooner: A Queer Exquisite Corpse" was published in June in the Los Angeles Review. Curated by Steven, this poem features lines contributed by 40 queer poets including Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter and subscribers Michael Bondhus, Kevin Hinkle, Lesléa Newman, and Jeff Walt.
R.T. Castleberry's poems "A Meeting in the Wind", "Look for My Name in the Papers", and "Bao Chi" were published in Unlikely Stories Mark V. "What Keeps Me Here Is the Dialogue", "The Standards Line", and "Miracle Movie" were published in Dissident Voice. "From a History of Servitude" was published in As It Ought To Be. "Industrial Weather" appeared in Writing from Scars.
Published: August 11, 2024
