Subscriber News: September 2024
Recent Honors
Winning Writers editor Jendi Reiter won the 2024 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award for their poem "Vita Sackville-West Wins the Golden Wedding Award at the Cummington Fair", which was published on the Gival Press website. Their poem "Why the Sunrise Is Trans" was also a finalist in this contest. Both poems were published in ArLiJo Issue #201, an online journal from Gival Press. The most recent deadline for this $500 award for poetry about LGBTQ life was June 27. In other news, Jendi's essay "Companions in the Mirror: How My Novel Characters Are Allies in My Healing" was published on the website of the abuse survivors' organization Time To Tell. Their essay "8 Graphic Novels About Healing from Sexual Abuse" was published in Electric Literature on August 29. Their new novel, Origin Story (Saddle Road Press, 2024), was favorably reviewed by Richard Cambridge in Solstice Lit Mag (Summer 2024): "Reiter's investment in Peter and Julian is so deep we cannot help falling in love with them. Peter: yoga coach, gym trainer, and mentor to a homeless teen; Julian: rising star fashion photographer. We are moved by their emotional and physical intimacy...Their intimate dialogue sparkles with wit and innuendo, spontaneous and improvised, like jazz."
Congratulations to Joseph Howse. His poem "apricot blossoms" won Third Prize in the New Zealand Poetry Society's 2024 International Poetry Competition, Haiku Section, and will be published in the Society's 2024 anthology. Joseph's novel The Girl in the Water (Nummist Media, 2022), a coming-of-age story set in Soviet Ukraine, received the 2023 Independent Press Award in the Literary Fiction category and an Honorable Mention in the 2024 Eric Hoffer Awards in the E-Book Fiction category.
Congratulations to Jed Myers. His poem "One on One" won first prize in the 57th New Millennium Writings Award for Poetry. This biannual contest gives $1,000 apiece for poetry, fiction, flash, and essays. The deadline for the 58th contest was August 15; the 59th will open this fall.
Congratulations to Gloria Mindock. She received the Sam Cornish Award from the New England Poetry Club. This award recognizes a poet of long-standing artistry, literary advocacy and generous mentorship who has made a significant impact on the literary communities of New England and beyond. Gloria is the editor of Červená Barva Press in West Somerville, MA. In other news, her poetry collection about the war in Ukraine, Grief Touched the Sky at Night (Glass Lyre Press, 2023), was favorably reviewed by g emil reutter at North of Oxford.
Congratulations to Annie Dawid. Her sixth novel, Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown (Inkspot Publishing, 2023), won the Colorado Authors League CAL Awards in the Adult Fiction: Mainstream/Literary category. Paradise Undone also won Speak Up Talk Radio's 2024 Firebird Book Awards in the Multicultural Fiction category, and was the runner-up in the History category of the 2024 Hollywood Book Festival. She was profiled in the Colorado Sun newspaper on May 19 about the inspiration for the book, and reviewed in Notre Dame Magazine in July. She was also interviewed on Chris Shelton's video podcast Speaking of Cults, which can be viewed on YouTube (1 hour 45 minutes). Chelsia McCoy featured Annie on her podcast Women Winning at Writing (Season 7, Episode 18), on the theme "Staying Persistent When Getting Rejected". Listen on Spotify (35 minutes). Rachel Bernstein's weekly podcast IndoctriNation interviewed Annie on August 7; listen on Spotify (1 hour 22 minutes). Annie was also featured on The Truth That Heals podcast and video series.
Congratulations to Teresa Burleson. Her book Redefined: Who You Are in Christ won the Devotional category of the 2024 Christian Literary Awards from Joy & Company. The next deadline will be February 28 for books published or reissued in 2022 through 2025.
Recent Publications
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier's debut novel, Off the Books (Holt/Macmillan, 2024), was favorably reviewed in the New York Times (spoiler alert), the San Francisco Chronicle, and Bustle Magazine (spoiler alert). Off the Books is a road-trip novel about a young Chinese-American woman who drops out of college to become a rideshare driver and finds herself embroiled in international political troubles with her passenger. In her July 20 article in People Magazine, "I Want to Talk About Uncle Wallace: Against Chinese American Stoicism", Soma discussed the inspiration for Off the Books and breaking cultural conditioning to be silent about family trauma. Her July 31 article in LitHub, "Our 'Long-Living Badasses': Why So Much Asian American Fiction Focuses on Grandparents", explained how she created the protagonist's "smack-talking, wake-and-bake-weed-smoking, video-game-playing grandfather" to leaven the book's serious political themes with family warmth and humor.
Tamara Kaye Sellman is a contributor to Lurking (Inky Bones Press), an anthology of horror fiction about surveillance by household technology, to be released Sept. 17.
Anna Scotti's poem "Cannonball" will be included in the 2025 Women Artists Datebook from Syracuse Cultural Workers. This daily planner is illustrated with original artwork by women and also includes feminist creative writing. This is Anna's fourth appearance in the Datebook.
Cheryl J. Fish will be reading with Paola Corso and Michelle Tokarczyk at the free event "Poetry and History" on Thursday, September 26, at 6:00 pm at Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street, New York, NY. The authors will read poems inspired by historic events—recent and older, local, national, and international.
Published: September 7, 2024
