I am happy to announce that my second book The Crimes of Clara Turlington won the 2015 Vignette Collection Award and is forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press!
The book was selected by Sara Sargent (an editor at Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster) and the Vine Leaves editorial team!
I am so honored! I'm so excited to work with Vine Leaves!
When I first heard about this contest, I was really excited to enter. I love line breaks, prose poems, writing that doesn't fit into genre boundaries, poetry, nonfiction, fiction... (Can you tell I went to the NEOMFA?)
An earlier version of this book (at the time titled Butter Sad) was my MFA thesis. Halfway through my MFA program, my first book Inappropriate Sleepover was accepted for publication by The National Poetry Review Press and came out during my last semester in the program. (At the beginning of the program Inappropriate Sleepover was my thesis.) When my first book was taken, I started writing a new manuscript. My thesis director was Mary Biddinger. Frank Giampietro and David Giffels were also part of the committee. Best thesis committee ever. I continued to work on the manuscript this year. This fall, I was lucky enough to meet and become friends with Jennifer L. Knox. Jen has been extremely supportive of me during this process which has been so helpful.
I feel extremely grateful.
And feisty.
Very feisty.
