This month we are celebrating the titles that we’ve acquired during 2018. These manuscripts came to us through our open reading periods. Today we bring you Ruth Baumann, author of the poetry collection Thornwork, which will be published in the summer of 2020. This will be Ruth’s third title with Black Lawrence Press.
Have a manuscript you think we’d like? During our November Open Reading Period we are looking for poetry (chapbooks and full-length collections), short fiction (again, both chapbooks and full-length collections), novels, novellas, nonfiction (CNF, biography, cultural studies) and translations from German. Also, our Big Moose Prize for the novel is currently open to early bird submissions.
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The Author

Ruth Baumann is a PhD student at Florida State University & holds an MFA from the University of Memphis. She is also a co-editor of Nightjar Review. She’s the author of four chapbooks: A Thousand Are Poeticas (Sixth Finch), Retribution Binary (Black Lawrence Press), wildcold (Slash Pines Press), & I’ll Love You Forever & Other Temporary Valentines (Salt Hill). Poems are published in Colorado Review, Sonora Review, Sycamore Review, The Journal, Third Coast & others listed at www.ruthbaumann.com.
 
 

On writing Thornwork

These poems came out of a series of questions about love, relationships, and fulfillment. I took a year off dating & tried to piece together how I felt about being alone, how I felt about finding fulfillment in romantic or family relationships versus in community building & social activism, & — at the heart of it all, of course— how to find hope & empathy in a world where the ground is shifting. I of course don’t have all (or some days, most) of the answers, but the time spent in pause & seeking helped me imagine a fuller world inside & around myself, a world where I wasn’t running from anything. These poems inhabit the spaces between question & answer, & often live in question, but they served as stepping-stones towards a more honest, independent, & kind life (I hope).

Excerpts