Today’s the day: the short list for the Fall 2021 Black River Chapbook Competition is here! From nearly 700 entries, we’ve narrowed things down to 13 semi-finalists and 9 finalists. (As always, this was definitely not easy! We read and agonized over many more than these 22 entries. There are excellent manuscripts that aren’t reflected in this list, and there were a few chaps we loved that were withdrawn along the way. We appreciate every one of you deeply. Please keep making our jobs difficult.)
Entries were read, without identifying information, by an editorial panel consisting of judges (BLP chapbook authors including previous BRCC winners) and BLP editors. Entries were kept anonymous until today–so we can unveil the lists to you!
To all the semi-finalists, congrats & thank you! We will announce the winner from among our list of finalists shortly.
FINALISTS (alphabetical)
I Love You Like A Brother by Joanna Acevedo (prose)
Oblivion’s Fisher by Iain Grinbergs (poetry)
Hundred Sixty Beats Per Minute by William Haas (prose)
Organism, a Memoirs by Laura Knott (prose)
The Lives of Tita by Melissa Llanes Brownlee (prose)
Habits of Adornment by Aumaine Rose Smith (poetry)
house(hold) by Lindsay Stewart (poetry)
In Life There Are Many Things by Lucy Wainger (poetry)
Threshold People by Ariel Yisrael (poetry)
SEMI-FINALISTS (alphabetical)
Museum of Things by Liz Chang (poetry)
Skin Over Milk by Sara Chansarkar (prose)
another sun another setting by Josh Corson (poetry)
Dance Dance Apocalypse by Zoë Fay-Stindt (poetry)
Familiar by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett (poetry)
Diogenes’ Lilies by Peter Giebel (poetry)
How These Girls Shimmer by Julia Hands (prose)
Paternity by Greg Hrbek (prose)
Something Dead But Still Trying to Be Pretty by Tara Labovich (prose)
What We Deserve by Wendy Oleson (prose)
When the Forest Finds You by Lannie Stabile (poetry)
Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena by Jill Widner (prose)
Tigers and The Stick Man by Zach Witt (prose)
Submitted a chapbook manuscript to our November Open Reading Period? Open Reading submissions are still being read and considered, and responses will be sent out on a rolling basis this winter/spring.