Well, writers, you’ve made the life of the Black Lawrence Press editorial team difficult. Very difficult. Here’s the problem–you’re good at your job; you write wonderful books. And we fall in love with them. We read them again and again, and then we have to choose one to win our prize. It’s an embarrassingly wonderful problem you’ve presented to us.
We are very pleased to present the 2014 Hudson Prize finalists and semi-finalists. Narrowing down the roster of manuscripts to the ones listed below was no easy task. (Which is why we are late with this announcement. But again, that’s kind of your fault for writing so many books that grab us by the throat and hit us in the heartbone.) We will announce the winner just as soon as we can, but please excuse us if we look a little roughed up by the time we do. Again: throat, heartbone.
Thank you for what you do. Thank you for making our jobs difficult. Thank you for writing. We love you for it.
Drumroll…
Finalists (alphabetical)
Nostalgia for a World Where We Can Live by Monica Berlin (poetry)
Meanwhile, Snow by Genevieve Burger-Weiser (poetry)
Hound’s Mouth by Libby Burton (poetry)
The Most Kissed Face in the World by Chuck Carlise (poetry)
Blood: Stories by Matthew Cheney (fiction)
My Dim Aviary: 7, Passage de Flandre, Paris–19e (France) by Gillian Cummings(poetry)
Man-Made Things by Alan B Dittrich (fiction)
The Imaginary Girlfriends of Canada, and other fictions by Andrew E Farkas (fiction)
The Power by Jeff J Hennelly (fiction)
of rain and nettles wove by Gillian E Parrish (poetry)
The Owl That Carries Us Away by Doug Ramspeck (fiction)
Every Root a Branch by Elizabeth R Rees (poetry)
Recovering Baptists by Vic Sizemore (fiction)
Between My Country and the Others by Andrea Witzke Slot (poetry)
Thimbleful by Cindy Veach (poetry)
An Emigrant’s Winter by Pui Ying Wong (poetry)
catastrophiliac by Caroline E Young (poetry)
Semi-Finalists (alphabetical)
Last Words of the Holy Ghost by Matt Cashion (fiction)
Dirge with a Love Song in It by Danielle Deulen (poetry)
A Record of Our Debts by Laura Hendrix Ezell (fiction)
Hotel Grand Abyss by Robert Glick (fiction)
When the Men Go Off to War by Victoria Kelly (poetry)
Tiller North by Rosa Lane (poetry)
Who Am I to Tell You This? by Jory Mickelson (poetry)
An Introduction to the Devout Life by James Najarian (poetry)
Throbber by Jo Anna Novak (poetry)
Varieties of Religious Experience in the Tri-State Area by Wendy Rawlings (fiction)
Available Beauty by LaWanda W Walters (poetry)
You Are Forever a Visitor in Your Own Home by Ross White (poetry)
Love Me, and the World is Mine by Katherine M Zlabek (fiction)
