We’re so excited to announce the results for the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition. And the winning manuscript is …
Black Under by Ashanti Anderson
Ashanti Anderson (she/her) is a Black Queer poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Her poetry has appeared in POETRY magazine, World Literature Today, Foothill Journal, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the 2018 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Poetry Contest. You can learn more about Ashanti’s previous & latest shenanigans at ashanticreates.com.
We’re also thrilled to announce that we will additionally be publishing a finalist from the Spring 2020 competition:
Breaking Points by Chelsea Stickle
Chelsea Stickle lives in Annapolis, MD with her black rabbit George and an army of houseplants. Her flash fiction has appeared in Jellyfish Review, Pithead Chapel, matchbook, The /tƐmz/ Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and others. Her story “I Told You I Would Take Your Hand” was a runner-up in the 2019 Mslexia flash fiction competition judged by Kathy Fish. Her stories have been nominated for Best Microfiction and Best of the Net. She’s a reader for Pidgeonholes and has read for Cease, Cows as well as for Memoir Mixtape’s fiction issue. Learn more at chelseastickle.com or find her on Twitter @Chelsea_Stickle.
We couldn’t be happier to add these two amazing chapbooks to our series. Black Under, a collection of poetry, and Breaking Points, a collection of flash fiction, will both be published by Black Lawrence Press in fall 2021. We’re so happy to welcome both Ashanti and Chelsea to the BLP family!
Our finalists and semi-finalists were:
FINALISTS (alphabetical)
Black Under by Ashanti Anderson (poetry)
The Over/Under by Melissa Barker (prose)
Two-Step with the Omni [Th(e)reat] by Trace DePass (poetry)
How to Ride a Train in the Andes by Lupita Eyde-Tucker (poetry)
Halfway There by Gina Grandi (prose)
When the Snow Melts, Prepare for the Snow by Summer Hart (poetry)
Things Beneath the Sky by A.D. Lauren-Abunassar (poetry)
Breaking Points by Chelsea Stickle (prose)
Flee by Calvin Walds (prose)
Rain Revolutions by Bessie F. Zaldívar (prose)
SEMI-FINALISTS (alphabetical)
Beast-Mother by Sayuri Ayers (prose)
You’ll Never Find Another by Lydia Copeland Gwyn (prose)
How To Start A Coven by Deirdre Danklin (prose)
There Are Wild Parrots in Pasadena by Lauren Ebright (prose)
Eulogy for My No by Anis Gisele (poetry)
Architects Of Our Already Future by Monica Gomery (poetry)
Liced Alike by Kim Hagerich (prose)
The Foreign Country by Aiden Heung (poetry)
Enough Light to Pawn by Kamal Kimball (poetry)
BOI by Nadine Marshall (poetry)
Dim Sum Depression by Joshua Nguyen (poetry)
Without Leaves by Triin Paja (poetry)
A Name Among Bone by Melinda Ruth (poetry)
Tomorrow Music by Pete Stevens (prose)
Breathing in Water, Drowning in Air by Monica Wang (prose)
Territories by Charity Yoro (poetry)