Anomalous Press Open Reading Period Finalists!
The first ever Anomalous Press reading period was in the fall of 2016, and we received over 250 submissions! It was thrilling to know that so many people trust us with their work, and it was hard (and took a lot longer than anticipated, in part due to my illness) to narrow it down to fourteen finalists. Selected manuscripts will be forthcoming in 2017 and 2018, and we’ll be announcing the selected manuscripts in a few weeks.
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In no particular order, here are the finalists from the Anomalous Press Open Reading Period from 2016:
future poem by Justine el-Khazen
Justine el-Khazen was a 2014 Emerging Poets Fellow at Poets House and a 2015 apexart International Fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Brooklyn Poets Anthology, Apogee, The Cortland Review, The Margins, Harriet and Beloit Poetry Journal among others. She is an Editorial Adviser at VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. She also teaches at the Fashion Institute of Technology and is a graduate of the Masters in Creative Writing program at UC Davis.
mechanical turk by Ryan Kaveh Sheldon
Ryan Kaveh Sheldon is an Iranian-American writer based in Buffalo, NY. He is a PhD candidate in the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. His work appears or is forthcoming in matchbook, DIAGRAM, small [p]ortions, and Jacket2. He is one of the co-founders of the Hostile Books collective.
Ants in the Book and Other Poems by Geet Chaturvedi, translated by Anita Gopalan
Geet Chaturvedi (b. 1977) is a noted Hindi poet and novelist. He has authored six books, including the highly acclaimed two collections of novellas, and two collections of poetry. His poems have been translated into fourteen languages including Spanish, German, Russian, Croatian, Turkish and Nepali. He was awarded Bharat Bhushan Agrawal Award for poetry (2007), Krishna Pratap Award for fiction (2014), and named one of ‘Ten Best Writers’ of India by English Daily Indian Express (2011). He is on the advisory board of several literary organizations. He has translated into Hindi the poems of Pablo Neruda, Lorca, Adonis, Czeslaw Milosz, Adam Zagajewski, Bei Dao, Dunya Mikhail, Iman Mersal and Eduardo Chirinos. After spending 16 years in journalism, Geet spends much of his time now writing and working on his eagerly awaited novel Ranikhet Xpress. He lives in Bhopal, India.
Anita Gopalan is a 2016 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant recipient for her translation of Simsim by Geet Chaturvedi. She graduated in Computer Science and Mathematics from BITS Pilani, and worked in Banking Technology sector in India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the Middle East. She has translated prose and poetry by Chaturvedi. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming in World Literature Today, Poetry International Rotterdam, Modern Poetry in Translation, Drunken Boat, Indian Literature and elsewhere. A translator, artist, and trader, Anita now lives in Bangalore, India.
Seaspace Landscape by S. Tourjee and Emily Dix Thomas
https://seaspacelandscape.bandcamp.com
Hypnopompia by Darla Himeles
Darla Himeles’s recent work can be read in Mantis, American Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and WomenArts Quarterly Journal. An assistant editor at The Stillwater Review, Darla currently lives and works in Philadelphia.
Season/Dogma/Ghost by Ryo Yamaguchi
Ryo Yamaguchi is the author of The Refusal of Suitors, published by Noemi Press. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Drunken Boat, Denver Quarterly, and Bennington Review, and his book reviews and other critical writings can be found in outlets such as Boston Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Newpages. He lives in Seattle where he works at Wave Books. Please visit him at plotsandoaths.com.
ENTANGLEMENT by stephanie roberts
stephanie roberts is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. Her writing is featured or forthcoming in issues of The New Quarterly, Breakwater Review, Blue Lyra Review, and CV2. She grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn.
Dragontooth Children Blues & Other Mystery Plays by John Sullivan
John Sullivan received the “Jack Kerouac Literary Prize,” “Writers Voice: New Voices of the West” award, AZ Arts fellowships, Artists Studio Center fellowship, WESTAF fellowship, was a featured playwright at Denver’s Changing Scene Summer Play (Changing Scene Theatre), and an Eco-Arts Performance fellow from EMOS / University of Oregon. He was Artistic/Producing Director of Theater Degree Zero, and directed the Augusto Boal / Theatre of the Oppressed focused applied theatre wing at Seattle Public Theater. For the past decade, he has used Theatre of the Oppressed with communities to promote dialogue on cumulative risk / environmental justice issues with NIEHS environmental health scientists.
The Maria Axiom by Rosalind Palermo Stevenson
Rosalind Palermo Stevenson is the author of the books The Absent, Kafka At Rudolf Steiner’s, and Insect Dreams. Insect Dreams has also been published in the anthologies: Poe’s Children (edited by Peter Straub) and Trampoline (edited by Kelly Link). Her short fiction and prose poems have appeared in literary journals, including: Drunken Boat; Web Conjunctions; Spinning Jenny; First Intensity; Washington Square; Works [of fiction] In Progress; Skidrow Penthouse; River City; Literal Latte; Italian Americana; Quick Fiction; No Roses Review; and Reflections. Her work has received several Pushcart nominations. She lives inNew York City.
Mind of Spring by Jami Macarty
Jami Macarty is the author of Landscape of The Wait, a chapbook of poems focusing on her nephew, William’s car accident and year-long coma (Finishing Line Press, June 2017). Former Executive Director of Tucson Poetry Festival (1996–2005), she teaches contemporary poetry and creative writing at Simon Fraser University, serves as a Poetry Ambassador for Vancouver’s Poet Laureate, Rachel Rose, is a co-founder and editor of the online poetry journal The Maynard, and writes Peerings & Hearings–Occasional Musings on Arts in the City of Glass, a blog series for Anomaly (FKA Drunken Boat). A recipient of grants from Arizona Commission on the Arts, Banff Center, and BC Arts Council, among others; a Pushcart Prize nominee; a finalist for the 2017 Robert Kroetsch Award, and the winner of the 2016 Real Good Poem Prize (a 2,000 purse!), her poems appear in American and Canadian journals, including Arc Poetry Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Descant, Drunken Boat, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Prism international, Vallum: contemporary poetry, Verse Daily, and Volt.
Einstein’s Imaginary Daughters by Jennifer Givhan
Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American poet from the Southwestern desert. Her debut poetry collection Landscape with Headless Mama won the 2015 Pleiades Editors’ Prize, and her second poetry collection Protection Spell has won inclusion in the Miller Williams Poetry Series, chosen by Billy Collins, and will be published in February 2017 with The University of Arkansas Press. She is also the author of three poetry chapbooks, Curanderisma (Dancing Girl Press, forthcoming 2016), The Daughter’s Curse (ELJ, forthcoming 2017), and Lifeline (Glass Poetry Press, forthcoming 2017). Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, a PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship, The Frost Place Latin@ Scholarship, The 2015 Lascaux Review Poetry Prize, The Pinch Poetry Prize, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best of the Net 2015, Best New Poets 2013, AGNI, TriQuarterly, Crazyhorse, Blackbird, The Kenyon Review, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, and Southern Humanities Review (where she was a finalist for the 2015 Auburn Witness Prize). She is Poetry Editor at Tinderbox Poetry Journal and teaches online workshops at The Poetry Barn.
Mary’s River by Barbara Ellen Sorensen
Barbara Ellen Sorensen is a former senior editor for Winds of Change magazine and is currently a contributing writer to the National Indian Child Welfare Association and the Tribal College Journal. Her chapbook, Song from the Deep Middle Brain (Main St. Rag) was a 2011 finalist in the Colorado Book Awards. Individual poems have appeared in Barefoot Review, Cutthroat, Copper Nickel, Inscape Magazine, Many Mountains Moving, Pedestal, The Mountain Gazette, Women Writers of Haitian Descent (WWOHD), Wazee, and on VerseDaily. In spring 2012, Drunken Boat published her memoir piece, “Ghost Flower & Wind,” and it was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her new, full-length collection of poems, Compositions of the Dead Playing Flutes, was released by Able Muse Press and it has garnered some national attention since Ted Kooser asked to reprint one of the poems in that collection to use on his website, American Life in Poetry. She has been accepted into two artist residency programs.
In Passing by YZ Chin
YZ Chin is the author of short story collection Though I Get Home (Feminist Press, 2018), which won the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. She is also the author of poetry chapbook deter, published by dancing girl press. Born and raised in Malaysia, she now lives in New York. She works by day as a software engineer, and writes by night.
The Alter Ego Handbook by Adrian Potter
Adrian S. Potter writes poetry and short fiction. He is the author of the fiction chapbook Survival Notes (Červená Barva Press, 2008) and winner of the 2010 Southern Illinois Writers Guild Poetry Contest. Some publication credits include North American Review, Obsidian and Kansas City Voices. He blogs, sometimes, at http://adrianspotter.com/.
