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alice james books announces winner of the 2008 beatrice hawley award
Alice James Books is pleased to announce the winner of the 2008 Beatrice Hawley Award: Slamming Open the Door by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno of Oreland, Pennsylvania. She will receive $2,000 and will be published in April 2009. The Cooperative Board has chosen one additional manuscript for publication: Winter Tenor by Kevin Goodan of Amherst, Massachusetts will be published in May 2009. He will receive $1,000.

Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for two poems from Slamming Open the Door. A former co-editor of The American Poetry Review, she currently teaches English and Creative Writing in Pennsylvania.

Kevin Goodan’s first book of poems, In the Ghost-House Acquainted, was published by Alice James Books in 2004 and chosen for the 2005 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award. His poems have appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, The Colorado Review and American Poet. He has taught Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts, Elms College, the University of Connecticut, and at Wesleyan University. He currently resides on a small farm in western Massachusetts.

Finalists for the award were: Boys Whistling Like Canaries by Jorn Ake, Glossolalia by Amanda Auchter, What For by Christian Barter, Again an Oath in the Faith of Absence by Jennifer Beebe, The Lily Lillies by Josey Foo, Best Western by Eric Gudas, 67 Mogul Miniatures by Raza Ali Hassan, Even Bullets Have Faces by Elijah Imlay, Letter Written in This Life, Mailed from the Next by Marsha Smith Janson, Reading the Throne by Christi Kramer, The Mouth of the Sparrow by Deidre O’Conner, Eye, Thus Precious by Maya Pindyck, Tall Brown Door by Marjorie Saiser, Hunting Is Painting by Jessica Savitz, The Forest of Sure Things by Megan Snyder-Camp, Like a Gate or a Mouth by Jemeva Stone, The Explosions by Mathias Svalina, and The Absinthe of Trousers by Marlys West.

Semifinalists for the award were: Skinless Love by Hadara Bar-Nadav, The Loudspeaker of the People’s Army by Xochiquetzal Candelaria, Hearsay by Leslie C. Chang, The Wonders by A. V. Christie, The Difficult Farm by Heather Christle, Inlet by Cassandra Cleghorn, Landscape with Saguaros by Keith Ekiss, The Mansion of Happiness by Robin Ekiss, The Mind by J. M. FitzGerald, The Do-It-Yourself Poem and Other Poems by Judith Hall, To the Paragrine God by Jean Hallingstad, Hat & Coat by James Haug, Dressed Like a Kwaker by Melanie Hubbard, Dust Runner by Jessica Jewell, Darkness Cuts Itself a Body by Andrew Kozma, Break, Make Or by Dora Malech, The Weight of Second Person by Kevin McLellan, An Intersection of Leaves not Likeness by Rusty Morrison, The Man Himself by Al Nyhart, Dressing for Diwali by Komal Patel, Voice Human by Nicholas Regiacorte, Archicembalo by G. C. Waldrep, Ridge-Runner by Amanda Rachelle Warren, Dragonfly. Toad. Moon. by Mary Jane White, Habit by Mary-Sherman Willis, and Ruminant [psalms] by Jordan Windholz.

The Alice James Books Cooperative Board commends these poets for their fine work.

alice james books announces the publication of founding member betsy sholl’s next collection
It is with great pleasure that we announce the publication of Maine Poet Laureate Betsy Sholl’s next collection, Rough Cradle (April 2009). We are very excited to welcome one of our seven founding authors back into the fold, and it seems especially significant as 2008 will mark our 35th anniversary. Congratulations, Betsy, and welcome back!

Betsy Sholl, a founding member of Alice James Books, is the author of six previous collections of poetry, most recently Late Psalm. Her first three collections, Rooms Overhead, Appalachian Winter, Changing Faces, were published by Alice James Books. Her awards include the AWP Prize for Poetry, the Felix Pollak Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Art Commission. She is the current Poet Laureate of Maine and teaches at the University of Southern Maine and in the Vermont College MFA in Writing Program.

alice james books announces winners of the 2007 kinereth gensler awards
Alice James Books is pleased to announce the winners of the 2007 Kinereth Gensler Awards: The Next Country by Idra Novey of New York, New York; and Shelter by Carey Salerno of Boston, Massachusetts. Each will receive $2,000 and will become members of the Alice James Books Poetry Cooperative Board. Their books will be published in November 2008 and January 2009, respectively.

Idra Novey's recent poems appear in Slate, Paris Review, Agni, and Ploughshares. Her chapbook version of The Next Country was selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2005 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. She received a P.E.N. Translation Fund Award for her translations of Brazilian poet Paulo Henriques Britto; the book The Clean Shirt of It was released in the Lannan Translation Series with BOA Editions in 2007. She currently teaches at Columbia University and in the Bard College Prison Initiative.

Carey Salerno was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She received her Bachelor’s degree in English with a creative writing emphasis at Western Michigan University and her MFA in Poetry from New England College in 2006. Her poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and have appeared in such journals as Rattle and Natural Bridge. She currently works in publishing and lives in Boston, Massachusetts with her husband.

Finalists for the award were: Like a Sea by Samuel Amadon; Edge by Annie Boutelle; Grass Whistle by Amy Dryansky; Coffle by Reginald Flood; I Would Be the Brighter House by Kim Garcia; Looking Only for Yes by Tina Kelley; Me I Disconnect from You by Peter Jay Shippy; It Wouldn’t Be Make Believe by Wendy Walters; and Loud Dreaming in a Quiet Room by Betsy Wheeler.

Semifinalists for the award were: Of Human Mathematics by Mary Donnelly; A Slow Hum Rumbling by Rebecca Morgan Frank; Useful Futures by Rebecca Givens; Blur by Nancy Kuhl; My Place Among the Missing by David Petruzelli; Widescreen by David Semanki; Nervous Pastoral by Michael Snediker; and Ignatz by Monica Youn.

The Alice James Books Cooperative Board commends these poets for their fine work.