Chapbook Awards Longlist

Our team has been honored to read through all of the submissions for our 2022 Chapbook Awards! There have been so many great zines and chapbooks published through the pandemic, and it is such a joy to read through everything that has been created over the past two years. 

After reading through all of your submissions – we are stoked to announce our longlist for our inaugural Perennial Chapbook Awards!

From this longlist, we will choose the final three winners in fall 2022. (For a reminder of the timeline and prizes, check out our Chapbook Awards tldr!) 

Note: These are in no particular order and we highly recommend checking out all of these chaps and zines! 

Out of Mind & Into Body by Sarah Cavar // Ethel Press

Out of Mind & Into Body is a transMad engagement with medico-psychiatric violence, epistemic erasure, and Mad survival amidst the intolerable –– getting on and not getting better. 

• Bloodwarm by Taylor Byas // Variant Literature

Bloodwarm is a collection that explores what it’s like to live in a Black body that is constantly scrutinized and dissected beneath the white gaze.

Five Little Fatalities by Emily Unwin // Appalachia Book Company

Five Little Fatalities is a work of short fiction. It tells the story of Honey, a young woman living on the edge of a widower’s farm in rural Virginia. It is a reflection on how isolation breeds unusual relationships to people, creativity, and art.

• Mushrooms at The E-Grave by Shay X. Gee // Ghost City Press

These poems live a multitude of real and imagined lives despite their character’s ceaseless endings: the haunting chronicles of iphone factory workers strained under global capitalism, a mouse in search of its last feast, the grief between cyborgs and humans.

• Already Knew You Were Coming by Nnenna Loveth // Game Over Books

 Already Knew You Were Coming is a tender exploration of loneliness, queer identity, and codependence. This collection moves us across timelines and transports us to worlds where the moon talks back and banshees declare revolution with Bitterlemon and kola nut in hand. 

Permutations of a Self by Thomas V. Nguyen // Texas Review Press

Permutations of a Self  grapples with issues of belonging and connection, all from the perspective of someone who does a lot more observing and ruminating than living in the present.

Whatever Happened to Black Boys? by James Jabar // Texas Review Press

This book is an exploration of black maleness in America through persona and form. Throughout the book black boys from the past and present get to tell their stories, for better or worse, in a variety of different lyrical structures, as if they are singing their own songs.

• Cut Woman by Dena Igusti // Game Over Books

In a post-colonial world shaped by what is and what will be lost, what is there left to celebrate? In Dena Igusti’s debut collection Cut Woman, Igusti is overwhelmed by the loss of their people.

American Home by Sean Cho A. // Autumn House Press

Sean Cho A.’s debut poetry chapbook directs a keen eye on everyday occurrences and how these small events shape us as individuals. This collection is filled with longing for love, understanding, and simplicity. 

The Space Poet by Samantha Edmonds // Split/Lip Press

In this hybrid work of prose and poetry, Samantha Edmonds tells the story of an artist—the first in space—sent by NASA to the International Space Station on a mission to make the stars accessible to those left on the ground.

• Born in a Second Language by Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie // Button Poetry

Born in a Second Language investigates how translation shapes and alters both language and identity as speakers travel through space and time.

The Water Cycle by Beth Gordon // Variant Literature

If time is an illusion then how do we transcribe the moments of a life? If memory is unreliable then how do we explain shared experiences that meet us at both the surface and bed of a lake? In her collection of prose poetry, Gordon does not attempt to answer these questions, rather she asks the reader to examine their own lives with these questions in mind.

Purgatory Has an Address by Romaine Washington // Bamboo Dart Press

Purgatory Has an Address is a 66-page dream state woven of origin myths, it is the search for birth parents; and it is the sober reality of living in a beautiful, pungent, redlined neighborhood

 Horizon by Jasmine Flowers // Flower Press

Horizon walks the imaginary line between borderlands and enchantments. This long poem highlights an imagined experience of the American Southwest in place of a physical reality.

The Undead by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett // Sixth Finch Books

The Undead is a zombie poetry narrative.

 Galangal: the river one must cross by Maddison Colvin and Daryl Li // self-published under The Hall of Uselessness

Galangal: the river one must cross is a 20-page digital zine featuring a dialogue between Maddison Colvin and Daryl Li, in an exchange that begins with rivers and meditates on writing, the failure of expression, and acts of storytelling.

 Notes on Water and Blood by Ryan Schulte // Greying Ghost Press

Schulte uses “41 Shots” by Bruce Springsteen to talk about his upbringing in Southeastern Nassau County, NY and the use of protest art.

Fire Sermons by Raye Hendrix // Ghost City Press

 Fire Sermons links ostensibly disparate events–an election, a diagnosis, the death of a pet and of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, etc–via their proximity to fire. 

• Folktales for the Diseased Individual by Pascale Potvin // self-published 

The collection investigates my many experiences with mental illness, trauma, abuse, sexuality, and more through the lens of several well-known folktales.

• May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry by Alex Carrigan // Alien Buddha Press

May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry is a collection of sixteen cento poems created using text from the official Twitter accounts of current and former members of the Real Housewives television franchise.

Stay tuned for our official Chapbook Awards winners announcement in Fall 2022! We will announce them here, as well as on our Twitter and Instagram!

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