Open Reading Period Picks

You may hear a lot from us about the winners and finalists of our various contests. And we’ll always shout that sort of news from the electronic rooftops, but today we’re bringing you news of fourteen exceptional writers who joined BLP’s ranks through one of our previous open reading periods. Since July of 2014, we’ve signed the following authors:

Alyan_FINALHala Alyan, Four Cities, poetry
Calista Buchen, The Bloody Planet, poetry chapbook
Okla Elliott, Blackbirds in September, translated poetry
Russel Swensen, The Magic Kingdom, poetry
Renée Ashley, View from the Body, poetry
Laura McCullough, Jersey Mercy, poetry
Jenny Drai, Wine Dark and The History Worker, both poetry
Sequoia Nagamatsu, Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone, short fiction
Kristy Bowen, salvage, poetry
Cynthia Manick, Blue Hallelujahs, poetry
Mary Biddinger & Jay Robinson, The Czar, collaborative poetry
Jon Steinhagen, The Big Book of Sounds, short fiction
Elizabeth Colen, What Weaponry, prose poetry novel

During the month of August, we published features for each of these fine authors. To learn more about them and read excerpts from their forthcoming Black Lawrence Press titles, please check out our August blog posts.
We’d like to send special shout outs to Russel Swensen and Kristy Bowen, who are joining this list with their second Black Lawrence Press titles; Jenny Drai, who joins us with her second and third BLP titles; Laura McCulloughJersey Mercy will be her third book with us; and Mary Biddinger, a stalwart veteran of the press–The Czar will be her fifth title with BLP. Welcome back, guys!