Nominations
Pushcart Prize 2018
Kin
Devon Balwit is a poet and educator from Portland, Oregon. She has two chapbooks, How the Blessed Travel from Maverick Duck Press and Forms Most Marvelous, forthcoming from dancing girl press (summer 2017). Her recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Oyez, The Cincinnati Review, Red Paint Hill, The Ekphrastic Review, The Journal of Applied Poetics, Timberline Review, Trailhead Magazine, Vector, and Permafrost.
St. Augustine and Southern Reindeer
Daniel DeKerlegand is a poet, filmmaker, electronic musician, and open source enthusiast. He received an MFA in Creative Writing in 2013 from the University of Arizona. His book reviews have appeared in The Volta. Formerly an instructor of English, he currently lives in New Orleans where he works in software engineering and is completing an MS in Computer Science at the University of New Orleans. His research interests include natural language processing, stylometry, data mining, and functional languages.
Digging to Ascend
Lissy Goralnik is an assistant professor of environmental studies and community engagement in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University. Her research and writing focus on how human/nature relationships in conservation and sustainability contexts shift due to experiential interventions; how learners come to care about place; and how arts, humanities, and environmental science collaborations might help us better understand and enact appropriate relationships with communities and the natural world. Her great loves are wind in the sails, ashtanga yoga, her tiny dog Bug, wide open frolic, tall tall trees, and deep deep moss. And gnomes. Definitely gnomes.
The Runner
Jeff P. Jones’s debut novel is Love Give Us One Death, released by Texas Review Press in 2016. “The Runner” is from his collection Bloodshot Stories, forthcoming from Sunshot Press in 2018. He lives on the Palouse in northern Idaho. www.jeffpjones.com
Keys
John Modern is Chair of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall College. He is the author of Secularism in Antebellum America (2011) and The Bop Apocalypse (2001). Modern is currently at work on two projects: “The Religion Machine, or; A Particular History of the Brain” and “Akron Devo Divine: A Delirious History of Rubber.
Puschcart Prize 2017
Ride the Mole: Bataille and the Sovereign
Paul Cockeram’s essays have been published in Confrontation Magazine, The Wildwood Journal, and The Laurel Review. When he’s not reading theory and philosophy, he teaches literature and writing at Harrisburg Area Community College and writes about whiskey at www.middleshelfwhiskey.com.
Affixed
Gina Ferrara's collection of poems include Ethereal Avalanche (Trembling Pillow Press 2009) and Amber Porch Light (CW Books 2013). She teaches English and creative writing at Delgado Community College and is a guest artist at the Low Residency MFA Program at the University of New Orleans. Her poems have appeared in places like The Poetry Ireland Review, Callaloo, and The Hawaii Pacific Review. Since 2007, she's curated The Poetry Buffet, a monthly reading presented by the New Orleans Public Library.
Desire Lines
Heather June Gibbons is the author of the chapbook Flyover (Q Ave Press, 2012), and her poems have appeared recently in Sixth Finch, Boston Review, Forklift, Ohio, and Jubilat. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Vermont Studio Center and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University.
The New Nature
Anya Groner's poetry and prose can be read in journals including Ecotone, Ninth Letter, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Meridian. She teaches creative writing to high school students at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and edits book reviews for The New Orleans Review and fiction for Terrain.org.
The Longest Main Street in the World
C.E. Richard is a writer and filmmaker specializing in nonfiction about his native French Creole Louisiana. He’s a professor of creative writing and film studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/cerichard2015/.
Holding on to Ancient
As a writer, marine biologist and documentary-maker, Helen Scales searches for stories that connect people and nature, from the enduring dream of living underwater to the hunt for new medicines beneath the waves. If she had three wishes, one would be to move to her hometown of Cambridge, England closer to the sea. Her latest book Spirals in Time exploring the wonders of seashells was picked as a book of the year by The Economist, Guardian and The Times. She is now following the trail of fishes, through oceans and human lives, for her upcoming book From the Eye of the Shoal. Find her @helenscales on Twitter and at helenscales.com