Announcing Jason B. Crawford’s “Twerkable Moments”

We are so excited to announce the release of Jason B. Crawford’s Twerkable Moments, a Vella Chapbook Co-Winner, and the second of six titles to be released from our lineup selected from our 2020 contests. The book may be ordered here or under the Books menu, in case you’re looking for some other new reads to pick up.

Twerkable Moments is a summertime Michigan house party in the early 2000’s, and a Springtime cookout from just last week. Jason asks “Who among us is not built of a party” while moving from a sweaty dancefloor near the bar to a backyard, reclaiming space and self along the way. Who among us hasn’t tried to learn a dance from someone older and failed? Who among us hasn’t done the dance with all the confidence we could muster, anyway? These poems are a teaching, an invitation to remember and to learn. A celebratory invocation of joy in spite of, joy that survives and traverses, and joy that for damn sho’ twerks.

– Darius Simpson

Twerkable Moments pulsates with rich sounds and searing imagery, transforming the page into a three-dimensional universe that takes all of our senses to navigate. I am enamored with the magic Crawford has woven in these poems, where dancing is not merely dancing, but world building. In these stanzas exist a mythic space without limitations, where dancing boys could be wolves or “glitter could cast a spell and bring all my dead/ loves back to life”. Twerkable Moments does not turn its gaze away from the omnipresent dangers that lurk just beyond the page,“ The hunters/ or their arrows/ or bullets”. Rather, it celebrates the body’s survival despite. At the center of these poems lies the question: “What joy have you brought for us to/ feed on?”. I leave this collection well fed and breathless.

– Jihyun Yun, author of Some Are Always Hungry

In their collection Twerkable Moments, Jason B. Crawford populates these pages with beats and bodies, music lyrics that take over us before we realize we’re even singing along. To read these poems is to wade through a night club where the music works like a hex, where in the midst of the dancing crowd our speaker gropes for love and acceptance. And the dancefloor serves as a perfect metaphor for the Black and queer body trying to survive in these poems; surrounded by chaos, violence, and cultural appropriation, the speaker of this collection gives in to the corporeal joy of dance. But dance is not only about joy or survival, it’s also about reclamation. Crawford writes, “This is mine / and I will take it back / one        ass     cheek / at a time,” fashioning the Black, queer, and dancing body into a weapon. And whatever is slain in their wake, Crawford reminds us to always look back at it.

–Taylor Byas, author of Blood Warm

 

Announcing Sonya Vatomsky’s “And the Whale”

We are so excited to announce the release of Sonya Vatomsky’s And The Whale, a Vella Chapbook Co-Winner, and the sixth and final book to be released from our lineup selected from our 2019 contests. The book may be ordered here or under the Books menu, in case you’re looking for some other new reads to pick up.

This collection received the following praise:

“A lyrical, haunted shipwreck of a book you won’t soon forget.”

— amanda lovelace, bestselling author of the princess saves herself in this one

 “Vatomsky is a poet with history, which is to say a poet with a Russian soul that never rests. Here, the soul is haunted and haunting, is pouring tea into your cup until the whole thing spills over and burns. The soul in these poems isn’t interested in pain but the shadow of pain, the mark of it; the edges of a burn and the dregs of tea leaves, what each one confirms about time. If it’s true that what’s hysterical is historical, then what Vatomsky offers us is a universe where madness is fleshed out and relieved of flesh. Here, the body is a palimpsest and gender is a veil, the kind you wear in mourning, the kind that hangs between this life and everything else.”

— Gala Mukomolova, author of Without Protection

We are looking forward to turning to our attention to our 2020 manuscripts. As we all (globally) wrap up an exhausting, painful, almost-impossible year, I am wishing for you that these last few weeks of it are kind and restful and healthy. See you in 2021.

Announcing Amanda Hope’s “The Museum of Resentments”

We are so excited to announce the release of Amanda Hope’s The Museum of Resentments, a Debut Series Co-Winner and the fifth book to be released from our lineup selected from our 2019 contests. The book may be ordered here or under the Books menu, in case you’re looking for some other new reads to pick up.

This collection received the following praise:

“‘I am good at affliction,’ writes Amanda Hope, ‘and sky.’ This is true. The poems in The Museum of Resentments offer lament and potent imagery in surprising and insightful pairings. Hope’s portraits of domestic disintegration and its aftermath are sometimes confrontational, sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes tender, sometimes stark, and always stylish and compelling.”
—Natalie Shapero”

—Natalie Shapero

“Amanda Hope writes, ‘Listen: I am going to hide myself in this poem/ in the heart of it, and maybe someone (you) / will find me’ which best describes her notable debut collection. Hope is a master of metaphor and simile which she employs to create a meta-experience for the reader and meanwhile she’s ‘ignoring for the sake of metaphor…’. Yes, she is hiding behind her own truth-spinning which is nothing short of human. I encourage you to find her!”

—Kevin McClellan

We have one last title to be release this season, and are looking forward to naming the finalists and winners of the 2020 contests!

Announcing Maya Salameh’s “rooh”

We are so excited to announce the release of Maya Salameh’s rooh, a Vella Chapbook Co-Winner and the second book in our lineup selected from 2019’s contests to be released. The book may be ordered here, or under the Books menu, in case you’re looking for some other new reads to pick up.

These poems received the following praise:

“Maya Salameh’s rooh deftly works the familiar into the defamiliarized, in poems crackling with exuberant fluency. I read these poems and language feels boundless, looking feels boundless, form feels boundless. I read these poems and feel the possibilities of poetry stretching, evolving, breaking open to make room for the true refreshment that is Maya Salameh’s voice—its mischief, its enormous eyes.”
—Safia Elhillo

We have four more titles that my interns and I are preparing for production, and we can’t wait to have them ready for the world.

And if you have a manuscript of your own, keep in mind that we’re open for chapbook submissions in poetry, fiction, literary non-fiction, and anything in between until April 20th. We know this is a challenging time for almost everyone — especially emotionally, but also financially for a lot of folks. If you need a submission fee waiver, don’t be afraid to reach out.
Wishing everyone wellness and comfort.

Announcing Sarah Cooper’s “Permanent Marker”

We are so excited to announce the release of Sarah Cooper’s Permanent Marker, a Debut Series Co-Winner and the first of our manuscripts selected in 2019’s contests to be released. The book may be ordered here, or under the Books menu, in case you’re looking for some other new reads to pick up.

These poems received the following praise:

Sarah Cooper’s Permanent Marker is a stunning elegiac sequence for a brother and the family he’s left behind.  But the chapbook is also about living through tremendous pain with grace and generosity, honest anger, and empathy. The poems are elegant in their imagery, evocative in their details, and artistic in their narrative focus.  Sarah Cooper is a superb poet of witness. — Denise Duhamel 

Put simply: Sarah Cooper’s Permanent Marker enchants us. In “Grandma’s House,” we find the young Cooper siblings playing Ouija in the basement, casting spells with pebbles and bird feathers, hypnotized by the “oranges and pinks and blues of the jams glistening on shelves.” Such youth can’t be preserved. And though Cooper’s poems make this gut-wrenchingly clear in narrating the loss of that brother from the cellar, all the mystery of youth — that strange potion of great joy and deep sadness — is carried into these poems like a talisman. Like the BB left in the sister’s chest, forgotten, until years later she steps from the shower, runs her wet fingers over the lump, “and remembered your face / in shock as you realized you had shot me.” — D. Gilson

Sarah Cooper’s Permanent Marker is about the ways we are marked by loss and all the forms that loss may take. The ephemeral smell of her brother’s cologne. His number and birthday, which she refuses to remove from her phone. Her brother’s baby teeth, which her father keeps in an Aleve bottle, suggesting the links this book traces between memory and pain. This is not a book about PTSD or addiction or brothers and sisters. It is about the collateral damage, the reverberating impact of loss on those left behind. — Ed Madden

We have five more titles that my interns and I are preparing for production, and we can’t wait to have them ready for the world. And if you have a manuscript of your own, keep in mind that we’re open for chapbook submissions in poetry, fiction, literary non-fiction, and anything in between until April 20th!

2020 Chapbook Contests open Monday

Our annual chapbook contests are open this year from January 20th – April 20th, 2020. This will be our 9th year (!) of running an annual contest, and I had to count each year slowly on my hands a few times before I really believed it. We have published 34 titles during that time, six of which are forthcoming in the next few months. Be on the lookout for release announcements for some really amazing books in the next few months.

As in years past, the Vella Contest is open to all; the Debut Series is open only to writers who have yet to publish a book or chapbook (and for our purposes, this also includes if you’ve signed a publication contract but the book is not released yet).You can also go right to our Submittable, which should give you all the information you need once the contests go live on Monday.

This Spring, I’m lucky to have four wonderful interns to help with running the press. I’ll be gradually getting a little about them posted under our Staff tab.

As always, I am so grateful I get to do this. I’m excited to see what amazing work we’ll get to read this year!

Announcing Kimiko Hahn’s “Brittle Process”

We are so excited to announce the release of Kimiko Hahn’s Brittle Process, a prose poetry collection inspired by terminology found in a psychology reference dictionary. You can purchase a copy here, or under the books menu, where you may find a few other titles you’d like to pick up.

Adam Boretz has described Hahn’s work, in her previous collection, Brain Fever, as “relentless formal experimentation.” Indeed, when I was in college and read Hahn’s poetry for the very first time, it opened my eyes to the different ways a poem could be and what it could do. When Hahn and I met at an event earlier this year and talked at length about our commitment to the chapbook as a serious and important literary vehicle, I knew we had to work together on this project.

Announcing the Winners of the 2019 Vella Chapbook Contest

We received nearly 150 submissions this year, making our selection incredibly tough. These decisions are difficult every year, and if we had unlimited resources, we would have accepted several more. Please join me in congratulating the writers below!

This year’s winners are:

Rooh – Maya Salameh
And the Whale – Sonya Vatomsky

Our Finalists include:

Beast-Mother – Sayuri Ayers
On Boxes (And Putting Poems In Them) – Jesica Carson Davis
The Centrifuge Brain Project – Ting Gou
Present Imperfect: Essays – Ona Gritz
Rappaccini’s Garden – Jules Jacob and Sonya Johanson
Whore of Blue – Siham Karami
sacraments – Kimberly Kemler
Something Like Surrender – Heather Lang-Cassera
The Sound of Her Voice – Veronica Montes
Our Lady of Impermanence – Megan Neville
Hitting an All-Time Low – Sarah Nichols
Homer Saw a Wine-Dark Sea – Victoria Nordlund
One Body May Act upon Another at a Distance – Lynda Sexson
Mortar: Montage of a Teaching Life Into Labels More – Christine Taylor
A Long Shoot Sweeping – Mary-Sherman Willis

And there are many more manuscripts we found memorable and were very fond of. Thank you to everyone who trusted us with their writing and gave us the opportunity to read their work.

We’ll now be turning our focus towards getting this year’s six total manuscripts ready for production. Both the Debut Series and Vella Contests re-open in January 2020, and we’re excited to read what next year has in store!

Announcing Ananda Lima’s “Translation”

We are so excited to announce the release of Ananda Lima’s Translation, our final 2018 Vella Chapbook Winner to be released this year, now available for order! You can purchase a copy here, or under the books menu, where you may find a few other titles you’d like to pick up.

These poems received the following praise:

There is so much unbridled joy and pained tenderness in Ananda Lima’s Translation. Inspired by the poet Nathaniel Mackey and the musician Caetano Veloso, her verse streams effortlessly down the page, plaiting English with Portuguese, as Lima sings of the thrills and terrors of her new life in America, the pleasures of motherhood, and what she inherited from her family. Her voice is singular and wise and fresh. I love the poems in this chapbook.
—Cathy Park Hong

Ananda Lima’s Translation is as much a mother’s grappling with how to raise her son amid the danger and violence of today’s America as it is an investigation of a daughter’s inherited, migrant Brazilian past. Lima’s poetry has the rare power to let us feel and “know the terror” of the present moment, while reflecting on and ancestry and passing on familial legacy to the next generation. Her poems aren’t afraid to “shout ‘I’m an American citizen’ ” across borders and languages, while shattering the security of presumed identity and recognizing both the precarity and privilege of citizenship. Piercing and poignant, Lima’s voice and music stay with you, “undisturbed / by wind or water, there will always remain/ a footprint” guiding your way home.
—Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

Lá na Bahia or on the 7 train, Ananda Lima’s poems house a stillness that moves gracefully on the page. Translation is altruistic in its soft haunt, its fleshly reminder that our daily self-discoveries are just the bones of ancestors waking for attention. The collection is a sun of moments gathered to greet us when and, wherever we may land after a long day of feeling like “other.”
—Shauna Barbosa

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This wraps up our new titles from the 2018 contests — but we might have some surprises in the works over the next few months! And as always this time of year, we’re spending every spare minute with the 350+ manuscripts we received for 2019.

Announcing Meredith Boe’s “What City”

We are so excited to announce the release of Meredith Boe’s What City, our final 2018 Debut Series Chapbook Winner to be released this year, now available for order! You can purchase a copy here, or under the books menu, where you may find a few other titles you’d like to pick up.

These stories and essays received the following praise:

“Moving with deft concision from location to location, this collection of eight pieces of brief prose feels like wandering through a city and stumbling upon treasure: a geocache of place and its associated feeling–not just where things happen, but how and why they matter. The stories leave the reader with a soft illumination, the way ‘lightning bugs emerge from a blanket of black sky.'”

— Kathleen Rooney, author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

“In What City Meredith Boe’s prose inhabits neighborhoods of circumstance and memory. These essays delicately navigate love, loss, and moments of being, tracking terrains both intimate and urban. What city? Her city.”

—Barrie Jean Borich, author of Apocalypse, Darling and Body Geographic

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Be on the lookout for our final release from the 2018 chapbook contests: a poetry collection from Ananda Lima. In the meantime, we’re slowing making our way through the enormous stack of outstanding manuscripts we received for 2019!