THE BEST NEW WOMEN POETS
 
 
Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize
Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize

NOW IN COLOR

By Jacqueline Balderrama

Now in Color explores the multigenerational immigrant experience of Mexican-Americans who have escaped violence, faced pressures to assimilate, and are now seeking to reconnect to a fragmented past. These poems illuminate the fluidity of language and of perception through both small hypocrisies and real atrocities. One of Balderrama’s strategies is to use the development of motion pictures and Technicolor as a lens through which to examine personal and cultural histories and stereotypes. She also considers bilingual expectations through an innovative series of Spanish definition poems. Balderrama documents pieces of her family’s oral tradition and draws connections to ongoing injustices experienced by current migrant families, offering a living picture of a present inevitably tied to and colored by its past. Through the poetics of witness, ekphrasis, portraiture, and family mythos, Now in Color deepens our understanding of hybrid identities and calls attention to those impacted by tensions along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Jacqueline Balderrama lives and teaches in Salt Lake City, 
where she is a doctoral candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of Utah. She is the author of the chapbook Nectar and Small (FLP 2019) and is co-poetry editor for Quarterly West and Iron City Magazine. Balderrama has been involved in the Letras Latinas initiative, the ASU Prison Education Program, and the Wasatch Writers in the Schools.

* Now in Color will be released in September 2020 *
Pre-order advanced copies @ AWP, on sale @ Perugia's table, #1941. 
 To order this book, or any Perugia Press title, visit our website

FINALISTS:

Stephanie Glazier, Some Formidable Lily
Victoria Lynne McCoy, wet reckless

SEMI-FINALISTS:

Sarah Anderson, Come Back. I Have Kept Time.
Stacey Balkun, Sweetbitter
Mirande Bissell, Stalin at the Opera
Caroline Crew, Bucolia
Regina DiPerna, The Midwestern Book of the Dead
Mary Easter, From the Flutes of Our Bones
Janlori Goldman, My Antarctica
Danielle Jones, Landscapes with Alternate Endings
Kelly Morse, Abcission
Catherine Staples, Vert
Sophia Starmack, The Grief Sweater
Gabriella R. Tallmadge, Sweet Beast
Shannon K. Winston, The Girl Who Talked to Paintings

Thanks to each woman who submitted her manuscript/s & to the volunteers who helped read for & judge the contest!

Perugia Press Prize: A prize of $1000 & publication by Perugia Press is given annually for a first or second unpublished poetry collection by a woman. The next deadline is November 15, 2020.
 

Speaking of winners... 

We are so pleased to announce that Perugia Press has been awarded a 2019 Capacity-Building Grant from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts! The grant will primarily enable us to redesign our existing website in order to bolster our reach and effectiveness. We are grateful to the Community Foundation for supporting our work at Perugia Press!

 

Perugia Press at AWP 

San Antonio, Texas * March 5-7

We'll be at the annual AWP Conference & Bookfair in San Antonio! Visit Editor/Director Rebecca Olander at table #1941. We're hosting author visits, and our books will be on sale. Hope to see you there! 

Come to our off-site reading: 

Join Perugia Press & its poets for a reading at The Candlelight Café
on Saturday 3/7 (3011 N St Mary's St, San Antonio, TX 78212) from 7:00-9:00. Featuring Abby E. Murray (Hail and Farewell), Megan Peak (Girldom), and Corrie Williamson (sweet husk). The Candlelight Café is a great place to have a bite to eat and sip a cup of coffee or a glass of wine after a day at the AWP conference. We'll have short readings, books for sale and signing, and celebration of poetry in community. See you there!


 

Last, but not least, welcome
new Perugia Press board members! 

We are honored to welcome Jean Blakeman and Beverly Army Williams to the Perugia Press Board of Directors. They began two-year terms at the start of 2020, and they join ongoing board members Susan Kan, Rebecca Olander, Sarah Sousa, and Sharon Tracey. Our nonprofit relies on our board to assist in achieving our mission of helping to right gender inequity in publishing by launching women’s voices into the world, one excellent book at a time. Welcome Jean and Beverly, and thank you to all our board members and the advisory council for the work you do for Perugia Press.

 
 
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PO Box 60364, Florence, MA  01062