PUBLISHING NEW WOMEN POETS SINCE 1997
 
Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press PrizeAPress for the 2020 Perugia Press Prize winner Per
The 2027 Perugia Press Prize
is OPEN, through 11/15

Poet Holli Carrell shared her thoughts on her book Apostasies winning the 2025 Perugia Press Prize in an interview published in Sapling this past spring. Thanks, Holli, for these kind words
about finding a home for your debut with Perugia Press. 
 
 
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Editor/Director Rebecca Olander was also interviewed
this summer for Sapling. Here's one excerpt:
 
 
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Check out the contest tab on our website to learn 
more about the prize, including the support 
we offer to our poets, eligibility, and guidelines.
 
Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize
Jen Siraganian's Everything Has Been Moved, 
 Even the Dead is on presale till 9/15!
 
Praise for this incredible collection from poet Matthew Zapruder:

 
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Here's where you'll find Jen sharing her new book soon:
 
 
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Here is Jen Siraganian at her first event for the book, with,
from left to right, Farnaz Fatemi, Deema Shehabi, and
Nathalie Khankan at their "Poets of Resistance" reading:

 
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Here's to the bounty of the season! A pic from the poet
of summer veggies and postcards for her debut collection:
 
 
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Thanks to summer intern Kate Hayes for helping to pack up
copies of Everything Has Been Moved, Even the Dead to send out!
 
 
Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize
Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight 
 
August 2026 Poet: Michele Evans
 
 
anticlea

                /ante-clee-ah/ n. queen of Ithaca and mother of Odysseus.

i told him too much of anything is almost always a bad thing, 
just because there are too many fish in the sea doesn't mean 
you should catch one for every day of the week, except sunday, 
because one day, six heads will scoop you up and eat you alive.

this is not the moment i have been waiting for—hades 
is a mother's hospital waiting room, a dreadful place 
where restless soles pace, where twenty minutes feels 
like twenty years waiting for my sons' return from 
bird watching, jogging, wandering, while i sit waiting.

why don't you pick on someone your own size, i moaned, trapped
inside one cave's soundproof walls. bet this lawless monster swears
nobody did this. contradicting eye phone witness and millions 
who heard my baby boy cry, choking out, "mama, i can't breathe."
 
 
from purl (Trio House Press, 2026)
 
To read about this poet and her work, check out our blog.
 
Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press PrizeAPress for the 2020 Perugia Press Prize winner Per
* Poet News *
 
Joan Kwon Glass will be taking part in the
Brooklyn Poets Poetry Festival in early October. 

 
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Here are a few shout-outs for Perugia books - Abby E. Murray's Hail and Farewell, Lisbeth White's American Sycamore, Joan Kwon Glass's Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms, Megan Peak's Girldom, and Carolina Hotchandani's The Book Eaters - in this year's Sealey Challenge, a reading endeavor sparked by poet Nicole Sealey in which folks read a book of poetry a day each day in August. Thanks to readers Carla Panciera, Kerry J. Heckman,
and Kayla Torres, of @the.bookish.mama!

 
 
 
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Congratulations to our friends at Torch Literary Arts on marking 20 years! Check out the special joint feature celebrating their 20th anniversary, in which literary powerhouses and best friends Lynne Thompson and Patricia Smith talk sisterhood with Jae Nichelle. There is also a poem featured from each poet.

 
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Lynne Thompson will be taking part "A New Song: Poets Respond to Langston Hughes" tonight, August 27, at the CA African American Museum, with Pam Ward & Luis Rodriguez.
 
 
 

Perugia relies on collaboration with our community to continue our work. Your donations help us to provide
greater access to our contest for emerging poets, to create beautiful, important books, and to support our poets as
their work gains a wider audience. Thank you for joining
our mission to bring new women poets, inclusive of
gender-expansive identities, to print.


 
 
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