Southeast Missouri State University Press

Summer Ordering and Shipping

As our semester winds down around here, we’ll have limited hours on campus. We’ll still be shipping orders, but it might take a little bit longer through mid-August or so!

Announcing the winner of the 2022 Cowles Poetry Prize

We’re excited to announce the winner of our 2022 Cowles Poetry Prize. We received a *ton* of fantastic submissions this year. In fact, this year we received more submissions than we ever have before. It was a pleasure to read and think about all of these manuscripts. 

The winning manuscript was picked by our final judge, and previous prize winner, Rachel Hinton, from a set of manuscripts painstakingly selected by our initial readers. Here are the results: 

Winner:

A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue by Christine Kwon

Finalists:

This Smile is Starting to Hurt by Dylan Loring
Lavish Cruelty by Katie Jean Shinkle
Keeping in the Dark by Noah Stetzer
Eveningful by Jennifer Whalen

Semi-finalists

Happy Everything by Caitlin Cowan
Whipsaw by Suzanne Frischkorn
The Continuing Book by Robert Okaji
Inside the Golden Hunting Years by Delaney Olmo
A Grito Contest in the Afterlife by Vincent Rendoni
Night Swimming by Liz Robbins
Variable of Uncertain Effect by Matthew Schmidt
Steady, Girl by Leona Sevick
Family, Extended by Mark Smith-Soto
I’d Rather Be Lightning by Nancy Woo

Announcing the Winner and Finalists of the 2021 Nilsen Prize

We are pleased to announce the winner, along with the finalists and semi-finalists:

Winner:

The Last Innocent Year: Stories by Kerry Jones

Kerry Jones was raised in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, attended Mansfield University and Temple University, and received her MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University, where she now teaches. Her fiction has appeared in many literary journals, including Orchid, Night Train, The Rambler, Bryant Literary Review, Sycamore Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Seems, and most recently in SLAB.

Finalists:

Impossible Object: A Novel in Stories by Robyn Carter
All Hours by Bernard Grant
Contingent Contingencies by Leah McCormack
Forgottonia by Chad Simpson

Semi-Finalists:

Roan by Mathew Goldberg
The Kind of Music Not a Song by Tamar Jacobs
A Cabinet of Curiosity by Leanne Ogasawara
Dust Between Clouds: A Palestinian Story by Hadeel Salameh
How do you like these bad days? By Maggie Smith
How Do I Seem? By Joe Truscello
Whole by Derek Updegraff

Thank you all for submitting and trusting us with your work. This is never an easy decision, and there were so many wonderful manuscripts.

Announcing the Winners of the 2021 Cowles Poetry Book Prize

We’re thrilled to announce the winner and finalists for the 2021 Cowles Poetry Prize. Our dedicated readers and interns spent countless hours reading many (so many!) fantastic manuscripts. The competition was fierce, and we passed along twenty manuscripts to our final judge, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, who narrowed down the list to a top five, from which she selected this year’s winner. We are so incredibly grateful you all trust us with your vital, magnificent work. And of course, we’re already accepting submissions for the 2022 contest. Without further ado, then, our winner, shortlist, and longlist:

Winner: Gold Hill Family Audio by Corrie Lynn White

Corrie Lynn White’s poetry has appeared in Oxford American, New Ohio Review, Best New Poets, Mid American Review, and Mississippi Review, among other places. Originally from Gold Hill, North Carolina, she holds a BA from UNC Chapel Hill and an MFA from UNC Greensboro. She currently lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she works as a journalist and was named the 2021 Tennessee Arts Commission Fellow in Poetry. Gold Hill Family Audio will be published in fall, 2022!

Shortlist:

bad prayer by Katie Berta
BLACK METAMORPHOSIS by Shanta Lee Gander
Dear Daughter, by Ellen Kombiyil
Eveningful by Jennifer Whalen

Longlist:

Out of Nowhere: Poems by Susan Comninos
star vehicle (the year i moved to st. louis) by Charlotte Covey
Happy Everything by Caitlin Cowan
A Suit of Paper Feathers by Nate Duke
Cry Perfume by Sadie Dupuis
Whipsaw by Suzanne Frischkorn
Swan Hammer: An Instructor’s Guide to Mirrors by Maggie Graber
No Spare People by Erin Hoover
This Smile is Starting to Hurt by Dylan Loring
History Lesson by Todd Osborne
Steady, Girl by Leona Sevick
Black Don’t Crack by Valerie Smith
On Main Street by Alex Turissini
Notes on Silence and Noise by Suzanne Wise
pH of Au by Vanessa Couto Johnson

Once again, thank you all for trusting us with your work! It’s truly an honor.

Announcing the winner of the 2020 Nilsen Prize

We are excited to announce the winner and finalists of the 2020 Nilsen Prize for a First Novel. The winning manuscript will be published, and the author will receive $2,000. Thank you to everyone who entered! It was an honor and a pleasure to read your words. The 2021 contest is open at: https://smsupress.submittable.com/submit/179432/dorothy-and-wedel-nilsen-literary-prize-for-a-first-novel-2021

Winner: Juan Eugenio Ramirez – The Man with Wolves for Hands

Though born in Washington state, Juan Eugenio Ramirez spent most of his formative years in Florida. Having taught both middle school and high school these past fifteen years, Juan holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Armchair/Shotgun, and Madcap Review. He currently teaches high school English at St. Francis School, an independent, progressive education school in Louisville, Kentucky.

Finalists:

Michael Chaney – The Cartoonal and You
Kevin Clouther – Maximum Speed
Diane Josefowicz – Easy Journeys to Other Planets
Ben Miller – Meanwhile in the Dronx
Thomas Pyun – The Beginning of Our End
Jessica Savitz – Television in the Mountains
Evelyn Somers – Katybomb, Katybomb
Derek Updegraff – Whole
Rebecca Wurtz – The Mapmaker’s Body

Announcing the Winner of the 2020 Cowles Poetry Prize

We are excited to announce the winner and finalists of our 2020 Cowles Poetry Book Prize. The winning book will be published, and the winning poet will receive $2,000. We saw so many amazing manuscripts this year, and it was difficult to narrow down a list to send to our final judge, Emma Bolden. Thank you all for your interest in this contest! Without further ado, then, here is the winner, and then the finalists:

Winner: Hospice Plastics by Rachel Hinton

Originally from Vermont, Rachel Hinton holds an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Irvine, and a BA from Kenyon College. Her poems have appeared in The Boiler, Cimarron Review, the Denver Quarterly, SOFTBLOW, the Tahoma Literary Review, and other journals. She has previously taught courses at DePaul University, and currently works as an editor and content development manager in Chicago. Of Hinton’s manuscript, final judge Emma Bolden writes “This book absolutely hums and it’s so powerful, every line of it, and the way the author uses language astounds and amazes me.”

Finalists:

Thief by Jennifer Miller
Thunderhead by Emily Cole
Eveningful by Jennifer Whalen
Tell This to the Universe by Katie Prince

Semi-Finalists:

Bad Prayer by Katie Berta
Hands Pull You Apart by Emily Jaeger
Ode to the Earth in Translation by George Looney
This Smile Is Starting to Hurt by Dylan Loring
“Every Slow Thing” by Daniel Lusk
Eject City by Jason Morphew
Night Swimming by Liz Robbins
Sentence by Rebecca Schumejda
The Water Bear by Margaret Young
Portrait Miniatures by James K. Zimmerman

Announcing the Winner of the 2019 Nilsen Prize

We are excited to announce the winner and finalists of the 2019 Nilsen Prize for a First Novel. The winning manuscript will be published, and the author will receive $2,000. Thank you to everyone who entered! It was an honor and a pleasure to read your words. The 2020 contest is open (at a lower price!) at: https://smsupress.submittable.com/submit/145301/dorothy-and-wedel-nilsen-literary-prize-for-a-first-novel-2020

WINNER:

Elizabeth Engelman – The Way of the Saints

Finalists:

Polly Buckingham – Long White Robe
Kevin Frey – A Walking Tour of Antananarivo with the Ghost of Jean-Joseph
Rabearivelo
Jeremy Griffin – Odessa
Kate McIntyre – Mad Prairie
Matthew Pitt – The Be–Everything! Brothers

Southeast Missouri State University Press: SLOW ORDER FULFILLMENT

Hello,

Just a quick note to let you know that, while campus is slowly reopening, we’ll still be slower to ship orders than usual over the summer. You’re welcome to continue ordering from us, and please know that we’ll be fulfilling them as quickly as we can, but we won’t be on campus quite as much for the time being.

We appreciate your understanding at this time and we’ll see you on the flipside. Until then, be safe and keep social distancing.

Sincerely,

James Brubaker

Big Muddy Announces Winner and Finalists of Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Prize

We are excited to announce the winner and finalists for the Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest. The winner will be published in the upcoming issue of Big Muddy, and will receive $500. Picking a winner this year was quite difficult due to the many, many, many excellent stories we received. 

This year’s winner is:

“I Haven’t Forgotten You” by Leslie Blanco

And this year’s finalists were:

“Shades of Tippi Hedren Headed For a Phone Booth” by Pamela Balluck
“Eli” by Elizabeth Enochs
“Bitten” by Barney Haney
“On the Fly” by Daryl Scroggins

Now, this is usually the part where I’d encourage everyone to submit again for this year’s contest. Unfortunately, we won’t be running the contest in 2020. Reading contest submissions on top of non-contest submissions, and keeping up with other work for Big Muddy and Southeast Missouri State University Press is…a lot. This isn’t a financial decision at all, as these contests pay for themselves. Once we’ve had a bit of a breather, the contest will likely come back, but for the time being, we need a break! Thank you all for sharing your wonderful words with us, and I hope to read more from you all in the future.

Sincerely,

The Big Muddy Editorial Team

Big Muddy Announces Winner and Finalists of the 2019 Mighty River Short Story Contest

We are excited to announce the winner and finalists for the Mighty River Short Story Contest. The winner will be published in the upcoming issue of Big Muddy, and will receive $1,000. Picking a winner this year was quite difficult due to the many, many, many excellent stories we received.  

This year’s winner is:
“Payback for Mongoose Charlie” by Bryce Berkowitz

This year’s finalists were:

“No Matter Her Leaving” by Noley Reid
“Where the False Have a Merry Time” by Basmah Sakrani
“Geraniums for Autumn” by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
“The River and the Change it Brings” by Rebecca Wurtz

Now, this is usually the part where I’d encourage everyone to submit again for this year’s contest. Unfortunately, we won’t be running the contest in 2020. Reading contest submissions on top of non-contest submissions, and keeping up with other work for Big Muddy and Southeast Missouri State University Press is…a lot. This isn’t a financial decision at all, as these contests pay for themselves. Once we’ve had a bit of a breather, the contest will likely come back, but for the time being, we need a break! Thank you all for sharing your wonderful words with us, and I hope to read more from you all in the future.

Sincerely,
The Big Muddy Editorial Team

ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE 2019 COWLES POETRY PRIZE

We are excited to announce the winner of the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize. The winning manuscript, selected by judge Brad Aaron Modlin, will be published in October, 2020, and the poet will be awarded $2000. We received more manuscripts this year than we ever have before, so the competition was fierce.

Winner:

Look Alive by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

Finalists:

Naming the Lifeboat by Justin Gardiner
Terra Incognita by Sara Henning
After by Emily Jaeger
The Right Blue Dream House by Claire McQuerry
Soft Palate by Anna Sutton

Semi-Finalists:

Eat the Marrow by Mara Adamitz Scrupe
Bluebird by James CrewsBluebird by James Crews
The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook by Jesse Delong
The Likes of Us by R.M. Kinder
Revoke by Joy Manesiotis
Dawn’s Early by Gloria Muñoz
Easy Victims to the Charitable Deceptions of Nostalgia by Emily Schulten
What Falls Away Is Always by Richard Terrill
House of Broken Tables by Allison Wilkins

The 2020 Cowles Poetry Prize is currently open for submissions. You can learn more, here.

ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS OF OUR 2018 MIGHTY RIVER SHORT STORY AND WILDA HEARNE FLASH FICTION PRIZES

1 May 2019

We’re excited to announce the winner and finalists of our 2018 Mighty River Short Story Prize and Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Prizes. We had a ton of great selections this year. Thank you all for sharing your work with us! The winners will appear on the website later this year, and will both be included in our upcoming 2019 print issue. And of course, the contest is already open for next year—details are below!

Mighty River Short Story Prize:

Winner

Shrine by Keith Eisner

Finalists

Blue Trailer by Susan Isaak Lolis
Bone Fire by Gabrielle Pastorek
Swirled in Sunlight by Brandy Reinke
Flight by Lones Sieber

Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Prize

Winner

Gaping Hole by Kate Felix

Finalists

NSFW by Elise Burke
Wheat Country Weddings by Susan Lowell
Bones by Gabe Oppenheim
Son by Jesse Sensibar
Two by Courtney Youngongrats to winners and finalists, and thanks to everyone for entering. We appreciate the opportunity to read your work.

Announcing the Winner and Finalists of the 2018 Nilsen Prize for a First Novel

Southeast Missouri State University Press is pleased to announce that Robert Long Foreman’s manuscript Weird Pig is the winner of the 2018 Nilsen Literary Prize. The prize includes $2,000 and publication of the winning manuscript by the University Press. Weird Pig will be published in October 2020.

Weird Pig is about Weird Pig, a pig who wants to do right. But doing right isn’t always easy. He drinks. He eats pork chops. He rides a skateboard. He gets his fellow farm animals murdered, and fathers an illegitimate son who has a messiah complex. When Weird Pig leaves the farm he calls home, he inspires a series of children’s books that help bring on the end of his little world—a farm where human and beast alike toil in the shadow of an ever-growing factory livestock complex. From farm to table and beyond, follow the misadventures of Weird Pig in this kaleidoscopic portrait of America, seen through the eyes of a crazed animal who insists on making himself at home there. 

Excerpts from Weird Pig, and stories featuring him, have appeared in ten magazines, including Barrelhouse, The Collagist, and Copper Nickel, where three of them won the magazine’s Editor’s Prize. One Weird Pig story was selected by Aimee Bender for inclusion in Best Small Fictions 2018.

Robert Long Foreman is the author of Among Other Things, a collection of essays, which was published in 2017 by Pleiades Press after winning the inaugural Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose. He has won a Pushcart Prize for fiction, and has published short stories and essays in such magazines as Agni, Crazyhorse, Electric Literature, and Kenyon Review Online. He has won contests at The Cincinnati Review,Willow Springs, American Literary Review, and The Journal. 

Otherwise, the competition was fierce this year. We read a lot of great manuscripts, many not even represented on the list below. Here is a full list of finalists:

Winner:

Weird Pig by Robert Long Foreman

Finalists:

Girl in the Moon by JJ Henderson
Mistakes by the Lake by Brian Petkash
Songs of Gold and Shadow: A Novel by Elizabeth Dalton
Solve for N by Leah McCormach

Semi-Finalists

Four Dead Horses by KT Sparks
She Never Told Me About the Ocean by Elizabeth McKetta
Water, A Novel by Naguetalti Warren
Each of Us Angels by Shaylin Montgomery
The Lighting Artist: Or, The Unfortunate History of an Information Girl by Nicola Waldron

Announcing our 2018 Big Muddy Pushcart Nominees

Once again, we had a ton of great work to choose from, but our staff came together and decided we’d be nominating the following to send off to Pushcart this year:

“The Leisure Class” by Maureen Aitken (Fiction) (18.2)
“Nobody Promised Milk and Honey” by Ron A. Austin (Fiction) (18.2)
“The Saddest Man in the World” by Brandon Hobson (Fiction) (18.2)
“According to the OED, ‘Anima’ Is the Opposite of ‘Persona’” by Dylan Loring (Poem) (18.2)
“Building a New Chicago” by Michael VanCalbergh (Poem) (18.2)
“When I Walk” by Victoria Walls (Poem) (18.2)

Haesong Kwon’s The People’s Field Selected as Winner of the 2018 Cowles Poetry Prize

SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS is pleased to announce that Haesong Kwon’s manuscript The People’s Field has been selected by our final judge, Jenny Yang Cropp, as the winner of the 2018 Cowles Poetry Prize. Kwon’s book will be published in fall 2019. A full list of finalists and semi-finalists is below.

 With attention to the Japanese occupation, the Korean War and its aftermath, The People’s Field reflects on the sounds, ideas and histories of the Korean peninsula. Of her selection, Cropp writes, “Kwon’s manuscript contains a paradoxical experience of both movement and stillness, history and the eternal present. These poems, short and spare, carry the intensity of distillation but resist the epigrammatic as they show us a rich and complex landscape that asks for and earns reading after reading.”

Haesong Kwon is the author of the chapbook Many Have Fallen (Cutbank Books). His poems have appeared in New Orleans Review, Quarterly West, Mid-American Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Yalobusha Review, Louisville Review, Redivider and others. He lives in Shiprock, New Mexico and teaches at Diné College.

The Cowles Poetry Book Prize takes place annually, with submissions closing on April 1 each year. Southeast Missouri State University Press, founded in 2001, serves both as a publisher and as a working laboratory for students interested in learning the art and skills of literary publishing.

Finalists

Inside Ball Lightning by Rainie Oet
Notes on Vanishing by Cammy Pedroja
Out of the Cosmos Factory by Tony Trigilio

Semi-finalists

Rare, Wondrous Things by Alyse Bensel
Thanksgiving Dinner in a Rich Zip Code by Stephanie Brown
Ten Thousand Volts by Richard Cecil
An Expectation of Broken Things by Reese Conner
The Dreams of Weapons by Melissa Ginsburg
Gadfly Apocrypha by Brad Johnson
A More Country by Claire McQuerry
Sharks vs. Selfies by Martin Ott
I Will Tell All Myself by Todd Osborne
Compass for Hands by Bret Shepard
Shorless by Enid Shomer
You Are Still Alive by William Stobb
Playing House on the Bones by Anna Sutton
The Inscrutable World by M. A. Vizsolyi
Guilt Ledger by Ross White
Local Talent by Jacob Wright

It was a pleasure reading everyone’s work!

Announcing the 2017 Nilsen Prize for a First Novel Winner and Finalists

Southeast Missouri State University Press is thrilled to announce the winner and finalists of our Nilsen Prize for a First Novel. This was the first year that the contest was held through Submittable, and we found that it really sped up the process. If it seems like we’re announcing the winner earlier than usual, that has a lot to do with it, but much of the credit for that goes to our fantastic interns and Graduate Assistants who worked hard all fall and the first month and a half of spring semester to read through the many, many wonderful manuscripts we received, to help pick our finalists and winner. Without further ado, then, here are the results:

Winner

Avery Colt is a Snake, A Thief, A Liar by Ron Austin

Austin’s semi-autobiographical, linked story collection follows the misadventures of Avery Colt as he  struggles to survive in North St. Louis alongside his family. Learning the best way to slaughter a goat, rebuilding his family’s corner market, and reckoning the weight of a revolver are a few of the challenges Avery faces. As he matures through each page, Avery takes control of his circumstances and attempts dangerous feats of alchemy. By confronting his own fears and limitations, he seeks to transform cruelty into compassion, rind into fruit, despair into hope. Charged with urgency and emotion, Austin’s prose faithfully renders a community determined to overcome crisis with strength, dark humor, and plenty of heart. The book will be published in Fall 2019.

Stories from the collection have been published in Black Warrior Review, Natural Bridge, Draft Horse, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, december, The Masters Review, Ninth Letter, Cog, Tahoma Literary Review, and Story Quarterly.

Ron A. Austin holds a MFA from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, has served as an editor for december and River Styx, and is a 2016 Regional Arts Commission Fellow. He has taught creative writing at the Pierre Laclede Honors College. He, his partner Jennie, and son Elijah live in St. Louis with a whippet named Carmen.

Finalists

We Eat This Gold by Chris Drew
Weird Pig by Robert Long Foreman
A Sensual Guide to Housekeeping by Jeff Hayden
The Last Innocent Year: Stories by Kerry Jones
Someday Everything Will All Make Sense by Carol LaHines
Boys and Girls by Jane McDermott

Thank you all for your entries. Next year’s contest is open as of now. We can’t wait to read what you send!

Announcing the Winners of Big Muddy’s Might River Short Story Contest and the Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest

We are excited to announce the winners of Big Muddy’s annual Mighty River Short Story Contest and the Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest. See the winners and finalists below!

Mighty River Short Story Contest

Winner

“Halloween, 2001” by Giovanna Varela

Giovanna Varela’s work is severely influenced by her hometown of Central Florida. She is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at The New School, and an MFA in film production at Emerson College. Her pilot script, “Flamingo City,” won 2nd place in Nevada International Film Festival’s 2017 TV screenplay competition. Her flash fiction has been published in Folio, Literary Juice, Rock & Sling, and the Owen Wister Review, and is forthcoming in Southern Indiana Review and Moon City Review. 

Finalists

“Nature Programs” by Richard Bartel
“Lunar Hymns” by Ryan Boyle
“Love Me Through a Hurricane” by Amina Gautier
“Many Other Ways to Die” by Lisa McKenzie

Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest

Winner

“Story, Baby” by Kate Simonian

Kate Osana Simonian is an Armenian-Australian writer of fiction and essays. She attends the English PhD program at Texas Tech as a Presidential Fellow. In 2017, she received the Nelson Algren Award and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers Conference. Her work has been published by, or is forthcoming in, Ninth Letter, The Kenyon Review Online, The Chicago Tribune, and The Best Australian Stories.

Finalists

“Lies” by Andi Boyd
“Hearts & Spades” by Ryan Boyle
“What a Drag it is Getting Old (M. Jagger) by Yvonne Fein
“El Pobrecito on Catolico Street” by Mario Padilla

Congratulations to the winners and finalists!

Next year’s contests are open for submissions. For more information, see our events and contests page.

Avalialble Now: Writing By American Warriors, Volume 6

Proud to Be: Writing By American Warriors, vol. 6 will be out soon and we have a pre-order page up for it. Have a look for a list of contest winners and included pieces:

Proud to Be: Writing By American Warriors, Volume 6

2017 Big Muddy Pushcart Prize Nominees

Big Muddy would like to congratulate our Pushcart Prize nominees for 2017, chosen from issues 17.1 and 17.2 (the latter of which will be back from the printers any day now!)

Here are the nominees:

“Hangman’s Game” by Sam Martone (17.2)
“One Trick Pony” by J. Bowers (17.2)
“Missouri is a Ghost Shaped Thing” by John Dorsey (17.2)
“Speaking in Rivers” by Keith Donnell Jr. (17.1)
“Midway” by Jessica Fokken (17.1)
“older” by Charlotte Covey (17.1)

Best of luck to all of you!

Also, sheesh, was it hard to narrow the list down to just six! Thanks for all the great reading you keep sending our way. We look forward to all of the submissions to come!

Congratulations to the winner and finalists of the 2017 Cowles Poetry Book Prize

Southeast Missouri State University Press is pleased to announce that Emma Bolden’s manuscript House is an Enigma is the winner of the 2017 Cowles Poetry Prize, judged by Susan Swartwout. The prize includes $2,000 and publication of the winning manuscript by the University Press. Ms. Bolden’s book will be published in October 2018.

House is an Enigma is an investigation of the language used to house descriptions of the body, which so often seek to define and determine the boundaries and behaviors of the spirit that lives within. Written after Bolden’s radical hysterectomy, during which she noted her doctors’ use of house metaphors to describe her body and discuss her inability to have children, these stunning poems set out to expose the fissures in the foundations of the language we use to define human bodies and their behaviors, using these cracks as a lens through which she can see her own body, at last, as her own flawed but beautiful home.

Emma Bolden is the author of two books, Malificae and medi(t)ations, and several chapbooks. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Colorado Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Salamander, National Poetry Review, Nimrod, Triquarterly, Fairy Tale Review, Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, StoryQuarterly, Bellingham Review, DIAGRAM, Monkeybicycle, and Gulf Coast among other venues. Bolden received a 2017 Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Winner

House is an Enigma by Emma Bolden

Finalists

Reverse Migration by Leah Angstman
Days Since a Lost Time Accident by Steve Bellin-Oka
Rare, Wondrous Things by Alyse Bensel
You, Them, Her by Allison Blevins
If Not This Then What by J.L. Conrad
Cut Words and Other Trimmings by Kathryn Gessner Calkins
Glass is Glass Water is Water by Rae Gouirand
Temple of Bureaucratic Kindness by Brad Johnson
Inside Ball Lightning by Jacob Oet
Repeater by Michael C. Peterson
History of Gone by Lynn Schmeidler

Review of Big Muddy 17.1 Featured on New Pages

Our latest issue of Big Muddy was reviewed on New Pages. Turns out, they really liked it. Here’s a link to the review:

https://www.newpages.com/literary-magazine-reviews/big-muddy-2017

Author Tom Cushman passes away at 83

University Press author and friend Tom Cushman passed away earlier this month at the age of 83. A longtime sports columnist and journalist, Tom published Muhammad Ali and the Greatest Heavyweight Generation with the University Press in 2009.

Tom Cushman was born in St. Louis in 1934. He received his BA from Southeast Missouri State University and graduated from University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. For over 40 years, he worked as a reporter for the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph (1959–1966), as reporter and eventually staff columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News (1966–1982), as Sports Editor and columnist for the San Diego Tribune (1982–1992), and as Sports Editor and columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune (1992–2002).

In his years as a sportswriter, he covered 10 Olympic Games, 25 World Series, 26 Super Bowls, 30 NCAA Final Fours, 21 Masters Golf Tournaments, 18 U.S. Open Golf Tournaments, and major professional boxing matches on four continents. He was the first writer outside New York City to receive the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism.

Tom is survived by his wife, Lois, son, Scott, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren.

Read more about Tom’s life and career here.

2016 Nilsen Prize Winner

Congratulations to the winner and finalists for the 2016 Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel.

Winner
The Patron Saint of Lost Girls
Maureen Aitken, Minneapolis, MN

Born and raised in Detroit, Maureen Aitken teaches writing at the University of Minnesota, where she received her MFA degree. The recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations, her stories have appeared in venues including Prairie Schooner, The Journal, Night Train, and Puerto del Sol.

The Patron Saint of Lost Girls is about Mary, a Detroit native who must transcend violence in her urban environment by facing her fears of exploitation, abuse, and death. An ode to the creative spirit’s ability to transcend hardship, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls paints an unflinching portrait of the violence and injustice inflicted on women in America, while also exploring the depth of familial connections and what it meant to live in Detroit in the 70s and 80s.

Finalists

The Essential Nature of Water; Or, The Everard File
Heather N. Martin, Englewood, CO

The Last Innocent Years: Stories
Kerry Jones, Wichita, KS

Or Wanting to Be Known
Miranda Schmidt, Portland,OR

Pioneer Camp
Christian Felt, Ogden, UT

The Visibility of Things Long Submerged
George Looney, Erie, PA

Proud to Be Contributor Adreon Publishes Memoir on Korean War

Korean War Veteran and Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors contributor Leonard Adreon released his memoir Hilltop Doc: A Marine Corpsman Fighting Through the Mud and Blood of the Korean War.

More information about Hilltop Doc can be found at http://www.hilltopdoc.com

Poet Angie Macri’s work featured in Henderson State University show

Angie Macri’s work will be featured in the “Nasty Woman” exhibit at Russell Fine Arts Gallery at Henderson State University, opening March 1.

Click here for more information about the exhibit.

2016 Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction and Mighty River Short Story Contest Winners

Congratulations to the winners and finalists for the 2016 fiction contests.

Mighty River Short Story Contest
Winner:
In the Jungle
Jeremy Griffin, Myrtle Beach, SC

Finalists:
Resurrecting Grandma
Paula Younger, Denver, CO

Crush
Colin Brezicki, Niagra on the Lake, Ontario

Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest
Winner:
“Frayed Cords and Pink Underwear”
Shannon Sweetnam, Lake Forest, IL

Finalists:
“Back on the River”
Rick Donahoe, Yellow Springs, OH

“Love Seat”
Maryna Ajaja, Seattle, WA

Winners will be published in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, 17.1.

Welcoming new Director, James Brubaker

As of December 31, 2016, the University Press’s founder, Dr. Susan Swartwout, will be happily retired from the University and University Press.

Our new director will be Dr. James Brubaker, upressdirector@semo.edu. James  is the author of a book of short stories, Liner Notes, a short volume of pilot episodes for fictional television shows, Pilot Season, Black Magic Death Sphere: (Science) Fictions (which won the 2014 Pressgang Prize), and a number of short stories. His website is https://jamesbrubaker.net/

Welcome, James!

2016 Cowles Poetry Book Prize Winner

Congratulations to the winner and finalists for the 2016 Cowles Poetry Book Prize.

Winner
Telling My Father
James Crews, Shaftsbury, VT

Finalists
Lost Valley
Travis Mossotti, St. Louis, MO

The Old Worlds
Doug Ramspeck, Lima, OH

What to Pack, What to Carry
Elizabeth Rees, Silver Spring, MD

Winning and selected writing for Proud to Be, Vol. 5

We are happy to announce the winning and selected writing for Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Volume 5.

Book launch for “Gifts of Oneself: Art and Writing by James H. Hamby”

(Click to enlarge.)

Email upress@semo.edu with any questions about the launch.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Vijay Seshadri to read September 28

Pulitzer Prize-Winning New York Poet Vijay Seshadri will perform a public reading at Southeast on Wednesday, September 28, 7:00 – 8:00 pm in the Glenn Auditorium, Dempster Hall. A booksigning will follow the reading. The event is free and open to the public, and is funded by the Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Visiting Writers Series and Southeast Missouri State University Press.

Vijay Seshadri by Beowulf Sheehan

Poet Erik Campbell reading September 14

Poet Erik Campbell will be reading Wednesday, September 14 at 7 PM in the University Center Ball Room B as part of the Missouri Arts Council Visiting Writer Series. A book signing will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

Rules for Lying releasing September 1

Author Anne Corbitt with her Nilsen Prize-winning novel, Rules for Lying, which releases September 1. Read more about Rules for Lying here.

2015 Nilsen Prize Winner

Congratulations to the winner and finalists for the 2015 Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel.

Winner
The Pie Man
John Surowiecki, Amston, CT

Finalists
The Shadows of 1915
Jerry M. Burger, Sunnyvale, CA

Field Notes
E.D. Edwards, Greensboro, NC

Macri poem chosen for Verse Daily

Congratulations to Angie Macri, whose poem “Watershed” was chosen by Verse Daily.

Read “Watershed” via Verse Daily here, and find out more about Angie’s full-length book, Underwater Panther, here.

Reading and booksigning by Proud to Be authors at Missouri History Museum

On June 12, Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors authors Scott Owen, Valerie Young, Tony Mena, and Jay Harden gave a reading at the Missouri State History Museum in St. Louis.

Left to right: Scott Owen, Valerie Young, Tony Mena, and Jay Harden (Click to enlarge photo.)

2015 Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction and Mighty River Short Story Contest Winners

Congratulations to the winners and finalists for the 2015 fiction contests.

Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest
Winner:
“The Mockingbird”
John Blair, San Marcos, TX

Finalist:
“Where’s George”
Anne Dimock, Los Altos, CA

Mighty River Short Story Contest
Winner:
“Teachers”
Elisabeth Doyle, Washington, DC

Finalist:
“Freezerdog”
Carol Tiffany, Pottersville, NJ

Winners will be published in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, 16.1.

2016 Hanks Poetry Award Winners

Congratulations to the following poets, whose poems published in The Cape Rock won awards in the St. Louis Poetry Center’s Stanley Hanks Poetry Award competition.

“The Copyist,” by Jane O. Wayne, from The Cape Rock:  2nd place

“Troy, Missouri 2001,” by Mallory Bochantin, from The Cape Rock:  Honorable Mention

 The poems will be printed in The Poetry Awards Concert chapbook. The Poetry Awards Concert, with readings by all winners, will be held on Sunday, May 15th, at 1:30 at the Focal Point in Maplewood, Missouri.

Beth Lordan to read at Graduate Conference

Fiction writer and professor Beth Lordan will read at the Southeast Missouri State University English Graduate Student Conference on April 14 at 7 P.M, in the University Center Ballroom A. The reading is free and open to the public.

2015 Cowles Poetry Book Prize Winner

Congratulations to the winner and finalists for the 2015 Cowles Poetry Book Prize.

Winner
Everyone at This Party Has Two Names 
Brad Aaron Modlin, Athens, OH

Finalists
Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure
Angela Ball, Hattiesburg, MS

My Kind of Darkness
Gaylord Brewer, Lascassas, TN

Stray
Adam Houle, Darlington, SC

Bird Singing in the Moonlight
Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Sacramento, CA

Ode to the Earth in Translation
George Looney, Erie, PA

Lost Valley
Travis Mossotti, St. Louis, MO

Red Bull Rising reviews “Proud to Be, Vol. 4”

Thank you to Red Bull Rising for reviewing Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Volume 4.

Read Red Bull Rising’s review here.

The Gorge’s David Armand interviewed by Late Night Library, Deep South Magazine

Read David Armand’s interviews with Late Night Library here and with Deep South Magazine here.

Proud to Be, volume 4 book launch and reading

Join us for the launch of the latest volume in our Partners in Military Service series on December 19. Click below for more details.

James Tate Hill interviewed by Writer’s Bone

Check out Academy Gothic author James Tate Hill’s interview with Writer’s Bone here.

Proud to Be, volume 4, selected pieces

We are happy to announce the winning and selected writing for Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Volume 4.

“Academy Gothic” book trailer

Watch the book trailer for James Tate Hill’s Nilsen Prize-winning novel Academy Gothic here on YouTube.

2014 Nilsen Prize Winners

Congratulations to the winner and finalists of the 2014 Nilsen Prize for a First Novel.

Winner
Rules For Lying
Anne Corbitt, Atlanta, GA

Finalists
A Ghost at the Edge of the Sea
Emily Breunig, Los Altos, CA

Marion Hatley
Beth Castrodale. Jamaica Plain, MA

Kate Bernheimer to visit Southeast in September

Author and editor Kate Bernheimer will be visiting Southeast in September as a part of the Nilsen Visiting Writer Series.

Winner of inaugural Cowles Poetry Book Prize

Congratulations to Angie Macri of Hot Springs, Arkansas, for winning the first Cowles Poetry Book Prize. Her winning manuscript, Underwater Panther, will be published in fall 2015.

Winners of 2014 Fiction Contests

Congratulations to the winners and finalists of the 2014 Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction and Mighty River Short Story contests, Jeannine Dorian Vesser and Hannah Gildea.

University Press display at 2015 Provost’s Showcase

Books published by Southeast Missouri State University Press were on display at Southeast’s 2015 Provost’s Showcase.

Pulitzer Prize Winner visits Southeast

Pulitzer Prize Winning poet Stephen Dunn performed a reading at Southeast Missouri State University on April 16 at Rose Theatre as part of the Nilsen Visiting Writer Series. Click here to watch the video of his reading and click here to listen to his interview on KRCU.