Happy New Year from New Issues

2009 was a fantastic year for New Issues and our authors. We started off 2009 by announcing that Malinda Markham won the 2009 Green Rose Prize and that Marvin Bell picked Judy Halebsky's Sky=Empty as the winner of our first book prize. These books are at the printer and will be released this spring, just in time for the 2010 AWP Bookfair in Denver.


We published seven books of poetry and one novel:

• Zero at the Bone by Stacie Cassarino
• A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks, Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize
• Dirt Angels by Donald Platt
• Hilarity by Patty Seyburn, Winner of the 2008 Green Rose Prize
• Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster
• Missing Her by Claudia Keelan
• Beauty Breaks In by Mary Ann Samyn
• We Agreed to Meet Just Here by Scott Blackwood, Winner of the 2007 AWP Award for the Novel

Here are some of the highlights of 2009:

Myronn Hardy’s The Headless Saints won the 2009 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award from the The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.

Jericho Brown's book Please continues to heap up honors. Most recently, he was named a winner of the 30th Annual American Book Awards, a rare if not exceptional accomplishment for a writer of a first book, placing him this year alongside such national treasures as Jack Spicer and Linda Gregg. Jericho Brown also received the 2009 Whiting Writers’ Award. Please, released in October of 2008, has become a New Issues best seller, needing to be reprinted twice already.

Katie Peterson (This One Tree, 2007) and Jericho Brown (Please, 2008) each were awarded a Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and are spending the 2009/2010 academic year at Harvard working on their poetry.

Justin Mark’s A Million in Prizes (Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize) was featured in Poets & Writers’ fifth annual Debut Poets Roundup.

Sandra Beasley, whose debut poetry collection Theories of Falling won our 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize, had her second book of poetry (I Was the Jukebox, Norton, April 2010) chosen by Joy Harjo as the winner of the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize and her memoir (Don't Kill the Birthday Girl) purchased by Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, for a 2010 publication.

Our first annual Fundraiser Gala exceed our expectations. The Eccentric Café of Kalamazoo’s own Bell’s Brewery hosted the event, which brought many of our authors, friends, and supporters together for an afternoon of music, poetry, and art auctions.

On Deck for 2010:

In a few weeks we expect to announce the winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize. In April, judge Linda Gregerson will pick a first book to win our 2010 New Issues Poetry Prize.

February: Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders by Goldie Goldbloom will be released. This novel, winner of the 2008 AWP Award for the Novel, selected by Joanna Scott, is set in the Australian outback during WWII and introduces us to the character of Gin Toad, a truly original voice.

We'll see everyone in April at the 2010 AWP Conference and Bookfair. Come by our table for book signings and to see three newly released poetry books:

• Sky=Empty by Judy Halebsky
• Having Cut the Sparrow’s Heart by Malinda Markham
• Tocqueville by Khaled Mattawa

In the fall of 2010, New Issues will publish the following poetry collections:

• Vivisect by Lisa Lewis
• Reliquary Fever: Selected & New Poems by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
• Pima Road Notebook by Keith Ekiss

And check our website soon to see a complete redesign. It's almost done, I swear!

March is Small Press Month

Happy Small Press Month! Here at New Issues we're very proud of our writers, and our writers have all been very busy lately. Here are just a few examples of the awards and attention our writers have received recently:

Jennifer Perrine, author of The Body is No Machine (New Issues, 2007) won the 2008 Ledge Poetry Award for “A Transparent Man Is Hard to Find.” She received $1,000, and her poem will be published in the Ledge.

Marc Sheehan of Grand Haven, MI, author of Greatest Hits (New Issues, 1998) won the 2008 Richard Snyder Publication Prize for his poetry collection Field Guide to the Native Emotions of Michigan. He received $1,000 and publication of his book by Ashland Poetry Press. Elton Glaser judged.

Katie Peterson, author of This One Tree (New Issues, 2006), and Jericho Brown, author of Please (New Issues, 2008), have both received a Bunting Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Sandra Beasley's memoir Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life was taken by Crown. Poet and American Scholar editor Beasley is the author of the poetry collection Theories of Falling (New Issues, 2008). Crown's pub date is late 2010.

Lewis Horton, a contributor to the Art of the One-Act anthology, just released his novel, The Writing Class, published by Aberdeen Bay Books.

Elaine Sexton's Causeway (New Issues, 2008) has been named a finalist for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Jericho Brown's Please (New Issues, 2008) has been named a finalist for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. The Publishing Triangle hands out both awards.