SIR Press Authors

2023 Prize Winner

Natalie Louise Tombasco is a poet, editor, and teacher from Staten Island, NY. Tombasco holds an MFA from Butler University and a PhD in creative writing from Florida State University. She is a visiting assistant  professor at the University of Tampa. Recent work can be found in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, Diode Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, and The Cincinnati Review, among others.

Milk for Gall is available for pre-order online from SIR Press.

2022 Prize Winner

Chelsea Woodard is also the author of the collections Vellum (Able Muse Press, 2014) and Solitary Bee (Measure Press, 2016). Her work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Southwest Review, 32 Poems, River Styx, Blackbird, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and a residency at Vermont Studio Center. Woodard teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

At the Lepidopterist's House is available is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2021 Prize Winner

Bethany Schultz Hurst’s first book, Miss Lost Nation, was selected by Richard Blanco for the Anhinga Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her work was selected for Best American Poetry 2015 and has appeared in journals such as Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, Narrative, New Ohio Review, and Poetry Northwest. A recipient of a Literary Arts Fellowship through the Idaho Commission on the Arts, Hurst holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University and is currently a professor at Idaho State University.

Blueprint and Ruin is available is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2020 Prize Winner

Erin Rodoni is the author of two previous poetry collections: Body, in Good Light and A Landscape for Loss. Her poems have been published in Best New Poets 2014, Blackbird, Colorado Review, EcoTheo Review, and Poetry Northwest, among others. She has been honored with awards from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, The Montreal International Poetry Prize, and Ninth Letter. Rodoni teaches at the Writing Salon in San Francisco and serves on the board of the Marin Poetry Center. She lives in San Rafael, California, with her husband and two daughters.

And if the Woods Carry You is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2019 Prize Winner

Julia Koets is the winner of the 2017 Red Hen Press Nonfiction Book Award judged by Mark Doty for The Rib Joint: A Memoir in Essays. Her first poetry collection, Hold Like Owls (University of South Carolina Press), won the 2011 South Carolina Poetry Book Prize judged by National Book Award winner Nikky Finney. Koets’s essays and poems have recently appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Indiana Review, The Los Angeles Review, and Portland Review. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of South Carolina and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. Koets is an assistant professor of creative nonfiction at the University of South Florida. 

Pine is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2018 Prize Winner

Chelsea Wagenaar is the author of Mercy Spurs the Bone, selected by Philip Levine as the 2013 winner of the Philip Levine Prize. She holds a BA from the University of Virginia and a PhD from the University of North Texas. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Gulf Coast, Crazyhorse, and many others. Wagenaar teaches at Valparaiso University in Indiana, where she lives with her husband, Mark, and their two children.

The Spinning Place is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2017 Prize Winner

Marty McConnell is the author of wine for a shotgun (EM Press, 2013) and Gathering Voices: Creating a Community-Based Poetry Workshop (YesYes Books, 2018). She is the co-creator of underbelly, an online magazine focused on the art and magic of poetry revision. An MFA graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Best American Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, and Indiana Review. She lives in Chicago with her wife, visual artist Lindsey Dorr-Niro.

when they say you can't go home again, what they mean is you were never there is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2016 Prize Winner

Ruth Awad has an MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Missouri Review, The Adroit Journal, Sixth Finch, Diode, Rattle, Vinyl Poetry, Drunken Boat, CALYX, and in the anthologies The Hundred Years' War: Modern War Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2014), New Poetry from the Midwest 2014(New American Press, 2015), and Poets on Growth (Math Paper Press, 2015). She won the 2012 and 2013 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and the 2011 Copper Nickel Poetry Contest, and she was a finalist for the 2013 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Set to Music a Wildfire is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2015 Prize Winner

Annie Kim is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers and the recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.  Her poems appear in journals such as Mudlark, Ninth Letter, Asian American Literary Review, and DMQ Review. Cyclorama, her first poetry collection, was also selected as a finalist for the 2015 Brittingham/Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry and the Kundiman Poetry Prize.  She lives with her husband in Charlottesville, Virginia, and works at the University of Virginia School of Law as the Assistant Dean for Public Service.

Into the Cyclorama, is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2014 Prize Winners

Dennis Hinrichsen is the author of seven books of poetry. His most recent are Rip-tooth (2010 Tampa Poetry Prize) and Kurosawa's Dog (2008 FIELD Poetry Prize). An earlier work, Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights, was awarded the 1999 Akron Poetry Prize. New work of his can be found in Basalt, Hunger Mountain, Memorious, the museum of americana, Sou'wester, as well as the anthology Poetry in Michigan/Michigan in Poetry from New Issues Press. Hinrichsen lives in Lansing, Michigan.

Skin Music is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

Hannah Faith Notess is the author of Ghost House, a chapbook of poems (Floating Bridge Press, 2013) and editor of Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical (Cascade Books, 2009). She earned an MFA from Indiana University, and her poems have appeared in Rattle, Slate, Los Angeles Review, and Image, among other journals. She is the managing editor of Seattle Pacific University's Response magazine and lives in Seattle with her family.

The Multitude is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.

2013 Prize Winner

Doug Ramspeck is the author of four previous poetry collections. His most recent book, Mechanical Fireflies (2011), received the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. His first book, Black Tupelo Country (BkMk Press, 2008), received the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in journals that include Slate, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and AGNI. He is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Ramspeck teaches creative writing and directs the Writing Center at The Ohio State University at Lima. 

Original Bodies, is available in bookstores and online from SIR Press.