We're absolutely over the friggin moon to announce that Steven Dunn, author of Potted Meat and Water & Power, both from Tarpaulin Sky Press, has won a Whiting Award for Fiction. The $50,000 award is "based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come." Indeed!
We are thrilled to announce that Lauren Russell is the 2021 recipient of the Anna Rabinowitz Prize from the Poetry Society of America, for Descent, published by Tarpaulin Sky Press: "a project of personal historical documentation that has resonances for many in this country."
We're unsurprised, but delighted to announce that Lauren's Russell's Descent is a Poetry Bestseller at Small Press Distribution.
"Descent is a book about identity, about family—and a book about Black women and their erasure. How they were and in some ways continue to be erased from the historical record, from positions of power. From control over their own bodies. From what can be considered beautiful or joyful." -- Jesi Buell, The Rumpus
"Descent is as complex and compelling as our most storied epics, historical and contemporary, and it reflects hybrid writing at its very best. I am reminded of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dicteé, another book that is so moving it’s hard to keep reading and also hard to put down." --Anna Vitale, Full Stop
At a time when happiness feels difficult to come by, we are happy to announce our short-listed manuscripts and the winner of the 2020 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Poets & Writers Page One -- "Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin" -- features Lauren Russell's Descent, including audio of Lauren reading an excerpt from the book.
We are grateful to Kenyon Review Nonfiction Editor Geeta Kothari for recommending Lauren Russell's "necessary and urgent" Descent (Tarpaulin Sky Press 2020).
Poets & Writers interviews Lauren Russell about her new book from Tarpaulin Sky Press, a hybrid of poetry and memoir, Descent.