Word Press, a division of WordTech Communications, is an independent literary press. We are devoted to publishing and distributing the best new poetry through an annual competition and other channels.
Rare Space by Leslie Anne Mcilroy of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the winner of the 2001 Word Press Poetry Prize. Ms. Mcilroy will receive $1,000 and publication of her manuscript in July 2001 by Word Press.
Ms. Mcilroy has already been recognized as one of the most promising poets of her generation with her inclusion in Carnegie-Mellon University Press's definitive anthology American Poetry: The Next Generation. The publication of Rare Space, her first full-length collection, confirms this promise. Ms. Mcilroy's poetry is a triumph of wit and skill. She writes a hard, edgy free-verse line, but the tautness of her language is softened by the compassion of human relationship-family, lovers, friends. As the poem "Gravel" concludes:
Who else, I wonder,
could know all this,
place a finger on the heart
without flinching
from the very beat
of the thing?
As the poet Billy Collins has noted, "Using a hard diction
and sawed-off lines, Leslie Anne Mcilroy explores a smoky after-hours
drama of longing and failure, lust and courage. Her tough style
is almost successful at hiding the love that drives these strong
poems."
Leslie Anne Mcilroy is an advertising copywriter for The Kaiser Group. She is also Managing Editor and cofounder of HEArt--Human Equity Through Art--a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization publishing the nation's only journal of literature and art devoted to confronting discrimination and promoting social justice. Her awards include the Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Competition for her chapbook Gravel and first place in the 1997 Chicago Literary Awards Competition judged by Gerald Stern.
Please send $15.00 plus $2.00 shipping and handling (check, money order or credit card via our order page) to Word Press, P.O. Box 541106, Cincincinnati, Ohio 45254-1106.
The 2002 Word Press Poetry Prize competition is open to any poet writing in English. The deadline for the 2002 competition is December 1, 2001. Interested poets should submit a minimum 48-page manuscript, $20 reading fee, $5 for copy of winning book, and SASE to Word Press, P.O. Box 541106, Cincinnati, OH 45254-1106. The winner receives $1,000, publication, and 25 copies of his/her book.