We don’t need to tell you that the last several months have been exceptionally brutal. Nor will we comment further, except to say it is in the context of this nationwide brutality that we read manuscripts for the 2017 TS Book Prizes.
We received a rather overwhelming number of expertly crafted texts — literally hundreds, among the several hundred sent to us in total. Choosing our next titles was not easy. It never is. But this go-round felt even more difficult than usual.
No one here is a fan of such terms as “winner” or “finalist” or “semifinalist.” We are using these terms, however, for the benefit of the good folk on the list that follows. We realize that it would be difficult to tell future prospective publishers, or employers, that one’s manuscript was named among the “Voces Mysticae” in a “Ritual Ordeal” presided over by the Hierophants of the Tarpaulin Sky Cult.
The winners of the 2017 TS Book Prizes will join our already-scheduled lineup for 2018 and beyond, which includes a collection of short fiction by Rebecca Brown, Not Heaven, Somewhere Else; a new edition of Claire Donato’s poetry collection, The Second Body; a novel by Steven Dunn, Water & Power; a memoir by Johannes Göransson, Poetry Against All: Diaries; and Christian Peet’s true-crime novel Angela’s Story. New work by finalists will very likely appear in our magazine in the coming days.
2017 TARPAULIN SKY BOOK PRIZE WINNERS
Jennifer S. Cheng
Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems
Hybrid / Poetry / Prose
Chosen by Bhanu Kapil
Jennifer S. Cheng is a cross-genre writer. She is the author of House A, selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize, and Invocation: An Essay, an image-text chapbook published by New Michigan Press. Her poetry, lyric essays, and critical writing appear in Tin House, AGNI, Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, The Offing, Entropy, Jacket2, Guernica, and elsewhere. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong and received fellowships and awards from Brown University, the University of Iowa, San Francisco State University, Bread Loaf, Kundiman, and the Academy of American Poets. Having grown up in Texas and Hong Kong, she lives in San Francisco. www.jenniferscheng.com
Piper J. Daniels
Ladies Lazarus
Nonfiction /Essays
Chosen by TS Editors
Piper J. Daniels is a Michigan native, queer intersectional feminist, and professional ghostwriter who holds a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA from the University of Washington. Her work appears in Hotel Amerika, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle, Washington and in Phoenix, Arizona with her dog, Omar Little Daniels.
FINALISTS
Cynthia Arrieu-King
The Betweens
Lisa Marie Basile & Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein
Nympholepsy
Bridget Brewer
Beasts of Revelation
Meredith Clark
Lyrebird
Kate Colby
The Itch
Dia Felix
La Spleen / Sex Panic
Colleen Hollister
Daughters
Anna Maria Hong
H & G
Ivy Johnson
Born Again
Grant Maierhofer
Drain Songs
Miranda Metelski
Resisting the Book of a Woman Possessed
Katy Mongeau
Possession, Dormition
Aimee Parkison
Gina in the Fire
Katie Jean Shinkle
Ruination
John Staples
Your Own Worst Enemy
Grace Talusan
The Body Papers
John Trefry
Apparitions of the Living
Margaret Wedge
Knickpoint
SEMIFINALISTS
Julie Babcock
Rules For Rearrangement
Cornelia Barber
Of Mouth and River
Brad Baumgartner
Celeste: Our Lady of Flowering Marvel
Erin M. Bertram
The Vanishing of Camille Claudel
Marty Cain
The Wound Is (Not) Real: A Memoir
Serena Chopra
Queerly is the Night
Joshua Corey
Hannah and the Master
Martin Corless-Smith
Anon
Meg Cowen
Chiaroscuro
Isabelle Davis
Light Curtained It
Brett DeFries
Incoming
Karen Donovan
Aard-vark to Axolotl
Biswamit Dwibedy
Hubble Gardener
Maia Elgin
Neverhurt: A Circus in Five Nuva Rings
David Feinstein
Death Drive
Alaina Ferris
To Be Awake Means To Will
Bradley J. Fest
The Shape of Things
Declan Gould
Dis-figuring
Nicholas Gulig
Orient
Claire Hero
The Raw & The Cooked
Abeer Y. Hoque
Memory Alone
Tim Jones-Yelvington
Strike a Prose: Memoirs of a Lit Diva Extraordinaire
Jeff T. Johnson
The Book / Or / The Woods
Jared Joseph
love / love. love. Love / love. love?) love / love / love / Love
Kirsten Kaschock
Numbness, the practice
Bobbi Lurie
Tomorrow Will Be More Real Than Yesterday
Jennifer Maritza McCauley
Scar On/Scar Off
Justin Marks
Some Other Self / The Comedown
Kristi Maxwell
As the Weight to the Limb
Megan McShea
Steep in the Boil
Joe Milazzo
Of All Places In This Place Of All Places
Teresa K. Miller
California Building
Christina Milletti
Choke Box: a Fem-Noir
Chris Muravez
The Body Full of Hell
Matthew Nye
Still Life with Opium
Gabriel Ojeda-Sague
Jazzercise is a Language
Michael Peirson
The Bare Facts
Jennifer Pilch
Mother Color
Bailey Pittenger
Sad Sad
Hilary Plum
Superdome
Nina Puro
Each Tree Could Hold a Noose or a House
Natalie Raymond
missoula
Monica Regan
Figure in a Field: Findings from the Cusp of the Anthropocene
Michael Rerick
Moss
Jenny Sadre-Orafai
Malak
Stephanie Sauer
Almonds Are Members of the Peach Family
Kate Schapira
Dear Letter Dear World
Michael J Seidlinger
The Night Fire
Sarah Sgro
Without Them I Am Still A Mother
Jessica Smith
Glazed Glitter
Dao Strom
The Assassin’s Wife
Dennis James Sweeney
In the Antarctic Circle
Dan Thomas-Glass
I Hope That Everyone In the World Is Free
Emily Toder
Waste
Joanna C. Valente
When White Men Tell Me Things About My Body
C.J. Waterman
Superimposed Sky
Leia Penina Wilson
this red metropolis what remains
Candice Wuehle
Party Spirit
Meagen Youngdahl
Arizona Lights
Christina Yu
Yao Skims the Tops of Golden Lilies