The Winner of the 2013 Ballard Poetry Prize is Seven Times to Leave

We are pleased to announce the winner of our annual poetry contest: Jeannette Angell's Seven Times to Leave.

Jeannette Angell is an award-winning author and playwright whose work has been translated into twelve languages and has appeared in fifteen countries. She is also a survivor of intimate-partner abuse and volunteers with an agency providing services to victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse on the Cape.

Our finalist judge was Fred Marchant, poet, professor, and Director of Creative Writing at Suffolk University. He was the 2009 co-winner of the May Sarton Award from the New England Poetry Club, given to poets whose “work is an inspiration to other poets," and his most recent book of poetry, The Looking House, was named by Barnes and Noble Review and the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the best books of poetry in 2009.

Marchant said he particularly appreciated that Seven Times to Leave "presents us with survivors’ tales, stories that teach us the strength of mind and courage of soul that the recovery from such trauma requires."

"These unflinching, brave poems remind us that above all we must keep alive our capacity to love, or else we die somewhere deep within," Marchant said.

Seven Times to Leave will be released in print and as a digital edition on March 19, 2013.

The finalists for the 2013 Mary Kay Ballard Poetry Prize are here!

Judging a contest like this gets very difficult when you get to the finals. Every semi-finalist is so excellent. The staff could sit around and sing the praises of one verse after another, get a little angsty about pushing our favorites, and still, we have to narrow it down to three.

At the next stage, these three chapbooks will be sent to our poet-judge. While our goal is to have a winner in November, the schedule of our judge will determine when we announce. Finalists, we will be in touch with you every step of the way.

I hope all of you will continue to send your poems out into the world. Our contest will open again in late spring. We're thrilled to have read your work.

And here they are:


Jeannette Angell -- Seven Times to Leave

Gail Eisenhart-- A Dip in the Road

S.K. Rhee -- Don’t Forget Me


Congratulations to all of our entrants. What a year it's been!

Announcing the semi-finalists for the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize

We are so pleased to narrow our field of contenders for the contest to these semi-finalists.

Semi-finalists, keep your simultaneous submissions active, but let us know immediately if you need to withdraw. Three finalists will be selected within two weeks, and we need to be certain these three poets are available to accept their publishing contract upon winning.

Congratulations, poets.

Ain't I a Woman -- Ellaraine Lockie
Between a River and the Sea -- Jonathan Veach
Bodily Knowledge -- Brenda Yates
Brie Season -- Jen Karetnick
Busting the Beautiful Cage -- Paul David Adkins
Cricket Song, Autumn Lawns -- Cathy Larson Sky
Dip in the road -- Gail Eisenhart
Don't Forget Me -- S.K. Rhee
East Main Aviary -- Leigh Anne Hornfeldt
Family Sonata -- Lynne Francis
Freelance Zealot -- Matthue Roth
Heart-Shaped Bed in Hiroshima -- Heather Kirn Lanier
Independent City -- Jennifer Tappenden
Just Born -- Sarah Endo
Learning to Love Louisiana -- Elizabeth Burk
My Body, Broken for You -- Ace Baker
November Father -- Rick Marlatt
Path of Concern -- Corey Ginsberg
Pulchritude in All Directions -- Don Shook
Red State Epistles -- Alison Pelegrin
Seven Times to Leave -- Jeannette Angell
Survival and Other Poems -- Savannah Thorne
The Fifteenth Station -- Erik K Mortenson
The First Arts -- Tom Holmes
The Girl Who Came Back -- Meg Eden
The Senses of Place -- Monty Joynes
The Soundness of Broken Pieces -- Lucie Winborne
To That Mythic Country Called Closure -- -M-
Where the Body Lives -- George Such

Announcing the Quarter Finalists for the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize

This has been a truly amazing year for submissions to our poetry prize. We had 350 submissions from all over the world, an incredible field that included many poetry professors, published writers, and Pushcart Prize nominees.

We loved both reading new works by long-time published poets and seeing fresh verses from writers whose work has never before seen print. We were terribly impressed by the submissions this year and totally blown away by quite a number of them. If you didn't get a chance to follow our live tweeting of the judging process, you can still go see our Twitter history.

In the next phase, we will narrow this field of 100 quarterfinalists to about 25 semifinalists to be announced on August 31. Absolutely keep your simultaneous submissions active during this time, but do let us know if you are accepted elsewhere and need to withdraw (three poets got their chapbooks accepted by other publishing companies during the process--YAY for you all! We were thrilled to hear that so many poets are still finding success.)

We will also be talking to our celebrity poet about the timing of judging the finalists, so we can have a rough idea of when we will have a winner this year (last year was late, but Jay Parini was worth it!) We can't wait to tell you about our final judge for the 2013 prize!

Congratulations poets, and please, if we made an error in your title or name, or you would like us to go ahead and switch to your pseudonym, reply to the email you received when we confirmed your original submission to let us know.

And here they are!

A Brief Natural History of an American Girl -- Sarah Freligh
A Little Piece of Mourning -- Jane Ebihara
A Pleading Sound -- Renee Emerson
Admit Two -- Ivy Alvarez
Ain't I a Woman -- Ellaraine Lockie
Alarm Clock Blues -- Helen Ruggieri
Alphabeticon -- Corey Mesler
An Ink Like Early Twilight -- Andrea Potos
At the Beginning or End of the Universe -- Ellen Kombiyil
At the Boundary -- Janet Sunderland
Autumn in My Heart -- Saptarshi Basu
Between a River and the Sea -- Jonathan Veach
Blade Work -- Mary Turzillo
Bodily Knowledge -- Brenda Yates
Breadcrumbs -- Staci R Schoenfeld
Brie Season -- Jen Karetnick
Busting the Beautiful Cage -- Paul David Adkins
Coordinates -- Suzanne Allen
Corrections -- Paul Shepherd
Cricket Song, Autumn Lawns -- Cathy Larson Sky
Day Laborers -- Janet Cannon
Dip in the Road -- Gail Eisenhart
Disabled Monsters -- John C. Mannone
Don't Forget Me -- S.K. Rhee
East Main Aviary -- Leigh Anne Hornfeldt
East, West, North and Sullen -- Lois Marie Harrod
Family Sonata -- Lynne Francis
Firestarters -- Peggy Ann Tartt
Freelance Zealot -- Matthue Roth
Greedier Than Most -- Teneice Durrant Delgado
Heart-Shaped Bed in Hiroshima -- Heather Kirn Lanier
Hong Kong Man -- Kirby Wright
I Am Not Beautiful -- Kate LaDew
I Told My Daughter about the Sharks -- Nan Rush
Independent City -- Jennifer Tappenden
Inside the Drawer of M.M. Socks -- M.M. Socks
Just Born -- Sarah Endo
Keepin' It Real: Slices of Life -- Arvilla Fee
Learning to Love Louisiana -- Elizabeth Burk
Legend's Breathe -- Mariah Boone
Life in the Rain -- Allen Frost
Life under Snow -- Lynne Knight
Listening Through the Bone -- Willy Conley
Long Gone Lonesome Multiverse Blues -- Richard Newman
Looking for Salvation -- Maril Crabtree
Making Our Day -- Lynn Veach Sadler
Mal de Mere -- Salita S. Bryant
Meander Line -- Jeff Streeby
My Body, Broken for You -- Ace Baker
New Mornings -- Christine DeSimone
Nightshirt -- by Jacob Oet
November Father -- Rick Marlatt
November Wasps -- Ann Keniston
Orphans in the Lighthouse -- Tania Pryputniewicz
Out of Silence -- Margaret Rozga
Overtipping the Ferryman -- R.G. Evans
Path of Concern -- Corey Ginsberg
Peculiar Motion -- Robin Kirk
Permanent Ink -- Judith Bader Jones
Phases of a She Moon -- Corinna Underwood
Phoenix -- Jessica Goody
Poem of the Month Club -- Alex Stolis
Prayer for the Thorn -- Victoria Bosch Murray
Pulchritude in All Directions -- Don Shook
Read by Friends -- Judith Offer
Red State Epistles -- Alison Pelegrin
Rembrandt's Bible -- Atar Hadari
Responsible, Reckless: Poems -- Melissa H. Ginsburg
Rockets and Blue Lights -- Rhett Watts
Seaside Graffiti -- Cutter Streeby
Second Skin -- Diana Anhalt
Seven Times to Leave -- Jeannette Angell
She Leaves Us, a Little at a Time -- Sally Clark
She Talks in Our Sleep -- Jackleen Holton
Still Life with Coffee Pot and Kryptonite -- Hilary King
Stories in the Snow -- Steve Klepetar
Survival and Other Poems -- Savannah Thorne
Swans and Other Violence -- Sandra Warwick Soli
The Cloudy Horizon -- Heather Elliott
The Dark Adaptation -- David Hawkins
The Extinction Instinct -- Louise Fabiani
The Fifteenth Station -- Erik K Mortenson
The First Arts -- Tom Holmes
The Girl Singer -- Marianne Worthington
The Girl Who Came Back -- Meg Eden
The Light Box -- Lauren Reynolds
The Men Who Gave Up Drink -- Elizabeth Dougherty Dolan
The Narrow Road -- Nils Peterson
The Queen of Flight -- K.D. Grier
The Saint Factory -- Terry Dugan
The Senses of Place -- Monty Joynes
The Sickly Tree -- Andrew Najberg
The Soundness of Broken Pieces -- Lucie Winborne
These Terrible Dreams -- Conrad Geller
To That Mythic Country Called Closure -- -M-
Travelers--All -- Cheryl Lawton Malone
Upheaval -- Janet Butler
Vacationland -- Karen Skolfield
Voices and Visions -- Gary Glauber
Wanderlust -- Dawn Schout
Waving Back -- Gail Thomas
Ways Music Means -- Mark J. Mitchell
We're Smaller Than We Think We Are -- Allyson Whipple
What Plagues the Goddess -- Katherine Hoerth
Where the Body Lives -- George Such
With This Ring -- Allie Marini Batts

Release day for Stella & Dane

We are thrilled to announce the publication of our first romance novel, Stella & Dane: A Honky Tonk Romance by Deanna Roy.

While we publish books for women's journeys, we hadn't really intended to move into romance. But the response to Baby Dust was incredible, and Deanna got so many readers writing her about the characters Stella and Dane from that book that she decided to write the backstory of their relationship.

We feel the book strikes a balance between the literary fiction we take pride in and the romantic stories we know many readers enjoy. The book has taken off very swiftly on the Kindle and the response has been amazing--many readers write that they finished the book in one day!

The Kindle version is already released, and the paperbacks are moving through the distribution chain as we speak and should start hitting Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell's and other outlets by the first week of August.

Here is information on the book:

Stella is one step from leaving her honky tonk town when bad-boy Dane roars down Main Street on his prized Harley-Davidson. Their dangerous romance keeps the locals talking, but when Dane is arrested after a deadly bar fight, the couple discovers their love runs deeper than their reputations.

Fans of “Baby Dust” will enjoy reading the backstory of their favorite characters in an edgy romance that moves from Stella’s small town bordering the Ozarks to the famous Missouri State Penitentiary, proving that the best kind of love is the one that endures.

“Deanna Roy has created a tuck-at-your-heart yet edgy nontraditional romance. The star-crossed lovers are destined for a host of insurmountable problems in a rural Missouri town where one of them is home-grown, and the other an intruder viewed with suspicion.”

--Loretta Giacoletto, author of Free Danner

“By turns heart-rending and uplifting, Stella and Dane is a spellbinding testimony of love's power to carry us through the hardships of life.”

--Amber Sweetapple, author of Jack and Djinn

The 2013 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open for submission!

We are pleased to announce that the 2013 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open for submissions April 1 through June 30, 2012. There is NO fee to enter this contest.

Mary Ballard Wright wrote poetry, but almost no one knew it. She raised three children through two marriages, kept a home, and scribbled verses in those moments when she dared to think of something other than daily life.

In 1979, a tornado swept through her town of Wichita Falls, taking her home and everything she owned. Among the things she lost were her life's work, handwritten poems kept in a closet.

Mary died in 2010, and here at Casey Shay Press, we have decided, in her memory, to publish one poet each year. It is our hope to keep others' work from sudden loss, be it a natural disaster, a technical failure that destroys a hard drive, or a personal loss in the theft of the laptop where we kept our work.

The winner of the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize will receive $500 and 25 printed copies of the chapbook. The chapbook will be sold in both physical and electronic versions via a publishing contract with Casey Shay Press.

There is NO fee to enter this contest, but each entrant may submit only one manuscript.

Rule for Entries:

Deadline: June 30, 2012

• The Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open to all poets, published or unpublished.
• Poems should adhere to a theme, however loosely.
• We consider themes for adults as well as collections for children.
• Individual poems may be previously published, but poems should not have been published as a group in any form, including self-published collections.
• No more than 10% of the poetry should have been posted to the poet's own blog or web site previously, and print and digital rights to any published poems should have reverted to the author to be eligible.
• Manuscripts may be either a collection of poems or one long poem and should be a minimum of 20 pages and a maximum of 40 pages (not including the title page).
• All poems should be single spaced and typed in size 12 Times New Roman or similar font.
• Each manuscript should include a title page. This page should include the title, a one-sentence explanation of the chapbook's theme, and contact information on the poet. Please use your real name for your submission. If you prefer to use a pseudonym on your chapbook, that will be arranged later.
• If any poems have been previously published, please indicate their titles and where they were published.
• If the poet already participates in readings, poetry groups, or writers' organizations, we would love to hear about that, but it is optional.
• The reading period for the 2013 competition begins on April 1, 2012. Entries must be submitted by June 30, 2012. Submissions will only be considered if received between those dates.
• The quarter-finalists will be announced July 31, 2012. Semi finalists Aug. 30. Finalists Sept. 15. The winner will be chosen by a celebrity poet judge, and we can't always be sure when the judging will be completed, but hopefully by Nov. 1.
• We are all-electronic. How to submit: [Edited -- our submission process will change in 2014. Watch the blog for details.]

Take a look at our 2012 winner: Uncommon Clay by Darlene Franklin-Campbell. The 2012 contest was judged by Jay Parini, author of The Last Station, Robert Frost: A Life, and numerous poetry collections.

You can read free samples of her work at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Almost release day for our poetry prize winner -- Uncommon Clay

We're working feverishly over here at Casey Shay Press, preparing for our first Mary Ballard Poetry Prize winner. The cover is finalized and the final proof will arrive this week.

Here is some advance praise for Uncommon Clay by Darlene Franklin-Campbell.

"This is a poet with a deep sense of not only nature but spirit. She brings rich native tradition into play here, in language that is strict and pure."
-- Jay Parini, Author of The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems and Robert Frost: A Life

"Darlene Franklin-Campbell’s gem-like poems depict a people who know hard times."
-- Sherry Chandler, Author of Weaving a New Eden

“Darlene Franklin-Campbell adds her poetic voice, which sings, wails, remembers, mourns, and rejoices, to the literature of Appalachia.”
-- Elizabeth Oakes, Author of Mercy in the New World

The 2013 poetry competition will open to submissions in April! Keep watch here at the blog for the announcement!