New Book by Pittsburg Poet, Olive L. Sullivan

Pittsburg, KS – Olive L. Sullivan, Pittsburg, is the author of the newest book from Meadowlark Press, now available. Sullivan will be reading from Skiving Down the Bones at the Pittsburg Public Library at 6:00 pm on Monday, December 12. The event is free to the public.

“Long before the Pandemic locked us all into our homes, my personal period of isolation began with my 2017 diagnosis of Acute Myleoid Leukemia, a particularly deadly and fast acting cancer,” writes Sullivan in the book’s opening pages.

The resulting collection of poetry paints a picture of loss, but also of survival in the face of loss. Skiving “through layers of / loss and sorrow, honing in on what matters,” this book shows us how one woman faces her own impending death, the loss of her husband and her father, and comes out on the other side, very much alive, “only truth remaining.”

Sullivan is also the author of Wandering Bone (Meadowlark Press, 2017), a collection of travel poems. Her poetry has also appeared in several journals including The Midwest Quarterly, The Little Balkans Review, and the online magazine Dead Housekeeping, as well as in the award-winning anthology Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems. She has published short fiction and creative essays and performs regularly with the band Amanita. She holds an MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine and an MA from the University of Colorado-Denver. A bookbinder, she lives in Pittsburg, Kansas, where she grew up. She loves taking long walks on the prairie with dogs and traveling anywhere that requires a passport—and almost anywhere that doesn’t.

Meadowlark Press is an independent publisher, specializing in books by Midwest authors since 2014. Learn more at meadowlarkbookstore.com. The book can be ordered from the author, from the publisher, and any bookstore. It is available locally at Books and Burrow in Pittsburg.

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Birdy 2022 Finalist Book Out Now! + Contest Submission Reminder

Meadowlark Press is proud to announce the release of No Matter How It Ends by E.J. Rode!

Reader beware. This book of poetry will hold you captive. E.J. Rode dares to write that “Love is always a miracle—no matter how it ends.” She speaks of unbearable loss. “Growing old was something—we’d do—together.” “Didn’t you know—that you were the story—I always wanted to hear.” She remembers, “. . .my hand against your skin—never wishing I’d touched you less.” She faces despair and cries out, “. . .over and over again I find myself lost.”  “Even the truth has learned to lie.” Repeatedly, she returns to the moon for solace, a moon that is “always too much, and never enough.” She “. . .silently scolds the clock for ticking.” She declares, “. . .of my failings I can only tell—I’ve fallen short—but loved so well.” She abides by her advice: “Write poems you fear no one will like. . .” Truth at all cost. Expect nothing else from this poet. No Matter How It Ends is a masterpiece by a highly skilled poet who dares to live life on her own terms.

—Marcel Aimé Duclos, author of Unavoidable. . . evade dying at your own peril (Black Forest Publishing, 2021)

About the Author:

E.J. has spent most of her life choosing the roads less traveled. She finds joy, sorrow, and, frequently, wisdom in almost everyone she meets. Her work resonates because it is reflective of how much we are alike, even when we differ. Although she has tried her hand at many forms of writing, from fiction and newspaper columns to essays, she always returns to poetry, her first love.

E.J.’s poetry has appeared in Third Wednesday, The Josephine Quarterly, And/Both Magazine, Zephyr Press, and Colorado Living.

 

 

ORDER HERE!

 

We would also like to take this opportunity to invite YOU to submit your poetry manuscript for the 2023 Birdy Poetry Prize contest!

Submissions are open through 11:59 p.m. on December 1! 

Details are as follows, as well as found at birdypoetryprize.com:

 

Entry Fee: $25

Prize: $1,000 cash, publication by Meadowlark Press, including 50 copies of the completed book.

All entries will be considered for standard Meadowlark Press publishing contract offers, as well. Full-length poetry manuscripts (55 page minimum, 90+ pages preferred) will be considered. Poems may be previously published in journals and/or anthologies, but not in full-length, single-author volumes. Poets are eligible to enter, regardless of publishing history. Previous winners are NOT eligible to enter. Previous Finalists ARE eligible to enter.

Manuscript Preparation:

·         The author’s name should not appear anywhere on the document.

·         Do NOT include publication credits or lists of previously published work.  

·         Manuscript should include:  

o   title of collection

o   any section or division headings, if desired

o   all poems to be included in the collection

SUBMIT HERE!

 

 

Have you submitted to the Birdy Poetry Prize contest yet? Open until Dec. 1!

 Let the countdown begin! Birdy Poetry Prize submissions are open now until December 1!

SUBMIT HERE

View previous winners & finalists HERE

Bart Edelman's poem "Where Are You, Osbaldo?" published by Hawaii Pacific Review

 Meadowlark poet Bart Edelman (Whistling to Trick the Wind, 2021) recently had his poem "Where Are You, Osbaldo?" published in Hawaii Pacific Review! Congratulations, Bart!

Where Are You, Osbaldo?

by Bart Edelman

The night twists tighter—

A tourniquet of desire.

And we can’t help but whisper,

Where are you, Osbaldo?

What promises have you made

Nameless hungry women,

Seated at banquet dinners

You do not expect to attend.

How long can you pinwheel

Between each flickering star,

Displaying smile after smile,

Although solitude’s luxury

Confines you to impure thoughts.

One day the clever moon

Will be done with you, forever.

You’ll spin out of control,

In an orbit dawn delivers

To the last available address,

Lurking beside your name.

Mismatched clothes still remain—

Waiting for you to claim—

Yet you’ll never wear them again.

Happy birthday to our newest Meadowlark poet + 2022 Birdy Poetry Prize Book!

Please take a moment to join us in a wishing a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jonathan Greenhause, 2022 Birdy Poetry Prize winner! Today, we celebrate the amazing Jonathan and this touching poetry collection (OUT NOW)!

Give Jonathan the gift of ordering his book, 

by clicking the book cover below!

About Jonathan Greenhause:

Jonathan Greenhause has won the Ledbury Poetry Competition, Aesthetica Magazine’s Creative Writing Award in Poetry, the Telluride Institute’s Fischer Poetry Prize, and the Prism Review Poetry Prize, and his poems have appeared in America, december, New York Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Poetry Society, The Rialto, RHINO, Subtropics, and the Times Literary Supplement. Jonathan lives in Jersey City with his wife and their two sons, all within a stone’s throw of the local freight line.

Don't forget to submit your full-length poetry manuscript for the 2023 Birdy Poetry Prize!

Accepting Entries: September 1 - December 1, 2022

Entry Fee: $25

Prize: $1,000 cash, publication by Meadowlark Press, including 50 copies of the completed book 

All entries will be considered for standard Meadowlark Press publishing contract offers, as well.  

Full-length poetry manuscripts (55 page minimum, 90+ pages preferred) will be considered. Poems may be previously published in journals and/or anthologies, but not in full-length, single-author volumes. Poets are eligible to enter, regardless of publishing history. 

Eligibility: (updated 8/9/2021)

Previous winners are NOT eligible to enter.

Previous Finalists ARE eligible to enter.

Manuscript Preparation

The author’s name should not appear anywhere on the document.

Do NOT include publication credits or lists of previously published work.  

Manuscript should include:  

• title of collection
• any section or division headings, if desired
• all poems to be included in the collection

 

Bart Edelman's poem "Fuse" published by Abandoned Mine

 Meadowlark poet Bart Edelman (Whistling to Trick the Wind, 2021) recently had his poem "Fuse" published in the Third Issue of Abandoned Mine! Congratulations, Bart!

Join us for the Launch Celebration of Ann of Sunflower Lane

 

October 7, 2022

6:30 PM CST

Join author Julie A. Sellers & Meadowlark Press on Zoom to celebrate the launch of Ann of Sunflower Lane.

Register to receive a Zoom link at tinyurl.com/SunflowerLane.

Order your copy of the book at meadowlarkbookstore.com. 

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Meadowlark Press announces the publication of Ann of Sunflower Lane by award-winning author Julie A. Sellers. Sellers’s book is a tribute to the Kansas Flint Hills, booklovers and reading, and Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

 

Sellers explains that the novel is not an adaptation of Montgomery’s classic novel, but a story of the way books and reading impact readers. “The title character, Ann Alwyn, is an avid reader, and when she comes to live with the grandparents she never knew at Sunflower Lane farm, she discovers a kindred spirit in an old edition of Anne of Green Gables. Her reading of that and other texts frames her experiences as she integrates herself into life on the farm and in the small-town community of Storey, Kansas.”

 

“Ann of Sunflower Lane is a love-letter to books and reading, and especially to the power of Anne of Green Gables to reflect and to shape life,” says Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, Professor Emerita and founder of the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island.

 

Marah Gubar, Associate Professor of Literature at MIT and author of Artful Dodgers: Reconceiving the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (2009), said, “I love how vividly this book conjures up contemporary rural life in a small town, chronicling how the transplanted Ann comes to terms with her troubled family history by putting down new roots and reinvigorating old ones.”

 

“I love this character, this book. Readers of all ages will fall in love with Ann of Sunflower Lane,” said Kansas writer Cheryl Unruh, author of Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town.

 

Sellers was the Kansas Authors Club 2020 Prose Writer of the Year and the Overall Poetry (2022) and Prose (2017, 2019) winner of the Kansas Voices Writing Contest sponsored by the Winfield Arts and Humanities Council. She is the author of Kindred Verse: Poems Inspired by Anne of Green Gables (Blue Cedar Press, 2021).

 

Sellers is available for readings for interested groups. For more information, visit the author’s website at www.julieasellers.com.

Ann of Sunflower Lane, by Julie A. Sellers

  

Author Julie A. Sellers