Awards

Ellen’s book, She/Her (FLP), is the winner of the 2026 Independent Press Award in the category, “Poetry: Human Identity & Connection.” 

 She/Her explores the many facets of femaleness across decades, reflecting on universal experiences through poems touching on identity, family, faith, and growth. 

View Award Details

Wamponomon: The Place of Shells has gained significant recognition this year. 

Karen’s cover design for Wamponomon: The Place of Shells was named a finalist in the 2025 New Mexico Book Awards by New Mexico Writers. 

Allison is the 2025 Donna Wolf Palacio Poetry Prize winner for her manuscript, House of Broken Tables. She receives $500 and the publication of her book with Ingram’s worldwide distribution.

Allison Wilkins is the author of Girl Who (2014), with poetry and nonfiction featured in Sierra Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Superstition Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and more. She lives in Pennsylvania, teaches, and serves as assistant director for Writing Workshops in Greece (Thessaloniki and Thasos).

Donna Wolf Palacio Poetry Prize – 2025 Results

• Judge: Leah Huete de Maines 
• Winner: Allison Wilkins, House of Broken Tables 
• Runners-Up: 
  • 1st: Catherine Arra, Stone Ridge, NY 
  • 2nd: Ximena Keogh Serrano, Portland, OR 
  • 3rd: Andrew Rahal, Hampstead, NC
• Semifinalists 
  • Judith Bowles 
  • Lawrence Bridges 
  • David Colodney 
  • Kevin LeMaster 
  • Anita Rivera 
  • Laura Rockhold 
  • Linda Scheller 
  • Wendy Scher 
  • Rosemary Vaswani 

Out of 109 entries, several standouts were also selected for publication. Thank you to everyone who participated. 

Note: FLP does not charge a reading fee in November. 

 

Livija’s FLP book, Ilze’s Daughter, was named a finalist in the 61st Georgia Author of the Year Awards for Poetry Chapbook.

The judges praised Ilze’s Daughter as “a quiet triumph,” honoring the immigrant experience from war-torn Latvia and a displaced persons camp in Germany to rural Pennsylvania, highlighting the dignity and daily labor of women.

And When The Sun Drops (FLP) is the winner of the American Legacy Award for a Chapbook. 

William Langford, Adjunct Faculty for Liberal Arts, received the College for Creative Studies (CCS) Publishing Award for his book, Detroit: Workers, Teachers, Lovers (FLP, 2022). 

The CCS Publishing Award honors exemplary scholarly and creative works published by faculty or staff within the past two years. The award committee includes Karen McGarry (Art Education), Steve Stanchfield (Entertainment Arts), Suven Young-Harper (Transportation Design), and Becca Pad (Ex-Officio). 

Pieces of Me by Monique Rardin Richardson (FLP) is a finalist in the Reader Views Reviewer’s Choice Awards in Poetry 2024-2025. 

Nancy Gerber is the 2025 Independent Press Award winner for her collection, Language Like Water: Poems. The collection poignantly explores conflicts, challenges, and connections in a daughter’s lifelong relationship with her mother, revealing strength through moments of struggle and connection. 

 Learn More About the Award

Michele Evans, author of purl (FLP), has been nominated for the Maya Angelou Book Award. This nomination celebrates outstanding poetry during Black History Month and beyond. 

Chavonn Williams Shen, author of Still Life with Rope and River, has been nominated for the Maya Angelou Book Award in recognition of her powerful work. 

Claudia May’s book Birthing Butterflies (FLP) was nominated for the Maya Angelou Book Award and named a Finalist in Poetry in the 2025 Minnesota Book Awards. 

View Minnesota Book Awards Winners and Finalists

• Judge: Leah Huete de Maines
• Entries: 178

Winner: Molly Akin (Falmouth, MA) for Hospice

Honorable Mentions

•  1st: Jasmine Marshall Armstrong, Bozeman, MT
• 2nd: Marianne Burke, Lebanon, NH
• 3rd: Linda Malm, Las Cruces, NM
• 4th-10th: Deborah Tobola, SJ Pearce, Huma Sheikh, Michele Miller, Camille Hernandez, Amanda Hiland, Isabella Mansfield
• Plus 13 semi-finalists

Thank you to all who entered this year’s competition.

About Molly Akin, 2024 Winner

Molly Akin is a writer and nonprofit library director based on Cape Cod, MA. She holds degrees from Tufts University and Harvard University. Her poetry reflects on origins, myths, and lived experience as a woman, mother, and person managing chronic illness.

Molly has received support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. She was a featured reader at the 2024 Tell It Slant poetry festival hosted by the Emily Dickinson Museum and was a 2024 semi-finalist for the Black Lawrence Press St. Lawrence Book Prize.

Molly’s Hospice will be published by FLP this year, along with a $1,500 prize. The New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition awards unpublished poets who identify as women. The next deadline is September 15.

2024 Pushcart Prize Nominations

•  Flight Path by Sarah W. Bartlett
• After Forty Years of Swimming and Ten Years Surfing by Susan Bruce
• Feather, Body, Bone by Stacey R. Forbes
• Breathtaking Sweetness by Claudia May
• The Slave’s Descendant Addresses King Cotton by Chavonn Williams Shen
• Hard Labor by Rex Wilder

The Healing Book by Dustin Grinnell is a winner in the Short Stories category of the 2024 Best Indie Book Awards. 

This collection weaves stories of healing and self-discovery— from a neurosurgeon’s search for ayahuasca in Peru to a burned-out office worker finding solace on the Appalachian Trail—highlighting resilience and personal growth in uncertain times. 

Learn More About The Healing Book

Anastatia Caraballo’s Growing Pains received multiple honors: 

• Finalist in the General Poetry category of the 21st Annual Best Book Awards by American Book Fest 

• Winner of the Poetry Chapbook category at the same awards 

View the 2024 Best Book Awards

Additionally, Growing Pains won the International Impact Book Award for “Death, Grief, and Loss Poetry.” 

Learn More About the Award

Del Bac by Liza Porter is a finalist for the WILLA Literary Award for Poetry from Women Writing the West. 

More About the WILLA Literary Award

Kinship was named a finalist in the 2024 International Book Awards for Religious Poetry. 

Cold Remembered and Other Poems was a finalist in the 2024 Georgia Author of the Year Awards for Poetry (Chapbook). 

Rebecca is the winner of the Literary Titan Book Award. 

Deirdre’s poetry collection, Phantom Limbs (FLP, 2023), is a finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards. 

“Part celebration, part elegy, Phantom Limbs is about living fully, arms wide open, despite or perhaps even because of repeated loss. Each depiction is grounded in survival and yet there is often unanticipated joy juxtaposed with heartbreak as the collection reveals intimate moments from childhood trauma to marriage, divorce, parenting, terminal illness, disability, caregiving, widowhood, remarriage-mortality itself.” 

More on the Indie Excellence Awards

Off the Wall was named a finalist in the Novella category of both the 2024 American Fiction Awards and the 2024 International Book Awards. 

Novelist Patricia Santana praises the work as “a rich and nuanced portrayal of a young woman struggling to find her place in the world.” 

2024 International Book Awards Finalists