We’re excited to announce the winner of our 18th Annual Book Prize—Stephanie Cawley’s My Heart But Not My Heart!
Thank you to everyone who submitted to our 18th Annual Book Prize. We received some fantastic work this year, and we want to extend our deepest gratitude for your support. It’s never gotten easier to select just one book to publish, but we are thankful for each and every submission we receive.
Chosen by Solmaz Sharif, My Heart But Not My Heart examines death, grief, and the limitations of language. Cawley speaks outside of the many ways we expect those grieving to treat their experience, refusing easy categorizations of everything from mental illness to the familial to narrative itself. In My Heart But Not My Heart, Cawley rejects narrative and any attempts to memorialize her father (whose death sparked the project) through depicting him or his life, and refuses to console even herself. She looks at what else remains.
Stephanie Cawley writes in the lineage of Susan Howe, Bhanu Kapil, Jenny Boully, and Maggie Nelson, among many others. Join us in welcoming her daring and necessary voice to the Slope family!
Stephanie Cawley is a poet from southern New Jersey. She is the author of My Heart But Not My Heart (Slope Editions), the forthcoming Animal Mineral (YesYes Books), and the chapbook A Wilderness (Gazing Grain Press). She has an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. You can find her online at stephaniecawley.com.
Our finalists for the 18th Annual Book Prize:
108 Olivia by Maria Flaccavento
Arizona SB 1070: An Act by Ryan Clark
BEDIEVAL by Ellen Boyette
Esau by Dan Rosenberg
Girl Country by Ansley Moon
Once, Eternal by Lena Tuffaha
Projectionist by Kristen Steenbeeke
Unbelievable Floridas by John Whalen
Untitled (White Combine with Arcana) by Trevor Ketner
V by Carolyn Guinzio
You can read more about our finalists here.