Announcing the 2021 Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series Selections

Announcing the Results of the 2021 Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series

Thank you to all the terrific poets and writers who shared their manuscripts with us for the second year of the Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series. We are grateful for everyone who gave us the opportunity to read and consider their work. The range, variety, and excellence of the submissions made them thrilling to read, and provided the series editors with an extremely difficult task in selecting a manuscript.

In the end, two manuscripts were selected for publication: one manuscript for the Series, and a second manuscript selected for publication as an Editors’ Choice. Below are the complete results, include the finalists:

Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series Selection:

Fair Exchange, No Robbery – Lalini Shanela Ranaraja (Rock Island, IL)

MWC Press Editors’ Choice Selection (will be published by MWC Press):

For a Second, In the Dark – Alec Hershman (Ann Arbor, MI)

Finalists

My National Parks – Jacob Boyd
Infestations – K Anand Gall
Letter to the Aliens – Doug Paul Case
Justicia Poética – Alexandra Adriana Elisa Calleros
Demolition of Kiddieland – Cynthia Gallaher

We are planning to release both of the selected chapbooks in the fall of 2022. Submission will open for the Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series again on September 1, 2022.

Thanks to everyone who submitted their work to the Series again. We’re grateful for the opportunity to have read your work, and we wish you all the best in placing your manuscripts elsewhere.

Thanks again, all the best, and take care…

MWC Press / Series Editors

Bios for 2021 Foster-Stahl Selected Authors:

Lalini Shanela Ranaraja is a multi-genre writer, painter, and photographer from Kandy, Sri Lanka. Her work has appeared in ANGLES Magazine, Club Plum Literary Journal, Entropy, Off Assignment, SAGA, Sky Island Journal, Strange Horizons, Transition, Uncanny Magazine, and elsewhere. She holds a BA in anthropology and creative writing from Augustana College in Illinois and is pursuing an MA in International Studies at the University of San Francisco. She is a submissions editor for Uncanny Magazine. Find her online at shanelaranaraja.com.

Alec Hershman is the queer author of two previous volumes: Permanent and Wonderful Storage (Seven Kitchens, 2019) and The Egg Goes Under (Seven Kitchens, 2017). His work has received support from the VCCA, The St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, Playa, The Jentel Foundation, The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives with his husband and dogs in Michigan. 

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The Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series is supported by the MWC Legacy Society, the estates of Mary Foster and Richard “Dick” Stahl, the Scott County Regional Authority, The Poetry Foundation, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.