STAC PROFESSOR AWARDED 2015 COAL HILL REVIEW PRIZE

Monica Wendel, assistant professor of composition and creative writing at St. Thomas Aquinas College, was awarded the 2015 Coal Hill Review Prize for her chapbook English Kills. Wendel is scheduled to give readings at Wigle Whiskey in Pittsburgh (PA) with Dakota Garilli, STAC Class of 2012, on March 16, 2016 at 7:00 p.m., at Edinboro University (PA) on March 17, 2016 and in the Azarian-McCullough Art Gallery at St. Thomas Aquinas College on March 30, 2016 at 5:30 p.m. The readings are free and open to the public.

Michael Simms, founder and editor in chief of Autumn House Press, which publishes the Coal Hill chapbook series, said this of English Kills, “‘Don’t be alarmed,’ Monica Wendel assures us about her provocative title —English Kills is just the name the Dutch gave to a local stream. But in fact, we are alarmed. In her world, ideas have consequences. People take drugs and turn themselves into music to escape desperate lives. Shrimp lie on a plate like ‘tendoned larvae.’ In her world, civic pride and genocide are like two flags on the same ship. Threat is everywhere. But thankfully, there’s a way out of the nightmare. We can, she says, leave our worst selves behind and move on to a place where ‘rains water even dead languages’.”

Coal Hill Review is the online imprint of Autumn House Press. They strive to further Autumn House’s mission of publishing the work of excellent contemporary writers who have a following among readers, but whose work has been overlooked by commercial publishers. Coal Hill seeks to publish a wide range of diverse voices. The immediacy of the online platform allows them to potentially reach a new audience, therefore promoting poetry and other fine literature to a wider range of readers.