One of OPEEP's Program Coordinators, Babette Cieskowski, was recently named a Finalist for the 2021 Pamet River Prize! The Pamet River Prize is an annual, nomination-based contest open to first or second full-length books of poetry or prose written by women or gender-queer folks. The prize is awarded by YesYes Books, a "dynamic independent press that publishes poetry and prose collections from bold fresh voices." Since 2011, the press has been publishing "provocative collections of poetry, fiction, and experimental art," looking for works that "acknowledge and celebrate our passionate, complex, and boundless natures." You can read more about their story here.

Babette was named a Pamet River Prize finalist for her full-length poetry manuscript titled "Blood in the Garden," but she has been a published, award-winning poet for several years now. In 2018, she earned her MFA in Poetry from The Ohio State University. In 2020, Babette was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Her poem “American Sonnet For My Medical History” won Puerto del Sol’s 2020 Poetry Contest, chosen by Rodney Gomez. Her poetry has appeared in Compose, the minnesota review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Zone 3, Frontier Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, Prairie Schooner, and Juked, among others.

The entire OPEEP staff is incredibly proud of Babette's accomplishment and so happy to share this news with our network! We celebrate all forms of feminist and abolitionist creativity and knowledge production, and we are very grateful to have such a talented voice on our team. Please join us in celebrating Babette by shooting her a congratulatory e-mail or financially supporting her work! You can do so by purchasing her chapbook titled "Secrets My Body Keeps" from dancing girl press (see the above slideshow's second picture for a peek at the cover image).