LPR Nominates Six for Pushcart Prizes

Tara Hart's poem, first published in the LPR Spirituality issue, appears in the current Pushcart Prize anthology

As a young publication, Little Patuxent Review is more about publishing emerging writers and artists than about winning prizes. Still, toward the end of 2010, one of our contributing editors, Susan Thornton Hobby, nominated Tara Hart’s poem “Patronized,” which appeared in our Summer 2010 Spirituality issue, for a Pushcart Prize and-–saints alive!–it won one. Tara’s 20-line poem consequently took its place in the 600-page tome, The Pushcart Prize XXXVI: Best of the Small Presses (2012 Edition).

Emboldened by our success, outgoing editor, Michael R. Clark, and our new editor, Laura Shovan, each nominated three pieces from our Winter and Summer 2011 issues, respectively. We are thus represented by Casey Cooke’s short story “Without,” Ann Eichler Kolakowski’s poem “Unmaking” and Gabriel Welsch’s poem “The Story of a River” from the Winter 2011 Water issue as well as Erin Christian’s short story “God Bless You With Rainbows,” Derrick Weston Brown’s poem “Touched” and Susan Thornton Hobby’s poem “Girl Queen of the Animals” from the Summer 2011 Make Believe issue.

Each year, most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series. Therefore, we believe that each LPR-nominated piece has a good chance to win a prize and make its way into the next anthology. That each author has a good chance to follow in the footsteps of Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving and Rick Moody, each of whom first gained notice through the Pushcart series. And that Little Patuxent Review can again join the hundreds of outstanding presses represented in each annual Pushcart publication.

Note: If you’d like a look at some of the contributors eligible for future LPR Pushcart nominations, join us this Saturday, January 28, at 2:00 pm at Oliver’s Carriage House in Columbia, MD for the launch reading of the Winter 2012 Social Justice issue.