River River Books' Open Reading Period Selections

Dear friend of River River Books:

It’s hard to express how entirely grateful and excited we are to announce the four books and poets we’ve selected from our 2022 open reading period.

We received more than 250 manuscripts in June and July and read each with care and consideration. We were blown away by the quality of the work we received and had to turn down many collections we loved. As a brand-new press, we are honored that so many poets chose to trust us with their work in our first submission period.

In the end, we loved these four books, and are utterly delighted to be publishing them as the first entries in our (2023 and 2024) catalogue:

·      An Eye in Each Square by Lauren Camp

·      Bullet Points by Jennifer A Sutherland

·      Dear Memphis by Rachel Edelman

·      A Geography That Does Not Hurt Us by Carla Sofia Ferreira

An Eye in Each Square and Bullet Points will be published in June 2023; Dear Memphis and A Geography That Does Not Hurt Us will be published in January 2024. We cannot wait to share these incredible poetry collections with you. Stay tuned for preorder information, cover reveals, and other exciting news as we get closer to launching these books into the world.

More about the poets:

Lauren Camp is Poet Laureate of New Mexico. Her honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award, and Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry. She is an emeritus Black Earth Institute fellow and was Astronomer in Residence at Grand Canyon National Park.

Jennifer A Sutherland is an attorney and an educator in Baltimore. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, I-70 Review, Parhelion, The Hollins Critic, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Hollins University.

Rachel Edelman is a Jewish poet raised in Memphis who now teaches high school English in Seattle. She has received fellowships and residencies from the University of Washington, the Academy of American Poets, Mineral School, and Crosstown Arts. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington.

Carla Sofia Ferreira is a poet, teacher, and daughter of Portuguese immigrants from Newark, New Jersey. Author of microchap Ironbound Fados (Ghost City Press 2019), she has received fellowships from the Sundress Academy for the Arts and the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium.

We are so proud to be able to bring the work by these amazing poets into the world — and we know you’re going to love reading it.

Warmly,

Han & Amorak

riverriverbooks.org