Two Big Readings!

We are very excited to announce a date for the annual Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award Reading. Please join us at the Richard Hugo House on Wednesday, October 5 at 7:00 pm to hear Casey Fuller read from his prize-winning collection, Fort Made of Doors. A book signing will follow. Finalist Meghan McClure of Auburn will also read. We are sorry finalist Ann Gerike will not be able to join us as she has moved to Maryland.

We hope you will join us and help us inaugurate this wonderful book. It is youthful and wise, funny and moving. Here is a sample poem by Casey Fuller:

Blue Hoodie

You have made it through many things I did not want to do
and many things that have made me very happy, and as a thanks

I keep wearing and washing you, putting you over wools and cottons,
and I am finally content to let you unravel at your sleeves

so you can keep revising where you end. I have wiped my nose on you
and you have spent much time in a canvas bag folded up with fruit

and you have brushed forklifts and bicycles and almost everything
I have written over the last seven years. I have lost you and found you

and used you for a pillow and when the police pepper-sprayed
the kids protesting on the corner you were the first thing I reached for

to cover my face. Strangers have worn you and my mother has sewn you
and I have scissored holes into your seams so you could be gloves.

I have gone to sleep in you and used you for a blanket and I have
woken up to find the person I most love wearing only you

while they made scrambled eggs for breakfast. You have touched me
more than anyone and known my habits as well as anything

and you have hovered around me like a blue kind of halo as I walk through
each of the buildings and out onto the thin decks that always have the best views of the city.



We are also excited to announce a joint reading with Casey Fuller of Portland and our 2010 chapbook winner, Laura Read of Spokane at Open Books on Tuesday, November 1 at 7:30 pm. Both of our readers are coming from out of town and this is a terrific opportunity to hear two emerging poets that you will be hearing more about in the months ahead. Mark your calendar!

Announcing Our 2011 Winner!

CHAPBOOK WINNER

We are delighted to announce that our 2011 winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award is Casey Fuller of Olympia, Washington, for his manuscript, A Fort Made of Doors. We will be publishing A Fort Made of Doors in September. Congratulations, Casey!

Our finalists are Ann Gerike, formerly of Coupeville, Washington, for her manuscript, About Face: World War I Facial Injury and Reconstruction, and Meghan McClure of Auburn, Washington, for her manuscript, The Language of Variables.

We had well over one hundred submissions this year and narrowed the field to sixteen semifinalists before selecting our winner and finalists. The manuscripts were of very high quality, which made our decisions difficult. We want to thank all who submitted chapbook manuscripts. We know from our reading that poetry is alive and healthy in Washington State.

PONTOON 2011

Each year we select individual poems from our chapbook submissions to publish in our annual publication, Floating Bridge Review. We call this section "Pontoon," and we're very proud of the wide range of poets that we feature in this celebration of Washington State poetry. We have completed selection of poems for 2011, and anticipate our annual magazine will be published by the end of June. You can expect a gala reading by our contributors coming up in July.

THE PAULA JONES GARDINER MEMORIAL AWARD

Our winner this year is Jodie Marion of Vancouver, Washington, for her poem, "Dawn." Judges Kelli Russell Agodon and Sheila Bender select one poem from our annual issue to receive this $150 prize in the memory of the beloved Seattle-area teacher and poet.

Congratulations to all our poets!