News & Events

October 2, 2023 – Spare to be Published by Barrow Street Press

Barrow Street Press announced their 2023 Prose Contest runner-up, chosen by contest judge Mary Cappello. Spare by Michelle Lewis will be published in Fall 2024 as part of the Barrow Street Prose Series. Michelle’s poetry book, Animul/Flame (Conduit Books & Ephemera), was the winner of Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize chosen by Bob Hicok and was a finalist for the 2020 Maine Literary Award and winner of the 2020 Midwest Literary Award.

About Spare:

Spare is a work of creative nonfiction that weaves lyric prose with personal history, research, and documents. It aims to explore issues surrounding class and marginalized populations side by side with the struggles of personal and social accountability. Spare crosses genres, toggling between formally diverse sections until they layer upon each other to create a momentum that allows the narrative voice to speak in a unified way to complex themes.

Barrow Street publishing Michelle Lewis's Spare


 

February 11th, 2023 ~ The Bookey Readings at the Bailey

Featuring Michelle Lewis and Dennis Camire
39 Bowdoin Street, Winthrop, ME.
3:00 PM

Michelle Lewis is the recipient of the 2018 Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize chosen by Bob Hicok. She is the author of Animul/Flame (Conduit Books & Ephemera), and two chapbooks, Who Will Be Frenchy?(dancing girl press) and The Desire Line (Moon Pie Press). Her poetry has appeared in Bennington Review, Indiana Review, Copper Nickel, Hunger Mountain, and Denver Quarterly among others. She has written essays and reviews for journals such as Gettysburg Review, Rain Taxi, and Electric Lit. Her lyric memoir, Spare, was a semifinalist for the 2021 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize. She has received writing fellowships at Vermont Studio Center, Monson Arts, and The Studios in Key West, and most recently, she was a resident at Studio Faire in Nérac, France.

Dennis Camire is a writing instructor at Central Maine Community College. His poems have appeared in Poetry East, Spoon River Review, The Mid-American Review and other journals and anthologies. An Intro Journal Award Winner and Pushcart Prize nominee, his most recent book is Combed by Crows, Deerbrook Editions. Of the collection. X. J. Kennedy says: “Dennis Camire is an up and comer… The poems engage us with their promising titles, and deliver with skill and energy.” Of Franco-American origin, he lives in an A-frame in West Paris, Maine.



March 30, 2022 – Studio Faire Welcomes Michelle for the Month of April.

 


 

September 17, 2021 — Michelle’s book Spare was selected as a semifinalist for the Autumn House 2021 Nonfiction Book Prize.


 

December 7, 2020 — Poetry Reading: Key West, Florida


 

A Poetry Reading with Michelle Lewis, AIR
Monday, December 7 at 6pm

Free.
(Limited capacity. Attendees must pre-register.)

Location: Hugh’s View rooftop garden, 533 Eaton Street


 

October 10, 2020 — Animul/Flame is reviewed by José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes in October RHINO Reviews.
Rhino Reviews


 

October 1, 2020 — See You in The Keys…

The Studios of Key West


 

June 27, 2020 – Michelle’s book. Animul/Flame has won the Midwest Book Award for Debut Poetry!




 

June 27, 2020 – Animul/Flame was reviewed in The Kenyon Review. William Billiter says, “Michelle Lewis’s Animul/Flame is a self-assured, keenly wrought debut, bespattered with blood and wit and heartbreak.”




 

May 7, 2020 – Animul/Flame has been chosen as a finalist for a Book Award for Poetry from the 2020 Maine Literary Awards. Read about the finalists here.




 

May 6, 2020 – Animul/Flame is a finalist for the 2020 Midwest Book Awards for Debut Poetry Book! Read the release.


 

October 21, 2019 – Read Unspeakable: A Conversation Between Michelle Lewis & Jeffrey Morgan published in Rain Taxi. Michelle talks to press-mate and Minds On Fire prize winner Jeffrey Morgan about his book The Last Note Becomes Its Listener and shares insights about her book Animul/Flame.



 

April 11, 2019 – Small Press Distribution has listed Animul/Flame as a SPD Recommends book.




 

March 29, 2019 – FRESH WORDS! Join Michelle and Jeffrey Morgan, Winner of the Minds On Fire Open Book Prize, at the Conduit Booth T7024 on Friday, March 29 at 11-12 at AWP in Portland, Oregon where they will be signing their books!




 

12/19/18 – Animul/Flame has been chosen by Bob Hicok as the Winner of the 2018 Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize for Conduit Books & Ephemera. Learn more about Conduit Books and the Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize.


 

9/15/18 – Pleased to announce that Michelle’s manuscript, Animul/Flame, was a finalist for the Inlandia Institute/Hillary Gravendyk Book Prize!


 

6/17/18 – Michelle’s manuscript, Animul/Flame, was a finalist for the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Read the announcement here.


 

8/26/17 – Up the Staircase Quarterly has nominated Michelle’s poem Drowning for Best of the Net 2017. View the nominees.


 

5/30/17 – Michelle’s manuscript, Animul/Flame, was a semi-finalist for the Ahsahta Press Sawtooth Poetry Prize. Kudos to all! Read the announcement here.


 

4/18/17 – Michelle’s manuscript, Animul/Flame, was a finalist for the 2017 Emily Dickinson First Book competition awarded by the Poetry Foundation. Though finalists are not publicized, this statement is authorized by the Poetry Foundation—woot!


 

3/8/17 – Michelle’s manuscript, Animul/Flame, has been selected as a semi-finalist for the 2017 Perugia Press Prize, an award for the best first or second book of poetry by a woman. Congratulations all! Read the announcement.


 

8/1/16 – Michelle will be a featured performer at the Belfast Poetry Festival in October in collaboration with Maine performance and installation artist Ariel Hall. This curated show of collaborative projects between poets and visual and/or performing artists in Belfast galleries and other venues is a highlight of Belfast’s popular annual festival. Schedule TBA. Learn more, submit, attend, or volunteer.

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