Press 53

09/23/2025

Chanel Brenner, winner of the Press 53 Award for Poetry for SMILE, OR ELSE, a collection that followed her journey through the grief of losing her child, is now offering grief support through writing tools, groups, books, essays, poems, and more. "Honoring grief through writing and community."

Grief support after the loss of a child, through writing tools, groups, books, essays, poems, and more. Your Grief is Honored Here.

09/18/2025

Our friends at Charlotte Lit are raising funds to complete renovations on their new home, which will include the Dannye Romine Powell Reading Room (Press 53 poet). Silent auction items include a one-hour ASK ME ANYTHING with Press 53 publisher and editor in chief Kevin Morgan Watson.
https://givebutter.com/c/charlottelit-campaign/auction

06/20/2025

06/14/2025

Discover the details of the 2026 Press 53 Award for Poetry, offering great prizes and publication opportunities.

06/10/2025

https://www.mininggazette.com/news/front-page/2025/06/moral-treatment/

At 6 p.m. Thursday, author Stephanie Carpenter will read excerpts from her novel “Moral Treatment, winner of the inaugural Summit Series Prize from Central Michigan University Press, at the Copper Country Community Arts Center in Hancock, MI. Stephanie won the 2017 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction with her inaugural story collection, Missing Persons.

HANCOCK — At 6 p.m. Thursday, author Stephanie Carpenter will read excerpts from her novel “Moral Treatment, at the Copper Country Community Arts Center in Hancock. Carpenter will also discuss her inspirations and the research process for the book. The winner of the inaugural Summit Series Prize...

05/22/2025

https://www.qgazette.com/articles/vaughn-m-watson/
Here is a nice interview from the Queens Gazette with Vaughn M. Watson, runner-up for the 2025 Press 53 Award for Poetry with GOING OUT & BEING NORMAL, available now from Press 53.

Vaughn M. Watson is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer based in New York City. A native New Yorker, Vaughn grew up in Corona, and is a proud graduate of Townsend Harris High School. His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have been published in literary journals as varied as Tahoma Literary Review, About...

05/15/2025

https://voxpopulisphere.com/2025/05/15/sean-sexton-planting-aeschynomene-seed/

Enjoy a poem by cowboy poet Sean Sexton. Thank you, Vox Populi!

It pours from a muslin sack like sunlight through a cracked window shade, fifty pounds to a metal washtub, old as your footsteps.

04/24/2025

If we are truly free, words will also be free.

Darya Kozyreva, 19, has been sentenced to nearly three years in a Russian penal colony—for quoting a poem and remembering the suffering of Mariupol. Her “crime”? Using words to oppose Putin’s war. Free speech is not a crime: tell that to Putin’s American friends who love to preach about it—until it’s inconvenient. When poetry becomes dangerous, tyranny has already won.
Defend freedom. Spread her story.