Welcome to the Blue Nib’s second chapbook, which showcases the prize-winning entries to our second Chapbook Contest, The Winter/Spring Chapbook Contest, 2017/18. The Blue Nib is a not for profit small press and online publishing platform run by editors Shirley Bell & Dave Kavanagh.
In The Blue Nib magazine we offered the 3 winning poets, in first, second and third places, chapbook publication, along with cash prizes and their copies of this chapbook. The contest was open to new, emerging and established poets from any country but at least one of the three winners was to be a debutante (with no chapbook or book published previously). Again, we were delighted to find that all three winners were debutantes, so we are proud to be the first publisher to introduce these new poets into print.
We are introducing three very strong female writers, all writing with passion and conviction, but all having their own very distinctive voices.
Our judge was the fine Irish poet, Kevin Higgins. ( See his biography at the end of the chapbook).
We are very pleased to be able to showcase these emerging talents.
Shirley Bell and Dave Kavanagh
The Blue Nib
July 2018
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Michael A. Griffith –
The Blue Nib magazine awards three emerging writers publication in chapbook form on a semi-annual basis.
We readers are also amply awarded with three fresh new voices in poetry with The Blue Nib Chapbook Volume 2.
I can’t say well enough how very impressed I am with the writing of first-place winner Anne Walsh Donnelly who gives voice to her native Ireland like many of the great Irish masters. Donnelly’s is a rising star to follow.
Second-place winner is Dr. Akshya Pawasker who offers us a distinctly feminine perspective in her pieces. This in no way is meant to imply male readers won’t “get” or enjoy her works. Instead it is to say the acute male reader will gain a greater insight to the female perspective after reading Dr. Pawasker’s poetry.
Bobbie Sparrow rounds out this fine book with her offering, which take us down a different path with each poem. Biblical themes, psychological examinations, historical themes, and rustic ones highlight Sparrow’s writing here.
The Blue Nib is my favorite source for new poetry on the ‘net and chapbooks like this show very well that this imprint is making good headway in the small press world.