Organic Weapon ARts is a publisher of fine chapbooks and home base for whatever founder Jamaal May thinks is important to creativity and independent thought at a given time. We host an annual chapbook contest, promote and organize literary events, offer writing workshops, sell brooches made of Lego and blog opinions no one asked for.
We are proud to announce Javier Zamora as the winner of the first ever Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Prize. He takes home $200, 50 author copies and will be invited to Detroit for a reading. The winning manuscript, Nine Immigrant Years, will be published in March of 2011. Check back here in the summer to find guidelines for the 2012 competition.
is a Cave Canem fellow who has had the privilege of living in cities where poems moss on bridges and hover in the heat over desert plains. Many of the poems in this collection were written upon returning to her hometown of Detroit, MI. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s “Poets Picking Poets,” Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, Indiana Review as well as other journals and anthologies. francine is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Her first chapbook was published in 2010 by Organic Weapon Arts.
between old trees by francine j. harris
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was born and raised in El Salvador. At the age of nine he migrated to the United States to be reunited with this parents. He attends UC Berkeley, majoring in Latin American history and minoring in creative writing. His full-length manuscript was a finalist in the 2009 Violet Reed Hass Contest. This summer he attended the Bread Loaf, Napa Valley, and Squaw Valley Writing conferences as a scholarship student. His poems have or will appear in In Posse Review, The Homestead Review, and Mitali’s Fire Escape. Zamora is the Winner of the 2011 Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Contest.
9 Migrant Years by Javier Zamora
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is the founder and mad scientist of Organic Weapon aRTs. He's a Cave Canem Fellow, Callaloo Writing Workshop Participant and student in Warren Wilson’s MFA for writers. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Callaloo, Indiana Review, Blackbird, Verse Daily, and on WDET and WJR760 among other magazines, anthologies and broadcasts. May has received a scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, an International Publication Prize from Atlanta Review, a Pushcart nomination, and he was a finalist for the 2010 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. May is also a two-time Detroit Poetry Slam Champion and two-time Midwest Regional Poetry Slam Champion. The God Engine was published on the Pudding House Press Chapbook Series in 2009.
The God Engine by Jamaal May
We have plans to host several readings in the Detroit area for 2011. Check back frequntly, follow Versiz on Twitter or 'like' or facebook page for updates.
To partner with OW! aRTs on an event or for more event info, send an email to booking_organicweaponarts.com
Chapbook Series: editor_organicweaponarts.com
Booking and events: booking_organicweaponarts.com
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