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2000 miles by bicycle, 64 days, 30+ events, 9 states, two authors, 1 canoe … and YOU!

Less than two years ago, Max Ritvo came into the Milkweed family like a ball of fire. We’re thrilled to share with you his next two books: Letters from Max, a book of correspondence between Max and the playwright Sarah Ruhl; and The Final Voicemails, a second collection of poems edited by Louise Glück.

Writer Ada Limón recently said, “Poems have always been a place of questions for me. Not answers. And I have a lot of questions these days.”

We all turn to literature for different reasons, but that act of reaching for a book is one we each know intimately. The appeal of a beautiful cover, the feel of a book’s weight and texture; the anticipation of what joy, comfort, truth, or new curiosity might be waiting inside.

Milkweed Editions publishes some twenty books each year, and a passionate, generous community supports every one of them. You support editorial collaboration to help writers develop their books to their…

Milkweed Editions, in partnership with Riva Ariella Ritvo-Slifka and the Alan B. Slifka Foundation, is pleased to announce that Grady Chambers is the winner of the inaugural Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. For his manuscript, North American Stadiums, chosen by acclaimed poet and judge Henri Cole, Chambers will receive $10,000 and publication by Milkweed Editions in June 2018.

Exactly two years ago today, Amy and Dave Freeman were journaling at “home” in their tent, camped in the middle of the Boundary Waters. Now they’re the author of a beautiful, important book and are fighting hard to protect and preserve the land.

We are thrilled to share that Parneshia Jones—author of the collection of poems Vessel, published in 2015 by Milkweed Editions—has been appointed the next president of Cave Canem’s board of directors. Cave Canem was founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996 to remedy the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in the literary landscape. The nonprofit’s extensive programming and publications have greatly impacted the American literary landscape, and include three book prizes delivered in partnership with five prestigious presses, fellowships, community-based workshops for emerging and established poets, and a vast range of events, seminars, and lectures.

We are delighted to announce the acquisition of a second collection of poems by the late Max Ritvo, the celebrated author of Four Reincarnations, which the New York Times Book Review called “good-humored, appealingly sly, and surprisingly whimsical.”

When Milkweed Editions invited my thoughts on cover design for Virgin, I sent them a Pinterest page with visual influences: Victorian pharmaceutical advertisements, turn of the century women’s magazine covers, art nouveau color palettes, autochromes, and vintage illustrations of flora and fauna (mostly cacti)—all motifs of highly polarized femininity that I was trying to capture and reconsider.

We are thrilled to announce the publication of two very special books today: Alex Lemon’s Feverland: A Memoir in Shards and William Brewer’s National Poetry Series-winning collection of poems I Know Your Kind. Both share a common impulse to meet pain and stigma with beauty and art.

Alex Lemon’s new memoir, Feverland, is a fragmented exploration of trauma, the fallibility of the body, and the joys of being alive. Listen to him introduce the book and read from the first essay, “EKG.”