Chapbook Contest Winners

After announcing the finalists for the New Rivers Press Chapbook Contest at the beginning of the month, the students in our Practicum in Publishing course have been hard at work reading, deliberating, and deciding on the winners for the contest. We’re sure you’ve all been waiting with baited breath as much as we have. We’re excited to share what the students have decided. Here’s what they had to say:

We’re happy to announce the winners of the New Rivers Press Chapbook Contest! Congratulations are in order for Kathryn Kulpa and Sophia Liu. Kathryn Kulpa wrote “Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted and Other Stories”, a unique collection of prose that bends the lines between genres, creating a fun and interesting selection. Sophia Liu wrote “There is No Happy Ending”, a fascinating selection of poetry that explores Chinese culture and diaspora, femininity, and oppression. Thank you as well to the other finalists and everyone who submitted!

Practicum in Publishing students

Over the rest of the fall semester, the students will be editing, laying out, and designing covers for the two manuscripts. Watch our social media for updates along the way, and watch out for the completed books in the spring of 2023!

Congrats again to Sophia and Kathryn!


Kathryn Kulpa (Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted) has words in EllipsisFive SouthFlash FrogMilk Candy ReviewMonkeybicycleNo ContactPithead Chapel, and Wigleaf. She is the author of a story collection, Pleasant Drugs (Midlist Press) a micro-chapbook, Who’s the Skirt? (Origami Poems Project), and a flash chapbook Girls on Film (Paper Nautilus), winner of the Vella Chapbook Contest. Her stories have been chosen for Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf longlist. She is a flash editor at Cleaver magazine. 

Sophia Liu (There is No Happy Ending) is an American poet and interdisciplinary artist. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Frontier PoetryMuzzle MagazineDIALOGISTSuperstition ReviewStorm CellarUnderblong, and elsewhere.