BkMk Press Celebrates 50 Years

by

BkMk Press Celebrates 50 Years BkMk Press was founded in 1971 at the Johnson County Library in Kansas. It officially became part of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1983 under the leadership of founder Dan Jaffe. In 2021, BkMk is planning several events in celebration of this milestone anniversary. The first of these celebration events  include the following: A Tale of Two Patricias: Making a Literary Life in Kansas City, featuring Patricia Cleary Miller and Patricia Lawson. Miller’s new BkMk Press book is Can … Learn more

2020 Contest Winners

by

Below are the winners and finalists of the 2020 contests, which closed January 15, 2020. John Ciardi Prize for Poetry We are pleased now to announce the winning manuscript, Flowers as Mind Control by Laura Minor of Jacksonville, Florida. The final judge was John Hodgen. BkMk Press congratulates the finalists:  Paul David Adkins Regina DiPerna Sonia Greenfield Peter Krumbach David Moolten Virginia Sutton Cheryl Clark Vermeulen Michele Wolf Cecilia Woloch Laura Minor will receive a $1,000 prize plus book publication by BkMk Press in 2021. … Learn more

New Poetry from Patricia Cleary Miller

by

Can You Smell the Rain? Patricia Cleary Miller’s collection of poetry to be published July 7, 2020, by BkMk Press, poses the old theatrical question, Who wants what, and why can’t they have it? Her confused and deluded characters take themselves seriously as they yearn for love. With wit and gently biting satire, the poet presents their struggles. Beware: a snicker at these characters is a snicker at yourself. Poet Mia Leonin writes, “Miller’s rapturous attention to detail and her deft sense of story conjure … Learn more

We stand in solidarity

by

BkMk Press and our affiliates New Letters and New Letters on the Air stand in solidarity with our black writers, readers, listeners, friends, and community. We have long made it our mission “to discover, publish, and promote the best and most exciting literary writing, wherever it might be found.” Implicit in this statement is our commitment to inclusion—to searching far and wide for a diversity of voices. But following the national unrest after the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, … Learn more

Story Collection Offers Loving But Pointed School Satire

by

Lorraine M. López’s Postcards from the Gerund State deals with a culturally diverse group of women faculty who struggle to get along with each other and with their less-than-elite school. López’s humorous but loving portrait of these women’s struggles brings an important perspective to our nation’s conflicting expectations of education and the faculty who deliver it. Postcards follows these faculty members, mostly in the visual and literary arts, as they adjust to the hilarious surprises of life at Birnbrau, a fictional women’s college in Georgia … Learn more

Fiction Debut Features Linked
Stories of Coastal Connecticut
Youth Coming of Age

by

Stone Skimmers, a story collection and fiction debut by Jennifer Wisner Kelly, was chosen by Stewart O’Nan for the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction and will be published Nov. 5 by BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Kelly lives in Concord, Massachusetts, and is available for bookstore and library appearances in the New England area, where many of the stories in her book take place. Stone Skimmers opens in pristine, affluent Old Stonington, Connecticut, where a peculiar fifteen-year-old girl swims for hours … Learn more