The 2023 Breakthrough Chapbook Contest — Winner and Finalists!
Please join us in congratulating Kathryn Hargett-Hsu, winner of the 2023 Frontier Breakthrough Chapbook Contest. Hargett-Hsu’s manuscript was selected by Kemi Alabi and will be published in spring 2024. And congratulations to our outstanding finalists and longlisters! We’re confident we’ll see your chapbooks in the world soon.
We want to also extend a sincere thank you to everyone who submitted and for your patience as we reviewed all the extraordinary work we received this year.
WINNER // $2000 + Publication in 2024
Selected by Kemi Alabi
The Skin is a Warm Coat by Kathryn Hargett-Hsu
Kathryn Hargett-Hsu 徐凯蒂 received her MFA in Writing at Washington University in St. Louis. Born and raised in Alabama, she is the recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets, and the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. Most recently, she received the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Lynda Hull Memorial Prize. Find her in Best New Poets, Pleiades, Crazyhorse, Arts & Letters, Muzzle Magazine, The Margins, Salt Hill Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, TaiwaneseAmerican.org, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere.
The Finalists Are
For Eve, Which Means Life. Means Animal. by Nicole Adabunu
You Were Never Lovelier by Ryan Black
The Hunt of the Unicorn by Kirun Kapur
The Red We Silk by Nicole Lachat
On Fire for Decades by Emily Lake Hansen
Peppered Path by Weijia Pan
Creation Delay by Polley Poer
Nepenthe Radiant by Aimee Seu
incision by Malik Thompson
The Poets on the Longlist Are
Naomi Azriel
Jessica Ballen
Aida Bardissi
Mihir Bellamkonda
Ann-Marie Blanchard
Wendy Bourgeois
Mary Brownell
Matthew Buxton
Ellara Chumashkaeva
Elizabeth Coleman
Kym Cunningham
Maria Esquinca
Stacy Forbes
Tatiana Gómez
Linnea Harper
Javeria Hasnain
Aiden Heung
Erik Jonah
Alyson Kissner
Hannah Lee
Mary MacGowan
Tara Mesalik MacMahon
Henry Mills
Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi
Carol Park
Lucie Pereira
Isa Pickett
Julie Runacres
Wendy Scher
Danie Shokoohi
Kashiana Singh
Kaitlyn Snodgrass
Ojo Taiye
