20265 Dyad Contest

CONTEST JUDGES
Theme Award | Poet’s Choice Award
Submission Period: June 1 - September 1, 2026
 

ABOUT THE JUDGES:

POET'S CHOICE AWARD: A. E. Stringer is the author of four collections of poems, Channel Markers (Wesleyan University Press), Human Costume, Late Breaking, and Asbestos Brocade (Salmon Poetry, 2017). His work has appeared in such journals as The Nation, Antaeus, The Ohio Review, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, and in Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia. He has edited and introduced an edition of Louise McNeill’s Paradox Hill (West Virginia University Press, 2009). For twenty-four years, he taught writing and literature at Marshall University.  He lives, writes, and makes music in Huntington, West Virginia.

THEME: Nikki Ummel has been published by The Georgia Review, Black Lawrence Press, and others. Her forthcoming collection, Swamp Elegies, is the 2025 recipient of the New American Poetry Prize. Nikki is the co-founder of LMNL, an arts organization focused on readings, workshops, and residencies. She has two poetry chapbooks, Hush (Belle Point Press, 2022) and Bayou Sonata (NOLA DNA, 2023), funded by the New Orleans’ Jazz and Heritage Foundation.