FARMINGTON – A collection published by a local poetry press has received a prestigious national award.
Alice James Books published Thief in the Interior by Phillip B. Williams early in 2016. A debut collection by Williams, the book has been awarded the 2017 Whiting Award for Poetry. Established by the Whiting Foundation in 1985, the recognition is awarded on the criteria of early-career achievement and the promise of superior literary work to come. It includes a $50,000 monetary award for Williams, providing “the gift of radical freedom to writers with the talent and imagination to match it,” according to Courtney Hodell, director of Writers’ Programs at the Whiting Foundation.
Thief in the Interior includes poems that “fiercely seek new ways to protest, witness, and grieve the violence done daily to black men’s bodies.” It was published by AJB in January 2016.
In addition to Thief in the Interior, the Chicago-born Williams is the author of the chapbooks Bruised Gospels (Arts in Bloom Inc., 2011) and Burn (YesYes Books, 2013). He is a Cave Canem graduate and received scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference and a 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-, Callaloo, Kenyon Review Online, and others. Williams received his MFA in Writing as a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow at the Washington University in St. Louis. He is the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry.
Alice James Books has been publishing poetry since 1973. It was originally founded in Boston, Mass. as a cooperative wherein authors performed the day-to-day undertakings of the press. This collaborative element remains viable even today, as authors who publish with the press are also invited to become members of the editorial board and participate in editorial decisions at the press. Named for Alice James, sister to William and Henry James and a writer whose gifts went unrecognized during her lifetime, the press is committed to publishing a range of voices, supporting writers’ careers, and publishing women and other writers whose work may otherwise be marginalized.
Since 1994, AJB has been an affiliate of the University of Maine at Farmington.
