WWPH Writes issue 106…and we are thrilled to announce the winners of our 2025 Poetry Prizes: Emily Holland, Jason Gebhardt, and Yael Kiken. We also recognize the finalists and thank all who submitted their manuscripts to us. More information on these award-winning poets and their books can be found here. Our fiction winner/finalists will be announced on or about November 1st. If you are planning ahead, our 2026 manuscript contests in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction (memoir/essay) will open in May of 2026.
We are also excited to share information on several free reading events and WWPH Literary Salons we have planned for this fall. See below for details. We are grateful that a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities has made it possible to have a WWPH Literary Salon in every ward in Washington, DC. We are bringing the joy and resilience that animate our big/bold anthology AMERICA’S FUTURE: poetry & prose in response to tomorrow out into the community. Join us.
Lastly, a big shout-out of thanks for Washington Unbound interviewing us here — and for the Washington Independent Review of Books‘ powerful review of AMERICA’S FUTURE here.
In literary solidarity,
Caroline Bock & Jona Colson
co-presidents/editors
WWPH WRITES POETRY
Dorian Elizabeth Knapp is the author of Causa Sui (2025), winner of the Three Mile Harbor Press Poetry Prize, Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak (2019), winner of the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, and The Spite House (2011), winner of the De Novo Poetry Prize. She is the founding director of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at Hood College and lives in Maryland with her family.
Read a special WWPH Interview with Dorian Elizabeth Knapp by Eric Julian Baker on her award-winning new poetry collection Causa Sui here.
WWPH NEWS
2025 Poetry Prize Winners! Each receives $1,500, publication, and editorial and promotional support. MORE ON THESE AWARD-WINNING POETS AND THEIR BOOKS HERE. Thank you to all who submitted!
AMERICA’S FUTURE…be the first to read. Now available for everywhere books/ebooks are sold. AMAZON. BOOKSHOP. BARNES & NOBLE. or maximize your support of WWPH here at WWPH DIRECT.
JOIN US at the historic ARTS CLUB OF WASHINGTON for a WWPH LITERARY SALON.
RSVPs are required to reserve your seat… only a limited number of seats are now available.
JOIN US IN BROOKLAND for our WWPH LITERARY SALON: WRITERS AND BREWS EDITION! RSVP, please, here.
JOIN BLACK WOMEN WRITERS published in AMERICA’S FUTURE for a bold LITERARY SALON. RSVP, please, here.
WWPH Writes is now open for submissions! We are reading for 2026: poetry as well as flash fiction and creative nonfiction (1,000 words or less). We are looking for your authentic voice; lines that thrill and surprise us; poetry and stories from writers across DC, Maryland and Virginia. We are a paying market: $25.00 to you with our hope that you pay it forward a buy a book from a small press. And, we are free to submit to! More details on our Submittable site here.