This year’s APR/Honickman First Book Prize has been awarded to Chessy Normile for her manuscript Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party, chosen by our guest judge, Li-Young Lee. The book will be published in September, 2020, and will be distributed by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium. 
 

Chessy Normile received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, where she was awarded an Academy of American Poets University Prize in 2018. Her poems appear in Narrative, jubilat, The Journal, poets.org, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She currently lives in New York and edits a zine series called Girl Blood Info. 

We received over 900 submissions for the prize this year and are very grateful to have read so many excellent poems. 

Congratulations, Chessy!