Introducing MID/SOUTH SONNETS
Our full anthology lineup and our first crowdfunding project
If you’ve been keeping up with Belle Point, you know that we dove into publishing last year with our first Mid/South Anthology and haven’t slowed down since. I’m so grateful for the relationships that have grown from that book and the others that have followed. C.T. Salazar was kind enough to offer two new sonnets for the first book and participate in a follow-up interview—and then generous enough to take on this new project with me. Our friendship has become a true light in my life, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.
After working through a steady flow of submissions, we are thrilled to announce the lineup for our second anthology, Mid/South Sonnets: sixty-six poets from all over the (Mid-)South. This book will feature the following contributors:
Rasha Abdulhadi | Brandon Amico | JC Andrews | Susan April | Stacey Balkun | Anna Lena Phillips Bell | Andrea Blancas Beltran | makalani bandele | Ellie Black | Darrell Bourque | Wendy Taylor Carlisle | Justin Carter | Michelle Castleberry | George David Clark | Adam Clay | Christian J. Collier | Dorsey Craft | Brody Parrish Craig | Hannah Dow | George Drew | CD Eskilson | Ann Fisher-Wirth | Beth Gordon | Maggie Graber | David Greenspan | Andrew Hemmert | Raye Hendrix | Maggie Rue Hess | Faylita Hicks | Erin Hoover | Randall Horton | SG Huerta | T.R. Hummer | Jules Jacob | Bethany Jarmul | Grant Matthew Jenkins | Edison Jennings | Ashley M. Jones | Carol Parris Krauss | T.K. Lee | Steven Leyva | Aurielle Marie | Landon McGee | Benjamin Morris | Caleb Nolen | mónica teresa ortiz | Alison Pelegrin | Sam Prestridge | Suzanne Underwood Rhodes | Celeste Schueler | Gerry Sloan | Cody Smith | Tom Snarsky | Nathan Spoon | colin james sturdevant | Hiba Tahir | Nikki Ummel | Damien Uriah | Clara Bush Vadala | John Vanderslice | Cassandra Whitaker | Jim Whiteside | Marcus Wicker | Matthew Wimberley | Marianne Worthington | Jianqing Zheng
One thing we found especially remarkable was the number and range of poets who found their way to us for this project. Whereas I did a fair amount of soliciting for the first book—as an unknown entity in publishing, I knew trust had to be built—the vast majority of our contributors to this anthology submitted directly to us on their own. I’m thankful to all of them for trusting us to treat their work well.
Mid/South Sonnets is due for an August release, and we’re going to try something new as we finish preparing the book. For the first time, we’ll be running a crowdfunding campaign to kick off pre-orders and offer special deals on limited-edition Belle Point merch and poetry bundles. We’ll have several items available in small batches that will feature a special version of our logo inspired by the Sonnets anthology cover. Make sure to keep an eye out for updates—we’ll be launching soon.