We are delighted to announce our chapbook winners from our 2025 contest. Out of nearly 300 chapbook submissions, we welcome four new authors to our press.
Cassie Holguin-Pettinato - Hybrid Chapbook Winner “Sen time ntality” - coming Spring 2027
Cassie Holguin-Pettinato Chicana multidisciplinary artist, published poet, and thereminist, from the U.S-Mexico border. She is the author of The Five Stages of Stuttering (FlowerSong Press, 2024), and The Lamb’s Tail (Bottlecap Press, 2022). She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. In 2024, she was awarded the Poet and Author Fellowship at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and in 2025, she traveled to Galway, Ireland, as Artist-in-Residence at Watershed Studios.
Jonathan Rowe - Poetry Chapbook Winner “iKhaya-Home” - coming Summer 2027
Jonathan Rowe is a poet and librarian raised between Boston, Massachusetts, USA (unceded land of the Massachusett people) and Johannesburg, South Africa. He has been published in Callaloo, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and elsewhere, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Learn more about Jonathan’s work at jonathanrowewrites.com.
Rocio Anica - Prose Chapbook Winner “Tiny Joy, Tiny Bane” - coming Fall 2027
Rocio Anica received her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and her Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Cornell University, where she garnered the Martin Sampson Teaching Award. She volunteers her writing to non-profit organizations and continues her work in education. She is at work on a satirical picaresque. Find her at rocioanica.com.
Keishla Rivera-López - Poetry Chapbook Winner - coming Winter 2027
Keishla Rivera-López is a literary and cultural studies scholar, writer, and poet specializing in Latina/o and Caribbean literature, Latinx Studies, and Puerto Rican Studies with a focus on Latinidad, cultural production, archives, and memory. She received a PhD in American Studies at The Graduate School-Newark at Rutgers University where she was awarded the 2019-2020 Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship. Currently, Keishla is a visiting professor in the English Department at Haverford College. Keishla was born and raised in Newark, NJ to Puerto Rican migrants and reflects on what it means to be a child of diaspora in her scholarship and writing. In her free time she enjoys writing poetry, short-stories, plays and essays. Her writing has been published in Centro Journal, Label Me Latina/o Journal, Hispanofila Journal, Chiricu Journal, The Acentos Review, Decolonial Passage, The Newarker, and The Journal for Latina Feminist Criticism.
This generative writing workshop is an invitation to check in with our bodies and consider our bodies alongside our writing. The workshop will begin with an invitation to free write, stretch, and engage in a breathwork session to get us physically and mentally in touch with our bodies. We will then spend the workshop discussing poetry related to themes on body poetics. Loosely defined, “body poetics” is poetry explicitly concerned with bodily existence, features or the whole of the body. These poems ask questions of the body and its relationship to the self, to other beings with bodies, to places and situations. Often, the central question is simply where is the body? Where is the body right now? This workshop space recognizes, welcomes, and embraces the diversity of people's bodies in terms of ability, age, race, gender, class, size, shape.
Aerik Francis is a Queer Black Latinx poet born and based on the lands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples currently known as Denver, Colorado, USA. Aerik is currently the poet laureate of Adams County, Colorado. Aerik wants us to come together and gum up the gears of the machinery of the empire toward all of our collective liberation. They are the author of the poetry chapbooks MISEDUCATION (New Delta Re-view, 2023) and BODYPOLITIC (Abode Press in 2026. Find more of their work on their website phaentompoet.com or via social media @phaentompoet.
Tickets are $25 minimum for general admission and limited $10 tickets for writers-in-need. All proceeds go towards paying our presenters and helping the Press pay for operational expenses. Get tickets HERE!
Starting June 7th, 2026, Abode Press is returning with our virtual retreat experience! With the success of our first retreat, we are coming back bigger and better than ever! We will also have anti-racist workshops available in poetry, fiction, novel, and nonfiction, and attendees will also be able to attend 2-3 craft talks and lectures throughout the week (x2 as much than our first retreat). Workshops will be led by renowned writers, including Ariana Brown (Poetry), Saúl Hernández (Poetry), Benedict Nguyễn (Novel), Annell López (Short Fiction), and Camille U. Adams (Nonfiction).
Most retreat experiences are costly, tending to be upwards to $2000. At Abode, we are working tirelessly to increase accessibility for writers to attend much needed spaces to work on their craft and build connections without compromising their livelihood. This is why the retreat will have an asking price of $325 (sliding scale) with partial scholarships available to writers in need, but because of this low price, applicants will be selected based off the strength of their application and alignment with our press.
It’s free to apply! Apply here: Abode Press Submission Manager
We are excited to announce that our first ever full-length fiction prose prize will open on March 15th and close May 15th in Submittable. We are looking for fiction novels or short story collections written by people of color who identify as queer and/or trans. We are interested in works that discuss themes of home, defy genre, and have a strong sense of place. Keep an eye on our submissions page for more information (the page will launch on Monday, March 9th!)
Guidelines: Manuscript samples should be 50 pages or less, in Times New Roman, and double spaced. The artist statement should describe how the manuscript aligns with Abode’s commitments to anti-racist and intersectional work and tie in our interests in themes of “home, identity, origin, and culture.” We are especially interested in works that are haunting, that have a strong sense of place, that are queer, radical, and genre-defiant. Some of our editors favorite books and inspirations are Toni Morrison, Mariana Enriquez, Octavia Butler.
The Editorial Team for full lengths will be spearheaded by Senior Editors, Diamond Braxton and Addie Tsai; Editorial Assistant, Marilyn Ramirez; and Editorial Interns, Teri Vela, Sarah Alcaide Escue, and Christina Anne Brown.
We can’t wait to read your submissions!
We want to take a moment to acknowledge accomplishments in the Abode Press family.
Jakob Johnson was a scholar for the McCormack Writing Center’s (formerly Tin House) Winter Online Workshop.
Angela Heiser has two poems in the forthcoming Dead of Winter anthology from Milk and Cake Press.
Sarah Alcaide-Escue’s manuscript was a finalist for the Fence Books’ Modern Poets Series Prize.
Ravneet Sandhu has a poem out at Chainmail poetry
Congratulations to these Abode staff members!! Learn more about them on our Masthead page.
Thank you, as always, for your support! We love you!
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