Orlando Writers and the Rising Wave
Apr01

Orlando Writers and the Rising Wave

What a deep writerly pleasure it was for me to read the most recent Orlando submissions and to make the final selections. It was not surprising that the work that came in was so various and so fine—but such work always surprises the mind and the spirit and heart. I send my thanks to all for the privilege of reading, and congratulations to the winners and finalists. The winners of this Orlando cycle will be included in a new AROHO...

Read More
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor: Orlando Poetry Judge
May02

Cheryl Boyce-Taylor: Orlando Poetry Judge

AROHO is pleased to announce Cheryl Boyce-Taylor  as the finalist Poetry judge for the Fall 2015 Orlando Prizes.   Born in Trinidad and raised in Queens, New York, Cheryl is the founder and curator of The Calypso Muse Reading Series and The Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series, and recently received a Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. The author of three collections of poetry, Raw Air, Night When Moon Follows, and...

Read More
Anne Finger: Orlando Flash Fiction Judge
May01

Anne Finger: Orlando Flash Fiction Judge

AROHO is pleased to announce  Anne Finger as the finalist Flash Fiction judge for the Fall 2015 Orlando Prizes. Anne Finger is a writer of fiction—both short stories and a novel—as well as of creative non-fiction. Her short story collection, Call Me Ahab, winner of the Prairie Schooner Award, was published in the Fall of 2009 by the University of Nebraska Press.  She has published four other books.  Her short fiction has appeared in...

Read More
Sue William Silverman: Orlando CNF Judge
May01

Sue William Silverman: Orlando CNF Judge

AROHO is pleased to announce  Sue William Silverman as the finalist Creative Nonfiction judge for the Fall 2015 Orlando Prizes. SUE WILLIAM SILVERMAN’s new memoir is The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. Her two previous memoirs are Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, which is also a Lifetime TV movie, and Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, which won the Association of Writers...

Read More
Megan Abbott: Orlando Short Fiction Judge
May01

Megan Abbott: Orlando Short Fiction Judge

AROHO is pleased to announce award-winning crime fiction author Megan Abbott as the finalist Short Story judge for the Fall 2015 Orlando Prizes. Megan Abbott is the award-winning author of six novels, including The Fever, Dare Me andThe End of Everything. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon and Los Angeles Times Magazine. She is also the author of The Street Was Mine, a study of hardboiled fiction and film noir,...

Read More
A. E. Stallings, 2015 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge
Oct15

A. E. Stallings, 2015 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge

AROHO is proud to announce  2015 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge, poet and translator A. E. Stallings. A. E. (Alicia) Stallings studied classics in Athens, Georgia and has lived since 1999 in Athens, Greece. She has published three books of poetry, Archaic Smile (1999), which won the Richard Wilbur Award; Hapax (2000); and Olives (2012). Her new verse translation of Lucretius (in rhyming fourteeners!), The Nature of Things, is...

Read More
Joni B. Cole: Orlando Flash Fiction Judge
Oct01

Joni B. Cole: Orlando Flash Fiction Judge

AROHO is pleased to announce author and writing instructor Joni B. Cole  as the finalist Flash Fiction judge for the Spring 2015 Orlando Prizes. Joni B. Cole’s most recent book is a collection of essays, Another Bad-Dog Book: Tales of Life, Love, and Neurotic Human Behavior. (Every page of Another Bad-Dog Book offers riotously funny and outrageously honest observations without sacrificing either Cole’s fiercely intelligent insights or...

Read More
Camille Dungy: Orlando Poetry Judge
Oct01

Camille Dungy: Orlando Poetry Judge

“Creative insight exists in more of an aquifer then a well. Creative insight is always below the surface. Maybe the issue is access, not availability. Find a new place and a new way to plant your well. Find new technology to get the water out. Find a form that tests your limits and write into that form.”—Camille Dungy AROHO is pleased to announce Camille Dungy as the finalist Poetry  judge for the Spring...

Read More
Pam Houston: Orlando Creative Nonfiction Judge
Oct01

Pam Houston: Orlando Creative Nonfiction Judge

“I was just working hard to unearth the things that wanted expression inside me, and I had no idea anyone would care about my river running/sheep hunting/cowboy chasing stories, but they did.”—Pam Houston AROHO is pleased to announce Pam Houston as the finalist Creative Nonfiction judge for the Spring 2015 Orlando Prizes. We asked Pam the following questions about her own writing and her advice for women writers:  ...

Read More
Aimee Liu: Orlando Short Fiction Judge
Oct01

Aimee Liu: Orlando Short Fiction Judge

“Our culture trains women to relinquish power over their own body image to others; too often women see themselves only as they think – or are told – others see them. If and when women can own their own sense of their bodies, including the pleasure and comfort and strength and wisdom that their bodies supply, then a positive relationship between body image and creativity can flourish.”—Aimee Liu AROHO is pleased to announce...

Read More
Cheryl Clarke: Orlando Poetry Judge
May01

Cheryl Clarke: Orlando Poetry Judge

Often, poetry has been used to educate and motivate people to change their lives–to change their circumstances.—Cheryl Clarke AROHO is pleased to announce renowned poet and civil rights activist Cheryl Clarke as the finalist Poetry judge for the Fall 2014 Orlando Prizes. We asked Cheryl the following questions about her own writing and her advice for women writers: AROHO:  Can you talk a little about your experience of the...

Read More
Vanessa Diffenbaugh:  Orlando Short Fiction Judge
May01

Vanessa Diffenbaugh: Orlando Short Fiction Judge

I couldn’t have written The Language of Flowers without being a mother and a foster mother.  But lately I’ve also been thinking about how the two—being a writer and a mother—sometimes feel like opposing forces. […] I don’t have advice, really, other than to try to honor both roles and to just keep going.—Vanessa Diffenbaugh  AROHO is pleased to announce bestselling author of The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, as the...

Read More
Kristen Wolf: Orlando Flash Fiction Judge
May01

Kristen Wolf: Orlando Flash Fiction Judge

“What is one resource you wish more women writers had or knew about?” Confidence.—Kristen Wolf AROHO is pleased to announce author Kristen Wolf as the finalist Flash Fiction judge for the Fall 2014 Orlando Prizes. We asked Kristen about the values and concerns of historical fiction and for her tips and advice on the writing life:   AROHO: In The Way, you use fiction as a porthole into a re-imagined 1st Century...

Read More
Deborah Feldman:  Orlando Creative Nonfiction Judge
May01

Deborah Feldman: Orlando Creative Nonfiction Judge

Sometimes when I read something I can hear the writer talking to me, and they sound very specific, very much themselves, and I can picture them in color and detail. This is when reading becomes exciting.—Deborah Feldman AROHO is pleased to announce bestselling author Deborah Feldman as the finalist Creative Nonfiction judge for the Fall 2014 Orlando Prizes. In anticipation of the upcoming competition we asked Deborah the following...

Read More
C.D. Wright, 2014 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge
Feb13

C.D. Wright, 2014 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge

The 2014 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge is renowned poet and chancellor at the Academy of American Poets, C.D. Wright. C.D. Wright was born in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, the daughter of a judge and a court reporter. She has published over a dozen books, includingRising, Falling, Hovering(2008); Like Something Flying Backwards: New and Selected Poems (2007); and a text edition of One Big Self: An Investigation(2003), a project...

Read More
Tracy K. Smith, 2013 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge
Jan01

Tracy K. Smith, 2013 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith is the Finalist Judge for the 2013 To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize. About Tracy K. Smith’s Pulitzer Pize winning collection,  Life on Mars, Jessica Piazza, 2012 TTL recipient, says: “I’m most affected by “The Speed of Belief,” which is the long elegy poem that makes up a section in Life on Mars.  That poem is for her father, and I love to watch the poem move through...

Read More
Evie Shockley, 2012 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge
Jan01

Evie Shockley, 2012 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge

Poet Evie Shockley is the 2012 To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize finalist judge.          Update to Post: See Evie’s selected winner, Leia Penina Wilson.

Read More
Eloise Klein Healy, 2011 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge
Jan01

Eloise Klein Healy, 2011 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge

The 2011 To the Lighthouse finalist judge is Eloise Klein Healy, the first Los Angeles Poet Laureate.           Post Update: Click here to see Eloise’s selected winner, Jessica Piazza.

Read More
Alice Quinn, 2010 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge
Jan01

Alice Quinn, 2010 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge

Alice Quinn is Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s graduate School of the Arts. She was poetry editor at The New Yorker from 1987-2007 and at Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers, from 1976-1986, and she is the editor of Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop. Her articles on and interviews with writers, poets, and...

Read More
Kate Gale, 2009 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge
Jan01

Kate Gale, 2009 To the Lighthouse Finalist Judge

Kate Gale, Ph.D., is the managing editor of Red Hen Press. Kate was the inaugural judge for AROHO’s To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize. Update to post: Click here to see Kate’s selected winner, Genevieve Kaplan.

Read More