Poets & Writers, Inc.

Patricia Spears Jones of New York City won the eleventh annual Jackson Poetry Prize. Spears Jones, whose most recent book is A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015), received $50,000. Henri Cole, Kwame Dawes, and Mary Szybist judged. The annual award is given to “an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.” There is no application process.

MAUREEN EGEN WRITERS EXCHANGE AWARDS

Poet Brian Evans-Jones of South Berwick, Maine, and fiction writer Joan Dempsey of New Gloucester, Maine, won the 2017 Maureen Egan Writers Exchange Awards. They each received an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to meet with agents, editors, publishers, and prominent writers. Cynthia Cruz judged in poetry; Tania James judged in fiction. The annual awards are given to a poet and fiction writer from a select state. As of this writing, the next deadline has not been set.