STAC Professor Monica Wendel awarded 2015 Coal Hill Review Prize for Chapbook

(SPARKILL, NY—March 3, 2016)—Monica Wendel, assistant professor of composition and creative writing at St. Thomas Aquinas College, was awarded the 2015 Coal Hill Review Prize for her chapbook English Kills. Wendel is scheduled to give readings at Wigle Whiskey in Pittsburgh (PA) with Dakota Garilli, STAC Class of 2012, on March 16, 2016 at 7:00 p.m., at Edinboro University (PA) on March 17, 2016 and in the Azarian-McCullough Art Gallery at St. Thomas Aquinas College on March 30, 2016 at 5:30 p.m. The readings are free and open to the public.

Michael Simms, founder and editor in chief of Autumn House Press, which publishes the Coal Hill chapbook series, said this of English Kills, “‘Don’t be alarmed,’ Monica Wendel assures us about her provocative title —English Kills is just the name the Dutch gave to a local stream. But in fact, we are alarmed. In her world, ideas have consequences. People take drugs and turn themselves into music to escape desperate lives. Shrimp lie on a plate like ‘tendoned larvae.’ In her world, civic pride and genocide are like two flags on the same ship. Threat is everywhere. But thankfully, there’s a way out of the nightmare. We can, she says, leave our worst selves behind and move on to a place where ‘rains water even dead languages’.”

Coal Hill Review is the online imprint of Autumn House Press. They strive to further Autumn House’s mission of publishing the work of excellent contemporary writers who have a following among readers, but whose work has been overlooked by commercial publishers. Coal Hill seeks to publish a wide range of diverse voices. The immediacy of the online platform allows them to potentially reach a new audience, therefore promoting poetry and other fine literature to a wider range of readers.

“With English Kills, Wendel doesn’t invite you into her world and describe it to you in poetic form. Rather, from the opening verses of this rich, mature, charmingly restless collection, you find yourself already wrapped up in the sticky midst of her creative realm—aware of her associative fluidity between objects and sentiments, of her people and their quirks, of her places and their placelessness, of her language and its looseness, of the oneiric levity she grants even the heaviest of events, and of her certain inner emptiness that can only be filled by the most mundanely baffling of miracles,” commented Paul D’Agostino, an editor at The L Magazine.

English Kills is available for purchase online on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/English-Kills-Monica-Wendel/dp/1938769155/. For more information about the Coal Hill Review, visit: http://www.coalhillreview.com/announcements/. For more information about Autumn Press House, visit: http://www.autumnhouse.org/. Wendel can be reached at mwendel@stac.edu.

Wendel, a resident of Bushwick (NY), graduated magna cum laude from the State University of New York at Geneseo, where she studied philosophy with a minor in creative writing. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in poetry writing from New York University, where she was awarded Goldwater and Starworks teaching fellowships. She joined the St. Thomas Aquinas College community in September 2010 as an adjunct professor and transitioned to visiting professor in 2011 and assistant professor in 2013. She teaches writing courses including Intermediate Composition, Writing about Literary Types and Intro to Creative Writing. In 2013, she published a book of poetry entitled No Apocalypse which won the Georgetown Review Press poetry manuscript prize. In 2015, her work was nominated for inclusion in The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses Series for her published works of poetry. Wendel received nominations from Thrush Press for her poem, "[Flock of Birds]" which appears in her chapbook Pioneer (Thrush Press); IDK for her poem “Chicago”; and Paper Nautilus for her poem “Farragut.”

St. Thomas Aquinas College is an independent liberal arts college located on 60 acres in Rockland County, NY which provides education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The College’s 2,800 full and part time students can choose from more than 100 different majors, minors, specializations, and dual degree programs across three Schools: Arts & Sciences, Business, and Education. The College is recognized by U.S. News & World Report in the Top-Tier for Regional Universities, by Colleges of Distinction in both its New York and Catholic editions, by Affordable Colleges Online as a top College in New York for Return on Investment, and is included as a Military Friendly School®. St. Thomas Aquinas College is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools; its School of Education is accredited by National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education(NCATE); and its School of Business is accredited by the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE). For more information, visit www.stac.edu.