In River Teeth News …

Laura Julier Wins River Teeth’s 2023 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize

April 12, 2024

By Megan Lutes

We are delighted to announce that Laura Julier (pictured here) has won the 2023 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Her manuscript, Off Izaak Walton Road, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Spring 2025. Julier will also receive a $1,000 honorarium. All entries were screened by the editors, and our guest judge, Lacy M. Johnson, chose a winner from among the finalists. All of us at River Teeth are grateful to the many writers who submitted their books to the competition this year and to Lacy M. Johnson for sharing her time and expertise to choose the winning manuscript and runner-up.

About the winning manuscript, Johnson writes:

Off Izaak Walton Road asks us why some places hold a grip on our imaginations, what it is about these places that allows us to be more fully ourselves, and how these places change the stories we tell about who we are and the world in which we live. Written with clarity, candor, and a tenderness of attention that is profoundly moving, this book shows the often-transformative power of loss, solace, and joy.”

Laura Julier served for ten years as editor of Fourth Genre, the literary journal of nonfiction. As professor of writing at Michigan State University, she served as director of the Professional Writing Program and taught courses in environmental and place-based writing, creative nonfiction, and editing and publishing. She is co-editor of the collection, Nonfiction, the Teaching of Writing, and the Influence of Richard Lloyd-Jones. Her nonfiction essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, the most recent forthcoming in Under the Gum Tree. She lives in Iowa City with her spouse, the writer Kate Carroll de Gutes, and works as a chaplain at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. 

We would also like to extend our warmest congratulations to Dwaine Rieves, our 2023 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize runner up, and to all the finalists and semifinalists:

Winner

Laura Julier: Off Izaak Walton Road

Runner-Up

Dwaine Rieves: Cold in Mississippi: A Memoir of the Human Soul in Medicine

Finalists (in alphabetical order)

Fleda Brown: End-of-the-Line Club: A Diary
Amy Hassinger: Apocalypse Always: A Memoir in Fragments
Jen Knox: Despite the Work

Semifinalists (in alphabetical order)

Anne P. Beatty: Rich Country: Views from a Nepali Classroom, the American South, and Beyond
Corinna Cook: Another Sense of Time
A. Molotkov: A Broken Russia Inside Me
Andi Myles: God-Haunted: A Memoir of Evangelical Deconstruction in Lyric Essays
Jeremy Smith: Brave the Night

A list of past winners can be found on our website and you can find their books on the University of New Mexico Press site and wherever you buy books. Look for our most recent titles, including the 2022 winner Sarah Capdeville’s Aligning the Glacier’s Ghost, and the 2021 winner Robert Lunday’s Disequilibria.

The 2024 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize will be open for submissions August 1 – October 31, 2024. Award-winning memoirist and essayist Beth Nguyen will serve as our final judge. We look forward to reading your manuscript!

In Other News …

Brooke Champagne, Book Reviews Editor

Brooke Champagne Joins the River Teeth Team

Hello from the confluence of River Teeth here at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, on the kind of gorgeous fall day that makes a person want to leash up the dog and head out into the fields and woods–but not so fast because submissions opened on September 1st and we’ve got a lot of reading to do. Happily, we love to read. 

Meet River Teeth’s Spring 2024 Interns

Hello! We are excited to shine light on some of the creative minds and passionate spirits that have been working with us this past spring semester: our interns! From painting the beautiful rocks you might’ve seen at AWP to writing captions for Instagram posts to moving book reviews from our old website to our new website - our interns have been with us through it all and we couldn’t have done it without them. Each intern brings a unique blend of enthusiasm, curiosity, and dedication to our team. They had so much fun interviewing each other for this article, so we hope you enjoy getting a glimpse of them as much as we have loved working with them.

Sarah Capdeville Wins River Teeth’s 2022 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize

We are delighted to announce that Sarah Capdeville has won the 2022 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Her manuscript, Aligning the Glacier's Ghost, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in spring 2024. Capdeville will also receive a $1,000 honorarium. All entries were screened by the editors and our guest judge, Natasha Trethewey, chose a winner from among the finalists...

Cover of Robert Lunday's Disequilibria

Robert Lunday Wins River Teeth’s 2021 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize

We are delighted to announce that Robert Lunday has won the 2021 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Fayettenam: Meditations on Missingness will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in spring 2023. All entries were screened by the editors and our guest judge, Rigoberto González, chose a winner from among the finalists. Everyone at River Teeth is grateful to the many writers who submitted their books to this year’s competition and to Rigoberto González for sharing his time and expertise to choose a winner.

Walter M. Robinson Wins River Teeth’s 2020 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize

We are delighted to announce that Walter M. Robinson has won the 2020 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. His winning manuscript, What Cannot Be Undone, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Spring 2022. All entries were screened by the editors and our guest judge, Megan Stielstra, chose a winner from among many exceptional manuscripts. River Teeth is grateful to the many writers who submitted their books to this year’s competition and to Megan Stielstra for the difficult service of choosing among them.

Cover of Kevin Honold's The Rock Cycle

Kevin Honold Wins 2019 River Teeth Book Prize

We are thrilled to announce that Kevin Honold is the winner of this year’s River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. His winning manuscript, The Rock Cycle, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Spring 2021. All entries were screened by the editors and our guest judge, Bret Lott, chose a winner from among the exceptional finalists.

Headshot of Megan Stielstra, a blond woman wearing glasses and a black turtleneck

Megan Stielstra To Judge the 2020 River Teeth Book Prize

We are delighted to announce that acclaimed author, Megan Stielstra will judge the 2020 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Stielstra is the author of three books of essays: The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, Once I Was Cool, and Everyone Remain Calm. 

River Teeth Finds New Home at Ball State

After twenty years at Ashland University in Ohio, River Teeth will now be housed in the Department of English at Ball State University with Jill Christman and Mark Neely as Senior Editors and Professor Todd McKinney as the Managing Editor. River Teeth is a portfolio of literary editing projects anchored by one of the top literary nonfiction magazines in the country. It includes a bi-annual, print magazine (River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative), a weekly online magazine (Beautiful Things), and a nonfiction book contest with an annual winner published by the University of New Mexico Press. Founding editors, Joe Mackall and Dan Lehman, wished to find a new home for the literary journal after their retirement from teaching at Ashland University.

Subscribe

All River Teeth subscriptions and back issues are available for purchase or renewal through Submittable! River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative (ISSN 1544-1849) is published semiannually. Issues are distributed in the fall and spring.

Submit

River Teeth accepts submissions of creative nonfiction through Submittable from September 1 to December 1 and January 1 to April 1.