Category Archives: Author

BWP Alum, Marjorie Saiser, had her poem, “My Old Aunts Play Canasta in a Snow Storm,” from her Backwaters Press collection Lost in Seward County, featured on the Garrison  Keillor’s radio program “The Writer’s Almanac” on Tuesday, March 12, 2013.

Backwaters collection Real Indian Junk Jewelry, by Trevino L. Brings Plenty, is reviewed this weekend by Denise Low in her  On Poetry column in the Kansas City Star. Low writes: Brings Plenty is a young Sherman Alexie or Adrian C. Louis. He does not hesitate to excoriate the capitalists of city or ranch economies. His [...]

In June, the ForeWords Review announced their Book of the Year Awards for 2011 and Rattlesnake Daddy won the Silver in Autobiography or Memoir. We extend our congratulations to Brent Spencer for the well deserved recognition of his stunning memoir. The awards were announced on June 23 at the American Library Association’s annual conference.

Michelle Brooks‘ recent collection from The Backwaters Press, Make Yourself Small, is reviewed in the current edition of Rattle by Grace Curtis. She writes:  The collection evoked a sense of toughness often associated with West Texas and Detroit. Yet the poems drew me in despite their consistently dark subject matter. What kept me reading was not [...]

Matthew Brennan’s poem, “The Sublime,” from his collection The House With The Mansard Roof, is featured on the website IndianaHumanities.org. The poem won the Merton Prize for the Poetry of the Sacred.

Foreword Reviews has released the list of finalists for the Book of the Year award, and Backwaters’ own Brent Spencer is nominated for his memoir Rattlesnake Daddy. Rattlesnake Daddy, a book by Professor Brent Spencer (Department of English), has been named a finalist for the 2011 Book of the Year Award in the category of [...]