2018 MRBA: Life During Wartime

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Congratulations to the 2018 MRBA Winner! We are pleased to announce that Kimberly Reyes has won the 2018 Michael Rubin Book Award for her extraordinary manuscript, Life During Wartime. This year's judge described the work as essays "that are at once tender and tough, witty and wise," that "rigorously examines important issues ranging from how the body absorbs the pain of objectification, misogyny, racism, and colorism to the daily microaggressions faced by a woman of color working in tech to the sheer volume of noise associated with urban living." Kimberly's manuscript will be published by Fourteen Hills Press in December 2018.

Thank you to Kimberly, judge May-lee Chai, and all who submitted to us! We were fortunate to have many impressive manuscripts. We highly encourage y'all to look out for MRBA 2019 and submit again! Thank you for continuing to support our award!

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About the winner: Kimberly Reyes is a poet and essayist, a second-generation NYer, a Durannie, and a die-hard Mets fan. She has received fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Columbia University, and San Francisco State University. Her nonfiction has appeared in the Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, Time.com, The New York Post, The Village Voice, Alternative Press, ESPN the Magazine, Jane, Honey, NY1 News, Entropy, and The Best American Poetry blog, among other places. Her poetry appears widely online and in journals, including The Academy of American Poets, The Feminist Wire, The Acentos Review, RHINO, Columbia Journal, Yemassee, New American Writing, Juked, Cosmonauts Avenue and Eleven Eleven. Her chapbook Warning Coloration was recently released by Dancing Girl Press. Her full-length manuscript Running to Stand Still is forthcoming from Omnidawn. Kimberly is a writer in residence at the Pacific Felt Factory and a member of the 3.9 San Francisco Black Art Collective. You can follow her writing ventures here: kimberlyreyes.online