Persea Books has awarded its 2011 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry to Laura Cronk for her collection, Having Been an Accomplice. The honor, formerly known as the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize, is part of an annual collaboration between Persea Books and The Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project. Winners must be U.S. women poets who have not yet published a volume of work and receive a $1,000 cash advance as well as publication of their manuscript.
Cronk, who serves on the faculty of the Riggio Honors Program: Writing for Democracy for The New School in New York City, will also be offered a fully-funded residency at Civitella Ranieri Center, an artist’s colony in Umbertide, Italy. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Barrow Street, and McSweeney’s.
Previous winners of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry include Cynthia Marie Hoffman, Alexandra Teague, and Amy Newman.
—Meghan Smith
