After June

The Hopper Literary Magazine 2018 Poetry Prize Winner

After June is written with a musician’s affinity for and attention to pattern, rooted in the author’s experience as a choral singer since the age of 14. The collection engages complexly with religion, loss, and womanhood. Raised in a Conservative Mennonite community, Gingerich speaks “with an exile’s voice” (Austin Hummel), interrogating the traditions that shaped her with a critical but tender eye. After June grapples with the pain and beauty of living truthfully in a world where the roles we play for others are often in conflict with our own desires. This struggle animates an ambitious first collection, following the writer across the rich landscapes of Ohio and West Virginia, like “an artist, carrying her tools from one job to another” (“Window with Pink Geraniums and Aching Body”), ever searching for the meaning of home, and belonging.

Charity Gingerich of Uniontown, Ohio

Charity Gingerich is from Uniontown, Ohio. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as FIELD, the Kenyon Review, Arts & Letters, Ruminate,Indiana Review and North American Review. She has taught a variety of composition, literature and creative writing classes at West Virginia University, Fairmont State University, and the University of Mount Union. Currently she teaches ESL to international businessmen and their families. When not writing and teaching, she enjoys singing with various choral groups.

Michelle Kingdom

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michelle Kingdom studied drawing and painting at UCLA, earning a Bachelor’s degree in fine art.  Quietly creating figurative narratives in thread for years, Michelle is a self-taught embroiderer who now exhibits her work nationally and internationally. Her embroideries have been featured in numerous publications such as The Huffington Post, Hi Fructose, Juxtapoz, Saatchi Gallery, and Colossal.  When not busy stitching, Michelle is a preschool teacher and lives in Burbank, CA with her husband and daughter.