Congratulations to NEPC poet Lynne Schmidt, winner of the 2020 New Women’s Voices Award from FLP!

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Lynne Schmidt’s manuscript, The Unaccounted for Circles of Hell, was a finalist for the 2020 New Women’s Voices Award from Finishing Line Press, while her manuscript, Dead Dog Poems, a collection about the grief that comes with a terminal cancer diagnosis of a beloved emotional support animal, won the prize.  

About Lynne

Lynne Schmidt is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, and a mental health professional with a focus in trauma and healing. She is the author of the chapbooks, Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press) which was listed as one of the 17 Best Breakup Books to Read in 2020, and On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West), which was featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed for PTSD Awareness Week. Her work has received the Maine Nonfiction Award, Editor’s Choice Award, and was a 2018 and 2019 PNWA finalist for memoir and poetry respectively. Lynne was a five time 2019 and 2020 Best of the Net Nominee, an honorable mention for the Charles Bukowski, and Doug Draime Poetry Awards. In 2012 she started the project, AbortionChat, which aims to lessen the stigma around abortion. When given the choice, Lynne prefers the company of her three dogs and one cat to humans.  

Introducing POET IN THE HOUSE!

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As the cold and darkness of winter approaches, many of us will be spending more time in our homes. As our Advisory Member Regie Gibson observed, “NEPC members have a wealth of knowledge about all things related to poetry. Why not tap that wealth and share it?”

We are moving forward with his vision and are offering a space for our members to educate and enrich the intellectual and artistic life of our NEPC community. This new series of events for our membership only is called Poet in the House! It will be an occasional event with our members as teachers and learners. 

We would like you to consider offering a presentation, workshop, interview, or panel discussion on any poetry-related topic. What is your deep interest? What theme, process, form, language, poet, history have you delved into? What is your unique expertise? What do you want to learn more about and share with fellow members?

We encourage presenters to include slides, sound and video elements, writing exercises, etc. to make these sessions engaging and interactive.

If you would like offer a session, please send a brief description of the topic(50-100 words), a bio, and a preferred date and time (plus one backup in case there’s overlap) to president@nepoetryclub.org. 

We will provide the Zoom link and publicize the event and support you in whatever way you need. 

Regie Gibson has generously offered to kick off the series with the first offering on Saturday, November 21, 3 pm. 

23 and the Strangeness of Me: A Chromopoem

In this presentation and writing workshop, Regie Gibson will lead us on an original exploration into the “genetics” of what makes each of us unique or “strange” as poets and poetry lovers (those who have no choice but to observe the absurd in us and listen). Be prepared to write, be challenged, and discover!
(An earlier version of this was presented at the New Hampshire Poetry Festival.)