UNM Press title Losing the Ring in the River, by Marge Saiser, won the 2014 WILLA Literary Award in Poetry from Women Writing the West (WWW). The annual awards recognize the best published literature for women’s or girls’ stories set in the North American West. Winning books are selected by professional librarians at colleges, universities, public libraries and research institutions. Saiser and other award winners will be honored in Golden, Colo., Oct. 16–19, during the 20th Annual WWW Conference.
Spare and incisive, the poems in Losing the Ring in the River deal with three women—Clara, Emma and Liz—who have dreams that aren’t quelled by the realities they face. Saiser explores the undercurrents connecting these three generations while examining how lives are restricted and sometimes damaged by what people cannot or will not share with one another. Saiser avoids resolutions and easy endings, focusing instead on the small, hard-won victories that each woman experiences in her life and in her love of those around her.
Saiser is the author of five books, including Lost in Seward County, Beside You at the Stoplight, and Bones of a Very Fine Hand. Her honors include an Academy of American Poets Prize and several Nebraska Book Awards. In 2009 Saiser was named Distinguished Artist in Poetry by the Nebraska Arts Council. Her poems have been published in Prairie Schooner, Chattahoochee Review, Field and other journals.
Losing the Ring in the River is available at bookstores or directly from the University of New Mexico Press. To order, call 800.249.7737 or visit www.unmpress.com.