Awards
Winner, the James Baker Hall Memorial Prize in Poetry, New Southerner, for “The Blacksmith,” (2013), judged by Maurice Manning.
Winner, Kudzu Poetry Prize, Kudzu, for “A Season of Ticks and Hard Rain,” (2014).
Third Place, Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, The Heartland Review, for “The Mourners,” (2012).
Finalist, Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize, Ruminate Magazine, for “This God of My Waking,” (2014), judged by Jeanne Murray Walker.
Finalist, Betty Gabehart Prize in Poetry, Kentucky Women Writer’s Conference, for “Uninhabited Continents and Other Poems,” (2016).
Finalist, Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, The Heartland Review, for “Daybreak and Deep,” (2022).
Finalist, American Book Fest Best Books of 2022 for Narrative Poetry.
Honors
Semi-Finalist in the 2023 and 2024 James H. Nash Poetry Contest for the poems “Pomegranate” and “Oasis”
Semi-Finalist in Grayson Books Chapbook Contests (Spring, 2023 and 2024)
Semi-Finalist in Iron Horse Literary Review Chapbook Contest (Spring, 2023)
Eric Hoffer Awards, Daybreak and Deep was a Finalist in The da Vinci Eye Award 2023 (for outstanding book cover).
Nominee, Pushcart Prize, “The Blacksmith,” New Southerner, 2013
Her poem, “Praise Vultures Soaring” was one of eight poems selected by the program The daVinci Pursuit to be displayed at the Falls of the Ohio State Park/River Writings in Jeffersonville, Indiana. These poem plaques were placed on a walking trail along the Ohio River. (The daVinci Pursuit is engaged in bringing a better understanding of the science of rivers to the public through art.)
Nominee for a Rhysling Award (awarded by the Science Fiction Poetry Association), 2007.
Interviews/Videos
Book Review in Pegasus, April 26, 2023
Kentucky Arts Council, Poetry Video, April 20, 2023
“Off the Bricks,” a Poetry on Brick Street Podcast (April 20, 2023)
Accents Radio Show in Lexington, Kentucky (February 22, 2013)
Speaking of Marvels, February 26, 2015. (Interview by William Woolfitt, Author)
Through the Sycamores, Poetry Feature, June 2016. (Interview by Shari Wagner, Former Poet Laureate of Indiana)
Select Works
Atlanta Review: Upon the Death of a Poet
Barnwood: Parting the Crows
Bloodroot: Made Beautiful and Sunday
Bullets and Blank Bibles (a Chapbook from Liquid Paper Press): A Morning in Spring; After the Service; Bare Feet and Long Night Gowns; Boy Kings; Future Home of the Mammoth Mega Church; How to Grieve in Winter; Inkblot (Married Sleep); Parting the Crows; Solitude Flats; The Beekeeper’s Daughter; The Mourners; The Reckoning; The Shooters; To the Girl in the Class Photo; What Holds Us Up; Wild Violets
Chaffin Journal: The Reckoning
forty-one south: Solitude Flats
Kansas City Voices: Tall Grass
Mapping the Muse a Bicentennial Look at Indiana Poetry (Brick Street Poetry): Praise Be to Crows
Midwest Quarterly: Killing Time
Nerve Cowboy: Boy Kings; Still Life After Abstinence; and To the Girl in the Class Photo
New Southerner: The Blacksmith and The Naming
Next Indiana Campfires: a Trail Companion (Indiana Humanities): Future Home of the Mammoth Mega Church
Not Like the Rest of Us an Anthology of Contemporary Indiana Writers: This God of My Waking
ONE ART Poetry Journal: Our 3-Ring Kitchen
Pegasus (the prize poems issue of the Kentucky State Poetry Society): The Beekeeper’s Daughter
Plain Spoke: Something So Grand
Public Pool: Adrift and The Blue Light of May
Ruminate Magazine: This God of My Waking
Sheila-Na-Gig Online: Chimera; Desert Travelogue; and Sleep Walking
Sow’s Ear Poetry Review: Inkblot (Married Sleep)
Still: The Journal: The Mood Ring Diaries and Sitting with the Dead
The Heartland Review: The Mourners and What Holds Us Up
The Lakeshore Review: Night Heron
The Southern Review: Worn
Tiferet Journal: Where the Crocus Waits
Tipton Poetry Journal: Future Home of the Mammoth Mega Church and Prairie Wolves
Verse Daily: Killing Time (from Daybreak and Deep)
When Animals Miss the Sun, a children’s book, published by Brick Street Poetry
Women Speak, Vol. 7 (Women of Appalachia Project, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions): The Blacksmith
Women Speak, Vol. 9 (Women of Appalachia Project, 15th Anniversary Issue, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions): Cradlesong for a Crone
Jessica D. Thompson 