O’Hara Prize Winners’ Reading

Join the winners of the WCPA’s 2025 Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize for a reading of their work and the work of contest judge DeMisty Bellinger. There will also be an opportunity to mingle over refreshments. The reading will start at 4:00 pm US/Eastern.

First Prize – Anthony DiPietro is a gay sex poet originally from Providence, RI, who has lived throughout New England and elsehwere. Now deputy director of Rose Art Museum, he resides in Worcester, MA. He composed his 2021 chapbook And Walk Through (Seven Kitchens Press) on a typewriter during the pandemic lockdowns, and his debut collection is kiss & release (Unsolicited Press, 2024).

Second Prize – Maia Campbell is a Jamaican-American writer and doctoral candidate studying political philosophy at the University of Dallas. Maia has published poetry in Amistad: Howard University’s Literary Arts Journal and Wilder Roam. She has also participated in several poetry readings and has had her work publicly displayed as part of the Worcester County Poetry Association’s Rain Poetry Competition in 2022 and 2024. Maia grew up in Worcester and moved back to the city in 2023.

Third Prize – Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, along with their husband Scott, is a founding member of the SS. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker, a lay community in Worcester, MA, that offers hospitality to men and women in need and engages in a variety of works for peace and justice. The community publishes The Catholic Radical, to which Claire contributes. Claire began writing as a freelance journalist for the National Catholic Reporter in 2000, a pursuit that has allowed her to satisfy her wanderlust. Her profiles, features, and investigative stories have garnered several awards from the Catholic Press Association. You can find her book reviews in America magazine. She and Scott are the happy parents of four children and grandparents of six. The couple still logs their miles as long-distance runners, although lately, Claire is thinking about taking up the ukulele.

Honorable Mention – Em Judkins (they/them) is an over-caffeinated queer poet and filmmaker based in Massachusetts. They graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in English and Film and Media Studies. Their work has received Ethel Olin Corbin Prize, the Ruth Forbes Eliot Prize, and Elizabeth Drew Essay Prize, and appears in The Core Review, new words poetry journal, Emulate, and elsewhere. They believe in love and bad art.

Honorable Mention – Elina Kumra is a poet, writer and author of Ash and Olive and Extant. 

Irena Kaci will moderate the ceremony.

Contest Judge DeMisty D. Bellinger’s latest book, All Daughters Are Awesome Everywhere, is an award-winning collection of short fiction from the University of Nebraska Press’ Zero Street Fiction series. Her other books are the novel New to Liberty (Unnamed Press), and the poetry collection Peculiar Heritage (Mason Jar Press). DeMisty teaches creative writing at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. You can learn more about DeMisty at demistybellinger.com.

Please join us for what is always a fun and inspiring event.