Antioch University Los Angeles MFA teaching faculty and poet, Victoria Chang, has been awarded a Pushcart Prize for her poem, “Barbie Chang Wants to Be Someone.” The poem is from her most recent book of poems, Barbie Chang, and was nominated by Copper Canyon Press, the book’s publisher. Chang has long known that the Pushcart Prize existed “but always thought it was that prize that other people won or an anthology that other people were published in,” she said.
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press, which honors works of poetry, short fiction, and essays that have been published by small presses the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to submit up to six works they have published. The winning pieces are then published in the Pushcart Anthology. Some founding editors of the prize were Anais Nin, Bucky Fuller, Ralph Ellison, and Joyce Carol Oates. Many writers who went on to have successful writing careers received early recognition through the prize, including Tim O’Brien, and Kay Ryan.
“I never thought about actually ever being in there so it’s nice to be in there finally!” said Chang about the prize. “And now I finally understand how the process of getting in there works–It’s incredibly complex!”
Victoria Chang
