The Cleveland State University Poetry Center is thrilled to announce our acquisition of Sam Ace's book-length essay, I Want to Start by Saying. The book will publish in 2024 alongside Maya Abu Al-Hayyat's No One Knows Their Blood Type (a novel translated by Hazem Jamjoum), as previously announced.

Samuel Ace is a trans/genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author of several books, most recently Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish), Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash. (Belladonna* Germinal Texts), and Stealth with poet Maureen Seaton (Chax). Ace is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writer Award and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry, as well as a repeat finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the National Poetry Series.

Our 2024 catalog will also include a selection/s from the current Essay Series Open Reading Period, which runs until January 15, 2023. Selected manuscripts will be announced in late spring/early summer 2023.