by Ellyn Lichvar, managing editor, Good River Review
We here at Good River Review are over the moon to celebrate two Pushcart Prizes: one won by our editor in chief and one by a recent contributor.
Good River editor in chief Kathleen Driskell won the Pushcart Prize for her essay “Church of the Goatman,” published by River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, in Spring 2023, issue 24.2.
Announcing the win, River Teeth posted on Instagram, “We’re not surprised “Church of the Goat Man” won a Pushcart, but we are dancing in the streets!”
And Kathleen says, “I loved working with River Teeth—having my essay published in that wonderful magazine was a dream in itself, but then, the Pushcart, too! l’m pleased to share this honor with RT, especially with my editor Jill Christman who generously helped me polish ‘Church of the Goatman.’”
While we’re celebrating, we’re also reveling in the very first Pushcart Prize awarded for work we’ve published right here at Good River! Contributor Liz Femi was awarded the prize for her poem “the world is a stool on my head but by all means take a seat.” Read it in Issue Six of Good River Review. Reacting to the news on Instagram, Liz said, “I’m thrilled and grateful and tickled and in awe and and. . . . Heartfelt gratitude to the editing team at Good River Review for nominating my poem. Congratulations on our shared win!”
Thanks, Liz—we’re thrilled to share it with you!
About our prize winners:
Kathleen Driskell is chair of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University, home of our nationally recognized low-residency MFA program. She is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Vine Temple (Carnegie Mellon University Press), with another forthcoming in 2025. Individual poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Rattle, River Teeth, Appalachian Review, The Southern Review, Shenandoah, and North American Review. Her work has been listed as Notable in Best American Essays. From 2019-22, she served as chair of the board of directors of AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Liz Femi is a Nigerian-American writer, actor, and an NAACP Theater Award Nominee for her solo play, Take Me to the Poorhouse. A recipient of Writeability’s Right to Write Award, her work has been featured in The Harvard African and performed at the Rogue Machine Theatre’s Rant and Rave. She’s based in Los Angeles and Atlanta and has been published in Wild Roof Journal, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Streetlight Magazine, West Trade Review, and The MacGuffin.
Both Liz’s poem and Kathleen’s essay will appear in the Pushcart Prize XLIX anthology, due out in 2025.