Blue Sketch Press is proud to announce the winner of our 2025 Manuscript Contest in partnership with Aster(ix) Journal for a previously unpublished collection of poetry or prose: Michelle Y. Valladares!
Michelle Yasmine Valladares is the author of Nortada, The North Wind. Her poems have been published Asteri(x), Clockhouse, The Literary Review, North American Review, Fulcrum, Upstreet and The Women’s Review of Books. Her work has been anthologized in Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond, (W.W. Norton) The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry by Indians andThe New Poetry, Modern English Poems by Indians (Sahitya Akademi).
She was awarded “Poet of the Year” by The Americas Poetry Festival of New York. Her poem “Paper and Pearls” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poem “CUNY Writers Read Against Austerity” was published in her union newsletter The Clarion. She was the poetry editor and contributor of essays on art for Global City Review from 1999-2010. She received a writer’s residency from Hedgebrook.
As an independent filmmaker she co-produced the award winning feature film, O Sertão das Memórias (Landscapes of Memory) Brazil, written and directed by José Araújo, which won Best Latin American Film, Sundance Film Festival, the Wolfgang Staudte Prize/ Independent Forum of New Cinema, Berlin Film Festival, 1997. She co-produced the documentary El Diablo Nunca Duerme (The Devil Never Sleeps) USA/Mexico, directed by Lourdes Portillo which won Distinguished Documentary Award, Independent Documentary Association, 1995. She was the production manager on the feature documentary, Imagining Indians, produced and directed by Hopi filmmaker, Victor Masayesva, Jr. for PBS in 1992 which brought attention to indigenous filmmaking in the US.
Valladares has presented lectures, papers and served as panelist and juror for AWP, The American Museum of Natural History, NYSCA and the NEA. She has read her work in various venues both in the US and internationally and has received grants supporting her writing projects and films.
She teaches poetry and creative writing in the English Department at the City College of New York, CUNY where she serves as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing.
This contest was open to any writer, regardless of his or her publication history, provided the manuscript is written in English and the author lives in the United States.
The winner of this contest will receive publication by Blue Sketch Press, a $500 cash prize from Aster(ix) Journal, an interview and select poems featured in Aster(ix) and 20 copies of the book; all prizes will be awarded upon publication in August 2026.
