Water's Edge

On February 7 in Minneapolis, Open to Interpretation launched Water's Edge, the first of a planned series of themed books resulting from an international juried competition of photography, poetry, and prose. The competition involved a call for photographic entries that generated more than 1,500 submissions resulting in 31 finalists, and a call for written entries to which 203 writers responded. Publisher Claire O'Neill notes in the Introduction to Water's Edge that entries came from 25 countries and 40 states.

The 92-page custom-printed hardcover features the work of 89 photographers, poets, and prose writers. Image selections were made by Douglas Beasley, founder and director of Vision Quest Photo Workshops, and the poems and stories inspired by them were chosen by Anastasia Faunce, a writer, editor, educator, and arts administrator. Each of the 32 fine art images, which appear either in color or black-and-white, is paired with two written "interpretations". For a preview, go here.

I'm delighted to announce that my poem "Illustrating Cell Division", inspired by Mequon, Wisconsin, photographer Ron Horbinski's image, is included in Water's Edge. A complete list of the photographers and writers, as well as thumbnails of each of the featured images, can be found here. A $300 Judge's Choice Award went to writer James Harms of Morgantown, West Virginia, and photographer Marc Ullom of Niles, Michigan. Purchasing information for Water's Edge is here. 

Open to Interpretation currently is accepting photographic entries for "Fading Light" (the deadline is March 15; the judge is curator, historian of photography, and writer George Slade) and poems and prose for "Intimate Landscape" (the deadline is March 29; the writing judge is Patrick Thomas, an editor and program manager at Milkweed Editions). The online gallery of images selected for the latter competition by photography judge Karen Irvine, curator and manager of publications at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, is here. 

Open to Interpretation on FaceBook and Twitter