Second-year writing student Ashley D. Escobar was selected by Eileen Myles as the 2024 Changes Book Prize winner for her poetry collection, Glib.
Escobar’s collection was selected from among 1,500 submissions. The Changes Book Prize, established in 2022, grants its winners publication for a first or second collection of poems, along with a publishing contract, extensive publicity, national distribution, a launch event in NYC, 50 copies of their book, and $10,000. Glib will be published in 2025. In addition to Myles, the contest has also been judged by Louise Glück and will be judged by Terrance Hayes next year.
In one Glib poem titled Toy Piano, Escobar writes:
I won’t be ready
When you come around.
I can’t stop listening to shoegaze or wearing Mary Janes in the rain.
My socks are pastel pink
with tiny cherries. I’m cherry-flavored
everything.
“Poetry is my first love so I’m super honored to not only share my debut collection with the world but to have Eileen Myles select it. Such a whirlwind of a dream,” Escobar said.
Ashley D. Escobar hails from San Francisco and currently lives in New York. She is a fiction student at Columbia and the co-editor of the art and literary journal wind-up mice. In addition to Glib, she has also written a poetry chapbook, SOMETIMES (Invisible Hand Press, 2021). Her writing can be read in Hobart, Brooklyn Rail, the London Magazine, and elsewhere.
