Congratulations to Chloe Firetto-Toomey on receiving the Academy of American Poets Prize for 2017.
Chloe published her first collection of poems in 2001 entitled, Beyond Gravity, (Loebertas Publishing 2001) Bristol, England. She earned her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Surrey, London in 2006. Two years later, Chloe moved to Miami where she pursued poetry as a visual art and worked at the established Art Center, Miami Beach. Her work was featured at Art Basel (2011). Now, she is Creative Writing MFA candidate at Florida International University, specializing in poetry.
Judge: Michael Hettich
Michael Hettich is a poet and professor at Miami-Dade College and the author of more than a dozen poetry books and chapbooks. His collection, Systems of Vanishing, won the 2013 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry, and his collection, The Measured Breathing, won the 2011 Swan Scythe Press Award. Hettich has received three Florida Individual Artist fellowships as well as the Tales Prize for Swimmer Dreams in 2005.
