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Jonathan Potts
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For immediate release:
May 31, 2005

Writer Wins Award for Book Published by Carnegie Mellon University Press

PITTSBURGH—Poet Maureen Seaton has won The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry for her book "Venus Examines Her Breast," which was published in 2004 by the Carnegie Mellon University Press. The award was given by The Publishing Triangle, an association of gay and lesbian writers. The award is named for the late Audre Lorde, an award-winning poet and activist.

"It was a wonderful honor, because it was named after Audre, someone I loved when she was alive and who I love now," said Seaton, who is the director of the creative writing program at the University of Miami in Florida. "This book is an elegy to my mom, so it was nice to win for this."

The Carnegie Mellon University Press was founded in 1975 by English Professor Gerald Costanzo, who runs the press with the help each year of five to seven student interns from his editing and publishing course. Three of the last five Pulitzer Prize winners for poetry either started or spent some portion of their careers with the university press. In 1986, Carnegie Mellon published poet Rita Dove's "Thomas and Beulah," which was awarded the Pulitzer the following year.

"The poems of 'Venus Examines Her Breast' take their impetus from the death of the poet's mother by cancer. It is beautiful, quirky, compelling work, and we at the Press are pleased with the welldeserved acclaim it has received," Costanzo said.