Citizens for Decent Literature Press is happy to announce the shortlist for the Brian Fugett Memorial Prize. Sincere thanks to all the entrants. The winner of the contest will be announced on November 8, 2025 at the Underground Lit Fest in Toledo, Ohio.

Top 6: Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, Westley Heine, Deborah Ketai, Len Kuntz, Zak Mucha, Lisa Nichols

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal is the author of three poetry books, Raw Materials (Pygmy Forest Press), Peering into the Sun (Poet’s Democracy), and Make the Water Laugh (Rogue Wolf Press). He is the author of eight chapbooks from Kendra Steiner Editions, and the chapbooks, Songs for Oblivion (Alternating Current Press/Propaganda Press), The Book of Absurd Dreams (New Polish Beat), and Befor and Well After Midnight (Deadbeat Press). His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Mad Swirl, Rusty Truck, Unlikely Stories, and Zygote In My Coffee. His e-book,
Everything is Permitted was published by Ten Pages Press.

In a yearbook somewhere in Wisconsin Westley Heine was voted most likely to be on the cover of People Magazine. From highschool he went straight to jail for using his fists rather than his words. Heine learned more behind bars than he did in Art School over the next four years. In college he rented himself out as a dark brooding boyfriend to young women who were turned on by existential angst over American football. When they learned the tortured poet thing wasn’t just an act he was left for dead. He is banned for life from the Los Vegas Strip for destruction of property. He moved to Los Angeles twice and both times he was chewed up and spit out. After the housing market crash in 2008 he lived as a street musician squatting on the Westside of Chicago. He is now the Poet Laureate of drinking forties on Lower Wacker Drive. He has twice featured at the original Poetry Slam at The Green Mill where the crowd would heckle him for not being uplifting so he started his own open mic at The Gallery Cabaret encouraging all styles. Once he slept in Central Park, saw God in Mexico, cursed in New Orleans, married in Austin, and honeymooned in Paris. He now lives in Chicago alone with his demons.

Deborah Ketai (she/her) writes from the intersection of bipolarity, bisexuality, and creative self-doubt, leavened with humor and wordplay. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Think, and many other venues. She and her wife live in Connecticut’s Naugatuck River Valley.

Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State and the author of six books, most recently, THINGS I CAN’T EVEN TELL MYSELF, out from Ravenna Press. You can find more of his writing at https://lenkuntz.blogspot.com

Zak Mucha, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He spent seven years working as the supervisor of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, providing 24/7 services to persons suffering from severe psychosis, substance abuse issues, and homelessness. Mucha has worked as a counselor and consultant for U.S. combat veterans undergoing training for digital forensic investigations in child pornography and is a board member of the Legislative Drafting Institute for Child Protection.

Before going into the clinical field, Mucha has worked as a freelance journalist, truck driver, furniture mover, construction worker, union organizer, staff member at a juvenile DCFS locked unit, and taught briefly at a women’s prison. He is the author of Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense and Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work as well as two collections of poetry.

(Lisa Nichols) I write at the crossroads of grit and wonder, where everyday life collides with the surreal edges of memory, history, and imagination. My work has appeared in the Le Mot Juste anthology, Owl City Press, and across local stages where I share poems as both performer and president of Rochester’s Just Poets. I feel driven to uncover the hidden undercurrents of human experience and to attempt to bring those raw, wriggling truths into the light—sometimes tender, sometimes biting, always unflinchingly honest. I am a teacher and a seeker, drawing inspiration from conversation, wilderness trails, meditation, and the chaos of raising a child in a fractured world. Whether on the page, at the mic, or on the open road atop two wheels, I try to live in presence: reading, laughing, listening, and being just one amongst the many.

Compiled after Brian Fugett’s sudden passing, this collection casts his work in a new light—read as both legacy and insight into his life and perspective. Fugett’s poems often spring from everyday observations, revealing the strange, uncomfortable, and darkly humorous sides of human behavior and social interactions. This is evident in pieces like “Saturday Morning Cartoons,” “Interviewing Mr. Weck,” “At the Nursing Home,” and “Rush Hour in Chula Vista,” where his sharp eye for peculiar details and unsettling moments shines through.

Many poems explore Fugett’s inner world—feelings of isolation, anxiety, confusion, and the search for meaning amid chaos. Themes of self-awareness, the passage of time, and grappling with personal demons recur throughout. Relationships, both fleeting and significant, appear frequently, with poems delving into attraction, awkwardness, desire, and the often-confusing nature of human connection—presented with rawness and blunt honesty.

Fugett’s satirical, sometimes scathing commentary targets modern society—consumerism, technology, religion, and social dynamics—through a lens that is both cynical and darkly humorous. At the heart of it all is his unflinching self-portrait: a voice marked by flaws, anxieties, and self-deprecating wit, giving the collection its raw, authentic power.

COVER ART BY ANDREW LANDER. Editors Aleathia Drehmer & Michele McDannold.

“The brilliance of these poems will break your heart, due to a voice silenced too soon. Yet, the humanity breathing off the page will bring a smile to the face of even the most hardened hearts. If this is to be Brian Fugett’s swan song, it’s a most beautiful melody.”—Michael N. Thompson, author of A Murder Of Crows and Verbal Alchemy

“Brian’s voice in these poems alternates between hilarity and nihilism. The hilarity is natural and infectious and the nihilism is matter of fact. The tone reminds me of a book I return to again and again whenever I am feeling my most disconnected from and most disenchanted with my fellow humans. Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by the brilliant Lester Bangs. I only met Brian in person once, at a karaoke bar in Ohio in 2011. But I loved him and I’m grateful that he is still here in these kick life in the balls poems.”—Misti Rainwater-Lites, author of Clown Gravy and others

pre-order your copy at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/fugett/TAPPK35FNM7O4XG53RFNB7JZ

In honor of the late editor, poet, and publisher Brian W. Fugett, The Literary Underground is proud to announce the launch of the Brian Fugett Memorial Prize, an annual award recognizing an outstanding poetry chapbook manuscript.

Best known for his irreverent voice and unwavering support for indie lit, Fugett was a driving force behind many DIY literary efforts, including Zygote in My Coffee, Tainted Coffee Press and the Nothing to Lose internet radio program. This new prize celebrates his legacy by uplifting bold, uncompromising work in the spirit of his own.

Submissions will be open from September 1 through September 30, 2025.

One manuscript will be selected for publication by Citizens for Decent Literature Press. The winning poet will receive 25 contributor copies of the chapbook.

This year’s judges are poets Aleathia Drehmer and Michele McDannold.