The Writing Seminars congratulates Richie Hofmann (MFA Writing Seminars 2014) on the publication of his debut poetry collection, Second Empire, by Alice James Books. Second Empire is the winner of 2014 Beatrice Hawley Award, given in past years to collections by Jean Valentine, Laura Kasischke, B.H. Fairchild, and Brian Turner.

Of Second Empire, Mary Szybist writes, “As they explore the difficult and necessary question of how to both refuse and use the inherited ‘city of our ancestors,’ these taut poems face fear and desire unflinchingly; they are poised, supple, and unnervingly alert.”

Hofmann has also received a 2012 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and a John Ciardi Scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His individual poems have appeared in New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Hofmann is currently a doctoral student at Emory University.