Stella Santamaria, an assistant professor of English at West Campus, received the 2026 Ottoline Prize Award for the manuscript of her upcoming poetry book, California Silence.
The award recognizes female authors who have written a book-length poetry manuscript. Winners will receive $5,000 after the book is published, a two-week residency at the Eliot House in Gloucester, Massachusetts and publication of the work by Fence Books.
California Silence is being edited and is expected to be released in the fall or winter of 2026.
“I am over the moon,” Santamaria said.
The book features bilingual poems—in Spanish and English—and a few words in Italian and French.
They have various themes including family, grief, loss and nature and showcase what connects people and makes them human.
“They are poems about my life, basically, and also place and realm of ancestry, my ancestors,” Santamaria said. “There’s everything in it, and I think that the readers can find themselves in some way in it, either as a window or as a mirror.”
The 52-year-old was named a finalist for various other awards and prizes for her manuscript, beginning with the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize in 2020 and the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.
Her creative process for California Silence began 10 years ago. Most of the work was created during her three years at Saint Mary’s College of California, while she worked on her master of fine arts in creative writing, which she received in 2020.
“Professor Santamaria understands the fragility of the human condition,” said Manuel Duasso, an English professor at Kendall Campus. “She understands [that] a lot of us have to struggle with the day, for a lot of us things don’t come easy, but we fight and we struggle, and I see a lot of that tone in her writing.”
Alexander Haq, who is an adjunct professor of history at Kendall Campus, has been working on Santamaria’s book blurb for the past year.
“It’s a very evocative style of poetry, very descriptive,” Haq said. “It has a very sort of off beat to it, if you will. The way that it’s written, it presents well.”
Santamaria plans to publish another poem/narrative book, PERPETUAL, later this year that juxtaposes chaos and joy. Its manuscript won the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Prize 2024.
“As colleagues and as friends, we are supposed to bring each other up and support each other in any way we can,” said Rita Fernandez-Sterling, who is an English professor at Kendall Campus and serves as adviser to Miambiance. “I support her wholeheartedly, and I am really excited for what’s to come for her, and to see what else she’s going to produce and win in the future.”
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