A huge congratulations to Charles Rammelkamp, author of Catastroika, for being a Distinguished Favorites for the 2021 Independent Press Award!
In a sequence of poems in the dramatic monologue style, Charles Rammelkamp’s Catastroika covers a century of Russian history from the late Nineteenth to the late Twentieth, in the voices of a fictional Russian Jew, Alexander Federmesser (Sasha) and Maria Rasputin, the sole surviving daughter of the “mad monk,” Grigory Rasputin, the infamous spiritual advisor of the Romanovs, the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas, and his wife, Alexandra. Focusing on Grigory Rasputin largely through the eyes of his daughter, we read about the social turmoil in Russia that led to the Bolshevik Revolution, the war between the Red Russians and the White Russians, the excesses and cruelties of the Communist Party. We also learn, through Sasha’s words, about the Anti-Semitism that pervades the whole era.
Charles Rammelkamp is the author of The Secretkeepers, two collections of short fiction, A Better Tomorrow and Castleman in the Academy, and four previous collections of poetry, The Book of Life, Fusen Bakudan, Mata Hari: Eye of the Day and American Zeitgeist. Rammelkamp is is currently Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore and Reviews Editor for The Adirondack Review. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, Abby, to whom he’s been married for about a million years. They have two daughters and two grandchildren.
You can find more information about Rammelkamp’s winning on their website today!
https://www.independentpressaward.com/2021distinguishedfavorites
