Meghan Malachi’s debut full-length poetry collection, No Lace Fronts in Iowa City, is a Trio Book Award finalist, a Gasher Book Award finalist, and a Hillary Tham Capital Collection finalist. No Lace Fronts in Iowa City was selected by Allison Joseph as runner-up to the 2024 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Madville Publishing in 2026.
In her debut, Meghan explores how community, desirability, and notions of home influence the journeys by which girls come of age. These poems celebrate a South Bronx childhood and navigate a complicated womanhood in the Midwest through confessional musings on Black Latinx identity and intimate epistolary interludes. Favorite wigs, main character moments, and reimagined anti-heroines are all vessels for exploring girlhood in this love letter to female kinship. No Lace Fronts in Iowa City is ultimately a testament to the desires for belonging and tenderness that we all harbor.
Recognition for No Lace fronts in iowa City
Meghan Malachi 