Charm Offensive, Ross White's debut poetry collection, explores the space between Dickinson's directive to tell the truth slant and the universal reality of seeing the truth slant without knowing it. Charting the ways that tenderness can resolve into dissonance and uncertainty can resolve into transcendence, Charm Offensive crackles with the dangers of being alive and the joys of remaining defiant. At turns playful and surreal, exuberant and somber, these poems urge readers to find something new to trust in the world.

Ross White is the author of Charm Offensive, winner of the 2019 Sexton Prize, and three chapbooks. He is the director of Bull City Press, an independent publisher of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and the host of The Chapbook. He teaches creative writing and grammar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Follow him on Twitter: @rosswhite.

Matthew Fiander was born and raised in Weymouth, Massachusetts. His fiction has appeared in Story Magazine, Zone 3, Willow Springs, The Massachusetts Review, South Carolina Review, South Dakota Review, Reckon Review, and elsewhere. He has also published articles in The New York Times and Our State Magazine, and was a long-time music writer and editor for the online magazine, PopMatters. He currently lives and works in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Ringing in Your Ears is his first novel.