Poets & Writers3 min read
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“Before I meet Gloria, my life belongs to me.” The Other Profile (Europa Editions, February 2024) by Irene Graziosi, translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand. First book, novel. Agent: Giulia Pietrosanti. Editor: Michael Reynolds. Publicist: Kristi B
Poets & Writers3 min read
Finding My Starting Point
POETS & WRITERS IS MORE than a magazine. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving creative writers. We pay fees to writers giving readings and leading workshops, provide information and advice to authors, and help them connect with one an
Poets & Writers4 min read
Literary MagNet
In the late 1990s, protagonists Taline and Valerie meet in college and become best friends. During the following two decades, they move to different cities, attend graduate school, explore careers, have kids, and fall in and out of love. Their lives
Poets & Writers2 min read
EDITOR’S Note
RUNNING THROUGH BOTH OF THIS ISSUE’S AUTHOR FEATURES are narratives of memory—and within those narratives, tremendous loss—that two exceptional writers have worried down to diamond-sharp works of art that transcend the personal and particular and lay
Poets & Writers3 min read
What To Pack For A Writers Retreat
IT ALL begins with coffee. At home I program my coffee maker the night before so that I can stumble bleary-eyed into the kitchen the next morning and find an entire pot waiting for me. Yet for eight years working as a flight attendant and, following
Poets & Writers8 min read
Making Sense of Book Events
WHEN the coronavirus pandemic struck in March 2020, Elliott Bay Book Company, like thousands of other book stores around the United States, shut its doors and moved most of its sales online. The year before, the venerable Seattle bookstore had hosted
Poets & Writers15 min read
Recent Winners
Wong May of Dublin won the 2023 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize for her translation from the Chinese of the poetry collection In the Same Light: 200 Poems for Our Century From the Migrants & Exiles of the Tang Dynasty (Song Cave). She received $
Poets & Writers1 min read
Pw.org
Search our Conferences & Residencies database for information about nearly two hundred retreats, residencies, conferences, and festivals, including photographs, application fees, deadlines, accessibility details, and everything else you need to know
Poets & Writers8 min read
Dream Big, Travel Far
I MAGINE, if you will: A breeze off the Mediterranean wafts through your open window and plays at the curtain above your writing desk—or a staggering view of Switzerland’s majestic Jura Mountains dazzles you from beyond your cabin, or a bustling stre
Poets & Writers3 min read
Francisco Aragón of Letras Latinas
In 2004, Francisco Aragón launched Letras Latinas under the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) at the University of Notre Dame. As the institute’s literary arm, Letras Latinas has a mission to “enhance the visibility, appreciation, and study of Latin
Poets & Writers16 min read
Agents & Editors TANYA McKINNON
ACTIVISM, service work, modeling the ways we can show up for one another in the publishing industry—these things come naturally to Tanya McKinnon, principal agent of McKinnon Literary. The list of vibrant, forward-thinking authors McKinnon represents
Poets & Writers3 min read
The Time Is Now
Drawing on a wealth of botanical vocabulary, Canadian poet Sylvia Legris explores themes of nature in her new book, The Principle of Rapid Peering, forthcoming in April from New Directions. In the book, the title of which is derived from early-twenti
Poets & Writers3 min read
Yes You Can
OFTEN, the writers who could most use the time, space, and support that retreats afford are the ones least able to access them. You may already know firsthand the ways that cost, the realities of other time commitments, accessibility, or disenfranchi
Poets & Writers9 min read
Finding The Time (and Money)
IT MIGHT have taken some time for you to be confident saying it, but you are a writer. Emerging, yes, but a writer. Writing is an essential part of your life. You work hard at your craft; you care deeply about your writing; it’s when you’re writing t
Poets & Writers2 min read
Pop Song
I met my father again in a video store by the creamery,in a record store on my lunch break, in a museum whisper booth,in Washington Square performing with a Beatles cover band,and he said to me, Di, he said, you’re not what I expected, like an online
Poets & Writers3 min read
PublishingMyths
People don’t read books anymore. Agents don’t read their submissions—their interns do. And editors certainly don’t edit books like they used to. That’s what I usually hear rumbling around conferences and on comment threads from dissatisfied and disil
Poets & Writers2 min read
Submission Calendar
BELLINGHAM REVIEW Literary Awards THE CENTER FOR FICTION First Novel Prize FOURTH GENRE Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize INDIANA REVIEW Poetry and Creative Nonfiction Prizes NATIONAL POETRY SERIES Open Competition TRIO HOUSE PRESS Louise Bogan Award Tr
Poets & Writers2 min read
Small Press Points
Size matters to Bull City Press (bullcitypress.com). The publisher in Durham, North Carolina, has managed to keep what executive director Ross White calls its “commitment to compression” for nearly twenty years. Initially founded in 2006 to publish I
Poets & Writers5 min read
Book Sanctuary Movement Grows
Last spring, Mark Adler noticed a dramatic uptick in attempts to ban books at the Paris–Bourbon County Library in Paris, Kentucky, where he is the director. Before that, library staffers fielded the occasional request for a book to be removed from sh
Poets & Writers10 min read
Ghosted
IN OCTOBER 2020, I received an e-mail from a literary agent named A. who I believed would transform my life as a writer. Her message arrived after I’d spent two months querying literary agents regarding an autobiographical middle-grade novel about a
Poets & Writers24 min read
Deadlines
POETS & WRITERS MAGAZINE ANNOUNCES state, national, and international prizes in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation. We list only prizes of $ 1,000 or more, prizes of $,500 or more that charge no entry fee, and prestigious nonmoneta
Poets & Writers5 min read
Writers Collaborate for Authors Guild
It is rare for one novel to be cowritten by dozens of authors—especially those known for their work in different genres. But that is exactly what readers will encounter in Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel (Harper, February 2024): a bouquet of con
Poets & Writers2 min read
The Anthologist
The Weird Sister Collection: Writing at the Intersections of Feminism, Literature, and Pop Culture (Feminist Press, February 2024) assembles selections from Weird Sister, a blog launched in 2014 to bridge mainstream cultural and feminist criticism wh
Poets & Writers3 min read
Reactions
Poets & Writers Magazine welcomes feedback from its readers. Please post a comment on select articles at pw.org, e-mail editor@pw.org, or write to Editor, Poets & Writers Magazine, 90 Broad Street, Suite 2100, New York, NY 10004. Letters accepted for
Poets & Writers13 min read
laughter, THEN LOSS
WHEN you’ve made your name as one of the funniest writers of your generation—twice a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor—you develop the skills to reliably spin life’s little disasters into sentences that snap. Over three essay collecti
Poets & Writers12 min read
Cobbled Genıus
How does one obtain the education necessary to become a great poet? This is what we might call the anxious subtext of the hopeful MFA experience. For the ancient Greeks—who saw poetry as a cultural instrument to explore matters that fascinated and un
Poets & Writers22 min read
Conferences & Residencies
POETS & WRITERS MAGAZINE ANNOUNCES application information for writers conferences, literary festivals, and residencies of interest to poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators. Applications for the following events are due
Poets & Writers1 min read
Poets & Writers Magazine
Editor in Chief KEVIN LARIMER Senior Editor JEN DEGREGORIO Senior Editor EMMA KOMLOS-HROBSKY Production Editor MARVA SHI Features Editor INDIA LENA GONZÁLEZ Associate Editor KAREN NG Assistant Editor LUCIANO GRIGERA NAÓN Art Director MURRAY GREENFIEL
Poets & Writers28 min read
Deadlines
POETS & WRITERS MAGAZINE ANNOUNCES state, national, and international prizes in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation. We list only prizes of $ 1,000 or more, prizes of $,500 or more that charge no entry fee, and prestigious nonmoneta
Poets & Writers7 min read
Fire
THE Ring of Fire is a geologic path or belt that circles the Pacific Ocean where active volcanoes and earth-quakes continually occur. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I learned early on that 75 percent of all earthquakes on our planet are lo
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