Poets & Writers Blogs

Write a House Residency Finalists Announced

The finalists have been announced for the inaugural Write a House residency, a new program through which a formerly vacant home in Detroit is renovated and given permanently to a creative writer.

The ten finalists are Lydia Conklin of East Sandwich, Massachusetts; Matthew Fogarty of Columbia, South Carolina; Adam Morris of San Francisco; Anne Elizabeth Moore of Chicago; Jason Reynolds and Casey Rocheteau, both of Brooklyn, New York; Aisha Sabatani Sloan of Los Angeles; Valerie Vande Panne of Detroit; Darryl Lorenzo Wellington of Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Monika Zobel of Bremen, Germany. Finalists' bios can be found on the Write a House website.

The winner will be announced on September 19, and will be invited to move into his or her new house soon thereafter.

Write a House received roughly 350 applications in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction from throughout the United States and abroad. “Many of our best applicants came from right here in Detroit,” the organizers wrote in an announcement on the Write a House blog. “There were many excellent and inspiring submissions, and if we could give a home to every talented writer who applied, we would.”

The organization plans to open applications for its next house in early 2015.

The judges were Write a House cofounder Toby Barlow, along with poets and writers Billy Collins, dream hampton, Major Jackson, Sean MacDonald, Michael Stone Richards, and Tamara Warren. Finalists were selected based on the quality of their work and for their potential to contribute to the neighborhood and the literary culture of Detroit.

For more information on Write a House, read an article on the program currently featured in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Photo: The first Write a House property, located in Detroit’s Banglatown neighborhood. Credit: Andy Kopietz.

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An Evening of Poetry and Music

P&W supported poet Aliki Barnstone blogs about her reading for Saint Julian Press in Houston, Texas. Barnstone is also a translator, critic, and editor. Her books of poems are Bright Body (White Pine, 2011), Dear God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak: New and Selected Poems (the Sheep Meadow Press, 2010), Blue Earth (Iris, 2004), Wild With It (Sheep Meadow, 2002), a National Books Critics Circle Notable Book, Madly in Love (Carnegie-Mellon, 1997), Windows in Providence (Curbstone, 1981), and The Real Tin Flower which includes an introduction by Anne Sexton and was published by Macmillan in 1968, when Barnstone was twelve years old. She is Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Aliki BarnstoneOn April 4, 2014, I participated in a reading at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Houston, which was organized by Ron Starbuck, editor and publisher of Saint Julian Press, and cosponsored by Poets & Writers. Ron beautifully orchestrated the event in a truly unique way that I found exhilarating and profound.

There were three poets—Melissa Studdard, Leslie Adrienne Miller, and myself—and there was a pianist, John Hardesty. Before the reading, we poets e-mailed Ron the poems that we planned to read, which was a first for me. There was a bit of back and forth between the four of us, so we could get the timing and the length right. Then Ron arranged the poems into sets. I was a little disconcerted when he changed the order of the poems I’d sent, but I was also open to the adjustment because the whole event was so unusual (and his re-ordering proved to be a much better unfolding).

The usual circumstance, as the readers of this blog know, is that each author is given a certain amount of time, and then whatever happens, happens—which can work well or can lead to some consternation when someone reads too long or if one person is miffed to read first and perceives that he or she is a “warm-up” for the “headliner” who reads last.

All those prospects for unseemly drama were eliminated by Ron’s process. He printed out scripts for us, which were ordered in three-ring binders and placed on music stands. John Hardesty played a prologue, each of us read a set, and between readers, John responded with improvisation. We each read two sets. John’s music was meditative and created an atmosphere that was receptive to poetry and to the ineffable.

When I give readings, I usually have a set list with alternatives, depending on how the audience responds. The musical interludes combined with the script made this unnecessary, so the part of my mind that usually considers whether I’m reading the right poems was free to listen to the music and my wonderful fellow poets, and to commune with all the souls present.

The format freed me in other ways too. I must admit, I find that when I’m reading with others I can’t be as attentive as I’d like. If I read after someone, I can’t give my undivided attention to his or her reading because I’m too revved up (and I’m also thinking about alternative poems to read that might better dovetail with the reader before me). However, if I read before someone, then I may still be too distracted to concentrate fully on the person’s work, because I’m recuperating from my own reading. Despite my regard for the other person’s work and my best intentions, there’s still a bit of noise in my mind.

Ron’s arranging genius allows the readers to interact wholly with each other, John’s music, the audience, and the place itself. For me, it was a particular joy to immerse myself in Leslie’s and Melissa’s work, and to hear their poems performed aloud while simultaneously seeing them laid out on the page.

Four at TrinitiyThe venue and the audience contributed to a feeling of connection, high spirits, and aesthetic abundance. The series is held in the beautiful chapel of the historic Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Houston, with its gorgeous stained glass windows and paintings. The chapel was filled to capacity with people who are regular attendees, as well as newcomers.

This event came at a pivotal moment in my career since my book, Madly in Love, was just reissued as a Carnegie-Mellon Classic Contemporary. The fact that I could celebrate this significant publication in Houston, where I have familial ties, was especially gratifying. My uncle, Howard Barnstone, designed the Rothko Chapel; my aunt, Gertrude Barnstone, is a well-known artist and activist; and my cousins, George Barnstone and Lily Barnstone Wells, and their families still live in Houston and are active members of the community.

In the course of meeting people in Houston, making connections and reconnecting, I was deeply touched to discover that people see me as part of a legacy. The reading generated a lot of interest in my work, and the fact that there was a lot of talk about bringing me back makes me very happy.

Hear recordings of Barnstone and her fellow readers from this event.

Photo: (top) Aliki Barnstone. Photo Credit: John Farmer de la Torre.

(bottom) John Hardesty, Ann-Marie Madden Irwin, Leslie Adrienne Miller, and Ron Starbuck. Photo Credit: John Farmer de la Torre.

Support for Readings & Workshops events in Houston is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

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Deadline Approaches for Oregon Book Awards

Submissions are open for the twenty-seventh annual Oregon Book Awards, sponsored by the Portland-based nonprofit Literary Arts. The annual prizes are given for books by Oregon residents published in the previous year. The winners will receive $1,000 each and will be announced at an awards ceremony in Portland in April.

Awards are given in the following categories: poetry, short fiction, the novel, creative nonfiction, general nonfiction, children’s literature, young adult literature, drama, and readers’ choice. Submit two copies of a book published between August 1, 2013, and July 31, 2014, with the required entry form and $40 entry fee by August 29. Submissions should be mailed to Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington, Portland, OR 97205. Writers who are Oregon residents and who live in Oregon for at least six months of the year are eligible. Self-published books are eligible. The judges for each category will be announced when the finalists are announced in January; all judges are from out of state.

The 2014 winners include poet Mary Szybist for her collection Incarnadine (Graywolf), chosen by Kwame Dawes; fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin for her story collection The Unreal and the Real (Small Beer Press), chosen by Alan Cheuse; nonfiction writer Jay Ponteri for his memoir Wedlocked (Hawthorne Books), chosen by Ander Monson; and fiction writer Amanda Coplin for her novel The Orchardist (Harper Perennial), chosen by readers.

Literary Arts has administered the Oregon Book Awards for twenty-seven years. The organization also offers the Portland Arts & Lectures series, Oregon Fellowships, Writers in the Schools program, and Delve Readers Seminars.


Photo: Ursula K. Le Guin, the 2014 fiction winner. Credit: Motoya Nakamura

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Deadline Approaches for Inaugural Gulf Coast Translation Prize

Submissions are open for the inaugural Gulf Coast Translation Prize. An award of $1,000 and publication in the April 2015 issue of Gulf Coast will be given for a poem or group of poems translated into English. Translator and poet Jen Hofer will judge.

Submit up to five pages of poetry translated into English with the original text with a $17 entry fee by August 31. Preference will be given to translations of work published within the last fifty years. Translators may submit using the online submission system, or by postal mail to Gulf Coast, English Department, University of Houston, Houston, TX  77204. All entries will be considered for publication; two honorable mentions will also be published in the April 2015 issue of Gulf Coast.

Judge Jen Hofer is a poet, translator, educator, bookmaker, and social justice interpreter. She has published three poetry collections, several handmade chapbooks, and four translations of poetry by Mexican women. Her most recent translation, Ivory Black (Les Figues Press, 2011)—a translation from the Spanish of Mexican poet Myriam Moscona’s collection Negro Marfil—won both the 2012 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets and the 2012 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Hofer also cofounded the language justice and language experimentation collaborative Antena with John Pluecker.

Gulf Coast is the student-run literature and arts journal of the University of Houston. Established in 1982 by Donald Barthelme and Phillip Lopate, the biannual journal was originally named Domestic Crude. The journal also offers annual prizes in poetry, short fiction, short short fiction, and creative nonfiction.

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Life, Imagined: Michiganders in Literature

Heather Buchanan is the owner of the Aquarius Press, now celebrating its fifteenth year. She, along with longtime partner Randall Horton, created the press's literary division, Willow Books, which develops, publishes, and promotes writers typically underrepresented in the field. A graduate of Wayne State University (WSU) and the University of Michigan-Dearborn respectively, Buchanan was a WSU National Institute of Health Research Fellow in cognitive science. Actively involved with work in the field of narrative psychology, she has taught Composition, English, African-American Literature, and World Literature at several colleges and universities, most recently for UM-Dearborn and the College for Creative Studies. In addition to teaching, she presents on arts and literature at conferences across the country, most recently for the Ragdale Foundation. A past Poet-In-Residence for the Detroit Public Library system, she also served on the Board of Governors for UM-Dearborn's College of Arts & Sciences Affiliate and was the Chief Operating Officer of the Wayne County Council on the Arts, History & Humanities. A musician, Buchanan is currently working on a musical project honoring the Harlem Hellfighters and a World War I centennial book.

Out of the bustling mass of high schoolers being dismissed after our poetry workshop, one young man stopped in the doorway to utter these words, "that thing changed my life," with a look of wonder upon his face. His classmates had already reinserted their earbuds and pulled out their phones for the bus ride back to school. After this student had said his piece, the look faded and he went to catch up with the group. Fleeting moments like that keep me inspired.

Authors from our press had just completed day one of a two-day workshop and public reading program in Detroit, my hometown, at the Carr Center. “Life, Imagined: Michiganders in Literature” was a writers residency for authors who had published literary works about notable Michiganders. The authors gave public readings with a Q&A for the general public and held poetry readings and workshops with Detroit-area high school students. The event was co-sponsored by the Michigan Humanities Council and funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc..

The program’s goal was to demonstrate how literature intersects with history to provide meaningful cultural experiences for contemporary audiences. Moderated by Randall Horton and Angela May, the fall 2013 Writers-in-Residence were Lita Hooper author of Thunder in Her Voice: The Narrative of Sojourner Truth and Derrick Harriell author of Ropes. The public reading was also a debut for Harriell’s collection, which contained a suite of poems on famed Detroit boxer Joe Louis. The spring 2014 program featured Karen S. Williams author of Peninsula: Poems of Michigan and Curtis L. Crisler, a Michigan native whose newly-released Wonderkind is a poetry collection on the musical genius Stevie Wonder.

The students were from areas typically underserved when it comes to arts programming, so this program was inspiring for more than one reason. The students were not only able to engage with poetry itself, but were able to engage with poetic scholars of color. In addition to making history come alive for these students, the authors shared their experiences as published writers who also teach on the college level. At the outset, only a handful out of the approximately 125 students said they read poetry. After the program ended, however, post surveys showed that 65 percent of the students were now more likely to read poetry and could even envision themselves as poets in the future.

As the students shared the poems they had created in the workshop, the air was electric. There was a sense of pride, accomplishment, and camaraderie for fellow readers. Sadly, during both workshops, more than one female student shared her own story of abuse. Any teacher in Detroit will tell you that many of our youth carry a great deal of internalized trauma and need creative outlets to process and express it. Our workshop was a safe space where everything could be said aloud, if only for a little while.

The Poets & Writers Detroit program has enabled our press to put on several great literary events over the years, but I count this project as one of the very best.

Photos: (top) Heather Buchanan, (bottom) Curtis L. Crisler, Angela May, Karen S. Williams with students.  Photo Credit: Mike McMurray.

Support for Readings & Workshops in Detroit is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

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Dogfish Head Poetry Prize Open for Submissions

The 12th annual Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, cosponsored by Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Beer and Delaware–based newspaper the Cape Gazette, is currently open for submissions. The annual award is given for a poetry collection by a poet who resides in a Mid-Atlantic state. The winner will receive $500, publication by Broadkill River Press, ten author copies, and two cases of Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Beer.

Poets over the age of 21 who reside in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington D.C., or West Virginia are eligible. Submit a manuscript of 48 to 78 pages by e-mail to Linda Blaskey, Prize Coordinator, at dogfishheadpoetryprize@earthlink.net by September 1. There is no entry fee. The winner will be required to attend the award ceremony on December 13 at the Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware. Lodging for one night in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is included; transportation expenses are not covered.

Sam Calagione, owner and CEO of Dogfish Head Brewery, established the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize in 2003. Calagione studied English in college and attended writing classes at Columbia University before leaving to apprentice at a brewery. The prize was originally given for a poetry chapbook by a poet from the Delmarva Peninsula.

Grant Clauser of Hatfield, Pennsylvania, won the 2013 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize for his poetry collection Necessary Myths.

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Academy Expands Whitman Award

The Academy of American Poets has announced two changes to its distinguished Walt Whitman Award, making it the most valuable first-book award for poetry in the United States. In addition to a $5,000 cash prize, the winner of the 2015 award will receive publication of his or her manuscript by Graywolf Press, and a six-week all-expenses-paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy.

Established in 1975, the annual prize is given to an emerging poet who has not yet published a book. The 2015 judge will be Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith.

“The partnership with the Academy affirms Graywolf Press’s forty-year commitment to publish the work of important new poets,” said Graywolf Executive Editor Jeffrey Shotts in a press release. “It seems fitting to announce this collaboration thirty years after Graywolf published Christopher Gilbert’s Walt Whitman Award–winning Across the Mutual Landscape in 1984. We simply cannot wait to see what new marvels are ahead through the award and through our work with the Academy of American Poets."

The Civitella Ranieri Center has hosted creative writers, composers, and visual artists since 1995. Residents are provided with room, board, and studio or work space in a fifteenth-century castle in rural Umbria. “This new affiliation will add to our history of outstanding poetry Fellows,” said director Dana Prescott. “We look forward to welcoming future recipients of the Walt Whitman Award to our particularly magical corner of Italy.”

Using the online submission system, poets who have not yet published a full-length book of poetry may submit a manuscript of 48 to 100 pages with a $35 entry fee between September 1 and November 1. Visit the website for complete submission guidelines.

The Academy will also purchase copies of the winning book for distribution to five thousand of its members, and will feature the poet and his or her work in its magazine, American Poets, and on its website. The winner will also receive an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to attend the Academy's awards ceremony.

The 2014 winner was Hannah Sanghee Park for her collection The Same-Different, which will be published by Louisiana State University Press next year.

Photo: Civitella Ranieri Center

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Shining a Light on Mental Illness: Sheila Wilensky's Thursday Writing Group

In 2012 and 2013, educator Sheila Wilensky led a series of P&W supported workshops at Our Place Clubhouse, a psych-social rehabilitation center in Tucson, Arizona, for adults recovering from serious mental illness. A high school social studies teacher for fifteen years in Vermont and Maine, Wilensky also taught children's literature at College of the Atlantic. From 1982 to 1997, she owned the Oz Children’s Bookstore in Southwest Harbor, Maine. In 2002, she got tired of the ice and snow, drove cross country, and has been living in Tucson ever since. She is currently associate editor of the Arizona Jewish Post. Wilensky blogs about her experience teaching the workshops and produced a chapbook of essays from participants titled, A Certain Slant of Light, which was released earlier this year.

Wilensky and Thursday Writing Group

I’ve lived through the civil rights, feminist, and LGBT movements for equality. Now it’s time to reduce the stigma of mental illness in our society. Our Place Clubhouse is a recovery community that encourages self-esteem, and offers job training programs and a safe haven for individuals living with serious mental illness. Around five years ago, I began editing the prolific writing of Rachel and Ira, both of whom struggled with schizophrenia. A week after the January 8, 2011 shooting in Tucson, which killed six people and wounded thirteen, including former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, I was meeting with Rachel.

“Why do people think that if you have a mental illness, you may pull out a gun and start shooting at any time?” asked Rachel, throwing her hands up in frustration.

A year later, I had this epiphany: We must change this damaging misconception. Studies indicate that individuals with severe mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.

The Our Place Clubhouse Thursday Writing Group started on September 17, 2012. We sat around a seminar table in the clubhouse boardroom. We talked about our lives. I knew it was important to establish trust.

“We’re going to create a chapbook to help educate the community about living with mental illness,” I told my fourteen prospective coauthors. I’m not sure they believed me.

Writing prompts emerged from our conversations. The first was “any morning:” how to explain to others what a normal day was like for “crazy” people or that group members started their days like anyone else. They fed their pets, brushed their teeth, and some went to work—as pharmacist, baker, artist, peer counselor.

Every week we read our writing aloud with no feedback, judgment, or criticism—listening to individual voices striving for recovery, applauding after each person read. At the end of each session, Doreen, a former middle school language arts teacher, collected the pieces and put them in a folder for me to take home. Our process developed organically, as did my hugging each writer at the conclusion of a session.

I wanted everyone to feel ownership along the road to publication. We brainstormed titles. We peer edited our writing. The section, “What This Chapbook Means to Me,” is a record of the project’s success:

“Participating in this project has been a source of joy and freedom; the freedom to self-express the many faces of mental illness.” —Lani

“Writing this book is an exploration for me. Hearing others’ stories and writing about my own mental illness is invigorating.” —Doreen

“Any one of us can have behavioral disturbances or diseases of the brain. We stigmatize what we don’t understand. Life can be traumatic. I hope that this chapbook has given the reader pause. Let’s stop being afraid of ourselves.” —Pam

“This chapbook is a conversation which expresses our perspectives on lives affected by mental illness.... Most people who live with mental illness and brain disorders are productive in society and contribute a lot to the advancement of the American dream." —Tyrone

Our book launch took place in January 2014. More than two hundred people attended, including the mayor of Tucson.

Thank you to Poets & Writers for giving this project the legitimacy and support my coauthors deserve.

Photo: Sheila Wilensky (wearing green) and Our Place Clubhouse Thursday Writing Group members and staff; credit: Erica von Koerber.

Support for Readings & Workshops events in Tucson is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

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PEN Announces Literary Award Winners

The New York City–based PEN American Center has announced the winners of the 2014 PEN Literary Awards. The annual awards honor emerging and established writers in a range of genres, including poetry, fiction, biography, children’s literature, sports writing, science writing, translation, and drama. This year PEN will award nearly $150,000 in prize money.

“Celebrating the written word is an essential part of defending it,” said PEN President Peter Goodwin, “and it is through PEN’s literary awards that we continue to honor some of the most exceptional books and bodies of work that free expression makes possible.” PEN has awarded its literary awards for over 50 years.

James Wolcott won the $10,000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for his essay collection Critical Mass (Doubleday). Geoff Dyer, Stanley Fish, Ariel Levy, and Cheryl Strayed judged. The annual award is given for an essay collection published in the previous year that exemplifies the dignity and esteem the essay form imparts to literature.

Dr. Carl Hart won the $10,000 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for High Price (Harper). Akiko Busch, Rivka Galchen, and Eileen Pollack judged. The annual award is given for a book of literary nonfiction published in the previous year on the subject of the physical or biological sciences.

Ruth Ellen Kocher and Nina McConigley both won the $5,000 PEN Open Book Award, given for an exceptional book published in the previous year and written by an author of color. Kocher won for her poetry collection domina Un/blued (Tupelo Press); McConigley won for her short story collection Cowboys and East Indians (FiveChapters Books). Catherine Chung, Randa Jarrar, and Monica Youn judged.

Frank Bidart won the $5,000 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, which is given biennially to a poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature. Peg Boyers, Toi Derricotte, and Rowan Ricardo Phillips judged.

Karen Emmerich and Edmund Keeley won the $3,000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for Diaries of Exile (Archipelago Books), a poetry collection by the Greek poet, Yannis Ritsos. Kimiko Hahn judged. The annual award is given for a book-length translation of poetry into English published in the previous year.

Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov won the $3,000 PEN Translation Prize for their translation from the Russian of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s short story collection Autobiography of a Corpse (New York Review of Books). Ann Goldstein, Becka McKay, and Katherine Silver judged. The annual award is given for a book-length translation of prose into English published in the previous year.

The winners will be honored at PEN’s annual literary awards ceremony, held this year on September 29 at the New School in New York City. At the ceremony, PEN will announce the winners of the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the $25,000 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. Ron Childress, who won the $25,000 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction for his unpublished novel And West is West, will also be honored at the ceremony.

The shortlist and the longlist, issued for the first time this year, for each prize can be found on PEN’s website.

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Ferris, Fowler Make Man Booker Longlist

The Man Booker Prize Foundation announced the longlist today for the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. This year marks the first time in the prize's history that any author, irrespective of nationality, with work written originally in English and published in the United Kingdom, is eligible to win.

The longlist includes Howard Jacobson, a former Man Booker winner, for J (Jonathan Cape); two previously shortlisted authors, Ali Smith for How to Be Both (Hamish Hamilton) and David Mitchell for The Bone Clocks (Sceptre); and the Anglo-Indian writer Neel Mukherjee for The Lives of Others (Chatto & Windus). The American writers making the longlist are Richard Powers for Orfeo (Atlantic Books), Siri Hustvedt for The Blazing World (Sceptre), Joshua Ferris for To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (Viking), and Karen Joy Fowler for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Serpent’s Tail). British writers Paul Kingsnorth for The Wake (Unbound) and David Nicholls for Us (Hodder & Stoughton); Tasmanian writer Richard Flanagan for The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Chatto & Windus); and Irish writers Joseph O’Neill for The Dog (Fourth Estate) and Niall Williams for History of the Rain (Bloomsbury) round out the list.


The panel of six judges is chaired by British philosopher A. C. Grayling. The decision to expand the prize this year has been controversial; previously the prize was restricted to authors from Britain and other countries in the Commonwealth, as well as Ireland and Zimbabwe. Last year, Eleanor Catton, a novelist from New Zealand, won the prize for her 832-page novel The Luminaries. At 28, Catton was the youngest recipient of the award in its forty-five-year history. 

The shortlist will be announced on September 9, and the winner—who will receive a £50,000 (approximately $85,177) purse—will be announced on October 14.

Photos: Fowler (left), Ferris (right)

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Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize Open for Submissions

The Young Translators’ Prize, sponsored by Harvill Secker, a British imprint of Random House, is currently open for submissions. The annual prize is given to an emerging translator, ages 18 to 34, for the translation of a specific story into English. The winner will receive £1,000 (approximately $1,360), a selection of Harvill Secker titles, and airfare and lodging to participate in the Crossing Border Festival held in November 2014 in The Hague, Netherlands. The winner will also be invited to participate in the British Center for Literary Translation’s mentorship program with translator and judge Shaun Whiteside.

This year’s prize will be given for a translation from the German of the story “Der Hausfreund” by German fiction writer Julia Franck. Submit a translation with the required entry form by postal mail to Harvill Secker, Random House Group Limited, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA, England. The postmark deadline is August 1; there is no entry fee. Joint translations are eligible. Translators who have not published a book-length work of translation are eligible. Fiction writer A. S. Byatt, translators Sally-Ann Spencer and Shaun Whiteside, and Harvill Secker editor Ellie Steel will judge. The winner will be chosen in September.

Julia Franck has published two novels in German: The Blind Side of the Heart (Vintage Books, 2009), about a German family during the Cold War, and Back to Back (Vintage Books, 2013), about a German family during World War I and II. English translator Anthea Bell has translated her novels into English. Franck said in an interview with the British organization Booktrust, “Translations are a gift—especially if we can’t read other languages. Reading is always a chance to learn about other lives, cultures, and human beings. Through language we can get to know another way of thinking, a way of looking, and when a book strikes us, it is as if we have a few hours of a completely different life.”

Established in 2010, the prize is cosponsored with the British Centre for Literary Translation and, starting this year, the Goethe-Institut London. The prize, which honors translations from different languages each year, has been awarded to translators of Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish.

Lucy Greaves of Bristol, England, won last year’s award for her translation from the Portuguese of Adriana Lisboa’s story “O sucesso.” Ninety-two entries from nine countries were submitted for the prize. Greaves’s winning translation can be read on Granta, which has published the translations of all four previous winners.

Photo: Julia Franck, credit Mathias Bothor

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Showcasing Senior Writers

Paula Rodenas is the author of The Random House Book of Horses and Horsemanship and a freelance writer for numerous magazines and newspapers, including Town & Country, Travel & Leisure, and the Horse Directory. She has edited books for Arco and Exposition Press and received awards from the Press Club of Long Island. She teaches creative writing for local adult education programs, and for more than twenty years has led the Merrick Senior Center’s Creative Writing Workshop, a sixteen-week program sponsored by Poets & Writers and the Town of Hempstead Department of Senior Enrichment. A lifelong horse lover, much of her subject matter as a writer has involved horses and she currently contributes to a thoroughbred racing column for a magazine in Long Island, New York. Rodenas has been invited to many foreign press trips for her work as a journalist.

Anyone who believes senior citizens cannot learn and improve should think again!

I have been leading a creative writing workshop for people ages sixty and up at the Merrick Senior Center for more than twenty years. I’ve always enjoyed one-on-one relationships with other writers and this workshop allows me the opportunity to share and appreciate the progress of the participants.

Each week I give an assignment, but I emphasize that it is more of a guideline than a “must.” We have produced poetry, prose, memoirs, fiction and, for the stage, short dialogues or mini-plays that we call “vignettes.” The work is read aloud and critiqued by members of the group with a positive approach, building upon the foundation as opposed to tearing it apart.

The program presently runs for sixteen weeks each year between late February and mid-June, and meets once a week for two hours. At the end of the sessions, we hold a presentation at our local community theater, the Merrick Theater and Center for the Arts, offering free admission to the public, followed by an informal coffee hour. This enables the writers to mingle with the audience. We also publish a booklet in the fall entitled, “Musings of Maturity” which contains our most recent writings. We thus have two venues, one audio and one visual, in which to feature our work.

Our program has been well-received within the community. In 2012, we were featured in a special weekend edition of the Long Island newspaper, Newsday. In 2013, we made the front page of the Herald Weekly. Our theater presentations have been recorded and sent to nursing homes, and “Musings of Maturity” is shared with local libraries.

What makes our group special is a strong camaraderie that makes it feel like family. Deep emotions are often revealed—there are tears and laughter. Older writers draw on a lifetime of experience and wisdom. Our participants have an optimistic outlook, remembering the past, but also thinking ahead. Writers of any age need support and encouragement, and it has been a pleasure to see senior writers develop and gain recognition in the community.

Photo: Paula Rodenas and the Merrick Seniors.  Photo Credit: Nat Watson.

Support for Readings & Workshops in New York is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

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Stories of Successful Aging After 60

P&W supported Frances Shani Parker is the author of Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes (paperback, e-book). Parker is a Michigan-based eldercare consultant, writer, hospice volunteer, blogger, and former school principal.

Have you noticed all the negative stereotypes that bombard us about older adults? Too often, this group is portrayed as unattractive, senile, useless, and sexless. A former school principal, when I surveyed fourth graders about the kinds of people they expected to see at a nursing home, they said residents would be old, sick, grouchy, slow, not too smart, and nosey. If these children’s perceptions continue, they can easily grow up to become the stereotypes they believe. Think about some of the older adults you know who have fallen victim to this illusion. Negative stereotypes have influenced how they view themselves in addition to the natural decline in some of the ways they function. They may have more dependence on others, lower levels of risk taking, and decreased self-esteem, due to poorer health.

FSParker

Although youthfulness is admired and flaunted, there are many older adults who are not living the negative stereotypes. They refuse to focus on assumptions about how their lives should unfold. I wanted them to tell their stories, pay tribute to themselves, and motivate others in the process. Facilitating a Poets & Writers workshop seemed like the perfect catalyst for using the power of written words to promote productive aging. An eldercare consultant active with several senior organizations, I was sponsored by the Presbyterian Village of Brush Park Manor, an independent living community in Detroit. That’s how the Stories of Successful Aging After 60 writing workshop came into being and how a shared vision became a reality.

Most potential workshop participants were somewhat intimidated by the prospect of writing personal stories. Reading them aloud before a group presented another layer of concern. To help guide the process, I attended an exercise class with residents before the workshop started, so we could build trust and bond together. A few weeks later, I read original poems for them during their African American history program. My hope was to inspire them to gain the confidence to write and share their own thoughts and feelings. By the time our five workshop sessions began, we had sixteen excited older adults ranging in age from 60 to 93. Storytellers at heart, they were eager to celebrate and share with others what it meant to age successfully.

I was impressed with the diversity and intimacy of their revelations. Many had conquered and continued to prevail over major obstacles while maintaining an optimistic outlook on life. Surviving cancer, heart and kidney transplants, drug addiction, and raising grandchildren were only a few of their victories. They also mentioned spending quality time helping others, enjoying family activities, and working new jobs. Developing talents and hobbies, traveling, and, of course, dating further enhanced their busy schedules. An enlightening collection of stories representing their personal truths evolved through their focused introspection.

References to religious explanations for passing life tests were frequent. Testimonies included receiving numerous blessings, having prayer partners, reading the Bible, and just being alone talking to Jesus. Their praise of a higher power was so strong that it became common during rehearsal readings for someone to shout a religious affirmation such as, “Give God the glory!” or “Thank you, Father!” when other writers read their stories. One man included the partial singing of, “His Eye is on the Sparrow” as part of his presentation. A woman disclosed that music talks to her with, “I’m Gonna Make It After All” being her favorite gospel song.

A lovely luncheon recognized workshop honorees who received and read aloud from their uplifting collection of stories. Each writer also accepted a special certificate of achievement. Several stated they would be sharing their collections and certificates with family, church members, and friends. Now others will benefit from their passionate efforts. Proud older adults savored well-earned praise for their involvement in a writing workshop where we all learned more about ourselves, one another, and aging.

Photo: Frances Shani Parker  Credit: Maurice Sanders

Support for Readings & Workshops in New York is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

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Submissions Open for Bobbitt Poetry Prize

The Library of Congress’s Poetry and Literature Center is accepting nominations for the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry. The biennial prize is given for a poetry collection written by a U.S. citizen and published in the previous two years, or for lifetime achievement in poetry. The winner will receive $10,000 and will give a public reading in the fall.

Publishers may submit four copies of a book published in 2012 or 2013, along with the required entry form and a suggested $50 contribution to the Library of Congress by postal mail to Bobbitt Prize, Poetry and Literature Center, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20540. The postmark deadline is July 31. Books published in a standard edition of at least 1,000 copies are eligible. A collected or selected work is eligible only if it contains at least 30 poems previously unpublished in a book. A three-person jury and the Librarian of Congress, James Billington, will judge.

Established in 1990, the Bobbitt prize is given by the family of Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt (1910-1978). Bobbitt, who worked at the Library of Congress in the 1930s, was the late President Lyndon B. Johnson’s sister.

Gerald Stern won the 2012 Bobbitt Prize for Early Collected Poems: 1965-1992 (Norton, 2010). Other winners of the prize include James Merrill, Louise Glück, A. R. Ammons, Kenneth Koch, Frank Bidart, W. S. Merwin, and Lucia Perillo.

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Good Medicine: Poets & Writers' Los Angeles Connecting Cultures Reading

Poets & Writers' fourth annual Los Angeles Connecting Cultures Reading took place on May 22, 2014, before a packed house at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center. Sixteen writers representing P&W–supported organizations 826LA, Heartland Institute for Transformation, Lambda Literary Foundation, Levantine Cultural Center, Mixed Remixed Festival, and Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore came together to celebrate the diversity of the SoCal literary community and Poets & Writers' Readings & Workshops program. R&W (West) director Jamie Asaye FitzGerald blogs about this lively annual event.

2014 Los Angeles Connecting Cultures Group

"We are the blood, the blood of a city of mixed hearts," recited 19-year-old poet Laura Davila, wowing the audience with her expansive poems about urban life in Los Angeles and capturing the spirit of Poets & Writers' fourth annual Los Angeles Connecting Cultures Reading, which celebrates the diversity of our Readings & Workshops program and the SoCal literary community.

Connecting Cultures readings take place yearly in Los Angeles and New York City. Each event is exceptional because it brings together a diverse group of organizations—from the grassroots up—to showcase voices before an audience that is as varied and expressive as the readers themselves.

Davila, who is blind and read not from the page, but from a reading machine, was selected by curator Mike "ThePoet" Sonksen, whose 826LA summer teen writing workshops have received R&W support for a number of years. Like 826LA, all the organizations invited to co-curate the Connecting Cultures Reading have received support through the R&W program.

Other highlights from the Los Angeles event included poet and playwright Jesse Bliss, who performed her reading while holding her baby. "Creation is messy," she read, as little hands reached out to touch the microphone and grab hold of her mother's printed poem.

Melinda Palacio, who was making her second appearance at Connecting Cultures, proudly held up her poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting (Tia Chucha Press, 2012), explaining that the last time she read, she didn't have a book, but now she does!

So large is the sprawl of Los Angeles, it wasn't surprising to hear poet Vickie Vértiz say it was her first time reading on the Westside. She read her poem "Tocaya" (meaning "namesake" in Spanish), about being named after a deceased older sister.

Novelist Juliana Maio of the Levantine Cultural Center took us on a journey through the back streets of Egypt while Tony Valenzuela, reader and curator for the Lambda Literary Foundation, read an excerpt from his memoir about coming of age in a San Diego gay bathhouse. Fiction writer Esmé-Michelle Watkins of the Mixed Remixed Festival, gave us a child's-eye-view of a family in turmoil.

When talking of "the medicine," poet Queen Hollins, representing the Heartland Institute for Transformation, declared: "It doesn't do any good if you keep it to yourself."

If what ails Los Angeles is a geography of separation, then writing was the medicine that brought everyone together on this night. Sharing that medicine is exactly what the sixteen Connecting Cultures readers did, reaching across divides and distances to bring us back to what matters most—our human stories and experiences.

You can see more pictures from the 2014 Los Angeles Connecting Cultures Reading on our Facebook page, and a video of Jeffery Martin, representing Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore, reading his poem "Serious Poet," on our YouTube channel.

Photo: 2014 Los Angeles Connecting Cultures group. Front: (L-R) Esme-Michelle Watkins, P&W's Brandi Spaethe, Trebor Healey, librecht baker, Heidi Durrow, Jamie Moore. Back: (L-R) P&W intern Leticia Valente, Beyond Baroque's Richard Modiano, Laura Davila, Tony Valenzuela, P&W's Jamie Asaye FitzGerald, Gayle Fuhr, Queen Hollins, Melissa Sanvicente, Jeffery Martin, and Chris L. Terry. Credit: Brandi M. Spaethe.
Major support for Readings/Workshops in California is provided by the James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

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