After college, I lived on the west coast of Chile for several years and really missed being part of a community of writers who wrote in the same language. On my visits to the U.S., I'd camp out in bookstores to get my fill of poetry books and literary magazines, especially of Poets & Writers. I loved reading about the authors in it who'd gone through periods as disconnected from the American literary world as I was off writing in my tiny sublet in Vina del Mar, Chile. The first poem I published while living abroad came from a listing I found in Poets & Writers on a trip back to the U.S. My first book of poems also came into being through a contest listed in Poets & Writers, although that didn't occur until 2007, long after I'd moved back to the English-speaking world and finished an MFA in poetry. I received the Amy Award the same month my first book was released and it was thrilling to share poems from it at the sort of Poets & Writers event I'd read about during my visits to the U.S. nearly a decade before.
—Idra Novey, recipient of Poets & Writers' 2008 Amy Award