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Since its inception in 1970, Poets & Writers has provided fees to writers who give readings or conduct writing workshops. Each year, our Readings/Workshops program supports hundreds of writers participating in events in large cities and small towns throughout New York and California, as well as in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Seattle, New Orleans, Tucson, and Washington D.C.
Here is a sample of some of the writers and events we funded this year.
A crowd listens to poets Cornelius Eady and Jean Monahan read at the Lunar Walk Reading Series at Two Moon Art House and Cafe in Brooklyn, New York, on February 10, 2013.
A documentary look at a writing workshop for seniors, which Poets & Writers has funded for ten years. The workshop takes place at the Goddard Riverside Community Center in New York City and some of the writers have participated continuously since 2001.
Each year, through its Readings/Workshops Program, Poets & Writers supports hundreds of writers participating in literary events. If you're interested in attending any of the readings or workshops listed in the calendar, please be sure to get in touch with the contact person to confirm time and place.
Each year, Poets & Writers holds an Intergenerational Reading, "Connecting Generations," where seniors and teens from P&W-supported writing workshops in New York City come together to read their work. In June 2009, P&W held our 8th Annual Intergenerational Reading at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore near Lincoln Center.
The Readings/Workshops program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Major support for Readings/Workshops in California is provided by The James Irvine Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Louis & Anne Abrons Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Abbey K. Starr Charitable Trust, and Friends of Poets & Writers.
To apply for funds to support your event, download our application.
Reports From Our Sponsored Writers and Presenters
P&W–supported Larry Colker blogs about the triumphs and struggles of poetry workshops. He has cohosted the weekly Redondo Poets reading series for about fifteen years. In 2006 he won the California Writers Exchange Award, sponsored by Poets & Writers, Inc. His first book-length collection, Amnesia and Wings, was published by Tebot Bach in May 2013.
If you're a writer or an organization interested in learning more about the Readings/Workshops program, please check out our FAQ.
Learn how to host a successful reading or event, step by step, by downloading our helpful Poets & Writers Guide to Presenting Readings and Workshops.
Poets & Writers is committed to making literature available to the widest possible public, including audiences that rarely have access to literary events. Learn more about the special projects we support that bring readings and workshops to prisons, clinics, homeless shelters, settlement homes, and more.
This poetry reading was initiated by the Dekalb Public Library, as part of its Diversity in DeKalb series, and to celebrate National Poetry Month. It brought together a young poet, Jenny Sadre-Orafi, who writes about her bicultural Mexican and Iranian background, and myself a poet in her sixties, who has traveled broadly in Latin American. One of the audience members, new to poetry readings, said, after the reading, "This was food for my soul." Support from Poets & Writers was very central, not just because of the stipend or the validation of an event with a P&W logo, but because the reading gave me a chance to explore new, less conventional work with an audience that wasn't necessarily a literary one. This experience and the programming conversations that have flowed from it feel very rewarding.
Heather Tosteson
A crowd listens to poets Cornelius Eady and Jean Monahan read at the Lunar Walk Reading Series at Two Moon Art House and Cafe in Brooklyn, New York, on February 10, 2013.
Poet Jean Monahan reads at the Lunar Walk Reading Series at Two Moon Art House and Cafe in Brooklyn, New York, on February 10, 2013.
Poet Cornelius Eady at the Lunar Walk Reading Series at Two Moon Art House and Cafe in Brooklyn, New York, on February 10, 2013.
Rough Magic (Robin Messing, Leo Ferguson, Charlie Rauh, Cornelius Eady, Concetta Abbate, and Emma Alabaster) at Lunar Walk at Two Moon Art House and Cafe.
