New York, NY—August 15, 2019—Poets & Writers, the nation's largest nonprofit organization serving creative writers, invites writers from the state of Oklahoma to apply for the 2020 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award.
Each year, Poets & Writers welcomes poets and fiction writers from a selected state to apply for the award. This year, that state is Oklahoma.
The prestigious award, which aims to provide promising writers a network for professional advancement, has helped to launch the careers of Sue Monk Kidd (The Invention of Wings, The Secret Life of Bees), Lidia Yuknavitch (The Book of Joan, The Chronology of Water), David Mura (Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei) and others. Since Poets & Writers launched the Writers Exchange in 1984, one-hundred-and-four writers from forty states and the District of Columbia have participated.
The judges for 2020 are DéLana R.A. Dameron for poetry and Eugene Lim for fiction. One winner in each category will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to meet with top literary professionals, including editors, agents, publishers, and prominent writers. While in New York, winners will also give a reading hosted by Poets & Writers. In addition, each winner is invited to spend a month at the Jentel Artist Residency Program in Banner, Wyoming. To be eligible, writers must be residents of Oklahoma (currently and for at least the past two years), and must have published no more than one full-length book in the genre in which they are applying.
Download the guidelines and application form here. Entries must be postmarked by January 6, 2020.
About the Judges
DéLana R.A. Dameron is the author of Weary Kingdom (University of South Carolina Press, 2017) selected by Nikky Finney for the Palmetto Poetry Series, and How God Ends Us (University of South Carolina Press, 2009), selected by Elizabeth Alexander for the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize. Dameron’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, ARTS.BLACK, Storyscape Journal, The Rumpus, Epiphany Magazine, and elsewhere. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and New York University's MFA program, she has conducted readings, workshops, and lectures across the United States, Central America, and Europe. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband.
Eugene Lim is the author of the novels Fog & Car (Ellipsis Press, 2008), The Strangers (Black Square Editions, 2013), and Dear Cyborgs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017). His writings have appeared in Granta, The Believer, Fence, Little Star, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. He is the librarian at Hunter College High School, runs Ellipsis Press, and lives in Queens, NY.
About Poets & Writers
Poets & Writers has been the primary source of trustworthy information, professional guidance, support, and inspiration for writers for nearly fifty years. Our work is rooted in the belief that literature is vital to sustaining a vibrant culture. We focus on nurturing literature’s source: creative writers. Our mission is to foster the professional development of poets and writers, to promote communication throughout the literary community, and to help create an environment in which literature can be appreciated by the widest possible public. Learn more at pw.org.
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