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Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
“The book didn’t announce itself to me until 2017, when I went looking for it. I scanned over the poems I had been writing, scanning to see what my brain had been up to without me noticing.” —Danez Smith, author of Homie
“Meditation is not a quick fix,” writes Mimi Lok. “It requires practice so that the mind gets used to stilling and quieting itself enough to listen.” In this Craft Capsule, Lok offers her method for cultivating stillness and silence.
Mark Doty’s What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life, forthcoming from W. W. Norton on April 14, 2020.
The author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You talks about the uneasy marriage of capitalism and sex, the future of democracy, and love.
“I spent much of 2016 and 2017 not just trying to find my way back into the book but also trying to convince myself that art still mattered.” —Meng Jin, author of Little Gods
“What needs to start? What needs to stop? What needs to change?” Mimi Lok shares an exercise that helps her persevere through difficult writing projects.
Justin Phillip Reed’s The Malevolent Volume, forthcoming from Coffee House Press on April 7, 2020.
“It was important to me to err on the side of generosity in writing this book.” —Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley
Lidia Yuknavitch’s Verge, forthcoming from Riverhead Books on February 4, 2020.
“I write every day when I am in the middle of a novel. And I write intensely when I am in the middle of a short story or a poem. At all other times I blame myself for not writing.” —Amanda Michalopoulou, author of God's Wife
How do you know when to stop revising? Cameron Awkward-Rich shares a memorization exercise that helps him recognize when a poem is done.
“The most challenging thing every time I sit down to write is to make the poem on the page as alive as the poem in my head.” —Barbara Crooker, author of Some Glad Morning
Cameron Awkward-Rich weighs the ethical demands of elegy.
“Fridays I would slash and burn upwards of 80 percent of that week’s word haul. Anything that stayed had to earn its keep.” —Tommy Pico, author of Feed
Cameron Awkward-Rich considers the possibilities and pitfalls of “after” poetry—poetry inspired by or borrowing from another writer’s work.
The first lines of a dozen noteworthy books including Cleanness by Garth Greenwell and Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu.
Ten debut poets published in 2019, including Camonghne Felix and Jake Skeets, share their advice, inspiration, and path to publication.
Courses in graphic storytelling gain popularity at MFA programs, workshops, and community spaces across the United States.
In the first installment of a yearlong series on publishing professionals, three literary agent assistants in New York City reveal the inner workings of a literary agency.
After more than forty years of publishing innovative poetry, Ahsahta Press will shutter in June 2020.
A look inside three new anthologies, including A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home edited by Nicole Chung and Mensah Demary.
Andy Hunter, the cofounder of Electric Literature and Literary Hub, launches Bookshop, an e-commerce platform that promises indie bookstores a way to take back sales from Amazon.
The New Orleans press publishes four or five poetry titles a year in an eclectic range of styles.
An author recommends five journals that published essays from her debut collection, Dispatches From the End of Ice.
An author tells a fantastical story by writing it a word at a time in the snow.
