Ten Questions for Megan Giddings
“If you can surprise a reader with a character’s reaction, a scene will almost always work.” —Megan Giddings, author of The Women Could Fly
Tags:
Article Archive
Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
Ten Questions for Sarah Thankam Mathews
“Writing, I now believe, is both a confidence trick and an alchemical process.” —Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different
Tags:
2022 Disability Futures Fellowship Recipients Announced
Seven poets and writers are among the class of 2022 Disability Futures fellows.
Tags:
Ten Questions for Caylin Capra-Thomas
“I needed to live all of the change and movement and multiplicity that the book wound up being about in order to write it.” —Caylin Capra-Thomas, author of Iguana Iguana
Tags:
Write It Again
The author of Took House explores what happens when poets permit themselves to write about the same subject multiple times.
Tags:
Ten Questions for Isaac Fitzgerald
“A reader who truly needs these stories might not come to them for weeks, months, or even years.” —Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional
Tags:
Make It Strange
The author of Took House explores the importance of “strangeness” in poetry and offers a method for capturing this quality by combining two different draft poems.
Tags:
Ada Limón Named U.S. Poet Laureate
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has named Ada Limón the next poet laureate of the United States.
Tags:
Ten Questions for Safia Elhillo
“This book really fought me, or I fought it, for the first couple of years.” —Safia Elhillo, author of Girls That Never Die
Tags:
Hold Your Darlings
The author of Took House explores a kinder approach to revision, in which language cut during one editorial process may be saved as material for a new writing project.
Tags:
Ten Questions for Zeina Hashem Beck
“I think it was essential that I turn further inward, that I trust the ‘quieter’ poems.” —Zeina Hashem Beck, author of O
Tags:
Ten Questions for Maya Marshall
“Write because you want to, not to define yourself for the benefit of other people.” —Maya Marshall, author of All the Blood Involved in Love
Tags:
Setting the Table for Your Reader
The author of [WHITE] explores the benefits of writing to a specific audience and the risks of trying to meet the market’s imagined demands.
Tags:
Ten Questions for Ottessa Moshfegh
“I was struck by the freedom of third person, how I could roam and jump and skip around, and cozy up to characters and then back away.” —Ottessa Moshfegh, author of Lapvona
Tags:
Revise Like a Painter
The author of [WHITE] considers how writers might take inspiration from visual artists in their approach to revision, pushing beyond surface editing to “see” their work afresh.
Tags:
Exclusive Excerpt: Blithedale Canyon
An excerpt from Blithedale Canyon by Michael Bourne, who writes in the July/August 2022 issue about his long path to publishing his debut novel without the assistance of a literary agent.
Tags:
Keeping the Stories: A Profile of Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s new novel, Women of Light, chronicles five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West and is imbued with her rich sense of history and pride in her own mixed ancestry: “The story of who I am is inextricably tied to this country.”
Tags:
Open Letter’s Translator Triptych
By presenting translations in trios, a new initiative from Open Letter Books puts international literature in context and celebrates the role of translator as curator.
Tags:
Book Prize Celebrates Older Poets
Recognizing that talent and relevance have no age limit, the Henry Morgenthau III First Book Poetry Prize from Passager Books spotlights debuts by poets age seventy and older.
Tags:
Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
The first lines of a dozen noteworthy books including The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser and Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang.
Tags:
Centering Neurodivergent Poets
The Multiverse book series from Milkweed Editions spotlights the work of neurodivergent poets and powerful new ways of “languaging.”
Tags:
First Fiction 2022
Interviews with debut authors Leila Mottley, Tsering Yangzom Lama, Arinze Ifeakandu, Paige Clark, and Morgan Talty, as well as excerpts from their books.
Tags:
Small Press Points: rinky dink press
Each no bigger than a deck of cards, rinky dink’s “micro zines” aim to “get poetry back in the hands (and pockets) of the people” and make the genre more accessible.
Tags:
Literary MagNet: Raquel Gutiérrez
The author on the journals and zines that published essays from their collection, Brown Neon.
Tags:
The Written Image: Stopan
The celebrated Bulgarian bookmaker Stopan calls on his country’s craft traditions to create fantastical artist’s books that are “both in and out of folklore.”
Tags: