Article Archive: News and Trends

Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.

Poets House and PSA Branch Out

by
Daniel Nester
5.1.05

Aided by a $260,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Poets House and the Poetry Society of America, two nonprofit literary organizations based in New York City, recently partnered to establish Branching Out: Poetry in the Twentieth Century.

The End of the Story

by
Joe Woodward
5.1.05

To those who knew him through his work—and, if we are to believe the many tributes published in the past two months, to those who knew him intimately as well—Thompson was a strange and lovely amalgamation.

Literary MagNet

by
Kevin Larimer
3.1.05

Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features Diner, the Massachusetts Review, Night Train, the Women’s Review of Books, DoubleTake, the Oxford American, and Cranky Literary Journal.

The Contester: Is There More to Contests Than Cash?

by
Kevin Larimer
3.1.05
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The standard recompense for winning a literary contest is typically one of the following: money, publication in a literary magazine or a book, and a certain amount of recognition, but some rather unusual awards are handed out each year that don’t fall within the usual “money plus publication” category.

Don Quixote at 400

by
Joe Woodward
3.1.05

I am in the middle of Don Quixote—where many writers are and, according to Cervantes scholars, where every writer should be. I’m reading it because this year marks the 400th anniversary of its publication. I would like to say that I’ve finished it, but I cannot. The Quixote, as it is affectionately referred to by die-hard fans, is not something you finish. It’s something you rattle around in.

Literary MagNet

by
Kevin Larimer
1.1.05

Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features Softblow, the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Poetry Billboard, the 2nd Rule, No Tell Motel, Boulevard, American Letters & Commentary, FIELD, Boston Review, Pleiades, Witness, and Gulf Stream

All's Fair in Poems About Love and War

by
Kevin Larimer
1.1.05

Despite the fluctuating aesthetics and ideologies espoused by critics, professors, and practitioners of poetry, there remain two general subjects that consistently offer poets inspiration: love and war; but with walentine’s Day just around the corner, three new anthologies of love poems are offering readers a respite from verse about violence.

Kirkus Reviewed

by
Kevin Canfield
1.1.05

The biweekly magazine Kirkus Reviews publishes pre-publication book reviews, offering professional opinions of approximately 5,000 titles per year. But the tables have turned on the 72-year-old publication as writers and publishers offer their own appraisals of its recent decision to charge money for some book reviews. 

Book Tours: Can Readings Be Fun?

by
Kevin Canfield
11.1.04

Cindy Dach, the events and marketing manager of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, recently launched First Fiction Tour, a program that she hopes will heighten the public image of the first-time author. But it’s not what you might expect: She isn’t packing customers into the bookstore, she’s inviting them to the bar.

Grassroots Effort Saves Poetry Reviews

by
Kevin Larimer
11.1.04

The industry trade magazine Publishers Weekly this summer decided to stop publishing its monthly Poetry Forecast section, an editorial move that would have had deleterious effects on independent publishers. In response to complaints from many publishers, editors, and poets, the decision was reversed a few weeks later, before any changes were made to the magazine.

A Contest Clinker

by
Kevin Larimer
11.1.04

When New Rivers Press announced that Ron Rindo of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, was a winner of the 2003 MVP Competition this past summer, some of the approximately six hundred entrants were perplexed. The guidelines stated that the contest, which awards three $1,000 prizes and the publication of three book-length manuscripts, was open to emerging poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. Rindo, who won for his short story collection Love in an Expanding Universe, had previously published two books, both with New Rivers Press.

The Contester: Poetry.com Struggles for Legitimacy

by
Margo Stever
11.1.04

No entry fee? Little chance of rejection? Any poet worth her iamb has reason to be suspicious. And, indeed, the International Library of Poetry and its affiliates—the International Society of Poets, Watermark Press, poetry.com, and so on appears on several Internet-based contest-scam watch lists. Still ILP education director Len Roberts argues that the organization has its purpose and is taking steps to redeem its reputation.

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