Craft Capsule: Beware the Indeterminate “It”
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: revision that will force your verbs into action and clarify your intent.
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Article Archive
Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
DIY: How to Make and Bind Your Own Chapbook
Whether you end up distributing your own prose or poetry at a reading or collecting the work of your friends in limited editions, these instructions on how to create and bind your own chapbooks offer hours of bookmaking fun.
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Craft Capsule: Find Your Metaphor
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: developing a metaphorical model for your genre.
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Craft Capsule: Tolstoy’s Short Chapters
A novelist explores the finer points of writing fiction in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: the psychology of short chapters.
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Craft Capsule: Visual Prompts
A novelist explores the finer points of writing fiction in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: the beauty of the bulletin board.
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Craft Capsule: Making Conversation
A novelist explores the finer points of writing fiction in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: the art of writing dialogue, and Richard Price’s Lush Life.
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Craft Capsule: Deny the Accident
A novelist explores the finer points of writing fiction in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: learning to trust your impulses, and Jackson Pollock’s “accidental” splatterings.
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Finding a Way Out of the Maze: A Q&A With Dan Chaon
The acclaimed author of Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001, talks about his new novel, Ill Will.
Craft Capsule: Good Sense
A novelist explores the finer points of writing fiction in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: the problem of beginning, and Gustave Flaubert’s rotten apples.
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Craft Capsule: The Egg in My Pocket
Novelist Christina Baker Kline explores the finer points of writing fiction in this series of micro craft essays.
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Literary MagNet: Deb Olin Unferth
This issue’s MagNet features fiction writer Deb Olin Unferth, who takes us through five journals that first published stories appearing in her new collection, Wait Till You See Me Dance.
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Singapore Unbound
Launched in February, the New York–based organization Singapore Unbound supports Singaporean writing and cross-cultural literary exchange through a reading series, an annual literary festival, and a book review blog committed to promoting independent publishers and writers of Singaporean heritage from around the world.
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The Poetry Coalition Takes Flight
Twenty poetry organizations from across the United States have joined forces to enhance the visibility of poetry and its growing popularity and cultural impact, beginning with a monthlong, nationwide suite of programs investigating the relationship between poetry and migration called “Because We Come From Everything.”
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The Written Image: B. A. Van Sise’s Children of Grass
In his Instagram-based photography series, artist B. A. Van Sise creates powerful portraits of American poets who are influenced by Walt Whitman, of whom Van Sise happens to be one of the closest living descendants.
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Small Press Points: Sibling Rivalry Press
Small Press Points highlights the innovation and can-do spirit of independent presses. This issue features the Little Rock, Arkansas–based Sibling Rivalry Press, which has sought to provide “a stage and a microphone for anyone who is ‘other’” through the publication of poetry collections, chapbooks, and journals for LGBTQIA writers since its inception in 2010.
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Honoring Pat Conroy’s Legacy
Less than a year after the celebrated author’s death, the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, South Carolina, has opened its doors.
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Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
With so many good books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Afaa Michael Weaver’s Spirit Boxing, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees, and Patricia Smith’s Incendiary Art, for a glimpse into the worlds of these new and noteworthy titles.
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The Emotional Realist Talks to Ghosts: A Q&A With George Saunders
Already established as a master of the short story, George Saunders turns to the long form in his debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, an imaginative tour de force in which nearly all the characters are dead.
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Reviewers & Critics: Laura Miller of Slate
Laura Miller discusses how she chooses books, the effect of the Internet on literary criticism, and her belief that reading is as profoundly creative as writing.
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Q&A: Yang Inspires Young Readers
The national ambassador for young people’s literature encourages children and young adults to read books from unfamiliar genres and cultures through his new Reading Without Walls program.
Anatomy of Awards: March/April 2017
As part of a continuing series, we offer a breakdown of the numbers behind our Grants & Awards listings in our March/April 2017 issue.
Mirrors and Windows: Finding Diversity at the Color of Children’s Literature Conference
A children’s book author reports from the second annual Color of Children’s Literature Conference, where she finds myriad professional resources and an inspiring community working to publish more children’s books by and about people of color.
Body Snatchers: The Bloody Work of Love, Redemption, and the Writer
A poet and novelist investigates the “bloody” work of rummaging for parts of real-life people in order to create stronger characters in fiction.
The Savvy Self-Publisher: Lucetta Zaytoun
Lucetta Zaytoun discusses the process of self-publishing her debut memoir, It’s Already Tomorrow Here. A publicist and a publishing consultant offer their advice on design, distribution, and long-term marketing strategies to the author.
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Writing Badly: The True Source of Inspiration
A poet explains how allowing ourselves to write badly is not only generative, but can also break the habit of self-censorship and can lead to our best work.
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