Healing From Helene
In the aftermath of the September 2024 hurricane, the literary community has banded together to support North Carolina residents trying to rebuild their lives and has provided hope in the long recovery process.
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Article Archive
Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
Scrappy, Funky, Gritty…Perfect: Retreats Run by Writers, for Writers
Gatherings like the Heart of It are part of a boom in writer-run retreats and workshops that serve as homegrown alternatives to established retreats, addressing a need for kinship, in-person community, and mentorship.
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The Room Where It Happened: The Delights, Oddities, and Haunted Ephemera of Residencies at Writers’ Homes
Residency programs at the homes of famous writers offer both the luxury of space and time to write and deep immersion into a literary hero’s everyday world, often providing newfound clarity and insight into ongoing work.
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Why I Drive: Tuning Into Highway Poetics
Drawing strength from traditions of moving across the land, a poet describes the joy and presence of mind that driving brings. Without the constant pull of screens, the road opens up an ideal space for creation.
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Of Dust and Dreams: A Profile of Karen Russell
Karen Russell’s second novel, The Antidote, published by Knopf in March, examines a dark chapter of America’s past, but not without hope for the future.
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The Choice to Create
An excerpt from Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create by Elissa Altman, a compassionate, inspiring literary guide to transcend the fear and shame that can too often keep important stories from being written.
Small Press Points: Sundress Publications
Originally an umbrella site for literary journals, this book publisher looks to the wider writing community for inspiration, camaraderie, and collaborators in the art that it makes and promotes.
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Literary MagNet: Greg Schutz
The author of Joyriders highlights journals and platforms that have offered his short stories a home, including Alaska Quarterly Review and American Short Fiction.
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Dismantling the Mother Shelf: Expanding Our Thinking About Women’s Stories of Parenthood
Books centering mothers are often lumped into one category by the publishing industry, flattening the nuanced and varied experiences of this group into a one-size-fits-all niche. A memoirist asks the industry to do better.
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The Retreat Has Left the Group Chat: Planning and Executing a Successful Retreat With Writer Friends
Tired of waiting for an acceptance? The ingredients for a magical retreat are readily available to all of us outside the strictures of a space someone else is hosting—and at the place, time, and budget of our choosing.
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Writers With Day Jobs: Earning a Living Outside of Literature
Freelancing doesn’t always guarantee freedom—making a living outside of the literary world empowers many artists with health insurance, energy to write, and relief from the worry of wondering about your next check.
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Do Your Research: Using the Tools of Journalism to Write More Vivid Fiction
When you venture to inhabit identities and communities beyond your experience, seek people and places to ground your work. A journalist and novelist explains how research skills help fortify one’s imagined realities.
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The Time Is Now: Writing Prompts and Exercises
Write a poem that uses the metaphor of a bridge to represent a complex family dynamic, a short story that reconceptualizes historical fiction, or a lyrical essay that reflects on the stages of returning to a former self.
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Q&A: Stewart Battles Book Bans at PRH
Rosie Stewart, the new senior manager of public policy at Penguin Random House’s Intellectual Freedom Taskforce, shares some context for her new role, advice for those who want to get involved, and her hope for the future.
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The Written Image: Ephemeral Altars
Flower Conroy’s elaborate three-dimensional installations, fashioned from found and crafted objects, masterfully evoke the spirit of each book the artist chooses and carefully communicate her reverence for literature.
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Ten Questions for Rebe Huntman
“Because the flip side of uncertainty is an invitation into mystery. And the reward for wading through mystery is transformation.” —Rebe Huntman, author of My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle.
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What Listening Has Taught Me: The Future Is Shaped by What We Remember
Oral historian Nyssa Chow considers the nested memories she belongs to, and invites readers to do the same.
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The United States of Writing
Writers share how they approach the writing life where they live, their personal points of view on the literary community (both small and large) and their place within it, and what resources are available to them as writers who don’t live in a metropolitan area.
Ten Questions for Margie Sarsfield
“Nothing makes a clunky sentence more obvious than saying it out loud.” —Margie Sarsfield, author of Beta Vulgaris
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What Listening Has Taught Me: The Smallest Part of Your World
Oral historian Nyssa Chow considers how small routines and rituals tell larger stories.
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Ten Questions for Corinna Vallianatos
“If a story gathers force by what it accrues, this kind of ending is a letting go.” —Corinna Vallianatos, author of Origin Stories
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Ten Questions for Jonathan Fink
“Don’t worry about aesthetic categories or limitations. Have fun.” —Jonathan Fink, author of Don’t Do It—We Love You, My Heart?
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Writing About Family: The Kitchen Drawer
Writer and scholar Rebecca Rainof offers advice on writing about family by considering how “pockets of place can convey a larger sense of home.”
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Ten Questions for Latif Askia Ba
“All you can do is pay attention to the process, the practice, and see what it does to you, what it does to the people around you, what it does to your dear readers.” —Latif Askia Ba, author of The Choreic Period
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Ten Questions for Aria Aber
“Take your time. And indulge in the messiness, the privacy, the anxieties of the writing process.” —Aria Aber, author of Good Girl
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