Article Archive
Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
An Interview With Poet Cathy Park Hong

Cathy Park Hong is a poet interested in the porous boundaries between languages and cultures. In her newest collection, Dance Dance Revolution (Norton, 2007), winner of the 2006 Barnard Women Poets Prize, Hong creates a poem sequence that takes place in a future city called the Desert. It is in this tourist town, modeled on the likes of Las Vegas and Dubai, that Hong introduces the Guide, an amalgam of new and extinct English dialects, Korean, Latin, Spanish, and other miscellaneous pidgins. Acting as the reader's escort, Hong uses the Guide to address the issues of identity, both personally and geographically, in an increasingly globalized world.
First-Fiction Annual
In our seventh annual profile of first-time fiction writers, we introduce Rishi Reddi, Jeff Hobbs, Frances Hwang, Phil LaMarche, and Sunshine O’Donnell.
Pulling the Plug on a Labor of Love
The former editor of Ellipses…Literary Serials and Narrative Culture shares six tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of a literary journal start-up.
Not a Bird, nor a Plane
A new generation of writers is now incorporating superheroes into their fiction, bringing a literary air to the larger-than-life modern archetypes.
Truth, Lies, and Outsider Art: A Profile of Greg Bottoms

Greg Bottoms has demonstrated that the truth is rarely black and white in all three of his books of creative nonfiction, but never more vibrantly than in his latest, The Colorful Apocalypse.
Literary MagNet
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 Ninth Letter, Persimmon Tree, Passager, Anderbo, storySouth, Hotel St. George Press, Five Chapters, and Ellipses.
The Written Image: Poets on Painters

Untitled by Lamar Peterson is one of twenty works showcased in Poets on Painters, an exhibit at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University that pairs up paintings with the poems that inspired them.
Q&A: Leibowitz Bids Parnassus Farewell

After thirty years of publishing Parnassus, founder Herbert Leibowitz discusses the end of the journal and his outlook on the future of poetry.
Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
Page One features a sample of titles we think you'll want to explore. With this installment, we offer excerpts from The Human Line by Ellen Bass and Lost Men by Brian Leung.
Small Press Points
Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features Archipelago Books, Ugly Duckling Presse, Akashic Books, Fence Books, and Emergency Press.
Summer Summaries

A selection of recently published titles—blockbuster novels, international literature, and contemporary poetry collections—for the discerning beach bum.
The “Ethics in Book Reviewing” Panel: Postcard From New York City, Part 2
Oh that mine enemy were to write a book. It’s a line, paraphrased from the Book of Job, that was uttered last Friday morning at BookExpo America by Christopher Hitchens—author of the recently published book God Is Not Great—as the motto from his earlier book reviewing days. It was an odd sentiment to be heard at a panel called “Ethics in Book Reviewing: The More Things Change…?” but it certainly made the crowd, which was packed in and spilling out of the conference room, laugh out loud. And it set the tone for the rest of the panelists’ comments.
The Spectacle of BookExpo America: Postcard From New York City, Part 1
It’s not what most people expect from a book conference. There are no scholars huddled together discussing the latest piece of literary fiction that is keeping them up late at night; no gangs of poets arguing about who will make up the future canon of Western literature. Instead, what people found at this year’s BookExpo America, held last weekend at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, was actress Julianne Moore (really her), America’s Test Kitchen host Christopher Kimball (really him, but not quite as exciting as Moore), the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean (look-alikes, pretty good), Borat (another look-alike, not so good), and the Knight Bus from the Harry Potter series.
The Matthew Sharpe Book Signing: Postcard From New York City, Part 3
It was Saturday morning and Matthew Sharpe was late, but for a good reason. The author of Jamestown was supposed to be signing copies of his book in the autographing room of BookExpo America (BEA), but he’d just been named a finalist for a Quill Book Award, part of a program organized by NBC Universal and Reed Business Information that honors books in nineteen different categories at an awards show televised on NBC. Sharpe was busy being interviewed for MSNBC.
Creative Copyrighting
Best-selling novelist Jonathan Lethem has stepped into the copyright spotlight with an unusual proposal that he hopes will make the industry think differently about copyright protection and how it's used.
Writer as Parent: No More Aching to Be an Artist
Balancing parenting with a career is a challenge for any professional, but for writers, it can require a fresh outlook on life.
Reading How You’re Read: The Art of Evaluating Criticism
Novelist and professor Ann Pancake gives advice on how to evaluate criticism of your work.
Surviving a Month Without Internet
An author makes what many would consider the ultimate professional sacrifice in the name of writing and rediscovers how to spend his time offline.
Literary MagNet
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 Ohio Review, New Ohio Review, the Atlanta Review, and HoboEye.
The Next Step in Print On Demand
On Demand Books, a New York City–based company founded in 2003, has installed the first beta versions of the Espresso Book Machine, a freestanding device that receives orders through a computer for particular titles and publishes the books within minutes.
Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
Page One features a sample of titles we think you'll want to explore. With this installment, we offer excerpts from Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash and Music for Landing Planes By by Éireann Lorsung.