Marina Tristán is the assistant director of Arte Público Press at the University of Houston, where she oversees day-to-day operations with a particular emphasis in marketing and promotions for their books, authors, and programs. A native of Texas, she has worked for Arte Público Press for almost thirty years.

It has been gratifying to finally begin to see a shift in attitudes about the value of writings by Latinos (which is not to say that there aren’t any problems in the publication and distribution of books by diverse writers). We now have a U.S. Poet Laureate who is Mexican American! And in Houston—where Arte Público is based—the city’s first Poet Laureate was a Latina. Gwendolyn Zepeda held a two-year term from 2013-2015. Not surprisingly, we published her first collection of short prose almost ten years before, back in 2004.

Like all contemporary authors seeking to build an audience for their work, Gwen has read from and talked about her books at a slew of places around the country and in Houston, her hometown. We have been fortunate to collaborate with local community groups like the Multicultural Education and Counseling Through the Arts (MECA), as we did in April to launch Gwen’s second poetry collection, Monsters, Zombies and Addicts (Arte Público Press, 2015).  

This reading was particularly poignant because Gwen grew up at MECA, singing and dancing in theatrical performances, designing sets, and working summer jobs. Her reading was a homecoming of sorts, and friends—old and new—laughed and cried with her. Clever and very funny, Gwen’s poetry reading was deeply personal and included musings on family, childhood remembrances, and societal expectations. One can only wonder what the future holds for Gwen: U.S. Poet Laureate? Pulitzer Prize winner? National Book Award finalist? Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, Arte Público will continue to do what it has done for the past thirty-three years: publish and promote Latino authors so that American culture includes, values, and reflects Hispanic contributions.

Photo: Marina Tristán    Credit: Carmen Peña Abrego

Support for Readings & Workshops events in Houston is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Submissions are open for the 2015 Dermot Healy International Poetry Prize, sponsored by the Five Glens Arts Festival in Manorhamilton, Ireland. The annual prize is given for a single poem. The winner will receive €1,000 (approximately $1,085) and publication on the festival website. Peter Fallon will judge.

Submit a poem of any length with a €5 (approximately $5) entry fee by July 24. Multiple submissions are accepted, and the prize is open to international writers. Submit via e-mail to competition@fiveglensartsfestival.com, or via postal mail to Dermot Healy Poetry Competition, 2 Old Orchard, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim, F91A9N3, Ireland. Visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.

Judge Peter Fallon is the publisher and founder of the Gallery Press, one of Ireland’s most well-established independent publishers. He is also the author of several poetry collections, most recently Strong, My Love (The Gallery Press, 2014). In 2009, Fallon judged the Fish Poetry Prize, and chose Annie Atkins as the winner for her poem “The Locksmith.” Fallon said, “I warmed to ‘The Locksmith’ for its innocence, for the purity of its lines and for the way it unfolds the drama of a relationship and its two protagonists.” Fallon’s explanation of his judging process can be read on the Fish Publishing website.

The Five Glens Arts Festival will be held from August 21 to August 23 in Manorhamilton, a castellated town on the northwest coast of Ireland. The winner will be announced at the festival. Patrick Deeley won the inaugural prize in 2014 for his poem “Vixen,” which can be read on the festival website.

Photo: Peter Fallon

Heidi Julavits's book The Folded Clock (Doubleday, 2015) takes the form of a diary, each entry beginning with "Today, I...." This week, write an essay starting with this same phrase, and recount a straightforward event or observation that occurred earlier in the day. Then allow yourself to stray from describing the basic details of that incident, and go on to explore other memories that spring to mind, reflecting on how this event may provide some unexpected clarity to your life.

Coco Chanel famously said, "Fashion has to do with the ideas, the way we live, what is happening." This week, focus on the way one of your characters gets dressed: Does he throw on the first thing he sees, or will it take hours for him to get ready? Is a typical outfit an accurate representation of his personality, or more of a disguise? Write a scene describing your character’s clothing in detail, and what is revealed about his demeanor through his attire.

Choose a genre for a poem: science fiction, fantasy, romance, thriller, noir, or historical—perhaps the one that seems the furthest from your usual subject matter. Experiment with vocabulary typically associated with that genre. Perhaps words like “android” or “femme fatale” might offer unexpected inspiration.

Bill Berry, Jr. founded aaduna, Inc. in 2010 and published the inaugural issue of aaduna in February 2011. Committed to providing a publication platform for people of color—people who have been traditionally denied access to publication platforms, and others who seek a different plateau for creative shifts not generally associated with their previous work­—aaduna is currently read in eighty-three countries. Berry publishes aaduna along with Lisa Brennan, visual arts editor; Pam Havens and Rosemarie Blake, fiction editors; Timothy Ogene, poetry editor; and Ketih Leonard, submissions manager. There is info staff and they enjoy anonymity.

Auburn, nestled in rural and agricultural Cayuga County, and listed by NerdWallet as the best small city in New York State and the fourteenth best small city in the United States to live in, has a vibrant cultural identity. While diversity and multiculturalism are generally associated with larger cities and remain an elusive characteristic for Auburnians, aaduna, Inc. is changing that scenario on an annual basis through aaduna, its online literary and visual arts journal. To further its diversity initiative, a yearly literary fundraiser is convened to celebrate the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance and the racial, social, and artistic interactions between artists and their diverse supporters­—an integral component of the Renaissance’s vibrant cultural exchange and camaraderie.

With the support of Poets & Writers and the New York State Council on the Arts, the May 28, 2015 affair, “In the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance… Revisited, 2015,” brought downtown to uptown or more specifically, downstate to upstate. Aaduna contributors Cyd Charisse Fulton, Raymond Nat Turner, Dr. Kevin Jenkins, and Catherine C. Poku, all New York City-based poets and writers, traveled to the Finger Lakes region. They joined Auburn contributors Bobbie Dumas Panek, special guests Howard Nelson and Heidi Nightengale along with Rochester-based spoken word performance artist, poet, novelist and aaduna contributor Tearzs in an evening of readings that exposed an audience of more than eighty people to a wide range of poetic magic and diverse themes. Prior to the evening event, Raymond Nat Turner conducted a poetry workshop at Auburn High School hosted by aaduna, Inc., Harriet Tubman Boosters, and the Booker T. Washington Community Center, and funded by Poets & Writers.

The Thursday evening event (which recognized that “back in that era” Thursdays were the day off for domestics who used the day to socialize and party) was filled with words that articulated stories and explored experiences that extolled James Brown, jazz syncopations through the diaspora, raising chickens, urban reflections, multi-racial upbringing, intimate reflections on life, Sly Stone, and love. Readers delivered their work in two rounds, and welcomed the guests when the doors opened and interacted with them during an extended intermission, a central component of this affair—the ability for the artists and guests to lessen the “divide” that often separates creative people from the public. The intermission was “the party within the party.” With a backdrop of jazz and contemporary tunes, pianist Andy Rudy set the ambiance complemented by a slide show that presented the artists, performances, and multi-racial social scenes generally associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

The event took place at Theater Mack, a sixty-five-seat performance space operating under the auspices of the Cayuga Museum of History and Art. Artists filled open space with colorful artwork that added another layer to the festivities. After two and a half hours, guests and readers left the venue feeling empowered, energized, and eager for 2016.

Photos: Bill Berry, Jr. (top), Catherine C. Poku (middle), Bill Berry, Jr., Raymond Nat Turner, Catherine C. Poku, Tearz, Dr. Kevin Jenkins, Heidi Nightengale, Cyd Charisse Fulton, Bobbie Dumas Panek, Howard Nelson, Lisa A. Brennan (bottom)

Photo Credit: Lisa A. Brennan

Support for Readings & Workshops in New York is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Virginia Woolf said: "Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works." Think of one thing you've never told anyone before: something you once did and kept secret, or simply a thought you've had that has never been disclosed. Write an essay about your secret. Explore your reasons behind keeping it hidden and why you feel that it’s time for a confession.

Keep your ears open this week, and write down an intriguing phrase that you overhear. This might be a snippet of a sentence exchanged between two people talking, a few words spoken by someone on the phone next to you, or even part of a loudspeaker announcement. Spend some time imagining what led up to that remark. Then write the rest of the story making the overheard phrase your last sentence.

This morning, the Man Booker Foundation announced that beginning in 2016, the Man Booker International Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize will merge to form one annual award for an individual work of fiction translated into English. The reconfigured Man Booker International Prize will divide an award of £50,000 equally between author and translator. Each of the six shortlisted authors and translators will also receive £1,000.

Established in 2005, the Man Booker International Prize has until now awarded one prize of £60,000 biennially to “a living author for a body of work representing an achievement in fiction on the world stage.” Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai won the prize in 2015. The annual Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (IFFP), meanwhile, honored a single work of fiction translated into English. A prize of  £10,000 was split equally between author and translator. The 2015 winner was Jenny Erpenbeck’s The End of Days (Portobello Books), translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky.

Jonathan Taylor, chair of the Booker Prize Foundation, said in a press conference that the Man Booker International Prize loses momentum by being awarded every two years instead of annually, and hopes the “reconfiguration of the prize will encourage a greater interest and investment in translation."

Independent senior writer Boyd Tonkin will serve as the 2016 Man Booker International Prize chair. The longlist for the new Man Booker International Prize will be announced in March 2016, followed by the shortlist announcement in April; the winner will be announced in May. Books translated into English and published between January 1, 2015, and April 30, 2016, are eligible for the award.

This week, imagine you have been deprived of one of your senses for a year, and then suddenly regained it. What specific sensations might you have missed and be eager to experience again? Write a poem about the longing and appreciation for this sense, focusing on creating fresh and unexpected phrases and descriptions. For example, if you choose the sense of taste, how might you express the sweetness of something without using the word sweet?