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?

This blog features a double interview with international poets Dominic Berry and Barbara Erochina, both recently featured in the 2015 Capturing Fire Queer Spoken Word Summit and Slam. Berry has performed poetry on BBC TV’s Rhyme Rocket and UK Channel 4′s My Daughter the Teenage Nudist. Winner of New York City’s Nuyorican Poetry Cafe Slam and Manchester Literature Festival’s Superheroes of Slam, he is currently touring Britain with the family comedy poetry show When Trolls Try to Eat Your Goldfish. Erochina is a Toronto-based storyteller, facilitator, writer, and performer who examines how untold stories transform our lives and our world. Her experiences as an immigrant queer woman, ex-minister and student of Gestalt psychotherapy focus her work towards feeling, embodiment, identity, and spirituality. She has performed on stages across Canada, and after completing a residency program at the Banff Centre for the Arts, has recently composed her first feature-length show.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Berry: I am a queer, vegan poet from Manchester, U.K. who came to D.C. this summer to perform at a number of poetry readings, including Busboys and Poets, La-Ti-Do, and Regie Cabico's Capturing Fire Queer Spoken Word Summit and Slam. I've been doing this as a self-employed freelancer since 2007 and mostly gig up and down Britain. I've had the occasional mainland Europe booking, but this is only the second time I've been invited to share my stuff in the States (or indeed in any other continent), so I've been hugely excited and happy to have this happen.

Erochina: I am most interested in the power of stories to heal. There are so many ways to do this work: Personal anecdotes shared with a public audience, politically charged proclamations made over media channels, or even the private choice to become an active narrator of the stories we tell about our own lives. All of these acts of storytelling are transgressive and healing, and it is this choice for boldness that drives me as an artist and a person. Also, I’m a recreational cat impersonator and a queer lady. That’s important, too.

How do you prepare for a reading?
Berry: I prepare for any show by allowing myself to be nervous. I always get nervous, every time, after all these years. Nerves are good! I do not try to deaden them with alcohol. Nerves just mean I want to get it right because it matters to me. Sure, too many nerves can be destructive, but being well prepared and having rehearsed loads keeps nerves to a healthy, helpful level.

Erochina: I adore Dominic’s answer! I am all about welcoming the nervousness and knowing that it is a sign that I care, that I am invested. I also tend to have a fairly intense personality which means in preparation for a big performance, I become hyper-focused and immerse myself in my creative work. Thankfully, I have a wonderful partner who is also a poet, so she understands and supports my process by giving me lots of space and feeding me regular meals. Thanks Tanya!

What are your reading dos?
Berry: Something I personally think is a good thing to do is try to learn your poem. Even if it's not fully in your head and you still need to look at paper or a book, you'll say it so much better for all that practice. Eye contact and experimenting with where you will pause is integral—pauses are everything.

Erochina: My main do is to connect with the audience. In Gestalt psychotherapy which I have studied formally, we call this connection, contact. For me, it is really about opening myself up to my audience, and to all the possibilities of our interaction. I like to ask myself: What is the gift I am offering this audience today?

What’s in the works for you?
Berry: Later this summer I will be performing a full run of my video game poems called Up Your Game: The Downfall of a Noob at Scotland's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I have done so for the past two years (with different collections) and it's a fantastic way to spend a month. If you're in Scotland this August, come check me out!

Erochina: Capturing Fire was an amazing and unique opportunity to lead a workshop of my first show, Wrestling God and Girls. The show traces my younger years and tells the story of what happens when evangelical Christianity is met with lesbian sexual awakening. Both hilarity and emotional trauma ensue. I am spending the summer finalizing the rewrites and rehearsing before doing a run of it in the fall in Toronto. The plan is to take it on tour sometime in late winter. I plan to have many dates in the U.S. and hope to bring it back to Washington, D.C. in its final manifestation. Everyone is welcome to check out my Instagram account @barbaraerochina to follow along.

Photo: Dominic Berry. Photo Credit: Ian Wallis Photography

Photo: Barbara Erochina. Photo Credit: Tanya Neumayer

Support for Readings & Workshops events in Washington, D.C. 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.

What happens when you tell the story of a real event from another person’s point of view? Think of a situation in which you disagreed with someone—it could be a slight difference in taste or a fight with far-reaching consequences—and recount the opposing opinions each of you expressed. In the first-person voice, write an essay about the disagreement from the other person’s perspective. Take into consideration how the words you uttered during the event could be interpreted differently by the other person.

This week, jot down a list of five actions you perform on a daily basis—maybe it's tying your shoes, getting off at a certain bus stop, buying a cup of coffee, or brushing your teeth. Choose one of these mundane moments and write a scene in which a character is in the middle of performing this everyday task. Then bring in an element of the fantastic: Does an extraterrestrial or a doppelgänger appear? Is the character suddenly transported into the past or future? Explore the possibilities of what can occur when the ordinary collides with the extraordinary.

Poets laureate traditionally compose and present ceremonial verse for official events and occasions, like a commemoration to the opening of a bridge or the unveiling of a monument. Write a poem dedicated to a familiar landmark as if you were introducing it to the world. You might research the actual historical significance, or invent a completely made-up history. What unexpected facts—real or imagined—would you include for future generations to learn about this particular landmark?

Poets & Writers' fifth annual Los Angeles Connecting Cultures Reading took place on June 11, 2015, before a packed house at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center. Eleven writers representing P&W–supported organizations Alexandria House, Literary Soul Symposium, Los Angeles Poet Society, Red Hen Press, and Wellness Works, Glendale came together to celebrate the diversity of the SoCal literary community and Poets & Writers' Readings & Workshops program. R&W (West) program assistant B Spaethe blogs about this lively annual event.

“As I now watch from the sidelines, and see all of the remarkable women in the military today, I stand here to tell you they deserve a military institution worthy of them. They deserve to be safe.” Cheers erupted as Terre Fallon Lindseth of Wellness Works, Glendale read from her essay, “Be All That You Can Be.” Wellness Works, Glendale is a nonprofit veteran welcome center that aims to facilitate self-healing for veterans and their families and is one of five organizations who shared stories at the event.

Connecting Cultures is a reading series put together by P&W’s Readings & Workshops program in both Los Angeles and New York City in order to showcase a variety of diverse organizations funded by the program. Each year, the blend is unique and this year was no exception.

Alexandria House, a nonprofit transitional residence and house of hospitality for women and children, brought two brilliant readers: Sandy Fredrick, whose story explores the tumultuous world of a girl who gets caught in a drug deal, and Tabia Salimu (QueenMama Tabia) whose story gives a vivacious anthem to the power and allure of the black man. In addition, Director Judy Vaughan spoke about the rise of homelessness in Los Angeles and a need for places like Alexandria House.

GLBT-supporting Literary Soul Symposium unleashed the tenacity of Toni Newman who told her moving story of transitioning from male to female. Newman’s book I Rise: The Transformation of Toni Newman is the first memoir written by a member of the African-American transgender community. Dontá Morrison also read with high emotion about the love of two men falling apart in a hospital room.

Other highlights included the locally-focused Los Angeles Poet Society, introduced by Jessica Wilson Cardenas who brought Alexis Rhone Fancher, her sultry work a highlight of any event. Celeste Gainey read from her book the GAFFER, published by Red Hen Press's imprint Arktoi Books which was established by former Los Angeles poet laureate Eloise Klein Healy. Gainey's energy was infectious as she read about being the first woman gaffer to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).

A blog post can’t fully capture the power of these voices in one room together or the sound of pens scratching down contact information and cards swapping hands so that there can be further dialogue. At the end of the night, we felt opened up to one another. Jessica Wilson Cardenas said, "I can't wait to work with some of these writers! I've already invited many of them to collaborate with the Los Angeles Poet Society."

See more highlights in these photos and videos from the Los Angeles Connecting Cultures 2015 event.

Photo: (top) Terre Fallon Lindseth. Photo Credit: B Spaethe
Photo: (bottom) 2015 Los Angeles Connecting Cultures Group. Front: (L-R) Jessica Wilson Cardenas, B Spaethe, Jamie FitzGerald, Celeste Gainey, Terre Fallon Lindseth, Leilani Squire, Richard Modiano. Back: (L-R) Juan Cardenas, Dontá Morrison, Toni Newman, Sandy Fredrick, Judy Vaughan,Tabia Salimu, Glenn Schiffman, Ramon Garcia.

Major support for Readings/Workshops in California is provided by the James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Submissions are currently open for the Masters Review Short Story Award for New Writers. A prize of $2,000 and publication on the Masters Review website will be given for a short story. A second-place prize of $200 and a third-place prize of $100 will also be given.

Using the online submission manager, submit a previously unpublished story on any subject of up to 6,000 words with a $20 entry fee by July 15. Writers who have not published or self-published a novel-length work at the time of submission are eligible to apply. Multiple and simultaneous submissions are accepted. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Based in Portland, Oregon, the Masters Review exclusively publishes work by new and emerging writers. The review publishes fiction and nonfiction online year-round, as well as an annual print anthology of short stories.

Writer John Berger says: “What makes me write is the fear that if I do not write, something which ought to be said will not be.” This week, make a list of five things that you feel urgently need to be said about current events. Choose one of them and write an essay expressing your personal opinions—recount related anecdotes, share emotions, and reflect on why this matter is important to you.