Look up the etymology of one of your favorite words and consider its complex and surprising history. The word clue, for instance, developed from the word clew, a ball of thread used to guide a person out of a labyrinth (literally or figuratively). In a page or so, try to weave your personal past with a word while incorporating elements of its etymological development. When did you pick up on a clue that would help you out of a figurative labyrinth?

Writer, vocalist, and sound artist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of TwERK (Belladonna, 2013), as well as the album Television. She has received scholarships, residencies, and fellowships from Cave Canem, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, VCCA, the Laundromat Project, the Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Eben Demarest Trust, and Millay Colony. As an independent curator and artistic director, she has directed literary/music events at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Symphony Space, Bam Café, the Schomburg Research Center for Black Culture, Dixon Place, El Museo del Barrio, The David Rubenstein Atrium. A native of Harlem, New York, LaTasha, along with writer Greg Tate, is the founder and editor of yoYO/SO4 Magazine, which has been funded by the Poets & Writers Readings & Workshops Program.

This is not an essay on self-publishing, but rather on what has been and what could be the motivation behind the act of publication—why we desire our words or the words of others to be read, shared, celebrated. When I returned from graduate school, Quincy Troupe was one of those few cats with whom I had permission to ask questions (often idiotic questions) and let him "call it like he sees it." Quincy’s stories brought me to the archives at the Schomburg for Research in Black Culture so that I could read Al Young and Ishmael Reed's work for a Cave Canem Legacy conversation I was invited to "moderate" between the two of them. There I discovered just how much their roles as editors and publishers were connected to David Walker, Frederick Douglas, Martin Delany, Margaret Walker, Sun Ra, Black Herman, Black Panther Party, Jayne Cortez, Eugene B. Redmond, Nation of Islam, E. Ethelbert Miller, Jessica Care Moore, Sylvester Clark Long, and the litany of street literature sold by vendors on 125th in Harlem. There is a history. Yet in 2009, for Greg Tate and myself, it appeared a handful of folks had forgotten.

Our little journey in creating a literary/arts journal began with a listserv post. The complaint had to do with the lack of publications supporting writers of African ancestry. What followed was a trail of debates, heated insults, and what I found to be no resolution. To Greg and myself, the answer seemed so simple. My previous research on Young and Reed’s work, their long history of editorial work and creating publications to support work outside of their own, was also part of that answer. To complain about erasure and/or exclusion of black and brown voices in major publications bored us. And in our rant over the rant, we decided to create a magazine. Our argument: If you have a problem with the absence of voices not heard, create your own shit. And thus, our first collective venture into creating a literary/arts journal was Coon Bidness.

I will admit, we were challenging folks with the name. Taken from a Julius Hemphill album, we were paying tribute to the album and challenging those who felt themselves powerless in the realms of literary publications. Suffice to say, the political landscape of this literary universe can feel cryptic at times. During our call for submissions, it felt that only mainstream publications were more desirable than our meager DIY. Polite smiles don’t always tell you if someone respects you, your work, or your madness. Even so, they don’t tell you if you’re a member of their clan. Nonetheless, we insisted on making a point. We found a coalition with those bold enough to understand the initiative to create other avenues where artists and writers we believed in could be featured. The publication took a year to be produced. Greg brought on board LaRonda Davis to design the magazine and Sun Singleton to copy edit. As a bonus feature, Coon Bidness was two journals back to back. SO4 (a nod to a short lived rap/poetry trio in the late '90s and to Fader magazine) would consist largely of poetry and visual art. The tone between the two was also different. In order to print and distribute it, we decided on MagCloud, an online “self-service content publishing platform” that printed on demand.

On January 11, 2010, thanks to former associate curator Rashida Bumbray, we held our pre-inaugural launch party at The Kitchen Performance Space. The concept: a variety show featuring readings by contributors mashed up with performers and visual artists. Our little showcase would provide a preview for what we felt the journal could itself become: a baritone saxophone player and UK Punk veteran; Stevie Wonder covers in Maori; a text on Oscar Grant recited in French and created into a video performance; avant-garde Puerto Rican poetry; an opera singer performing a Debarge tune while accompanying a poet acting as comedian; a choreographer interpreting a painting and the visual artist functioning as music producer; traditional Tahitian dancers. And Quincy Troupe. No one saw this spectacle coming.

Quincy—because it was a launch party—did not expect compensation for everyone who participated. When I handed him two checks (one from our Kitchen budget and the other from Poets & Writers), he looked up at me and said, “Oh shit! I’m getting paid?” For some reason, he forgot, or I forgot to send the memo. It wasn’t a lot of money either. But the satisfaction in his tone told me how much he appreciated the gesture. A hard truth within the poetry community has to do with the absence of honorariums. Often poets are not paid for public readings. Often poets are expected to do so because that is what the landscape has established for so many years. And as much as our little journal was about the act of creating more publishing opportunities, one of our personal mantras has been Abbey Lincoln’s “You Gotta Pay the Band.” The ‘band’ is what we fashioned it to be. It included as many poets as there were dancers; as many musicians as there were video artists. And all of them deserved compensation. The time we dedicate to our craft deserves at least one bill to be paid (or any number of monthly, weekly Metro Cards) after we’ve shared ourselves with an audience.

Coon Bidness existed as one issue and later transformed into yoYO. SO4 remains as the counterpart to whatever we decide the issue to be named. The beauty of this is freedom and improvisation. Time and deep listening will determine what aspects of ourselves will be represented and featured. CB, yoYO, and SO4 were for us examples of what is possible and what has always been possible, and perhaps the seed that brought forth a Fence, an African Voices, a New Yorker, a Callaloo. Someone decided to create a platform for what they felt was necessary, for what they felt was absent from the conversation of letters. Be it a cultural or aesthetic argument, the point (or goal) is not so much about longevity but that of being part of the conversation, showing through example what is possible and what builds that architecture. DIY is just that.

Two DIY journals to keep your eyes on:

Bone Bouquet, founded by Krystal Languell, a biannual online/print journal that publishes the new writing by female poets and artists both established and emerging.

As/Us, founded by Tanaya Winder, a literary and scholarly journal with an interest in publishing works by "underrepresented writers particularly Indigenous women and women of color."

Top Photo: Coon Bidness Invite Credit: Nevada Lightfoot. Second Photo: SO4 Cover. Middle Photo: Coon Bidness Invite with Mr. Met. Photo: yoYO/SO4.

Support for Readings/Workshops events in New York City is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional support is provided by the Louis & Anne Abrons Foundation, the A.K. Starr Charitable Trust, the Cowles Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Submissions are currently open for the annual Summer Literary Seminars (SLS) contests in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Held this year in affiliation with Fence Magazine, the prizes in each category include an all-expenses-paid trip to attend one of SLS’s writing programs in Kenya, Lithuania, or Montreal. The deadline is February 28.

The winners in poetry and fiction will have the choice of attending a two-week program in Vilnius, Lithuania, from July 13–26, or in Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya, in December, and will have their work published in Fence Magazine. The winner in nonfiction will have the choice of attending either of the two-week programs or the annual SLS workshop in Montreal from March 27–30. The programs include writing workshops, seminars, readings, walking tours, and other cultural events. Each prize includes airfare, tuition, and housing.

Second-place winners in poetry and fiction will receive a full tuition waiver for the two-week program of their choice; third-place winners will receive a 50 percent tuition discount. All qualifying entries will automatically be considered for a variety of additional prizes sponsored by SLS. All entrants will also receive a yearlong subscription to Fence Magazine.

Dorothea Lasky will judge in poetry, Aimee Bender will judge in fiction, and Phillip Lopate will judge in nonfiction.

Submit up to three poems, a short story or novel excerpt of up to twenty pages, or a work of creative nonfiction of up to twenty pages, with an $18 entry fee, by February 28. Submissions can be sent via e-mail or by postal mail to Summer Literary Seminars, Unified Literary Contest, English Department, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 Canada.

Visit the SLS website for more information about the programs and complete contest guidelines.

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude,” said Martin Luther King Jr. Imagine a character who needs to forgive someone. Who does he or she need to forgive? What was the nature of the injury? What were its implications? Does forgiveness come easily to your character, or is retaliation a more natural impulse? Does your character try and fail to forgive initially? See how your character’s desire to forgive creates obstacles and ultimately fuels your plot.

"The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest," Martin Luther King Jr. said in a speech on December 5, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. Poetry can be a powerful vehicle for protest and social change. Write a poem in which you confront a subject that inspires personal objection. The topic does not have to be strictly political. For instance, Dylan Thomas’s villanelle “Do not go gentle into that good night” protests the death of the poet’s father: “Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” See how you can wield and transfer oppositional energy into language and form.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is currently accepting applications for its annual creative writing fellowships. The $25,000 grants, which are given in alternating years to poets and prose writers, will be given in 2015 to poets. The deadline to apply is March 12, 2014.

Poets who have published at least one full-length poetry collection, or twenty or more poems or pages of poetry in five or more literary journals, anthologies, or publications, are eligible to apply. Detailed eligibility requirements are available here.

Complete application instructions, including all required materials, can be found on the NEA website. Applications must be submitted online through the Grants.gov website. Recipients will be announced in December 2014.

The annual fellowships are given in order to provide time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement for poets and prose writers. Applications are reviewed through an anonymous process in which “the only criteria for review are artistic excellence and artistic merit.” The NEA assembles a different advisory panel each year to review applications.

This year, thirty-eight fellowships were awarded to fiction and creative nonfiction writers; forty poets received the 2013 grants. Fellowships in fiction and creative nonfiction will be offered again in 2016; guidelines will be available on the NEA website in the fall of 2014.

Questions about the fellowship program and application process can be directed to the National Endowment for the Arts by e-mail to litfellowships@arts.gov or by phone at (202) 682-5034.

Though people typically make every effort to appear confident, accomplished, and cheerful to others, we all have flaws and shortcomings. Many people, in fact, are defined on some level by their imperfections. From a fear of flying and substance abuse problems to shopping addiction and weight issues, the inner lives of the people you write about are just as compelling as how they dress or what they say. Write five hundred words about one of your shortcomings, and describe in detail how it affects your life and changed you as a person. Being honest about your life will make you a more empathic writer when characterizing the flaws of others.

Effective listening is imperative to effective writing. Listening carefully while sitting on a crowded subway, drinking coffee in a lonely diner, or asking a stranger for directions can lead to new characters, settings, and story lines. It is also important to listen to your own characters. Make a list of ten questions to ask a character you are developing. Listen to your character’s answers, diction, and inflection, and write down what you hear and see in your imagination. Most people, including fictional characters, will tell you who they are. You just have to ask.