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.

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” This quote from Robert Frost reveals the raw origins of poetry, and emphasizes the complex cerebral and emotional forces that inspire poems. Think of how poetry accommodates both the expansiveness and simplicity of our emotions. Use this unique and paradoxical phenomenon to write about a profound and complicated experience in your life: perhaps the death of a long-suffering loved one, or the graduation of a child, or the private self-confession of having fallen out of love. Start with a single emotion, and begin your journey there.

The finalists were announced today for the tenth-annual Story Prize, an award given for a short story collection published in the previous year. The winner will receive $20,000.

The finalists are Archangel by Andrea Barrett (W. W. Norton), Bobcat by Rebecca Lee (Algonquin Books), and Tenth of December by George Saunders (Random House). The collections were chosen by Story Prize founder Julie Lindsey and director Larry Dark from among ninety-six submitted books, published by sixty-four different presses in 2013. The finalists will each receive $5,000.

Lindsey and Dark also announced the winner of the second annual Story Prize Spotlight Award, a $1,000 prize given for a “short story collection worthy of additional attention.” The 2014 winner is Byzantium (Graywolf Press) by Ben Stroud.

This year's final judges—author Antonya Nelson; Tin House editor Rob Spillman; and Stephen Ennis, director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin—will select the 2014 Story Prize winner, who will be announced at the annual awards ceremony and reading on March 5 in New York City.

More about this year’s finalists and Spotlight Award winner can be found on the Story Prize website and official blog. Claire Vaye Watkins won the 2013 award for her debut collection, Battleborn.

Below, listen to finalist Rebecca Lee read an excerpt from her collection, Bobcat, as part of the Poets & Writers Author Podcast series.

Writer, vocalist, and sound artist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of TwERK (Belladonna, 2013), as well as the album Television. LaTasha 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, LaTasha and writer Greg Tate are the founders and editors of yoYO/SO4 Magazine.

Building the Architecture of My Lineage, Part 1:

I do not recall the entire conversation, only the moment when the poet Hoa Nguyen suggested to a class of writers that we figure out the "architecture of our lineage." Her talk had to do with her life as a writer and building community—a community that reflected one’s own personal influences and peers. One that reflected each of us as writers. She did not offer detailed instructions. There was no how-to-book on building community. But the phrase “the architecture of my lineage” left an imprint on me, and upon returning from graduate school to New York City, building community took on a number of manifestations in my life.

My creative work, for some twenty years, fluctuates between poetry and music with small moments in theatre and media. My decision to relocate to California was two-fold. I needed a break from New York. I needed to figure out if I was indeed a writer. Those two years away meant that my return to New York would require a type of resurgence. At the same time, my interests became less and less about my work. In fact, I thought little of it until the passing of Miriam Makeba on November 8, 2008. She was born the same month and year as my mother and despite obvious differences, I felt honoring her was to honor my mother’s generation. Miriam was definitely part of that lineage. So without much thought, I called Darrel McNeil, the associate producer of music programming at BAM Café Live and asked if I could assemble a tribute to her as a free concert. To my surprise, I got the ok.

What came next was a crash-course in project management. I had to write up a project description—something brief, something that would be handed over to other staff members. I needed to come up with a technical rider. If you languish over writing seventy-four-word artist statements, try your hand at concert proposals. The main focus of this event would take inspiration from a Makeba concert at the Salonger in Sweden in 1966. From this show, I proposed that selections from her catalogue be re-imagined and that the poets write new work for this occasion.

This tribute was to also reflect my artistic and cultural influences and admirations. It needed to represent the African Diaspora. So I invited poets Sandra Maria Esteves, Akliah Oliver and Lynne Procope. Having these three women poets meant having three generations of women who greatly informed my own work. I also invited vocalists Tamar-kali, Alkebulan X and Abena Koomsom (also a poet) who brought their artistic specialties from the Gullah Islands, Puerto Rico (via The Bronx) and Ghana. Lastly was the musical ensemble that consisted of Roman Diaz on percussion, Mazz Swift (also a featured vocalist) on violin, Essiet Okun on upright bass, and Carlos Almeida on guitar—all under the direction of Onel Mulet. Cuba, Trinidad, Ghana, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, St Louis, and the Gullah Islands were all here. I felt this represented just how far Miriam’s voice had reached.

I had produced a handful of music and poetry events in the 1990s, but this was different. More than ten years had passed. We needed rehearsal time. I needed a budget. BAM Café could only provide so much and a suggestion was made to have The Black Rock Coalition step in as a co-presenter. The BRC has had a long history with poets, and their very first concert at The Kitchen featured the late Sekou Sundiata. So it made sense. But even with the inclusion of BRC, my budget could not cover the even most modest of honorariums much less rehearsal hours. That is when the decision to apply for a Poets & Writers matching grant came into play. I suggested that the BRC apply on behalf of the poets, and the request was approved. And on the night of January 16, 2009, we celebrated the life and work of Miriam to a packed house of artists, non-artists from several generations and cultural backgrounds.

I did not foresee this impulse that would lead me to organize an event such as this. Now, life as an artist personally requires the ability to pull away from the front stage or podium and allow other artists feature their creative talents. For on those rare occasions when I am an ensemble member, I know how much the opportunity inspires my own creative growth. I returned to New York City wanting to worry little about my work and ended up learning the joys, struggles, rewards of being a young curator/producer.

For now, part of my mission to create musical/literary events that are both cross-generational and cross-cultural is a personal and constant investigation of what “building the architecture of my lineage” means.

Top Photo: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. Credit: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. Middle Photo: Akilah Oliver. Credit LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. Bottom Photo: Mama Africa Flyer.

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.

Sponsored by Dzanc Books, the annual DISQUIET Literary Prize in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction is currently open for submissions. A winner in each category will receive publication in a participating literary journal, and one grand-prize winner will receive airfare, accommodations, and tuition—a prize worth approximately $5,000—to attend the fourth annual DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal, this summer.

The winner in poetry will be published in the Collagist; the winner in fiction will be published in Guernica; and the winner in nonfiction will be published in Ninth Letter. Finalists in each category will be offered partial tuition scholarships to attend the DISQUIET program. Four full scholarships to attend the retreat are also available for writers of Luso descent.

Submit up to ten poems or up to twenty pages of prose with a $15 entry fee by February 15. Entries may be submitted online via Submittable or sent by mail to Dzanc Books, the DISQUIET Prize, 610 South Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01002. Previously unpublished works in English are eligible. Writers must live or have lived in the United States or Canada, but need not be citizens or permanent residents.

Founded by Dzanc in 2011 and inspired by Lisbon poet Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, the annual DISQUIET International Literary Program is a two-week retreat that brings together North American and Portuguese writers in the heart of Lisbon. The program offers workshops in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and writing the Luso experience; craft seminars; discussions with editors from Dzanc Books, Guernica, Ninth Letter, New York Review of Books, St. Petersburg Review, and other publishers and magazines; a series of lectures on Portuguese literature and culture; talks and readings with Portuguese writers; literary walks; film screenings; and social events and excursions in and around Lisbon.

The 2014 program will be held from June 29 through July 11. Workshop faculty includes poets Erica Dawson and David Lehman; fiction writers Denis Johnson, Alissa Nutting, and Padgett Powell; and nonfiction writer Josip Novakovich, among others. Visit the website for more information and general application guidelines.

As children we unknowingly participate in family traditions. To kids, annual camping trips, making Christmas cookies, and special birthday dinners are simply slices of regular life orchestrated by a benevolent universe. As we become adults, however, our understanding of the universe changes. Family members begin families of their own, and we grow apart from the past while investing more of ourselves into the future of others. Reflect on a family tradition from your childhood. Describe the people, the scene, and circumstances. Bring those who have passed on to life with the power of your words.    

“In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.” This quote from French author André Maurois underscores the importance of knowing who you are as a fiction writer. As in love, readers can’t genuinely fall for an author’s work unless the writing is sincere, open, and truthful. Clear your head. Forget about your significant other, your editor, and your audience. Place your protagonist and antagonist in a location familiar to you, and write six hundred words about their interaction. The characters are people unto themselves, but your mind creates the attitude, style, and tone of the world in which they live. In fiction, the writer is nowhere, and everywhere, at all times. This is the authorial being that readers come to love.