Adopt a Typewriter
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From the founders of Ashland Creek Press comes this public service announcement about the writer's most cherished yet endangered object: the typewriter.
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Anatomy of a Book
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This helpful video from AbeBooks demystifies the terms used to describe the physical parts of a book, including boards, hinge and joint, leaf, endpapers, book block, and plates.
The Meta-Narrative
Using John Ashbery's poem "And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name" from Houseboat Days as a model, tell a story by telling us how to tell a story. Scaffold the narrative by meditating on the nature of storytelling.
This week's creative nonfiction prompt comes from Vijay Seshadri, director of the nonfiction program at Sarah Lawrence College and author, most recently, of The Disappearances (Harper Collins, 2007).
Catalogue of Curiosities
Immerse yourself in the music, films, art, and other points of inspiration that set off the spark for our twelve debut poets of 2011.
University of Washington, Bothell
MFA Program
Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Cross-Genre
Bothell, WA
Application Deadline:
Sun, 02/01/2026
Application Fee:
$90
Affiliated Publications/Publishers:
Clamor (UW Bothell literary & art journal)
Essay Press (EP/MFA Book Prize, offers editorial assistantships)
Student Writing Contest Seeks Poets and Writers of Social Justice
The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut, is looking for works of poetry and prose from collegiate writers whose literary work advances social justice, in the spirit of Stowe's activism through storytelling.
Accepting all types of previously-published writing, from poems to stories to blog posts, the inaugural Student Stowe Prize competition will award twenty-five hundred dollars to a current college or university student.
The winning work will also be republished on the Stowe Center website, and the writer will be recognized at a ceremony on June 7, 2012, alongside a secondary school student whose writing also strives to make "a tangible impact on a social justice issue critical to contemporary society." Eligible works may touch on questions of, for instance, race, class, or gender equality, and must have appeared in a notable periodical or blog.
Student writers may submit entries, which should be accompanied by three references, until February 27. For complete guidelines, visit the Stowe Center website.
To Die By Your Side
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Olympia Le-Tan's embroidered clutch-bags spring to life in this amazing stop-motion film directed by Spike Jonze and Simon Cahn and animated by Sylvain Derosne and Léonard Cohen. Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side) has been a featured selection at film festivals around the world, including those in Athens, Paris, Belgium, Montreal, London, South Korea, and Buenos Aires. Watch the complete six-minute film on Vimeo.
An Urban Farm Revival
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In the summer of 2010 David Hanson, Edwin Marty, and Michael Hanson set off on a cross-country trip (in a bus fueled by vegetable oil) to document the American urban farm movement. The story of their adventure is documented in Breaking Through Concrete: Building an Urban Farm Revival, forthcoming from the University of California Press in January.
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Guardian First Book Award Goes to Biography of Cancer
Indian American oncologist and author Siddhartha Mukherjee is honored for his "anthropomorphism of a disease" in The Emperor of All Maladies (Fourth Estate), which has won the Guardian First Book Award. According judge Lisa Allardice, Mukherjee, who began the part-memoir, part-biography in an effort to contextualize cancer for one of his patients, "has managed to balance such a vast amount of information with lively narratives, combining complicated science with moving human stories. Far from being intimidating, it's a compelling, accessible book."
The only nonfiction title on the shortlist for the award, The Emperor of All Maladies, which also took the Pulitzer Prize this year, beat out four novels for the ten-thousand-pound prize (roughly $15,700). Also competing for Guardian First Book Award were American Amy Waldman's post-9/11 novel, The Submission (William Heinemann); Down the Rabbit Hole (And Other Stories Publishing) by Juan Pablo Villalobos of Mexico and translated by Rosalind Harvey; The Collaborator (Viking) by Mirza Waheed of Kashmir; and Pigeon English by British novelist Stephen Kelman (Bloomsbury), whose debut was also shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize.
"You never write books to win awards—they are immensely gratifying but unexpected," Mukherjee said. "In recognizing The Emperor of All Maladies, the judges have also recognized the extraordinary courage and resilience of the men and women who struggle with illness, and the men and women who struggle to treat illnesses."
In the video below, the author discusses the origins of the book, and how it evolved into a biography of a disease.
Kinfolk Magazine
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Having friends and family over for the holidays? Check out this trailer for the second issue of Kinfolk Magazine then visit www.kinfolkmag.com to learn more about the quarterly magazine of essays, interviews, art, and photography that caters to the growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings.
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