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“For a long time, I worked day jobs that were different from the one I have now.” In this Books Are Magic recorded event, Jami Attenberg reads from her memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home (Ecco, 2022), and speaks about her writing process with author Kristen Arnett. For more Attenberg, read “1000 Words of Summer: How an Accountability Project Opened Up My Writing Life” in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
In “Can Motherhood Be a Mode of Rebellion?” an essay published in the New Yorker, Jia Tolentino writes about Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change (Harper Wave, 2022) by Angela Garbes, a book analyzing the state of caregiving in America, and reflects on the experience of hiring a nanny for “a job so crucial and difficult that it seems objectively holy.” This week think of a job that is often unappreciated or unacknowledged and write a story from the perspective of a character who works this job. How can you render their perspective through detailed observations of the world around them?
In Ada Limón’s poem “The Raincoat,” published in her collection The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018), the speaker reflects on the experience of comfort and protection parents can offer through simple gestures like taking off a raincoat in a storm to wrap around their child or making time to drive and accompany them to doctor’s appointments. Write a poem about a time a parental figure of yours made a loving sacrifice. Think of a memory that makes you feel the way Limón does at the end of her poem: “My god, / I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her / raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel / that I never got wet.”
This reading hosted by the University of Arizona Poetry Center presents the work of Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author most recently of Children of the Land (Harper, 2020), and Marwal Helal, author most recently of Ante body (Nightboat Books, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Hope Wabuke celebrates the book launch for her debut poetry collection, The Body Family (Haymarket Books, 2022), with special guests Safia Elhillo and Ladan Osman in this virtual reading and conversation moderated by Aricka Foreman. Wabuke is featured in Literary MagNet in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“I should share with you that I did not intend to be a fiction writer, I did not intend to write a historical novel…I did intend to always, however, tell the truth,” says Min Jin Lee about writing her novel Pachinko (Grand Central Publishing, 2017), which has been adapted into a television series, in this 2018 reading and conversation with Claire Messud at Harvard University.
How did you celebrate May the Fourth? Did you know it isn’t just for Star Wars fans but also for the birds? In 1894, Charles Almanzo Babcock, a school superintendent from Pennsylvania, launched the first Bird Day “in a bid to create awareness and promote the conservation of all bird species.” This week peruse the National Audubon Society’s Guide to North American Birds, which features the habitats, calls, feeding behaviors, and migration patterns of over eight hundred species of birds. Then, pick five feathered friends that stand out to you and write a section of an essay dedicated to each one. As you write, discover links beyond the germane aspects of your chosen species.
“It’s a story that traces three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her legacy.” In this video, Tara M. Stringfellow talks about her debut novel, Memphis (Dial Press, 2022), and her writing process, which involves listening to opera and jazz music. Memphis is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
With cool spring weather comes allergy season, the time of year many become suffused with itchy eyes, runny noses, and relentless sneezing. This common ailment is exasperated by the rainy season and blowing winds that spread pollen, and global warming is creating an even longer pollen season, according to many published studies. Write a story in which a protagonist struggles with allergies in springtime. How will this detail carry importance in the plot’s development? For inspiration, read Anton Chekhov’s short story “The Death of a Government Clerk,” which begins with the protagonist sneezing.
In a recent installment of Ten Questions, poet Dana Levin recalls the earliest memory associated with her new book, Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon Press, 2022): “Pacing around my sublet in Saint Louis, Fall 2015, saying out loud the words ‘No,’ ‘Yes,’ and ‘Stop’ over and over: to feel how they felt in my mouth, my throat, my chest.” Included in Levin’s collection are three poems—“No,” “Maybe,” and “Into the Next Eden”—that seek to answer the question posed by the book’s title. This week, consider a question to ask yourself and write three poems with different responses. Do your answers surprise you?
