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The Milwaukee press releases twelve books of poetry, fiction, drama, art, and comics a year and focuses on publishing writers without MFAs or literary connections.
In this Center for Fiction video, Brian Gresko, host of Lit Hub’s Antibody: A Quarantine Reading Series, moderates this all-star fundraiser reading for the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) featuring Jericho Brown, Carmen Maria Machado, Celese Ng, and Karen Russell.
Alt-rock, barista, codependent, designated driver, e-mail, frisée, G-spot, home theater, multitasker, spoiler alert, wordie. What do all these words have in common? They are all listed with a “first known use” year of 1982 according to Merriam-Webster’s online Time Traveler tool, which allows users to see what words first appeared in written or printed use in each year from the Old English to 2020. Choose a year that has particular resonance to you, perhaps one that marks a turning point or significant event in your life, and browse through the words that are listed as first recorded that year. Write a poem about a memorable event and incorporate some of these words. How does this language transform the tone or thematic direction of your poem?
“Often it was the help of an outside perspective that allowed me see what I was trying to do.” —Shruti Swamy, author of A House Is a Body
