Detroit’s new Write a House program has announced the winner of its inaugural writers residency, through which renovated houses in Detroit are given permanently to creative writers.

The winner is Casey Rocheteau, a poet, writer, historian, and performance artist currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Rocheteau is the author of the poetry collection Knocked Up On Yes, published by Sargent Press in 2012; her next collection, The Dozen, will be published by Sibling Rivalry Press in March 2016. She has also self-published four books, released two spoken-word albums, and has performed slam poetry and led writing and performance workshops for youths and adults throughout the United States.

“Being granted with this opportunity to take root in a city so rich with history, creativity and tenacity is truly an honor,” Rocheteau wrote on the Write a House blog. “I look forward to exploring Detroit and getting to know its literary community.” She plans to move from Brooklyn to Detroit in November.

Billy Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate and one of the judges that selected Rocheteau, said of her work, “These are witty but deeply serious poems. The poet uses straightforward language and clear syntax to address some of the more frightening aspects of racism.”

Serving as judges alongside Collins were dream hampton, Major Jackson, Sean MacDonald, Michael Stone-Richards, Tamara Warren, and Write a House cofounder Toby Barlow. Hundreds of poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers applied for the residency; Rocheteau was chosen from a shortlist of ten finalists that was announced in August 2014.

Detroit will welcome Rocheteau to the city’s literary community at a public event sponsored by the Detroit Free Press on September 19. Write a House will open a new round of applications in early 2015 for its next set of houses, which will be located in the same Banglatown/No Ham neighborhood where Rocheteau will reside.

To learn more about the Write a House program, read an article in the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Photo: Casey Rocheteau, credit Thomas Sayers Ellis, 2013.

Red Hen Press, founded by Kate Gale and Mark E. Cull, has been a part of the Los Angeles publishing world since 1994 and remains one of the few literary presses in the city. Red Hen hosts a series at the historic Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica. A P&W–supported reading on September 9, 2014 featured poets Afaa Michael Weaver, Douglas Kearney, Brett Fletcher Lauer, and Robin Coste Lewis and was moderated by Red Hen Press founder Kate Gale. R&W (West) program assistant, Brandi M. Spaethe, attended the reading and writes on her experience.

My first time at the Annenberg Community Beach House, I arrived when the sun was still just high enough to sink into the ocean as four wonderful poets read their work. One reader commented: “How can I compete with that?” The audience faced the reader who faced a wall of windows. We were all part of the spectacle for each poet who stood at the podium. They were a reflection of the setting sun and the turn of day to night.

In the 1920s, William Randolph Hearst erected a mansion for Marion Davies on the site where the Annenberg Community Beach House currently resides, and it became a place for Hollywood stars to congregate. Joseph Drown purchased the house from Davies in the 1940s and converted the property into a hotel and beach club. Many years later, the state took over and continued to run it as a beach club until the Northridge earthquake in 1994 damaged all properties on site. The Annenberg Community Beach House was built via a grant from the Annenberg Foundation as a place for the Santa Monica community and surrounding communities. 

Red Hen Press has sparked a tradition of poetry at the beach house with past readers who include Susan Straight, Ilya Kaminsky, Camille T. Dungy, and Ron Carlson. One of the night’s readers, Brett Fletcher Lauer from Brooklyn, New York, joked with me about arriving far ahead of schedule due to a warning from the locals about the traffic. He said it gave him a chance to sit outside the beach house and enjoy the scenery. After the reading, P&W–supported writer Douglas Kearney waxed poetic about the ocean at night and how daunting a thing it was. Many of us made note of the space, commenting on its magic.

First to the podium was Robin Coste Lewis, who is currently in the PhD in creative writing program for poetry at the University of Southern California. Her elegance and poise matched the power of her words while the low sun highlighted her beautiful ensemble. Brett Fletcher Lauer read work from his recent book A Hotel in Belgium, making note of its darkness, which was never deprecating or pitiful, but rather stunning in its revelations—enough to make you consider your own station. P&W–supported poet Douglas Kearney, in true Kearney fashion, shifted the tone of the reading with eye-opening crescendos and anaphoras from his published work, including his most recent book of poetry, Patter. His performance asked us to sit up and pay attention. The sun sank lower, almost out of sight now, almost gone. The final note, and a rising one, was P&W–supported poet Afaa Michael Weaver. He shared poems from a variety of his publications with a wisdom that seemed to come from a life of having seen much darkness and written through it. The audience listened intently, catching its breath as he delivered each line. 

Red Hen Press will host the next Annenberg Community Beach House reading on October 14th at 6:30 PM, featuring Leia Penina Wilson, Genevieve Kaplan, Jessica Piazza, and Mary Johnson. The readings are free. More information can be found here. 

Major support for Readings & Workshops in California is provided by the James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

This week, in the spirit of celebrating the freedom to read, think about a book you’ve read that’s been banned. (For a list of banned and challenged classics, visit the American Library Association's website.) How would your life be different if you never had the opportunity to read this book? Or if nobody could? Write a short personal essay exploring how you feel about Banned Books Week and why this particular book is so meaningful to you.

Submissions are currently open for the inaugural Payton James Freeman Essay Prize, cosponsored by the Freeman family and Drake University’s English department. The prize will be given for an essay on a theme. The winner will receive $500 and publication in the Rumpus, and will be invited to read at Drake University in Des Moines in February 2015.

Using the online submission system, submit an essay of up to 3,500 words on the subject “After the Unhappy Ending” by September 30. There is no entry fee. The students and faculty of Drake University will select the finalists; Cheryl Strayed will choose the winner. The winner and finalists will be announced in December 2014.

The Freeman family established the award to honor their son Payton James Freeman—who died at the age of five from the genetic disease Spinal Muscular Atrophy—and to raise awareness about the disease.

Judge Cheryl Strayed is the author of the popular memoir Wild (Knopf, 2012), the novel Torch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), and Tiny Beautiful Things (Knopf, 2012), a collection of pieces from Strayed’s advice column for the Rumpus, Dear Sugar.

Photo: Cheryl Strayed (Joni Kabana)

Ideally, people become accustomed to fire drills so that when there is a real fire, they will calmly gather their things and exit the building as practiced. After all, this is the point of such drills. But what if one person in the group consistently reacted in the opposite fashion? Write a situation in which a routine fire drill decends into chaos because one person insists, against all information provided by those in positions of authority, that everyone is in grave danger.