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Choose any word from the dictionary and read its definitions. Write a poem using only the language of these definitions. Try repeating them in different combinations and using line break to create unexpected phrases. Experiment with how far you can push the limits of the language you’re working with. Use the word you’ve chosen as the title of the poem.
Poet Richard Blanco reads his poem "One Today" for President Obama's second inauguration on Monday.
The Chicago Tribune is currently accepting submissions for its annual Nelson Algren Short Story Award. One winner will receive $3,500 and publication in Printers Row Journal, the Tribune’s weekly literary supplement. Three finalists will receive awards of $1,000 each, and four runners-up will receive $500 each. The deadline is February 1.
United States residents ages eighteen and over are eligible to enter. Using the online submissions system, fiction writers may submit a previously unpublished story, written in English, of up to eight thousand words. There is no entry fee. Winners will be selected by a panel of established fiction writers and announced during the annual Printers Row Lit Fest, which will be held this year on June 8 and 9 in Chicago.
Given annually for over twenty years, the Nelson Algren Award is named for the iconic Chicago writer best known for his novel The Man With the Golden Arm, which received the inaugural National Book Award in 1949. “Fiction helps us make sense of a world in which horrible things happen,” writes Tribune Literary Editor Elizabeth Taylor on the newspaper’s website. “This is a world that all but defies imagination, where lovers and friends, criminals and victims, enemies and allies, traitors and confidantes engage with each other on the page, and elevate the everyday of life into art. In the Nelson Algren contest, we try to create a perfect world, in which all stories are treated equally.” The contest, which is judged blindly, has published early work from authors such as Louise Erdrich and Julia Glass. Past judges have included late authors George Plimpton, Studs Terkel, and Eudora Welty.
The winner of the 2012 prize was Jeremy T. Wilson of Chicago for his story “Everything is Going to Be Okay.” For complete eligibility requirements and guidelines for the 2013 contest, visit the Nelson Algren Award rules page.
The Academy of American Poets has elected Claudia Rankine, Marilyn Nelson, and C. D. Wright to its board of chancellors; the American Booksellers Association added forty new independent bookstores in 2012; poet and novelist Julianna Baggott's bestselling Pure is set for adaptation by Twilight producer Karen Rosenfelt; and other news.
Frank Deford, Jimmy Breslin, and Charlotte Sheedy reflect on the extraordinary life and career of literary agent Sterling Lord, who has represented Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, and countless others, in this video from Open Road Media, the publisher of Lord's new memoir, Lord of Publishing.
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Think about a choice you made in your life that led to specific consequences or outcomes. Explore the alternative reality that could have been if you'd made a different choice in an essay that begins If I hadn't...
Choose one of your favorite classic books and make a brief outline of the plot. Write a story, set in the present, adapted from that classic story, using your outline and the classic book's main character to guide you. For example, write a version of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre set in Los Angeles in 2013. Who would a contemporary Jane be? Under what circumstances would she go to live and work in the home of a widower? If she fell in love with him, what would happen?
For last year's Nexus Conference in Amsterdam, the Nexus Institute brought together the world’s foremost intellectuals, artists, diplomats, politicians, and other decision makers and asked them to speak about the theme "How to Change the World." One of the participants, Margaret Atwood, focused her attention in on fiction, the future, and the environment.
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