Using one of your own stories or one by another author, rewrite the story from the perspective of one of the minor characters.

Choose a page from a book, a magazine, or a newspaper and make a list of the nouns mentioned. Using free association, jot down a new noun for each noun in your first list. Using the second list of nouns, write a poem.

The shortlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize was announced today, including first-time novelists Stephen Kelman and A. D. Miller. The two, along with four other authors, are in contention for a prize of fifty thousand pounds (approximately eighty thousand dollars).

The shortlisted titles, chosen from thirteen semifinalists, are The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape), Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch (Canongate Books), The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (Granta), Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan  (Serpent’s Tail), Pigeon English by Kelman (Bloomsbury), and Snowdrops by Miller (Atlantic). DeWitt and Edugyan both hail from Canada, and the other four authors are British.

On October 18 the winner will be announced at London's Guildhall. The five runners-up won't leave the ceremony empty-handed; each will receive an award of twenty five hundred pounds (about four thousand dollars).

For the month of September, longtime P&W-suported writer Patricia Roth Schwartz blogs about her experience in Seneca County, New York.

October in the Finger Lakes flares out in a profusion of color: scarlet maples, golden beech, burgundy sumac. Deer leap across country roads. I drive to the tiny village of Ovid where history has left its imprint, especially in the form of a charming set of Greek Revival county courthouse buildings (now a museum) in descending sizes known as The Three Bears.

I eat my picnic lunch at a table outside the adorable structures (Baby Bear is as big as a child’s playhouse) savoring sunshine and drifting leaves. Spotting a tiny thrift shop across the street, I'm there in a flash. It’s full of almost all new clothes, each item a dollar! Soon, clutching five items, I approach a sweet-faced lady in her 80s who serves as volunteer cashier. Suddenly I realize I've left home with no cash! The thrift shop does not accept credit cards or checks. The cashier tells me I can come back later to pay. "We close at one.” I say, "But I'm doing a poetry reading at the Edith B. Ford Memorial Library." I point to the flyer in the store window.

Behind me another shopper speaks up. "Here—" she pushes a five dollar bill toward me. "I'll send you a check," I say and thank her profusely. She says, "No need." "I'll come over to the library," offers the cashier, Anna, who'd been telling me earlier about growing up nearby on a farm. "You said a friend of yours was coming." "Yes, I can borrow five dollars from her," I say. So it's settled; I go next door to a small supermarket. I need a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. (It's been that kind of day.) I have a little change; I'm sure it’s enough. But at the cash register I’m counting out pennies. Behind me, another Ovid angel appears. A young man plunks down coins, insists on paying for me. I walk across the street to the library in a pleasant daze, convinced I‘ve entered another plane of existence, one that is utterly charmed.

A small group gathers for my reading. I sit in a comfy rocker in the children's reading nook, encouraging everyone to sit in a semicircle around me. Halfway through the reading, Anna, the thrift shop cashier, enters. She's brought her lunch, a large submarine sandwich. Sitting discreetly at the back table, she eats it, crumples up the wrapper, then moves up to the semicircle. I read poems about my family, my childhood in West Virginia—memories, stories. Afterward we talk. "When I was married," the widowed Anna says, "I had a notebook I used to write in. My husband thought I was pretty good." I don't think Anna has ever been to a poetry reading before. We encouraged her to get another notebook and start up again.

Photo: Patricia Roth Schwartz. Credit: Sandy Zohari.

Support for the Reading/Workshops in New York is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

From July 13 to 16, 2011, P&W-supported poets Mayda Del Valle, Oveous Maximus, and Shihan participated in inkSlam, Los Angeles’ largest spoken-word festival, held at the Greenway Court Theatre.

The four-day event featured daily writing and performance workshops and nightly showcases celebrating the creative landscape of artists on the slam poetry scene.

Over one hundred poets, including burgeoning rhymesters and veteran Tony Award winners, graced the stage of the Greenway Court Theatre, as a sold-out audience cheered them on night after night.

“InkSlam allowed L.A. residents to see poetry in a light different from the one they were used to,” said inkSlam director Shihan Van Clief, who performs as Shihan. He is also a founding member of Da’ Poetry Lounge, the nation’s largest ongoing open mic series, which takes place Tuesdays at Greenway Court. “Most people have a junior high or high school reference point for poetry, which was, for a lack of a better term, ‘old’… We offered poetry from a young perspective.”

The festival aims to re-brand poetry as something anyone and everyone can enjoy, according to Van Clief. There were craft workshops geared towards the youth as well as business workshops to better inform poets on how to make art their livelihood in today’s multifaceted market.

InkSlam evolved from the partnership between the nonprofit organization Greenway Arts Alliance and Da’ Poetry Lounge. As Van Clief recalls, the idea for inkSlam came in 2009.

“[The poetry scene] had been defunct for years,” said Van Clief. “There was and is still a definite need for more art-based programs in L.A., and we figured this would be a good starting point; we wanted to create the best poetry festival Los Angeles has ever seen.”

Now inkSlam is making that dream a reality. A spoken-word competition was added to the festival’s agenda, making inkSlam a true poetry slam. In good fun, eight teams competed for the title of inkSlam champion over the course of the last two days of the festival.

Da’ Poetry Lounge, the seasoned home team, came in first, with a team from Santa Cruz finishing an incredibly close second.

“Santa Cruz Slam team snuck in under the radar and surprised a lot of folks,” said Van Clief. “Their group work was just very well thought out and executed to a tee; they made me rethink some of the group material our team had.”

To ensure that the festival would end on the most engaging, and humorous, of notes, the second place team received their $750 cash prize in quarters, leaving third and fourth place winners to receive theirs in dimes and pennies respectively.

Photo: Shihan at a workshop about the business of spoken word. Credit: Cheryl Klein.

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