Alice Notley at the Poetry Project
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“Poetry is mere reality. No proof, just be here,” reads Alice Notley, author most recently of For the Ride (Penguin Books, 2020), in this reading held at the Poetry Project in New York City.
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Genre: Poetry
2021 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award Reading
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In this virtual reading hosted by Poets & Writers’ Bonnie Rose Marcus, the winners of the 2021 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from the state of Rhode Island, fiction writer Courtney Denelle and poet Jodie Noel Vinson, read from their work and are introduced by judges of the award Madeleine Thien and Prageeta Sharma.
ZYZZYVA Technology Issue Reading
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This virtual event, hosted by Booksmith in San Francisco, celebrates the release of ZYZZYVA’s Spring 2021 Technology Issue with readings by contributors Juhea Kim, Troy Jollimore, Lee Conell, and William Brewer, and a reading by Alex Torres of a short story by the late Anthony Veasna So.
Inner Landscapes
Lebanese American writer and artist Etel Adnan died at the age of ninety-six this past Sunday on November 14 in Paris. One of the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American authors of her era, Adnan leaves behind decades of writing that interrogates war and the effects it has in displacing communities, as well as visual art inspired by landscapes in nature, which she called her “inner landscapes.” This week, inspired by Adnan’s bright and lucid landscape paintings, write an ekphrastic poem reflecting on one of her works. What natural landscapes did you grow up around, and how can you fuse them into the poem?
The Bird in Your Hands Prize Accepting Submissions
Submissions are open for the second annual The Bird in Your Hands Prize, which is administered by Thin Air Magazine and “centers and celebrates BIPOC voices.” BIPOC writers at any stage in their careers are invited to submit a short work of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction, for the opportunity to win $1,000, publication in Thin Air Magazine, an interview on Thin Air Online, and an all-expenses paid trip to read at the Northern Arizona Book Festival in April next year.
Using only the online submission system, submit a manuscript of up to 500 words by December 1. There is no entry fee. Raquel Gutiérrez will judge. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Published by the Northern Arizona University English Department, Thin Air Magazine is run by graduate students and features fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts, as well as hybrid work and work that cannot be categorized. Operating out of Flagstaff, Arizona, the nonprofit is “the highest-elevation literary journal in the country” and aims to “build and maintain a Flagstaff–based literary community that reaches across the Colorado Plateau and beyond.”
Jabberwocky
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“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! / The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” Lewis Carroll’s epic nonsense poem “Jabberwocky,” from his novel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, comes to life in this TED-Ed animated video directed by Sjaak Rood.
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Angel
“Above my desk, whirring and self-important / (Though not much larger than a hummingbird), / In finely woven robes, school of Van Eyck / Hovers an evidently angelic visitor,” writes James Merrill in his poem “Angel.” The speaker in the poem is visited by an angel whose presence stirs up questions about the passive act of writing: “How can you sit there with your notebook? / What do you think you are doing?” This week, write a poem in which the speaker is visited by a watchful, otherworldly presence. Try, like Merrill, to be descriptive about the setting in order to set the mood.
Upcoming Contest Deadlines
Opportunities abound for writers of all kinds in mid-November’s contest deadlines. Prizes with deadlines of November 15 include awards for debut poets, for women writers, and for nonfiction writers who can capture the spirit of Brooklyn on the page. Most offer a cash prize of $1,000 or more; one prize includes travel and lodging expenses to attend the Writers Digest Annual Conference in New York City.
Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival Brooklyn Nonfiction Prize: A prize of $500 and publication on the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival website is given annually for a work of nonfiction that is set in Brooklyn, New York, and renders the borough’s “rich soul and intangible qualities through the writer’s actual experiences of Brooklyn.” Entry fee: None.
Nightboat Books Poetry Prize: Up to three prizes of $1,000 each and publication by Nightboat Books are given annually for poetry collections. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $30.
Perugia Press Poetry Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Perugia Press is given annually for a first or second poetry collection by a writer who identifies as a woman. Entry fee: $30.
Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award: A prize of $1,000 is given occasionally for a fiction or nonfiction manuscript that has been rejected by a commercial publisher. The award recognizes “worthy manuscripts that have been overlooked by today’s high-pressure, bottom-line publishing conglomerates.” Entry fee: None.
The Story Prize: A prize of $20,000 is given annually for a short story collection written in English and first published in the United States in the previous year. Two runners-up will receive $5,000 each, and one entrant will receive the $1,000 Story Prize Spotlight Award, given for a collection that merits further attention. Larry Dark and Julie Lindsey will select the three finalists and the Spotlight Award winner; three independent judges will choose the Story Prize winner. Entry fee: $75.
Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry and Fiction Prizes: Two prizes of $1,500 each, publication by Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and 50 author copies are given annually for a poetry collection and a short story collection or novel. Writers who live in Washington, D.C., Maryland, or Virginia are eligible. Entry fee: $25.
Writers’ Digest Short Short Story Competition: A prize of $3,000 and travel and lodging expenses for a trip to the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference in New York City is given annually for a short short story. A second-place prize of $1,500 is also awarded. The winners will both be published in Writer’s Digest. Entry fee: $25 (or $30 for entry by December 15).
Yale University Press Yale Series of Younger Poets: An award of publication by Yale University Press is given annually for a poetry collection by a poet who has not published a full-length book of poetry. Carl Phillips will judge. Entry fee: $25.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths on Mule & Pear
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“I pulled down a book by Gayl Jones, Eva’s Man, and I sat down and didn’t get back up until I finished it—and I felt so haunted,” says Rachel Eliza Griffiths about what inspired her third poetry collection, Mule & Pear (New Issues Press, 2011), in this conversation at the 2013 Poets Forum for the Academy of American Poets.
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Poets in Person: Robert Pinsky
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“The art of poetry for me is the art of composing a sequence of vowels, consonants, and sentence sounds that will seem moving, meaningful,” says former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky in this 2014 episode of Cortland Review’s Poets in Person series, in which he discusses his beginnings as a poet and his philosophy behind writing.
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