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“Rule No. 10: Revise, revise, revise. I cannot stress this enough. Revision is when you do what you should have done the first time, but didn’t.” Colson Whitehead, whose seventh novel, The Nickel Boys (Doubleday, 2019), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads his 2012 New York Times piece “How to Write” at the Muldoon’s Picnic variety show in New York City in 2015.
In “Job Opening: Seeking Historian With Tolerance for Harsh Weather, the Occasional Bear,” MPR News reporter Euan Kerr interviews Lee Radzak about his retirement this spring after thirty-six years as the lighthouse keeper at Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior in Minnesota. Radzak says many of the romantic notions about lighthouses can be attributed to the physical space they inhabit on “the edge—the edge of land and of water,” but that there are also difficult and tedious tasks that accompany his job. This week, write a story about someone who resides and works in a space that is intermittently peopled and completely isolated—a national park, a large estate, or a new planet. How do these extremes affect the life of your character?
Writers debate the merits of an award for a fictional thriller that does not feature violence toward women.
Following the acclaim of his debut poetry collection, Ocean Vuong found power in imagination and freedom in embellishment and wrote a stunningly original novel: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
Novelist Jonathan Lethem handpicks his favorite forgotten books for reissue in a series published by Pushcart Press.
Writers! Three days left to send your work to the following contests, all with a deadline of June 15. There are opportunities for poets, fiction writers, and translators. All of the contests offer a first-place prize of at least $1,000 and publication.
Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Bitter Oleander Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Entry fee: $28.
University of Akron Press Poetry Prize: A prize of $1,500 and publication by University of Akron Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Victoria Chang will judge. Entry fee: $20.
Philadelphia Stories Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction: A prize of $2,500 and publication in Philadelphia Stories is given annually for a short story. The winner will also receive travel and lodging expenses to read at Rosemont College in October. Writers currently living in the United States are eligible. Entry fee: $15.
American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prizes: A prize of $2,500 and publication of an excerpt in Scandinavian Review is given annually for an English translation of a work of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction written in a Nordic language. A prize of $2,000 and publication is also awarded to a translator whose literary translations have not previously been published. Translations of works by Scandinavian authors born after 1900 that have not been published in English are eligible. Entry fee: none.
Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out the Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more contests in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
“It was an attempt to see if language can really be a bridge, as it is often aspired to be, and ultimately that it could fail.” In this video, Ocean Vuong speaks about the letter he wrote to his illiterate mother that inspired his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019). A profile of Vuong by Rigoberto González appears in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The first lines of a dozen noteworthy books, including The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead and Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn.
Copies of Joe Sacksteder’s story collection, Make/Shift, have been fashioned into a couture dress.
A roundup of four new anthologies, including Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton.
