The Writer's Notebook
Articles on publishing, teaching, career advice, current literary affairs, and more. In short, a blog about everything in your notebook.
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“I Really Hope You’ll Come Around”: Remembering David Berman
Ely Vance | October 2019
Few artists could do what David Berman could do. He brought his audience right next to him, onto the arm of a beat-up pull-out couch in Charlottesville or Nashville or Chicago, unflinching in his evocations of the absurd sea of noise we all sail upon, in his excavations of existential self-doubt, of daily self-hatred.
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Active Shooter: When Language Isn’t Enough
Carlie Hoffman | September 2019
We have reached a heartbreaking era in the United States in which the threat of active shooters is rampant. And to no resolve. School campuses are simultaneously places of learning and potential crime scenes. What good does art do in this reality?
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Something to Write About: Experiential and Observational Learning in the Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman | September 2019
Advanced undergraduates know the basics of CNF, but, as young writers, they can benefit most from a professor who models how to seek, observe, and record real-life experiences.
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Giving Thanks to the Ampersand
Kate McDevitt | September 2019
Did you know that September 8 is National Ampersand Day?
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Staff Picks: End-of-Summer Reading
AWP | August 2019
We are quickly heading into back to school season, but what’s one more visit to the beach, with a good book and some quiet time?
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The Mentorship Program and My First Book
Laura Braverman | August 2019
…it seems to me that at the heart of the often emotionally fraught business of submissions and publishing is something quite simple really: an act of sharing.
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The PCJ Essay
Clifford Thompson | August 2019
As I was designing the courses I would teach, it occurred to me that many of the published essays I truly admire—which are the only kind I assign—fall into at least one of three categories. I have students write essays in each of the three, and for each category we look to the published essays as models.
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Witnessing the Furious Flowering of African American Poetry
Joanne V. Gabbin | August 2019
Twenty-five years ago, hundreds of poets, scholars, and poetry enthusiasts gathered at the Furious Flower Poetry Conference at James Madison University for what became the nation’s largest meeting devoted solely to Black poetry.
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Feeling Possible: Reflections on the Legacy of Toni Morrison
Chelsea McLin | August 2019
Toni Morrison’s narratives delve deep into Black identity, shedding light on the ways in which our nation has failed us and how we have failed each other.
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“School Daze”: A Memoir-Writing Course That Addresses Student Mental Health.…Notes From A ‘First Responder’
Elizabeth Stone | July 2019
A summary of the newest survey about the mental health of 67,000 undergraduates arrived in my email not long ago, and it was troubling.
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Citizen Uncensored: The Power of Student-Centered Learning
M.K. Rainey | July 2019
I’ve asked three of my students to collaborate on [Citizen] and show it as they experienced it: through their art.
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Queer Words: Reflections on Facilitating Writing Workshops with Homeless LGBTQ Youth
Sassafras Lowrey | June 2019
I became a writing facilitator in my early twenties in very much the same underground way that I began writing my own stories, self-taught and within community. I facilitated writing workshops with LGBTQ people experiencing homelessness, using the bits and pieces of how to facilitate that I had gleaned from other punk/zinester writers.
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Still Waiting
Kate McDevitt | June 2019
I believe everyone should have the joy of finding themselves represented in fiction. There is great power in relating to a character’s struggles but also their victories.
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I Wanna Be Rich: On the Financial Realities of Writing
Sheree Winslow | June 2019
When I was seven years old, people from the church we attended delivered bags of groceries to our apartment because my parents couldn’t afford food. A little more than a year later, when I was eight, I decided I wanted to attend Vassar College after reading about it in a book.
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Writing While…
A. Poythress | June 2019
I have depression. I have anxiety. I’ve suffered from many of the aspects of PTSD. I’m a lesbian, I’m nonbinary, I’m fat, my brain doesn’t work the same way others’ do. These are all labels I attach to myself as I navigate through the world.
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Reclaiming the Pansy
Bruce Owens Grimm | June 2019
Queer encompasses not just who I sleep with, but who I am. It’s how I interact with the world and, for better or worse, how the world interacts with me.
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Caught Reading in America
Pamela Murray Winters | May 2019
A year ago, I published my first book of poetry at the age of frhmm-mmsmm. My parents, having been already ancient when I was born, or so I once believed, weren’t around to celebrate this accomplishment.
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Songwriting and the Creative Process
Philip Gerard | May 2019
We begin by brainstorming common phrases and everyday words. As each of the students calls out a suggestion, I print it on the white board.
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Sentence Pioneers: Bending Language with Lydia Kiesling, R. O. Kwon, Ali Smith, Alyson Hagy, Jesse Ball, & Sally Rooney
Beth Kephart | May 2019
Some sentences heed the logic of a ruler. They are straight, scaled, and measured to the punctuated inch. There are the nouns. There are the verbs. There are the breaths readers should take. Rest assured, these sentences say: We will not perturb or angst you. We will not confuse you. We obey.... Then there’s the other kind.
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Don't Write Me Off
Haddiyyah Tegally | May 2019
As a bookworm, I tend to feel bad when I meet people who tell me that they rarely read a book, let alone open one. Reading, especially fiction, has always been such a beautiful escape for me that I have trouble understanding those who view it as a chore.
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To Raise a Reader
Paula Silva | May 2019
“I will buy you a book today. When you’re done reading it, we will come back and I will buy you another. I promise I will always buy you another book when you’re done reading, as long as I have money for it.”
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Beware of Books!
Ivania Cox | May 2019
“You will starve!” is probably the first thing people will tell you if you express your desire to become a writer or even just study literature—and the drama goes to the extreme of using starvation as a horrible destiny that everybody who dedicates his or her life to books will have to face.
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Destiny
Mmakgosi Anita Tau | May 2019
Destiny is a lie to some and a promise of purpose to others. Some with forlorn hope may see it as a scam. But I like to think of Destiny as the unconquerable spear that fights for its own when hardships make us forget who we are.
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A Space to Read
Firdous Hendricks | May 2019
For the past 10 years, I have used transformative art to engage and activate at-risk children and youth in after-school spaces. My students have taught me a lot, none more so than in my first year.
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Milk and Voice
Ubah Cristina Ali Farah | May 2019
The foreign newspapers came once a week, on the Thursday plane. I remember my father during siesta, his shoulders leaning against the headboard, the white sheets, the pages of the paper resembling outstretched wings.
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Color Me In, Please!
Priya N. Hein | May 2019
Instead of the tropical landscape I was used to, I was reading about European children who frolicked about in the pale white snow. They failed to reflect the life around me.
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A Surprising Gift in a Time of Loss
Jill Talbot | April 2019
Jill Talbot on her mentorship with Kendra Vanderlip
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The Talking Stick: Navigating Gender Inequity in Publishing
Sarah Bigham | April 2019
Like millions of other women, I have my own #MeToo stories, and, as much as it pains me to process the experiences that so many generations of women have endured, I am hopeful that bringing these stories to light will help ensure that those left with our memories are not so statistically certain to have similar things happen to them.
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Staff Picks: National Poetry Month 2019
AWP | April 2019
During National Poetry Month, the staff of AWP shared their favorite poetry.
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National Poetry Month: A Poem a Holiday
AWP | April 2019
Celebrate a holiday you have been looking forward to, with a poem to match, for National Poetry Month. No matter what you are celebrating, we hope these poems bring you joy and inspiration every day. These poems are for the week of April 22, 2019.
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National Poetry Month: A Poem a Holiday
AWP | April 2019
Celebrate a holiday you have been looking forward to, with a poem to match, for National Poetry Month. These poems are for the week of April 15, 2019.
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Dispatch from the Poetry Cave: On the Pleasures & Challenges of Coordinating the Kingsley & Kate Tufts Awards
Genevieve Kaplan | April 2019
It’s a pleasure to see books I’ve been hankering after arrive on my desk, to encounter wonderful new books by poets I haven’t heard of or read before, and to be confronted with the massive scope of American poetry.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Pam Houston
AWP | March 2019
At about the thirty-minute mark the door banged open and Larry floated in in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He had that way of walking, almost like a cartoon dog, where his feet didn't exactly touch the ground. He was all in leather, of course, and a couple of chains. He floated, more than walked to the podium. The room fell silent.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Ching-In Chen
AWP | March 2019
I loved the high energy, fun, and community gathered at last year’s Kundiman, Kaya Press & Asian American Literary Review Literaoke event. Even though I had just about lost my voice by that last night, I was lifted by all the love and camaraderie in the room.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Evie Shockley
AWP | March 2019
When I think about all the works I might not have encountered, without the funding that supported their creation and dissemination, I am really made aware of the profound importance of our collective investment in the arts.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Jennifer Foerster
AWP | March 2019
I’m excited for the number of panels and readings featuring writers from the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA program.
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Preparing to Pay Tribute to Donald Hall
Martin Lammon | March 2019
Looking ahead to the Donald Hall tribute at the next AWP Bookfair & Conference in Portland, I am rereading hundreds of letters from Don. Earlier, I shared the first postcard Don ever sent to me.
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Ditch the Quotes: Teach Your Students to Italicize Dialogue
Samantha Edmonds | March 2019
The first time I turned in a story with the dialogue in italics to my workshop, one person didn’t seem to get it.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Fady Joudah
AWP | March 2019
Since I was a teenager, I've wanted to speak with Malcolm X.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Ellen Bass
AWP | March 2019
I have many wonderful conference memories, but my favorite has to be meeting Toi Derricotte.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Carmen Giménez Smith
AWP | March 2019
My favorite conference memories most often have to do with reconnecting with other publishers and with folks from SPD to talk about what's ahead and what books we're excited to read. And the candy.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Camille Dungy
AWP | March 2019
I'd love a chance for a long, deep chat with Phillis Wheatley. I bet she would be super hip and sassy (and also deeply thoughtful) if she were alive today.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Dawn Lundy Martin
AWP | March 2019
Portland has some excellent cuisine. The last time I visited, I was very taken by a little ramen shop in a reclaimed warehouse space called Afuri.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Luis Alberto Urrea
AWP | February 2019
I love to walk the floor and connect with the editors and staffs of smaller presses and lit mags and I really enjoy solo author events.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Javier Zamora
AWP | February 2019
Favorite memory has to be my very first AWP in Minneapolis. The shock of it. The sheer amount of people interested in writing, flying to a conference, the commotion of the Bookfair, brushing shoulders with living legends, etc. It was overwhelming in a great way.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Lisa Ko
AWP | February 2019
It's critical for writers and artists to be valued for the work that we do.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Joan Silber
AWP | February 2019
Grants from the NEA and the NY Foundation on the Arts were hugely important to me as a younger writer. It’s not just the money, it’s the proof that you’re not crazy calling yourself a writer.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Mitchell S. Jackson
AWP | February 2019
I’ve thankfully received a handful of grants in the last few years. They give me the money to live, pay a bill, travel, keep my accounts from running anemic, but they also provide the encouragement to continue scribbling away. And that encouragement is invaluable.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Sandra Gail Lambert
AWP | February 2019
It's the squealing that happens when you turn a corner and right there is a friend you haven't seen since that last residency, conference, or reading.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Jericho Brown
AWP | February 2019
I remember going to a panel with Toi Derricotte, Kay Murphy, and Alicia Ostriker back when I was getting my MFA. I was so happy to just lay eyes on and marvel at the genius of Ostriker. And I remember that their three talks left me with the feeling that I could indeed allow everything I have and know into my own poems.
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Unbinding Our Eyes: Poetry as a Way of Seeing
Nausheen Eusuf | February 2019
Poetry and vision have a long association—both in the sense of seeing the world intensely, and in the sense of sight that is visionary rather than ordinary.
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Teaching Critical Literary Citizenship
Robert McGill and André Babyn | February 2019
Some kinds of participation in literary citizenship are more valuable than others. Not considering carefully how one’s acts of literary citizenship might, for instance, serve corporate interests or rehearse exclusionary social practices could have harmful consequences.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Karen Russell
AWP | February 2019
I was so thrilled to give the keynote at AWP in 2015. It was a surreal and wonderful experience.
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What the World is Trying to Be: Lessons from John Goulet
Mauricio Kilwein Guevara | February 2019
Of the many things that John helped to clarify for me over the thirty years of our friendship is that literature at its best animates the core social functions of bringing humans closer to one another, of mitigating unwelcome solitude, and of growing our empathy for the world at large.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Joy Ladin
AWP | February 2019
The author I would most want to meet is Emily Dickinson, whom I have studied, read, and taught for decades.
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African-American History Month: Board Member Picks
David Haynes | February 2019
This month I’m celebrating books about vibrant black communities. Here are three terrific titles about coming of age and being nurtured by the village around you.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Paul Guest
AWP | February 2019
As great as the conference is, I’ve always been energized and refreshed—inspired—by those around me.
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Who Was I to Write? Persisting Through Doubt, Bias, and Parenthood
Olga Livshin | January 2019
It took me thirty-five years to stop doubting my English, a little over a year to write my first book, and just six months to get it accepted for publication.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
AWP | January 2019
I have my own large study where I write and the landscape here has really affected where my writing has taken me for my next book.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Max Wolf Valerio
AWP | January 2019
I wandered into a panel on crime writing—true crime, noir, hardboiled—and was overjoyed to hear swearing, blunt and forceful speech, no-nonsense direct language, and a generally intense, even inflamed atmosphere.... It occurred to me that possibly I had missed a calling. I am interested in exploring this type of writing at some point and seeing where it leads me.
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Ten Ways to Take Advantage of Your AWP Membership in the New Year
Megan Eden Kuyatt | January 2019
I’ve been an AWP member for years, but it’s only after working for AWP that I’ve begun to realize just how many resources we have for writers.
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Switching Genres
Ariel S. Winter | January 2019
Getting a book published isn’t a matter of selling the book to one excited editor. It is selling a book to that editor who then needs to go to a meeting to sell that book to the rest of the editorial team, the marketing team, and the sales team.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Victoria Chang
AWP | January 2019
I fall in love with words, not stars.
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How I Won My First Artist Grant
Sarah Dalton | January 2019
I knew that even if I didn’t get the grant, I’d learned a lot from Lyzette, Rosenberg’s book, and Alex about how to make my application provoke enthusiasm from the grant committee.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Martín Espada
AWP | January 2019
Boston, 2013: I gave a reading at a benefit for Split This Rock. A good friend of mine made a stunning entrance. The Hynes Convention Center will never be the same.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Rebecca Makkai
AWP | January 2019
I've always wondered how F. Scott Fitzgerald would hold up at the hotel bar.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Adrian Matejka
AWP | January 2019
This is such a bountiful time for literature and poetry especially, so I’ll share a few new poetry collections I hope will get a little more attention.
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#AWP19 Featured Presenter Q&A with Marilyn Chin
AWP | January 2019
My work would not have flourished without public funding—it’s the lifeblood of poetry.
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