Last year a British ultramarathoner competing in northwest Canada donated his frostbitten amputated toes to a Yukon hotel bar. Renowned for serving the Sourtoe Cocktail, a shot of whiskey with a mummified human toe dropped inside (the toe is not swallowed, but must touch the drinker’s lips in order to join the club and receive a certificate), the bar depends on donated digits. Write a poem inspired by emotional and visceral responses to this unusual cocktail and ritual. Explore the possible themes of human connection, extreme adventure, sacrifice and generosity, and horror with humor. 

Recently I had the chance to attend a couple of readings that blew me away. There is a new Spanish-language reading series presented by Inprint and Tintero Projects called Escritores en la casa. The September event featured Rose Mary Salum, founder and editor of the bilingual magazine Literal, Latin American Voices. The Inprint house was packed and the audience asked thoughtful questions during the discussion that followed the reading.

I was also able to attend a P&W–supported event with poet Ilya Kaminsky reading from his newest collection, Deaf Republic. Sponsored by the University of Houston’s creative writing program, the monthly Gulf Coast reading series invites students from the program to read with a featured visiting writer. Kaminsky held the audience’s attention with a haunting selection of his book, a lyric narrative-in-poems set in a time of war. The event took place at the beautiful Lawndale Art Center, which hosts art shows and is a spectacular space for readings. It was one of the most unique readings I have ever attended.

Hear Kaminsky read from Deaf Republic in Episode 24 of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

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This week I took a moment to speak with Rose Gorman, the inaugural Tuxedo Project resident fellow, about the literary landscape of Detroit compared to her experience in New York, where she received her MA in creative writing at Binghamton University. Gorman has lived in Detroit for two years and quickly become an active organizer of book clubs and fundraising events, and is a coordinator for the Michigan Louder Than a Bomb festival.

Gorman has a ton of experience with event programming and, as the former program manager of the New York Writers Coalition, received funding for the Fort Greene Summer Literary Festival through the Reading & Workshops program. When asked about the differences between the literary events and resources in Detroit versus New York, she found it difficult to put into words. “New York is a larger place, and coming from there, Detroit has a small-town feel,” says Gorman. “It can be easier to collaborate with different kinds of artists here, while in New York everyone is already engrossed in so much of the culture that it’s harder to find time to collaborate. Everyone is hustling.”

I identified with Gorman’s experiences with Detroit feeling like a small city. There is an unspoken effort to connect to a larger group of like-minded creatives here. The beauty of Detroit is in the richness of our creative community. We welcome new writers to the city and it’s important that we continue to share experiences, resources, and knowledge with each other.

The Whiting Foundation has announced the recipients of the 2019 Creative Nonfiction Grants, given annually to up to eight writers in the process of completing a book of creative nonfiction. This year’s grants recognize books that range from histories to works of memoir and original reporting, and for the first time celebrate a work of graphic nonfiction. The writers will each receive $40,000. 

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The 2019 grantees are:

Wil S. Hylton for The Call of Empire, forthcoming from Riverhead

Channing Gerard Joseph for House of Swamm: Whee Slaves Became Queens, forthcoming from Crown

Jim Morris for The Cancer Factory, forthcoming from Beacon

Kristen Radtke for Seek You: Essays on American Loneliness, forthcoming from Pantheon

Albert Samaha for Concepcion: A Family’s Journey on the Immigrant Wave That Changed the Face of America, forthcoming from Riverhead

Damon Tabor for The Mountain in the Burning Sky, forthcoming from Random House

Walter Thompson-Hernández for The Compton Cowboys: A New Generation of Cowboys in America’s Urban Heartland, forthcoming from HarperCollins

Ilyon Woo for Master Slave Husband Wife: An American Love Story, forthcoming from 37 Ink

The winners were selected from a list of fifteen finalists by an anonymous judging panel. Now in its fourth year, the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant “fosters original, ambitious projects that bring writing to the highest possible standard.” The applicants must have a publishing contract and be at least two years into their project. Previous recipients include Jess Row, Jennifer Block, and Sarah M. Broom. The next round of applications will open in spring 2020.

For more than forty years, the Whiting Foundation has supported literature and the humanities through its various programs, including its annual awards for emerging writers and the Whiting Literary Magazines Prizes, which honor literary journals. Visit the website for more information.

Photos: Top row: Wil S. Hylton (credit: Chris Hartlove), Channing Gerard Joseph (credit: Katie Sugarman), Jim Morris (credit: Chris Zubak-Skees), Kristen Radtke (credit: Amy Ritter). Bottom row: Albert Samaha (credit: BuzzFeed), Damon Tabor (credit: Ethan Hickerson), Walter Thompson-Hernández (credit: June Canedo), Ilyon Woo (credit: Joon Park).

Submissions are open for Ruminate magazine’s VanderMey Nonfiction Prize. The annual prize awards $1,500 and publication in Ruminate to a creative nonfiction work of 5,500 words or less. There is no theme or topic for the prize, and all creative nonfiction forms—including personal essays, memoirs, and literary journalism—are accepted. 

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Using only the online submission system, submit a work of creative nonfiction of no more than 5,500 words and a $20 entry fee by October 30. The entry fee includes one copy of a digital issue of Ruminate. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Founded in 2006, Ruminate is a nonprofit literary arts magazine with the mission to create “a space to share good stories, poetry, and art, including the stories and work of those who are nudged forward, backwards, and sideways on the spiritual journey.” The 2018 winner of the VanderMey Nonfiction Prize was Jonathan Winston Jones, whose essay “Bison Clouds” was selected by judge Camille Dungy and published in Hauntings: Ruminate 47.

In a recent interview for BOMB Magazine, poets Prageeta Sharma and James Thomas Stevens visit the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe and discuss topics ranging from Native American artists to identity, community, and appropriation. Throughout the interview the paintings and artworks viewed at the museum are brought into their conversation, propelling them to go in new directions or to speak more deeply on a subject. This week take a walk somewhere scenic—perhaps in a park, natural environment, or art museum—and write a short lyric essay that ties together issues already on your mind with ones that come up as you explore and carefully observe your surroundings. 

The 32nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”) are currently open for submissions. The Lammys honor books in more than twenty genres ranging from literary fiction and poetry to speculative fiction, comics, and memoir, and are judged “principally on literary merit and content relevant to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer lives.” 

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Submit three hard copies of a book and, if available, a .PDF version of the text, by November 15. Books put forward for consideration in this Lammys cycle must be published between January 1 and December 31, 2019, and may be nominated in no more than one category. Submissions may be made by authors as well as publishers or publicists. All authors, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, are welcome to have their work considered, except in the case of the awards that mark specific stages of an individual LGBTQ writer’s career. The fee is $55 per book; for publishers entering eleven or more books, the fee is $45 per book. Visit the website for complete guidelines. 

Finalists will be announced in March 2020. Winners will be revealed at the Lambda Literary Awards gala ceremony on June 8, 2020 at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Tickets for the gala will go on sale in spring 2020.

I’m Kelly Harris and I’ll be reporting from the Big Easy: New Orleans, Louisiana. I am a poet—see my Poets & Writers Directory profile for more on that—and I work as a freelancer and consultant for many projects around town, including the Words & Music festival. The annual event, upcoming in November, celebrates the literature, music, films, and history of New Orleans and is definitely worth checking out, whether you’re a local or a visitor. If you haven’t already, check out the Literary Events Calendar where you can peruse local events and list more for free. And if you’re on the go, download the Poets & Writers Local app.

As the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in New Orleans, I have the pleasure of engaging with the local literary community and informing them about the resources and funding opportunities that P&W offers. Several local writers have already been funded by the mini-grants from the Readings & Workshops program and I look forward to spreading the word to more writers in Orleans Parish and beyond. Writers at all levels who give readings or conduct writing workshops can submit an application and find out more about the program.

New Orleans is typically known for its food and music, but there is a thriving literary arts scene worth exploring. I’m excited to highlight the many writers and events that make writing in New Orleans magical.

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“Sometimes the narrator tries to steer her thoughts in directions she prefers, or recoils from certain darker avenues of thought, but she can’t keep it up for long,” writes Lucy Ellmann in a Washington Post interview about her new novel, Ducks, Newburyport (Biblioasis, 2019), which is comprised of a single sentence that extends over a thousand pages. Write a short story that is entirely contained within one sentence. Allow for detours and interruptions—tidbits of song lyrics, physical sensations, flashbacks—to flow and come out. How do all the thoughts and distractions combine to form a bigger picture or statement?

¿Que dice la buena vida, mi gente? On September 4, I joined the Houston Writers Coalition—a newly formed group of activist writers, professors, and creators—for an event supporting the Writers for Migrant Justice campaign. Organized by poets Christopher Soto, Jan-Henry Gray, Anni Liu, and Javier Zamora, the campaign brought writers together in more than forty cities across the United States to protest the government’s immigration policies and raise funds for the Immigrant Families Together Project, an organization that provides legal aid to undocumented families.

Here in Houston we participated by hosting a marathon reading—simply put, a reading with no introductions, prefaces, book signings, or discussions, just our words. Over forty writers gathered at the Holocaust Museum Houston, each of us reading an original piece or a piece from a notable writer on the topic of immigration. We raised a good deal of money for the campaign and auctioned off two mini-libraries, which each included a set of books signed and donated by local authors.

There are a few moments when a writer can say that they can make a direct impact outside of the written word, and that day, as we held simultaneous readings in multiple cities, writers stepped up to the plate and stood up for a just cause.

It was breathtaking.

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