Bryan Allen Fierro, Poets & Writers' Maureen Egen Writer's Exchange fiction winner, blogs about winning the award and his emotional literary journey, which carried him from Alaska to New York City. 

Fierro grew up in the environs of Los Angeles, California—Pico Rivera, Montebello, and Monterey Park. He received his BA in English/Writing from the University of Colorado at Denver, and recently graduated form Pacific University in Oregon with his MFA in Fiction. His thesis "Dodger Blue Will Fill Your Soul" is a collection of short stories that captures the fragile heart of the durable East Los Angeles community. The area serves as the gravity of his storytelling, which searches out both language and culture as a means of preservation. He is currently at work on his first novel, Shangri-LA. Fierro's stories earned him the 2013 Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award (WEX) in fiction and a second-place finish in the 2013 Lorian Hemingway Fiction Contest. His stories have appeared in Cooper Nickel and Quarterly West. Bryan lives in Anchorage, Alaska, where he serves his community as a firefighter and paramedic for the Anchorage Fire Department.

“The highest level of consciousness one can attain is to live in a constant state of gratitude.” - Unnamed shopkeeper in Molokai gift shop

It has been two months since my visit to New York City to participate as one of the two Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award (WEX) recipients. The little story that could, "100% Cherokee," finally found a home at Poets and Writers, thanks to the discerning eyes of a talented staff, and ultimately, author Ann Napolitano, a very gentle and soft-spoken soul who—as the final vote for the fiction selection for the State of Alaska—found value in my work. Up to that point, no one had wanted a story about rogue coyotes.

When Bonnie Rose Marcus at Poets and Writers called to inform me that I'd won the WEX award, I was humbled, dumbstruck really. My first thought was to contact my writing mentor, southern poet Jake Adam York—the one person who had forever strengthened my fiction. He taught me to value simplicity and appreciate an exactness in prose that seemed mathematical. He drew shapes on paper and instructed me to write according to their dimensions: a process of circles, oblongs, and trapezoidal narratives. He taught me about Muddy Waters and Thelonious Monk, BBQ, and small batch bourbon. He showed me that we as writers all carry something in us bigger than ourselves—some equivalent of a cross we must bear. For him, writing was a way to express his unflinching dedication to the voice and courage of the martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement.

It had been six years since we last spoke. I wrote an email to him that stated two important points. Number one: I was sorry for not keeping in touch. I had been too embarrassed about not writing more often. That, in addition to a wife with MS and living in Alaska, changed me wholly from the inside out. A new life had burrowed into my previous existence. Number two: I won. I won this magnificent opportunity and I wanted to share it with him more than anyone else in the world. It was only when I searched for Jake Adam York's contact information did I discover that he had died four months earlier. A sudden stroke had robbed him of life and us of words we’re incapable of stringing together for ourselves.

There would be no southern, twang-laced congratulations.

I recently unpacked an old box I’d kept in storage for the last five years. Inside was a sealed business letter-sized envelope addressed to the University of North Carolina Admissions Committee—a letter of recommendation for my graduate admittance written by Jake. His signature was scrawled across the envelope's glued seam. The contents inside held his unfettered opinion of me as a writer—and perhaps also as a person. We would be having a conversation after all. But I haven’t opened the letter yet. The timing isn’t right. I’ve reserved that singular moment for the first day I sit to write at the Jentel Artist Residency in Wyoming, an additional immeasurable gift from the WEX Award.

I could go on at length about the WEX award. I could tell you about the reading in SoHo in front of an informed and literary audience at McNally-Jackson, or the daily networking that filled me with hope as vital as the air in my lungs. Then there are the friendships I will value for a lifetime. All of these events and new relationships are the easy take away from an award such as this one (which is unique, by the way—there are no other awards quite like this one). Yet I won’t go on at length about the importance and depth of the experiences I enjoyed. I will simply end with this: The Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award has become a fulcrum in my writing life. It pieced together the fragments of my past, while pointing to all the possibilities of my future. I am forever indebted.

Photo: Bryan Allen Fierro. Photo Credit: Dein Bruce

The award is generously supported by Maureen Egen, a member of the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and retired as Deputy Chairman and Publisher of Hachette Book Group USA.

P&W-supported writer John Wareham recently taught a workshop for prisoners at the Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, New York. He blogs about his years running workshops in prisons.

I have spent a lifetime advising corporations how to select and develop winning teams and leaders. One day nearly twenty years ago, an aspiring executive client with a drug habit wound up in Rikers Island, and gravitated to a rehab program.

Noting that I had visited him a few times, a program official asked if I might come along one day as a guest speaker. I had already written a couple of self-help books, so I figured I would use some of that material, with the emphasis on people and communication skills. The class went so well that I've been running it ever since.

I decided early on that my students should graduate with a first-rate skill, so I focused on public speaking. Then I added parliamentary debating. Finally I integrated a series of life-changing discussion readings into my class. To the surprise of prison officials, I began with readings from philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Epictus; and psychologists Freud, Adler, and Berne. Shakespearean sonnets also proved highly apt. I compiled all the readings into a book and had forty copies delivered. Alas, the title, How to Break Out of Prison, attracted the attention of security officials, who confiscated everything. But when the carton finally came back to me, half a dozen copies were missing.

I moved on to teaching longer term offenders, including those at the maximum security unit at Downstate Correctional Facility. My students there are serving serious time for violent crimes, mostly armed robbery, manslaughter, or murder.

Three years ago, I added the creation and delivery of poetry to the public speaking element. I was surprised at how well this went. The guys loved being able to express themselves, as they put it, “freestyle.” Poetry was more important than politics; they could say anything. The poems were great and so was the delivery. My stipend from Poets & Writers enabled me to assemble their poems into a neat book.
 
This year, I had my each student in class deliver both a speech and a poem recounting key milestones in their journey from childhood to arrest, conviction, and incarceration—and then, to deeper self-recognition and enlightenment. I was struck by the honesty, wit, and profundity. I caught the attention of a publisher, who asked me to include insights of my own. I’m proud and excited to be sharing How to Survive a Bullet to the Heart.

Two poems from the book:

Questions

Who am I?
What have I done?
I can't believe I did that.
What have I become?
Why are those guys oozing red?
That one looks just like he’s dead.
They’re staring at me, everyone.
Wherever did I get this gun?

--Sheldon Arnold

Shades of Gray

Racism in the ghetto
        was just another day.
When it came to black and white
        there were no shades of gray.
I wised up to that jungle
        and tried to get away.
Hey, not so fast, the devil said,
        and I was shred and lay
        bleeding in a gutter
        with a bullet in my tray.
First I saw black
        then I saw white
        but never shades of gray.

--Andre Rivera

The Readings/Workshops program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.