Amazon’s New Imprint, the Private Language of Poetry, and More
Entropy’s picks for the best poetry of 2017; eight reasons your submission strategy sucks; dictionary.com announces its word of the year; and other news.
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Books Through Bars
Caption:
“If you believe in literature...then you believe that some of these books have the power to transform people and the way they see the world.” Danny Schaffer, a member of the Books Through Bars volunteer collective, which matches and sends requested books to incarcerated people, talks about the importance of access to knowledge, history, and literature in the prison system.
Adopted Korean Writers Read for a Global Audience
Julayne Lee is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, Not My White Savior (Rare Bird Books, 2018). She is a Community Literature Initiative scholar and a Las Dos Brujas alum. She has been published by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Cultural Weekly, and Korean Quarterly. As part of the Writ Large Press #90X90LA project in 2017, she hosted the first-ever reading with adoptees of color in Los Angeles and is launching a writing workshop for those who identify as adopted people of color or racially ambiguous. Lee is cofounder of Adoptee Solidarity Korea – Los Angeles (ASK-LA) and can be found on Twitter @julayneelle.
Since the 1950s, South Korea has produced approximately two hundred thousand overseas adopted Koreans. As we’ve entered adulthood, gathering and connecting through our shared experiences have played important roles in our identity formation and well-being. For some, writing has been a means to navigate our adoption journeys, which at times can be very isolating geographically and emotionally.
In October 2017, over two hundred and thirty adopted Koreans gathered from across the country and around the world to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Adopted Koreans Association – San Francisco (AKA-SF) with a conference. A reading with adopted Korean writers highlighted their experiences through poetry, memoir, and fiction.
The reading brought together authors Jessica Sun Lee (An Ode to the Humans Who’ve Loved and Left Me), Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello (Hour of the Ox), SooJin Pate (From Orphan to Adoptee), and former Fresno Poet Laureate Lee Herrick (Gardening Secrets of the Dead). I also shared poems from my forthcoming collection, Not My White Savior. Our writing documents a variety of perspectives and issues including imagining the Korean families we might have grown up in, interrogating the text of our adoption files, highlighting the approximately thirty-five thousand intercountry adoptees without U.S. citizenship, and questioning our place both with family and in America.
Regardless of some of us having met only via e-mail prior to the reading and having our own unique experiences, our writing resonated amongst one another and with the audience. In the discussion that followed the reading, attendees expressed how meaningful and validating it was to hear our honest, raw words. The emotion in the room signified how giving life to shared experiences that have been suppressed can help us release significant thoughts and feelings, and begin to heal. With an ever-increasing focus on mental health for adopted people, this reading was critical in validating our experiences and bridging the isolating divide some of us have experienced.
My hope is that the bonds we formed through our shared experiences will carry us forward to continue this important work of writing and healing, and in turn provide a means of healing for others in our community. While honesty in writing can be challenging, as Aspen Matis, author of Girl in the Woods (HarperCollins, 2015), has said, “Authenticity sings.” And sing we did.
Thanks to AKA-SF for hosting the reading and to Poets & Writers for sponsoring this important reading.
Support for Readings & Workshops in California is provided by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Photo: Julayne Lee (Credit: Samantha Magat).Gifted Giving
In O. Henry’s 1905 short story “The Gift of the Magi,” a young woman is in desperate need of the perfect Christmas present for her husband one day before the holiday. The two have fallen on hard times and find themselves with little money and only a pair of prized possessions: Della’s long brown hair and Jim’s gold watch. Della ends up selling her hair to buy a watch-fob chain for Jim, only to discover during the gift exchange that Jim has sold his watch to buy her combs for her formerly long hair. Think of a time when you’ve made a significant personal sacrifice in order to bestow a gift or act of generosity, or when someone else has done the same for you. Write an essay about the emotional journey involved in committing to such an act of kindness and selflessness. What feelings of conflict or uncertainty accompanied the situation, and what outcomes made the sacrifice worth it?
Museum of the Bible, Good Author Photos, and More
Longlist for the Tournament of Books announced; recommendations for books about food; Margaret Atwood’s typewriters; and other news.
Upcoming Short Prose Deadlines
Prose writers, are you sitting on a short story, essay, or piece of flash fiction? With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, take some time before you fill up on turkey to fill out applications to the following contests with upcoming deadlines—each offering prizes from $1,000 to $20,000 and publication. Now that’s something to be thankful for!
Deadline: Tuesday, November 21
Literary Death Match 250-Word Bookmark Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication will be given annually for a short short story of up to 250 words. The winning story will be published on Literary Death Match bookmarks and distributed to events around the world. The winner and finalists will also be invited to read at Literary Death Match events. Roxane Gay will judge. Entry fee: $15
Deadline: Thursday, November 23
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.” There is no entry fee.
César Egido Serrano Foundation International Flash Fiction Competition: A prize of $20,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to attend an award ceremony in Madrid will be given annually for a work of flash fiction written in English, Spanish, Hebrew, or Arabic. Three runner-up prizes of $1,000 each and an all-expenses-paid trip to attend the award ceremony will be given to stories in each of the remaining languages. The winning works will be published in a prize anthology. There is no entry fee.
Deadline: Thursday, November 30
Fish Publishing Fish Short Story Prize: A prize of €3,000 (approximately $3,400) and publication in the annual Fish Publishing anthology is given annually for a short story. The winner will also receive a five-day short story workshop at the West Cork Literary Festival in July 2018. Entry fee: $26
Lascaux Review Prize in Short Fiction: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Lascaux Review is given annually for a short story. The winner and finalists will also be published in the 2018 Lascaux Prize Anthology. Entry fee: $10
Quarter After Eight Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest: A prize of $1,008.15 and publication in Quarter After Eight is given annually for a prose poem, a short short story, or a micro-essay. Stuart Dybek will judge. Entry fee: $15
Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication in Louisiana Literature is given annually for a short story by a writer who has not published a full-length book of fiction. The winner also receives domestic airfare of up to $500, private lodging, and a VIP pass to the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival in March 2018 to give a reading. Jennifer Haigh will judge. Entry fee: $25
Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Happy Thanksgiving, and happy writing!
Ursula K. Le Guin on the Imagination, Richard Adams’s Library, and More
A defense of Mary Oliver; David France wins 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize; Zinzi Clemmons speaks out against Lenny Letter and Lena Dunham; and other news.
NEA Announces Grants, VCFA Launches International MFA, and More
Washington Post’s best books of 2017; a profile of Chinese novelist Xue Yiwei; writing with a disability; and other news.
I Remember
In his experimental memoir, I Remember (Angel Hair Books, 1970), Joe Brainard begins every paragraph with the phrase, “I remember.” By repeating this simple form again and again, Brainard is able to uncover memories previously buried beneath other memories: “I remember my grade school art teacher, Mrs. Chick, who got so mad at a boy one day she dumped a bucket of water over his head. I remember one very hot summer day I put ice cubes in my aquarium and all the fish died. I remember after people are gone thinking of things I should have said but didn’t.” Try borrowing Brainard’s construction for your own experimental essay. Follow the beads of memory and see if they lead you somewhere surprising.
Jesmyn Ward, Frank Bidart Win National Book Awards
The winners of the 2017 National Book Awards were announced this evening in New York City. Jesmyn Ward took home the award in fiction for her novel Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner), and Frank Bidart won the award in poetry for Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Masha Gessen won in nonfiction for The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (Riverhead Books), and Robin Benway won in young people’s literature for her novel Far From the Tree (HarperCollins). Each of the winners will receive $10,000.
Actress Cynthia Nixon emceed the ceremony and opened the evening by emphasizing the importance of books. “Books are among the most powerful weapons we have against what has lately felt like a hostile world,” she said. “For some of us books provide a welcome escape or a valuable resource for arming us with indispensable knowledge of history. But it also offers something we so desperately need: broadened perspective…. They cultivate empathy, they inspire action, they make us feel less alone, and they expose us to an experience we couldn’t imagine on our own.”
The winners of the 2017 awards echoed this sentiment. “Writing the poems was how I survived,” said Bidart upon winning the poetry prize. “I hope that the journeys these poems go on will help others survive as well.” In her acceptance speech, Ward addressed the crowd and said, “You looked at me and the people I love and the people I write about…. and you saw your grief, your love, your losses, your regret, your joy, your hope. I am deeply grateful, and I hope to continue this conversation with all of you for all of our days.”
Earlier in the evening, Bill Clinton presented the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community to Richard Robinson, the chairman, president, and CEO of Scholastic. “All over this country there are people who are forming new neural networks at the speed of light, stimulated by books that wouldn’t be here if not for [Robinson’s] day job at Scholastic and his commitment to this kind of philanthropic work,” said Clinton.
The foundation also honored Annie Proulx with the 2017 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Actress Anne Hathaway, who starred in the 2005 film adaptation of Proulx’s story “Brokeback Mountain,” presented the award to the writer, who is the author of several story collections and novels, most recently Barkskins (Scribner, 2016). The annual $10,000 award is given for lifetime achievement, which Proulx wryly noted in her acceptance speech. “Although this is award is given for lifetime achievement,” she said, “I didn’t start writing until I was fifty-eight.”
Established in 1950, the National Book Awards are among the literary world’s most prestigious prizes. The 2016 winners included poet Daniel Borzutzky, fiction writer Colson Whitehead, and nonfiction writer Ibram X. Kendi.
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