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The longlist for the 2017 National Book Award in fiction; House passes spending bill that upholds funding for NEA and NEH; writer J. P. Donleavy has died; and other news.
The longlist for the 2017 National Book Award in nonfiction; Eileen Myles on poetry, capitalism, and Trump; Ron Charles argues that the Booker Prize has become too American; and other news.
Earlier this year scientists published a study in the journal Nature detailing the first time genes with serious disease-causing mutations have been successfully edited in human embryos to produce healthy mutation-free embryos. Write a personal essay about the moral and ethical implications of gene-editing science as it continues to progress. In a hypothetical time when these advances might be a part of routine medical procedures, what decisions would you make for yourself and your family and loved ones? Read National Geographic’s “5 Reasons Gene Editing Is Both Terrific and Terrifying” for more insight.
The longlist for the National Book Award in poetry announced; a last interview with feminist Kate Millett; the rumor that the Voynich manuscript had been solved; and other news.
“As an English language writer, I’m not often asked to stretch culturally...” Eileen Myles talks about writing and nationalism, and the importance of international events like the Festival Neue Literatur. Myles’s debut memoir, Afterglow (a dog memoir) (Grove Press, 2017), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
A. A. Milne’s memoir to be republished; Jesmyn Ward on racial tension and writing novels; website publishes art and poetry by California death row inmates; and other news.
Jill Kalotay has been supporting the Spencertown Academy Arts Center as a volunteer for the past ten years. In 2015 she accepted the position of cochair of the Festival of Books with David Highfill, an executive editor at William Morrow, and she joined the Spencertown Academy Board of Directors in 2016.
It is important to me to support the arts, and particularly authors, since my daughter Daphne announced at the age of three that she wanted to be a writer. She has shown me what hard work it is, and how steep the climb to success is in today’s market. The annual Festival of Books, presented by the Spencertown Academy Arts Center, is a way to feature writers and focus on books—and to help ensure that they will be here for some time to come.
Housed in a beautifully restored 1840s Greek Revival schoolhouse at 790 State Route 203 in Spencertown, New York, the Spencertown Academy Arts Center is a cultural center serving Columbia County, the Berkshires, and the Capital region. It offers a variety of free and low-cost community arts events, including concerts, readings, theater pieces, art exhibitions, and arts-related workshops and classes.
For the past twelve years, the Festival of Books has been a major fund-raising event for the Spencertown Academy Arts Center. Subtitled “All Things Literary,” the festival provides a stage for authors to talk about their new books, poets to read from their collections, and high school students to read their prizewinning short stories and essays, entered earlier in a contest we sponsor in conjunction with the festival. (You can read the winning entries here.)
The three-day event takes place over Labor Day weekend, and also features a huge book sale, with over ten thousand donated books on offer. “The best books sale in the area,” according to many visitors. All the books are culled, cleaned, and sorted by Academy volunteers—those book lovers who want to get as many books as possible out into the world and bring in money for the Academy so that we can keep our doors open for one more year. Typically all of the authors come without promise of remuneration.
This year, we hosted an amazing array of artists, and five fiction writers were generously supported by grants from the Poets & Writers’ Readings & Workshops program.
Wesley Brown read from his Dance of the Infidels, a collection of related stories about jazz musicians (mostly real) and jazz lovers (imagined) in 1930s and 1940s New York City jazz clubs.
Rebecca Morgan Frank read from her collection, The Spokes of Venus, and spoke about the inspiration for her poems, in which magicians, wig makers, sculptors, perfumers, and choreographers help conjure these works about making and observing art.
In spite of the incessant rain beating on our tent, on one of the worst days of the summer, Elinor Lipman and Louie Cronin shared the stage for a session called “If These Walls Could Talk.” Lipman’s latest book, On Turpentine Lane, is a romantic comedy about a restless woman who impulsively buys a dilapidated house that soon reveals a mysterious past. Everyone Loves You Back, Cronin’s very funny first novel, features another house in dire need of repair, this one in Cambridge. Town and gown meet again!
Patricia Park read from her novel, Re Jane, set in the disparate worlds of Queens, Brooklyn, and Seoul during the early 2000s. In the novel, Jane Re, a Korean American woman (and orphan), lives with her aunt and uncle in Queens, and feels like an outsider. Park’s animated talk provided glimpses of her own background in Flushing, Queens and described some of the difficulties in getting her novel onto the TV screen. Actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim is adapting the book as a half-hour comedy series.
For the past five years we have been operating as an all-volunteer organization. We rely totally on all the volunteers, donors, sponsors, and kind artists who support us with their valuable time and talents. We are so grateful! And especially thankful to Poets & Writers for their financial backing of writers and events such as ours.
Support for the Readings & Workshops Program in New York is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Photo: Spencertown Academy Arts Center’s Festival of Books (Credit: Peter Blandori).On not giving up on getting published; Nicole Krauss on what she’s reading; the timelessness of W. S. Merwin’s poetry; and other news.
“They make us more empathetic. They connect us to one another. They make people who are not like us more human.” Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation, shares her love of books and why reading them is so important for PBS NewsHour’s “Brief but Spectacular” series.
Fiction and nonfiction writers: The weather’s changing and hopefully stirring up creative energy for you to put towards your writing. Consider submitting to the following contests with upcoming deadlines, each offering at least $1,000 and publication.
Hippocampus Magazine Remember in November Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Hippocampus Magazine is given annually for an essay. The winner will also receive free admission to the annual HippoCamp Conference for creative nonfiction writers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in Summer 2018. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $12
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction: A prize of $10,000 and publication by Dzanc Books is given annually for a novel. Lindsey Drager, Daniel A. Hoyt, and Chrissy Kolaya will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $25
Dzanc Books Short Story Competition: A prize of $2,500 and publication by Dzanc Books is given annually for a story collection. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $25
Disquiet/Dzanc Books Open Borders Book Prize: A prize of $5,000 and publication by Disquiet, an imprint of Dzanc Books, will be given annually for a novel, a memoir, a collection of short stories or essays, or a cross-genre work that “exhibits a marked commitment to mutual understanding and cultural exchange across the globe.” Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $25
TulipTree Publishing Stories That Need to Be Told Contest: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a short story or an essay “that tells a story.” The winning work will also be published in the contest anthology, Stories That Need to Be Told. Deadline: September 16. Entry fee: $20
Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines and submission details. Check out our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
