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Brazilian publisher L&PM Editores has created a line of books called Ticket Books, which have refillable subway ticket balances embedded into the back covers, in order to encourage reading while commuting on the train. Titles include works by Arthur Conan Doyle, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Neruda, William Shakespeare, and Sun Tzu, as well as classic Garfield and Peanuts comics.
Myguail Chappel works in the DeKalb County Public Library's Adult Services department. For over ten years Chappel has coordinated diversity programs including One County, Many Voices; Pub Fiction; International Café; the Jubilee of Reading Book Club Conference; and outreach programs to local nonprofit community organizations in the DeKalb community in Decatur, Georgia. Throughout his tenure, Chappel has leveraged funding from Poets & Writers to develop poetry readings and literary readings that highlight the talents of local and national writers who share in the library’s vision of inclusiveness, diversity, and education to nontraditional library patrons and avid library users.
What makes your program unique?
The DeKalb County Public Library’s annual Jubilee of Reading Book Club Conference is unique because it allows booklovers and book clubs an opportunity to meet national and local award-winning authors in an intimate setting. The format of the conference allows attendees to hear each author discuss their writing, ask questions of the author, take pictures, and receive a personalized signed copy of the author’s work. This one-of-a-kind library event is held annually and with the assistance of Poets & Writers, this past year we were able to leverage resources and invite two nationally known authors Nea Simone and Deborah Johnson.
What recent program have you been especially proud of and why?
With the assistance of funding through Poets & Writers, our annual April Poetry Month program, which honors the works of poets, was a highlight for the DeKalb County Public Library. Poet Theresa Davis performed to poetry enthusiasts. Many attendees expressed they were new to her work, but had seen a listing of the event on the Poets & Writers Literary Events Calendar. This helped to expand the library’s publicity resources and allowed for the poet to gain new followers.
What was your most successful literary program, and why?
The most successful literary event has been the fifteenth Annual Jubilee of Reading Book Club Conference that was held on December 5, 2015. Normally we cap registration at one hundred attendees, but with the assistance of Poets & Writers we were able to accommodate over one hundred and fifty attendees. The energy and reception for the conference was magical. Authors and book lovers e-mailed me after the conference expressing that the event was both informative and fun. Author Deborah Johnson wrote, “I am sending you a proper, written thank you but just wanted to send a quickie now to let you know how honored I was to be asked to participate in the Jubilee of Reading. What a fantastic event—everything so well organized and with such fantastic participants.”
What’s the most memorable thing that’s happened at an event you’ve hosted?
Every event that has been hosted has had memorable moments. The most common theme for me would be seeing the joy that literary and poetry readings bring to the audience and the authors. The written word is sacred and to have that sacredness shared from each individual author’s perspective opens up the diverse world we live and participate in.
How do you cultivate an audience?
DeKalb County Public Library has created a great literary following through programming that we offer throughout the year. At the programs, we ask if attendees would like to be contacted about future events and use this database as a way to advertise, along with publicity through local newspapers, flyers, and Poets & Writers' resources, including the free Literary Events Calendar.
What do you consider to be the value of literary programs for your community?
A value cannot be placed on literary programs. The readings have allowed community participants an outlet to begin sharing their stories: to heal their inner conflicts and place value on their lives. Hosting authors has increased our community value by educating the public and creating a more educated society, gaining new readers, and allowing for diverse groups of people to connect and share their love of reading. The programs also give authors a platform to share their work and expand their audience.
Photo: Author Nea Simone at the Jubilee of Reading Book Club Conference. Photo credit: Angela Ried.
Support for Readings & Workshops events in Atlanta, Georgia is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors, and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Borat, RuPaul, and Ziggy Stardust are some well-known and colorful alter egos whose identities have served a purpose for their creators. Have you ever imagined or assumed an alternate identity? Write an essay about this character—or who this character could be, if you’re imagining for the first time—and where she stands in relation to your own psyche and personality. What does this second self allow you to express, and why?
Margo Perin is the author of the novel The Opposite of Hollywood (Whoa Nelly Press, 2015) and editor of Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories From Jail (Community Works/West, 2006) and How I Learned to Cook: And Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships (Tarcher/Penguin, 2004). She has taught writing to incarcerated populations, people challenged by life-threatening illnesses, migrants, refugees, elders, and at-risk youth and adults, and has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, O Magazine, and on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." She blogs about a recent P&W-supported writing workshop she conceived and facilitated for San Francisco youth under the auspices of California Poets in the Schools.
In September and October 2015, I embarked on a series of workshops that linked formerly incarcerated and at-risk youth at the Success Center San Francisco with high school students across the street at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (SOTA). I called the project Building Bridges.
The intent of the series was to provide the opportunity for formerly incarcerated and at-risk youth to write about their often invisible life experiences as they develop their creative writing and critical thinking skills, to shed light on their perspectives, and to provide the rare opportunity to foster literary community between young writers of different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. The workshops would not only help build bridges between young writers, but also between Success Center and SOTA staff, and family and community members.
Success Center and SOTA youth each explored and wrote personal narratives through poetry, prose, and spoken word, and read and responded to each others’ personal narratives. In addition, both groups responded to the feedback, creating an ongoing dialogue of understanding.
The workshops culminated with a reading by Success Center youth that was attended by staff, who expressed a deep appreciation and greater understanding of the life stories and literary talents of their students. To further connect the Success Center and SOTA, I facilitated a visit to SOTA by the Success Center Client Service Specialist, who gave a presentation to students and staff on the demographics and struggles that Success Center youth commonly face. It is my hope that the relationship between these institutions will continue and help to reinforce the bridge of understanding and the literary community initiated by the generous funding of Poets & Writers.
This project was extremely enlightening in terms of highlighting the vast difference in economics, education, literacy, feelings of self-worth, social support and validation, and services for youth in the same city and, in this case, for youth attending schools directly across the street from each other. While many of the students at SOTA can expect to continue into higher education and compete for jobs in fields of their choice as they continue to develop as writers, students at the Success Center struggle every day just to attend class to get their GED and improve their literacy.
I am deeply grateful to the sponsoring organization California Poets in the Schools for their generous, honest, and steadfast dedication to their mission as they provide opportunities for youth to find and express their literary voices, and to Poets & Writers for providing the funding to work with the Success Center writers, which would not have been possible otherwise. I am hoping to share what I learned through this project with the reading public, and with other writers and educators to help further "building bridges" between diverse populations.
Photo: Margo Perin. Photo credit: Marci Klane.
Major support for Readings & Workshops in California is provided by the James Irvine Foundation and the Hearst Foundations. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Submissions are currently open for the 2016 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, given biannually for a creative nonfiction manuscript-in-progress by an emerging author. The winner will receive a $12,000 advance and publication by Graywolf Press. The winner will also receive editorial support and guidance from Graywolf Press to complete the project. Brigid Hughes, founding editor of independent literary and culture magazine A Public Space, will judge.
Writers residing in the United States who have not published more than two books of nonfiction are eligible to apply. No prior publication is required. Using the online submission manager, submit a one-page cover letter that includes a brief biographical statement, a two to ten-page overview of the manuscript, and a minimum of a hundred pages, or 25,000 words, from the manuscript by January 31. There is no application fee.
The Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize “emphasizes innovation in form,” and seeks “projects that test the boundaries of literary nonfiction,” rather than “straightforward memoirs.” Previous winners include Riverine by Angela Palm, The Empathy Exams: Essays by Leslie Jamison, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young, and Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays by Eula Biss.
Founded in 1974, Graywolf Press is now considered one of the leading nonprofit literary publishers in the country. The press is “committed to the discovery and energetic publication of contemporary American and international literature.” Visit the website for more information.
Read an interview with Graywolf’s executive editor, Jeff Shotts, in the November/December 2014 issue of Poets & Writers.
"I feel like a subject chooses you—chooses me—probably based out of reading and life, both." Maggie Nelson talks about the process of writing her most recent book, The Argonauts (Graywolf Press, 2015), in an interview with Leah Newsom at the 2015 NonfictioNow Conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. Nelson is a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for the criticism prize.
While some people vow not to make any resolutions for the New Year, others are busy drawing up fresh goals—often involving self-improvement measures such as diet and exercise regimens; reading more; picking up a new language or hobby; or improving a financial situation. For 2016, turn your gaze outward and write a list of three resolutions, each focused on a different person in your life. It may be a close friend or family member, or someone you come into contact with on a daily basis but with whom you are only superficially acquainted—a neighbor, coworker, mail carrier, or coffee-shop barista. Write a trio of short essays in which you imagine what you can add to your encounters with each person in the coming year to invigorate your interactions. Predict how small gestures can potentially propel you into a dynamic new direction.
"It's an exploration, an homage, and a critique." Margo Jefferson talks to Jeffrey Brown about her memoir, Negroland (Pantheon, 2015), at the 2015 Miami Book Fair. Jefferson is a finalist in the autobiography category for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award.
The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced the finalists for its 2015 awards yesterday. Poets Terrance Hayes and Ada Limón, fiction writers Lauren Groff and Anthony Marra, and nonfiction writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Maggie Nelson are among the thirty finalists. The annual awards are given in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, criticism, autobiography, and biography.
The poetry finalists are Ross Gay for Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press), Terrance Hayes for How to Be Drawn (Penguin), Ada Limón for Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions), Sinéad Morrissey for Parallax: And Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and the late Frank Stanford for What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford (Copper Canyon Press).
The fiction finalists are Paul Beatty for The Sellout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Lauren Groff for Fates and Furies (Riverhead), Valeria Luiselli for The Story of My Teeth (Coffee House Press), Anthony Marra for The Tsar of Love and Techno (Hogarth), and Ottessa Moshfegh for Eileen (Penguin Press).
The autobiography finalists are Elizabeth Alexander for The Light of the World (Grand Central Publishing), Vivian Gornick for The Odd Woman and the City (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), George Hodgman for Bettyville (Viking), Margo Jefferson for Negroland (Pantheon), and Helen Macdonald for H Is for Hawk (Grove Press).
Other finalists include Ta-Nehisi Coates for Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau) and Maggie Nelson for The Argonauts (Graywolf Press) for the criticism prize. Farrar, Straus and Giroux led the field with five of its titles nominated for awards. Small presses with titles up for awards include Graywolf Press, Copper Canyon Press, Coffee House Press, and Milkweed Editions.
The NBCC also announced that Kirstin Valdez Quade is the recipient of the John Leonard Prize for her debut story collection, Night at the Fiestas (Norton). Carlos Lozada, an associate editor and nonfiction book critic at the Washington Post, won the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and writer Wendell Berry will receive the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.
First given in 1975, the National Book Critics Circle awards are nominated and selected by the NBCC board of directors, which is made up of twenty-four critics and editors. The 2014 winners included Claudia Rankine in poetry for Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press), Marilynne Robinson in fiction for Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and Roz Chast in autobiography for Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury). This year’s winners will be announced on March 17 at the New School in New York City.
Clockwise from top left: Hayes (MacArthur Foundation), Limón (Sarah Shatz), Groff (Megan Brown), Nelson (Harry Dodge), Coates (Liz Lynch), Marra
