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Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features Southwest Review, Oxford American, Midwestern Gothic, the Los Angeles Review, ZYZZYVA, Hawk & Handsaw, and Common.
Barnes and Noble has combined its Nook, digital, and college business into a new subsidiary, with a three hundred million dollar investment from Microsoft; David Carr details how a scuffle between Apple and Amazon caused author Buzz Bissinger's e-book removal from Amazon; a Kickstarter campaign has launched to fund a documentary featuring Pulitzer prize-winning poet W. S. Merwin; and other news
Robert Francis Flor, co-founder and director of the P&W–supported Pinoy Words Expressed Kultura Arts, blogs about planning readings.
Pinoy Words Expressed Kultura Arts (PWEKA) is in the process of planning readings for the rest of year. Curating a reading requires a lot. First, we identify writers—checking their availability and contract requirements. Then we coordinate with co-sponsors, like P&W, for support— obtaining funds, securing volunteers, producing promotional materials, confirming the location, etc. Finally, we create and implement an administration and evaluation strategy.
So far, we’ve come up with three events we’d like to host in the late summer or early fall. The first would be a Filipino/Latino young adult reading and workshop. We have approached Los Nortenos, a Latino literary organization based in Seattle, about the idea, and ideally we would work with both public and private school educators and community groups to provide comparisons of cultures that were influenced by the Spanish. Los Nortenos has been very receptive, and we are currently in the process of finalizing the details.
PWEKA has recently became aware of Hedgebrook, a writers retreat for women on Whidbey Island. We would love to co-host a reading with them highlighting local Filipina writers. Both Marivi Soliven Blanco, author of The Hunt for the Hippocampus and Philippine Fright: 13 Scary Stories, and Lolan Buhain Sevilla, author of Walang Hiya, will be attending Hedgebrook this summer. Both expressed an interest in giving a reading! PWEKA is considering featuring Marivi and Lolan with Maritess Zurbano, author of the memoir Rites of Enchantment, and young adult novelist Lisa Castillano, author of Balancing Light and Tilted.
Finally, I would love to have a stage reading with the Filipino American Young Turks of a play I completed at ACT Theatre last November. This might be the most cumbersome as PWEKA will have to identify locations, cast actors, and produce publicity materials, etc. Such is the work of planning readings.
Photo: Robert Francis Flor.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Seattle 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.
Amazon's quarterly revenues were up 34 percent, but net income is down; with the sequel to Hilary Mantel's best-selling Wolf Hall coming out early next month, the Wall Street Journal examines the popularity of book series; Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay will appear alongside Colin Farrell in an adaptation of Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale; and other news.
Guests arriving at the two Standard hotels in New York City for the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature next week will receive a gift bag filled with books selected by Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Jennifer Egan; the Atlantic looks at the tortured history of book reviews; How to Cook Everything author Mark Bittman writes of a pilgrimage to visit his friend, Kentucky author Wendell Berry; and other news.
Doris Betts, an award-winning Southern author, died on Saturday at her home in North Carolina; Tor/Forge eliminates DRM; a translation of the only known interview with Peruvian poet César Vallejo; and other news.
An anonymous publishing executive explains why he enjoys breaking Digital Rights Management on e-books; Mike Shatzkin reveals the things he learned from the recent London Book Fair; Reuters looks at the long history of literary tourism; and other news.
Marea Gordett, owner of Big Mind Learning, an educational firm serving students in the Capital region of New York, and author of the poetry book, Freeze Tag, issued by Wesleyan University Press, blogs about her P&W supported writing workshops at the Marillac Family Shelter in Albany.
When I moved from Boston to Albany,New York in the 1990’s, I was awake to the possibilities of a literary community provided by the New York State Writers’ Institute, but rather bereft at losing the teaching connections that I had in a large metropolitan area. Since a friend recommended that I apply to the Readings/Workshops Program at Poets & Writers for funding, I have been thrilled to find this network again in community centers, libraries, and senior centers throughout Albany County and at the beautiful Arkell Museum and Canajoharie Library in Montgomery County.
In these workshops, I am aware not only of what I receive from and give to the writers, but also of a third entity that the group itself becomes— a cacophonous, generous, uplifted community. When there is a space for freely writing about one’s joy, pain and longing, and others willing to listen to these long-withheld emotions-- amazing changes can happen. No matter what the age of the participants, we write from a deep, secret place and then we share, sometimes reluctantly, but always from a growing peace and diminishing loneliness.
This was especially evident to me this winter when I conducted a workshop at the Marillac Family Shelter in Albany. Part of St. Catherine’s Center for Children, this emergency housing program for homeless families meets the initial need for shelter and assists families in empowerment and education. I found a warm welcome when I proposed a writing workshop for teens and mothers called “You are Unlimited.” In this pilot program, held once a week for five weeks, a core of eight people and a constantly-changing extended group gathered in a well-maintained recreation/computer room and wrote, shared, and performed their poems and life stories. As I entered the room every Thursday, mothers with babies and young children would clear the space and shut the door. The dedicated teens, with their mothers usually sitting in couches a few feet away, would sit hushed and ready to write, even after a full day of school.
Participants wrote long Delight Chants in response to Nikki Giovanni’s poem, Ego Tripping, and celebratory litanies after hearing Nazim Hikmet’s poem, Things I Didn’t Know I Loved. After overcoming their initial resistance and with support from staff members, the writers eagerly embraced the free-form poems and wrote lines such as the following:
My real name is J.H.
I want it to mean beautiful. I am a tornado.
I am a spinner. I am a very big swirl.
The enthusiastic staff members wrote with the students and mothers, gently encouraging them. When one of the mothers shared her work, the others jumped in, and eventually everyone lined up to have their work videotaped, accompanied by the applause and shouts of an appreciative audience. When one staff member read her words, everyone nodded in agreement: “I didn’t know I loved the table/until I missed the love that surrounded it./I didn’t know I loved rice/until we had to do without it./I didn’t know I loved the tides/until they washed away my impatience.
This spirit of warmth and camaraderie vanquished pessimism and sadness, if only for an afternoon. I’m tremendously grateful to the support of Poets & Writers for letting my teaching come to life again, and helping me bring to various corners of my region workshops that help restore trust. Especially during this time of resignation and contraction, Poets & Writers gives solace and hope.
Photo: Credit:
Support for Readings/Workshops in NewYork is provided, in part, by public funds from the NewYork State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
WNYC's On the Media's takes a comprehensive look at the state of the publishing industry; the Wall Street Journal examines the criticism of the Department of Justice's antitrust suit; today marks the 448th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare; and other news.
In response to Katie Roiphe’s Newsweek story on the popularity of the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, Salon asks dominatrixes about the phenomenon; appropriation artist Richard Prince’s latest work is the Catcher in the Rye by Richard Prince; Jamie Quatro examines how yoga's half-moon pose relates to the split consciousness of a typical writer; and other news.
