Archive July 2016

Longlist Announced for 2016 Man Booker Prize

This morning, the longlist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was announced. The annual award of £50,000 (approximately $66,000) is given for a work of fiction originally written in English and published in the United Kingdom by a writer of any nationality.

The thirteen longlisted books are:

The Sellout (Oneworld) by Paul Beatty (U.S.); The Schooldays of Jesus (Harvill Secker) by J.M. Coetzee (South Africa, Australia); Serious Sweet (Jonathan Cape) by A.L. Kennedy (U.K.); Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton) by Deborah Levy (U.K.); His Bloody Project (Contraband) by Graeme Macrae Burnet (U.K.); The North Water (Scribner) by Ian McGuire (U.K.); Hystopia (Faber & Faber) by David Means (U.S.); The Many (Salt) by Wyl Menmuir (U.K.); Eileen (Jonathan Cape) by Ottessa Moshfegh (U.S.); Work Like Any Other (Scribner) by Virginia Reeves (U.S.); My Name Is Lucy Barton (Viking) by Elizabeth Strout (U.S.); All That Man Is (Jonathan Cape) by David Szalay (Canada, U.K.); and Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta Books) by Madeleine Thien (Canada).

The judges—Amanda Foreman, Jon Day, Abdulrazak Gurnah, David Harsent, and Olivia Williams—selected this year’s finalists from 155 books published between October 1, 2015, and September 30, 2016. Foreman, the 2016 chair, said of this year’s finalists, “From the historical to the contemporary, the satirical to the polemical, the novels in this list come from both established writers and new voices. The writing is uniformly fresh, energetic and important. It is a long list to be relished.” The list includes four debut novels and one former double winner, J. M. Coetzee, who received the prize in 1983 for Life & Times of Michael K, and again in 1999 for Disgrace.

The shortlist of six finalists will be announced on Tuesday, September 13, at a press conference in London. Each shortlisted author receives £2,500. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, October 25, at a ceremony in London’s Guildhall.

First awarded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious English-language prizes for literary fiction. Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, Iris Murdoch, Hilary Mantel, and Marlon James, whose 2015 winning novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, has sold over 315,000 copies in the U.K. and commonwealth to date, and is translated in twenty languages. 

Women's Stories From the Margins

Estevan Azcona, PhD, is director of MECA Presents, the arts and residency program at Multicultural Education and Counseling Through the Arts (MECA) in Houston, Texas. A former curator for the National Performance Network's Performing Americas Program, he has also served on grant panels for organizations including the National Association for Latino Arts and Culture. Azcona is an ethnomusicologist by training and also serves as Music Director for MECA's AfterSchool Arts program. Below, he blogs about a P&W–supported reading that took place on April 7, 2016.

MECA Reading

Multicultural Education and Counseling Through the Arts (MECA) is a Latino-based multicultural, multidisciplinary arts organization that has been serving low-income communities in Houston, Texas for almost forty years. Beginning in a local parish church to give "at risk" or "inner city'' neighborhood kids music, dance, and art classes after school and during the summer, MECA has since watched the inner loop of Houston change as gentrification played its part in the Sixth Ward neighborhood where the organization has always been located, as well as throughout the central part of the city, where it is becoming increasingly expensive to live. Instead of coming from down the block, or a mile or so away, families now bring their kids—some of them driving thirty minutes plus one way—to MECA from throughout the metropolitan area.

For some time now, Poets & Writers has been a welcome source of support for writers to come and read their work and give workshops to the kids, the families, and the public. Houston's first poet laureate, Gwendolyn Zepeda, is a MECA alumna from the Sixth Ward and has many times been central to bringing creative writing workshops to our students, with help from P&W, as have other local writers. As a predominantly performance and visual arts organization, this support has been critical in bringing letters into our programming.

In April of this year, we had the opportunity to present three Latina writers, each approaching their craft in different ways: local writer Jasminne Mendez is a powerhouse performance poet; Sarah Rafael García is a talented memoirist and youth writing advocate with her project, Barrio Writers; and Isabel Quintero is a gifted fiction writer who has recently garnered a lot of attention. We were lucky to have writer and poet, Edyka Chilomé, from Dallas, come to Houston to serve as emcee for the public reading.

When the authors came to us to do a project together, we were especially excited as the work of each of the writers eloquently addresses the experience of growing up and/or being Latina. While all youth from marginalized communities are challenged to have the opportunities other groups take for granted, at MECA we are not unaware of the obstacles for young women of color, and here was a great project to open the door for young Latinas to the work of these authors. Though we were concerned with turnout, as we do not often present writers, we had an audience of at least forty ready to hear the words and stories of this group of women, including a dozen or so youth who participated in the joint writing workshop. Virtually everyone stayed after the public reading to speak with the authors, buy books, and chat amongst themselves. And the sign was clear to MECA, do this again!

Photo: Jasminne Mendez. Photo credit: Pin Lim.

Support for Readings & Workshops events in Houston 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.

PEN Launches $75,000 Book Award

Yesterday, the New York City–based PEN American Center announced its new PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, an annual prize honoring a book in any genre that has “broken new ground and signals strong potential for lasting influence.” The winner will receive $75,000.

Funded by oral historian Jean Stein, the award will be the largest prize conferred by PEN, and one of the richest literary prizes in the United States. PEN America president Andrew Solomon says the award will “focus global attention on remarkable books that propel experimentation, wit, strength, and the expression of wisdom.” An anonymous judging panel will nominate candidates for the prize internally; there is no application process.

In addition to the book prize, Stein will also fund a $10,000 oral history grant. The award will support “the completion of a literary work of nonfiction that uses oral history to illuminate an event, individual, place, or movement.”

The inaugural winners of both prizes will be announced at the annual PEN Literary Awards Ceremony in February 2017.

Stein has authored numerous works of nonfiction and conducted interviews with prominent American cultural figures, including William Faulkner and Robert F. Kennedy. Stein’s most recent book is West of Eden: An American Place, a profile of five prominent Los Angeles families.

Pride From El Barrio: Verónica Reyes on Bringing Xicana Readings to AWP

Verónica Reyes is the author of Chopper! Chopper! Poetry From Bordered Lives (Arktoi Books, 2013). She is a Chicana feminist jota poet from East Los Angeles. She scripts poetry for her communities: la jotería, Chicanas y Mexicanos. She has received grants and fellowships from residencies, such as the Montalvo Arts Center. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Feminist Studies, North American Review, and the Minnesota Review. Currently, Reyes teaches at California State University, Los Angeles.

firme tejana-clifas

“El pueblo unido jamás sera vencido//La jotería unida jamás sera vencida.” Xicana Power! Jota Power! In the air, I felt it. These fourteen mujeres voices needed to be here. To claim space. Establish our existence. In this society, the written text is valued. La palabra sets the boundaries as what gets recognized and what gets excluded. Chicana writing plays a pivotal role in breaking down puertas. Xicana jota literature must fight through many barriers. Our writings are a necessity.

April 2015
At the AWP Annual Conference & Bookfair in Minneapolis, the frigid air outside planted the yearning for warmth. So many writers were excited to meet old friends. I saw young writers feel at home. This was their community. But then I felt a knot inside me. I scanned the book fair and the hallways. It slapped me. Most of these writers were white.

I looked for poets/writers who mirrored me: a Mexican American butch dyke. Immediately, I understood Latinas/os were just a smudge of color in this mass. And this pissed me off. I was not going to accept: Brown, queer or straight, authors “absent” at this major writers’ event. So I invited Xicana—dykes and straight—writers and proposed three events.

April 1-2, 2016
El Centro’s morning sol draped the sky, the buildings, and the cracked sidewalks with the yawn of light. On Pico and Venice, I stepped off the bus. Breathed in downtown’s morning: warmth, cars, dust. Strolled up Pico to Figueroa, the clatter of skyscrapers’ noise stammered.   
The Los Angeles Convention Center was booming. Strutted up the walkway and saw an old friend, Wanda, my fellow Chicana dyke, the moderator for the Jota panel. Her face, her embrace, her queerness, her cariño, said it all why our presence was necessary.

All the readings were awesome. “Jotas: A Chicana Lesbian Reading by Barrio-Based Writers” event was amazing. The writers—Wanda Alarcón, Verónica Reyes, Claudia Rodríguez, Griselda Suárez—performed their work to a beautiful audience who dared to attend the first session. Alarcón’s framed the importance of Xicana jota literature and today’s plight. They absorbed their words and gave a beautiful embracing applause. Feminist poetry filled the room about East L.A. tacos dorados via Long Beach, chanting of power in the room, and culminating with the hiss of spray paint from a Compton poet. Everything was blaring pride.

Puentes bridges“¡Chicana! Power! A Firme Tejana-Califas Reading.” These writers— Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Anel Flores, Guadalupe García Montaño, Laurie Ann Guerrero, Emmy Pérez—were mesmerizing. Joy was pulsing in the room. García Montaño introduced each writer and the authors empowered the room with stories set in San Antonio, Río Grande Valley, L.A., and la frontera. The lives of immigrants were honored. Cariño for familia bloomed in the room.

“Puentes=Bridges: A Queer-Straight Mujeres Reading” presented Olga García Echeverría, Estella González, liz gonzález, Melinda Palacio, and Karleen Pendleton Jiménez. The audience mirrored puentes. The event was a beautiful roundabout. Each writer introduced the next one. It honored bridges and the support of each other. The readings explored a hotel Juárez, the Inland Empire in the seventies, an East L.A. memoir for her mama, and shared the road to butch pregnancy. Questions flew in to the writers. The room enveloped the love of literature from laughter, to tears, to pride. It was a beautiful culmination.

Photos: (top) firma tejana-califas readers. (bottom) Puetes=Bridges readers. Photo credit: Michael Senado.
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.

Center for Fiction Announces First Novel Prize Longlist

The Center for Fiction has announced its 2016 First Novel Prize longlist. The prize is given annually for a debut novel published in the award year. The winning author receives $10,000, and each shortlisted author receives $1,000. 

The longlisted novels are: The Alaskan Laundry by Brendan Jones (Mariner Books), All Joe Knight by Kevin Morris (Grove Press), Another Place You’ve Never Been by Rebecca Kauffman (Soft Skull Press), As Close to Us as Breathing by Elizabeth Poliner (Lee Boudreaux Books), The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron (Seven Stories Press), Dodgers by Bill Beverly (Crown), Girl Through Glass by Sari Wilson (Harper), The Girls by Emma Cline (Random House), Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn (Liveright), Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf) How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee (Viking), Hurt People by Cote Smith (FSG Originals), The Lightkeepers by Abby Geni (Counterpoint), The Longest Night by Andria Williams (Random House), The Mirror Thief by Martin Seay (Melville House), The Regional Office is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales (Riverhead Books), Shelter by Jung Yun (Picador), Stork Mountain by Miroslav Penkov (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Sweetgirl by Travis Mulhauser (Ecco), Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings by Stephen O’Connor (Viking), Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss (Scout Press), We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge (Algonquin Books), What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves (Scribner), and Wreck and Order by Hannah Tennant-Moore (Hogarth).

The shortlist will be announced in September, and the winner will be announced at the Center for Fiction’s annual benefit and awards dinner on Tuesday, December 6, in New York City.

Viet Thanh Nguyen won the 2015 prize for The Sympathizer (Grove Press), which also went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Previous winners of the First Novel Prize include Marisha Pessl, Junot Díaz, Hannah Tinti, Ben Fountain, and Tiphanie Yanique.

Publishers may submit books to be considered for the prize; submissions for the 2017 prize will open in January.

Listen to Yaa Gyasi read an excerpt from her novel, Homegoing, which is included in the Poets & Writers Magazine 2016 First Fiction roundup.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive Support and Encouragement

Vern Miller has authored many stories and articles. He holds advanced degrees in German Language and Literature, as well as an MBA degree, and has taught at two major universities. Now he is combining his enthusiasm for literature with his interest in business to publish the Fifth Wednesday Journal.

Fifth Wednesday Books, Inc., publishes a nationally recognized print magazine, Fifth Wednesday Journal, and the online literary magazine, FWJ Plus. In addition to the magazines, we organize and participate in literary events in many venues. Our mission is to be a bridge between the creative artist and a diverse and receptive audience, to make good poetry and prose a part of the daily lives of more people. We are an all-volunteer organization with highly qualified, very energetic, and intensely loyal editors and interns, who produce more than four hundred pages of poetry, fiction, essays, black and white photography, book reviews, and interviews each year. We began as a print literary magazine, and have expanded our programs and activities to include presentations in Chicago, New York, and other locations, as an essential part of our pursuit of excellence.

Five years ago we decided to do everything we could to bring even more poetry to people in Chicago through events featuring poets from around the country, music, and book signings and receptions. We needed partners. We asked for support. Support arrived. We are grateful to the Poetry Foundation for the donation of their much sought after space for our programs for the past five years.

We needed more. We asked. Poets & Writers came through like champions. We have received critical support in the form of grants to assist with reading fees, without which we could not offer national writers to our audiences in Chicago. Here are some highlights:

In 2013, Poets & Writers helped us bring Marge Piercy and Ira Wood to our Chicago audience. (More than a hundred people braved a torrent of rain and wind.)

In 2014, Poets & Writers again provided critical support for a very successful program featuring three Illinois poets: Michael Anania, Elise Paschen, and Jeffery Renard Allen. (Almost a hundred people came for readings, music, and reception, despite the typical rainy weather in Chicago.)

In 2015, Poets & Writers came through again when we asked for help in presenting a program of African American poets including Haki Madhubuti, Angela Jackson, Roger Reeves, and others. (More than a hundred people filled the seats, even as I fretted about our lack of sufficient publicity.)

Photos: (top) Ira Wood, Marge Piercy, and Andrea Witzke Slot. (bottom) Haki Madhubuti, Angela Jackson, Calvin Forbes, Roger Reeves, and Kelly Norman Ellis. Photo credit: Fifth Wednesday Books.

Support for Readings & Workshops events in Chicago 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.

Deadline Approaches for BOAAT Chapbook Prize

Submissions are currently open for the BOAAT Press Chapbook Prize, awarded annually for a poetry chapbook. The prize includes $1,000 and publication of the winning chapbook in both a printed and handmade edition. Between one and four finalists will also each receive publication of their chapbooks as PDF digital downloads on BOAAT’s website and a $50 honorarium. 

BOAAT’s editorial team will select a longlist of twenty-five chapbooks, and award-winning poet Richard Siken will choose the winner. Siken is the author most recently of War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon, 2015), as well as the collection Crush (Yale University Press, 2005), which won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize.

Using the online submission manager, submit a manuscript of 15 to 30 pages of poetry along with a $17 entry fee by July 15. The winner and finalists will be announced by October. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Previous winners of the chapbook prize include Jess Feldman, Brenda Iijima, and Rebecca Farivar.

Watch a video below detailing the creation of BOAAT Press’s handmade book designs.

South African Writer Wins 2016 Caine Prize

South African writer Lidudumalingani has won the 2016 Caine Prize for African Writing for his story “Memories We Lost.” He received £10,000 (approximately $12,900) and has been offered a monthlong residence at Georgetown University as the writer-in-residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics. The annual award, now in its seventeenth year, is given for a short story published in English and written by an African writer.

“The winning story explores a difficult subject—how traditional beliefs in a rural community are used to tackle schizophrenia. This is a troubling piece, depicting the great love between two young siblings in a beautifully drawn Eastern Cape,” said judge Delia Jarrett-Macauley. “Multi-layered and gracefully narrated, this short story leaves the reader full of sympathy and wonder at the plight of its protagonists.” In addition to Jarrett-Macauley, the 2016 judges were Adjoa Andoh, Robert J. Patterson, and Mary Watson.

The shortlist for the prize included Abdul Adan of Somalia and Kenya for “The Lifebloom Gift,” Lesley Nneka Arimah of Nigeria for “What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky,” Tope Folarin of Nigeria for “Genesis,” and Bongani Kona of Zimbabwe for “At Your Requiem.” They each received £500 (approximately $650), and all of their stories, along with Lidudumalingani’s, can be read at the Caine Prize website.

Established in 2000, the Caine Prize was launched to “encourage and highlight the richness and diversity of African writing by bringing it to a wider audience internationally.” The deadline for the 2017 prize is January 31, 2017; publishers may submit six copies of a story between 3,000 and 10,000 words published in English by an African writer. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Previous winners of the prize include Zambian writer Namwali Serpell, Kenyan writer Okwiri Oduor, and Nigerian writers Tope Folarin and Rotimi Babatunde.

Listen to Lidudumalingani read his winning story, “Memories We Lost.”

A Night of Dinner and Poetry at the Queens Center for Gay Seniors

On June 20, 2016, the Readings & Workshops (East) program alongside the Queens Center for Gay Seniors organized a celebratory evening of poetry for LGBTQ seniors in Jackson Heights, New York. Poets & Writers brought together LGBTQ teaching artists Amber Atiya, Regie Cabico, Shira Erlichman, and Emanuel Xavier to perform their work. The reading culminated four months of writing workshops with diverse programming ranging from playwriting to watercolor poetry comics. The reading at the Queens Center for Gay Seniors was a heartwarming and unique experience, bringing together LGBTQ New Yorkers across many generations. We asked the evening's performers their thoughts on the experience. Below are their responses.

“From the start the seniors were incredibly warm, present, and receptive. I heard deep ‘ooofs’ and ‘oooos’ after some of us poets’ riskier lines. They were there with us—100 percent—start to finish. We were able to turn sharp corners as readers and trust that they'd be open and follow our lead. Simply put, I loved it. I was touched that I could read about illness, specifically mental illness, the stigma that comes along with it, the ‘coming out’ process of saying, ‘I have mental illness,’ the specifics of medication and the resilience it takes to grapple with it all and have a bright-hearted crowd listening intently, finding ways to enter my narrative, to connect, even if they didn’t directly relate to everything. As a reader, what more can you hope for? And yet, it’s not just the way they listened during the performance. After the show they made a point to reach out, introduce themselves, and say a few words; our private conversations were tender, their gratitude so felt, their own stories filling the air. I got hugs and posed for goofy pictures. I was made to feel not just welcomed, but included, at home.”
—Shira Erlichman, writer and musician, whose album Subtle Creature is forthcoming in August 2016.

“LGBTQ seniors + Jackson Heights + poetry = why I still love New York City. I was thrilled to connect with elders who have seen and lived through so much (and endure), who were attentive and lovely, and welcomed four poets into their space. (What a treat to perform in a zip code that doesn’t begin with 1-0-0 or 1-1-2!) Many thanks to Poets & Writers for inviting me to perform and for recognizing the importance of intergenerational programming. Thank you to Shira, Regie, and Emanuel for their words and hearts and jokes. To the queerest borough and the Queens Center for Gay Seniors: love and love to you, always."
—Amber Atiya, poet and book artist, and author of the fierce bums of doo-wop (Argos Books, 2014).

“My workshop was an intimate celebration of seniors' lives in Jackson Heights. It was my first time working with an elderly population and their candidness blew me away. Hearing stories of coming out during the pre-Stonewall era, romantic foibles, and their political passion to be themselves was heartbreaking and humorous. The audiences at the senior center’s banquet were riveted and inspired by hearing four younger diverse queer voices. So many of the seniors were not exposed to the theatrically charged works of the readers. So many audience members came up to me and thanked me. These seniors have seen and related to so much of the readers’ work on mental health, family, religion, and race. An audience member from the workshop shared his struggle with cancer to the group in a way that he had never shared before. These brave hearts embrace poetry, they listen with a rainbow pride. They inspire me to be fearless.”
—Regie Cabico, spoken word pioneer and slam champion, and coeditor of Flicker & Spark: A Contemporary Anthology of Queer Poetry and Spoken Word (Lowbrow Press LLC, 2013).

“I’ve read in front of many different audiences throughout the years, everywhere from universities to prisons, and I always walk away astounded that my work doesn’t only appeal to my age group or younger but mostly to those that are much older. As a gay Latino poet, it amazes me when a little old white lady comes up excitedly to meet me in, like, Ohio. Sometimes we forget how our work can be widely universal and speak through the generations. That’s why being invited by Poets & Writers to read for our LGBTQ seniors was such an honor because it was an opportunity to share our words with such a vibrant part of our community. It is just as important for us to listen to their stories and acknowledge those that came before us because our LGBTQ history should never be forgotten. Our struggle for equality continues but our journey was nothing compared to theirs.”
—Emanuel Xavier, poet and activist, author of the poetry collections Radiance (Rebel Satori Press, 2016) and Americano: Growing up Gay and Latino in the USA (Queer Mojo, 2012), and the novel, Christ Like (Queer Mojo, 2009).

For more photos of the event, click here.

Photos: (top) Poets Amber Atiya, Emanuel Xavier, Regie Cabico, Shira Erlichman. (bottom) Queens Center for Gay Seniors group photo. Photo credit: Christian Rodriguez.

Support for Readings & Workshops in New York City is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with additional support from the Louis & Anne Abrons Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the A.K. Starr Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Poets & Writers. This program is supported by public funds from the New York City Council, in partnership with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Department for the Aging.