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Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Tell Me How It Ends
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“I hear words spoken in the mouths of children, threaded in complex narratives.” At a 92nd Street Y event, Valeria Luiselli reads from her book Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions (Coffee House Press, 2017), which details her experience as an interpreter for undocumented Latin American children facing deportation.
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Procrasti-what?
What do you do to put off important tasks? The social media hashtag #procrastibaking pulls up thousands of posts of goods baked while more pressing matters may have been at hand. Some procrastibakers claim that it’s part of the creative process and can help overcome writer’s block, that the sensory experience and rhythms of following a recipe’s steps can be conducive to warming up to a creative task. Write a personal essay about your own go-to procrastination method. How does your procrastination activity help or hinder your work? Does it do more than satisfy a desire to feel good and enjoy the present while postponing something else?
Breaking a Habit
Scientists published a study in Science magazine earlier this month observing that animals have been sleeping more during the day and increasing nocturnal habits in order to avoid interacting with humans who have steadily encroached upon their habitats and territories. Write a personal essay about a time when you felt the need to change a longstanding routine or habit. Was there a pivotal moment that motivated you to make the change or was it more gradual? How has your own flexibility or adaptability changed over the years?
Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint Wins Graywolf Nonfiction Prize
Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint has won the 2018 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize for her manuscript, Zat Lun. She will receive $12,000 and publication by Graywolf Press.
Of Zat Lun, Graywolf Press editor Steve Woodward said, “Myint’s hybrid approach and incorporation of myth and oral traditions overturn expectations around immigrant narratives, and add layers to her parallel investigations of both her family history and that of Myanmar. The whole team at Graywolf is delighted to see this truly original and bold manuscript join the ranks of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize winners.”
Myint is the author of the lyric novel, The End of Peril, the End of Enmity, the End of Strive, A Haven (Noemi Press, 2018). She is completing a PhD in creative writing at the University of Denver.
The Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize is given biennially for a manuscript-in-progress by a writer not yet established in the genre. Esmé Weijun Wang won the 2016 award for her essay collection, The Collected Schizophrenias, which will be published in February 2019. Other previous winners include Leslie Jamison, Eula Biss, and Kevin Young. Visit the website for more information.
(Photo: Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint; Credit: Dennis Shyu)
Childhood Pleasures
What were your favorite books to read for pleasure as a child? In the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, Christine Ro reports on Alvin Irby’s nonprofit organization Barbershop Books, whose programming creates reading spaces in barbershops to encourage young children to engage with literature. Through the program, Irby hopes to focus on “building boys’ motivation to read and helping them form a self-image as readers.” Write a personal essay about your most treasured and favorite book to read from your youth. What elements of the book resonated with you and encouraged you to take pride in identifying as a reader?
Rachel Cusk
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“I wanted writing to be something that involved relationships with other people.” Rachel Cusk talks about her experience teaching creative writing at Kingston University in London. Cusk’s novel Kudos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, is the third volume in the trilogy that began with Outline (Picador, 2016).
Genre:
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