Genre: Creative Nonfiction

National Book Critics Circle Finalists Announced

G&A: The Contest Blog
1.14.13

The finalists for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced today. Of the thirty finalists, one winner in each of the six categories will be selected this February to receive the prestigious literary prize. 

The finalists in poetry are David Ferry for Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations (University of Chicago Press), Lucia Perillo for On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths (Copper Canyon Press), Allan Peterson for Fragile Acts (McSweeney’s Books), D. A. Powell for Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf Press), and A. E. Stallings for Olives (Triquarterly).

The finalists in fiction are Laurent Binet for HHhH, translated by Sam Taylor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Ben Fountain for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ecco), Adam Johnson for The Orphan Master’s Son (Random House), Lydia Millet for Magnificence (W. W. Norton), and Zadie Smith for NW (Penguin Press).

The finalists in autobiography are Reyna Grande for The Distance Between Us (Atria Books), Maureen N. McLane for My Poets (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), the late Anthony Shadid for House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Leanne Shapton for Swimming Studies (Blue Rider Press), and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o for In the House of the Interpreter (Pantheon).

For a complete list of finalists, including those in the additional categories of general nonfiction, biography, and criticism, and for profiles of each author, visit the National Book Critics Circle Tumblr page or the official blog of the NBCC, Critical Mass.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards—the only national prizes selected by a panel of established literary critics—have been given annually since 1976 for books published in the United States in the previous year. The NBCC also honors one of its member critics with the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and awards the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award for a distinguished author, editor, publisher, or literary institution, each year.

The winners of the 2012 awards will be announced on Thursday, February 28 at a ceremony at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium in New York City. A finalists reading will be held on February 27. 

Explore the Complexity

The Time Is Now
1.10.13

Choose a topic with currency that you feel personally connected to and want to explore through writing. Research statistics, facts, and events related to it. Weave these with personal anecdotes that are also related. For example, if the topic is gun control, write an essay that combines statistics about how many people own guns in the United States, factual stories about incidents of gun violence, and personal anecdotes about how you learned to hunt growing up. Strive to explore the complexity of the topic.

Rewrite Your Narrative

The Time Is Now
1.3.13

Think about an aspect of your life story and rewrite it, telling the tale from another angle or perspective. For example, if your family always considered you to be a difficult teenager, write about other interpretations of your behavior. Or if you’ve always been considered successful, write about the fear of failure that lurks beneath the facade. Find a way to reconstruct an aspect of your personal narrative that explores the complexity of who you are.

Melissa Petro and Red Umbrella Writers Dispel Myths About Sex Work

Readings & Workshops Blog
1.2.13

P&W-supported writer Melissa Petro recently led a memoir-writing workshop for current and former sex workers at Red Umbrella Project in New York City. Petro’s work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Salon, Jezebel, Guardian, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City and teaches for Gotham Writers Workshop.

Melissa PetroWhen people with no experience or personal knowledge hear the phrase “sex work,” one media misrepresentation may spring to mind: Julia Roberts in a cut-out mini dress and patent leather knee-high boots or—just as bad—that floor-length red velvet gown.

This is not an accurate picture of people who trade sex for things they need—or of what happens when people do—according to Red Umbrella Project, an organization that provides storytelling, media, and advocacy training and support for people in the sex trades who wish to speak out about their experiences.

On December 6, 2012, Red Umbrella Project celebrated the graduating class of the Becoming Writers Workshop, an eight-week memoir-writing workshop for individuals with experiences in the sex trade, made possible in part by a grant from Poets & Writers. The evening was part one of a two-night event (the second will be on January 3, 2013) and featured one half of the class sharing original material conceived in class, which was published in the inaugural issue of PROS(E), the literary journal of Red Umbrella Project (available for sale at http://www.redumbrellaproject.org/buy-prose-issue-1/).

The purpose of the workshop, like all Red Umbrella Project programming, was to challenge common misconceptions and erroneous representations of sex workers by allowing individuals with experiences in the sex trade to represent themselves publicly and in print.

The organization combats stigma and discrimination while providing people in the sex trade with communication and transferrable job skills. People turn to the sex trade to generate income for as many reasons as there are sex workers, and yet given the prevalence of misinformation about the trade, sex workers’ personal stories are oftentimes surprising.

Red Umbrella staff and workshop participantsIn 2010, I lost my job as a public elementary school teacher after it was discovered that I was writing and speaking about my past experience moonlighting as a call girl on Craigslist while earning my masters in creative nonfiction from the New School. Since losing my job, I have dedicated myself to the task of changing people’s negative perceptions of current and former sex workers by continuing to tell my story in all its richness and by teaching other individuals with minority experiences to tell theirs.

At the event, readers included “Dominick,” a former gay male escort; Aimee Herman, a queer performance poet living in Brooklyn; Essence Revealed, whose story chronicles the highs and lows of being a black woman working in Manhattan’s gentlemen’s lap dance club scene; as well as eighties porn actress and activist Veronica Vera, who recreated for a raptured audience the moment she became co-star to her then-friend Annie Sprinkle.

The January 3 event boasts an equally diverse line-up. Expect anything and everything—anything and everything, that is, except just another “Pretty Woman.”

Photos: Top: Melissa Petro reads from the anthology PROS(E). Bottom: Red Umbrella staff and participants (left to right): Melissa Petro, Veronica Vera, Niesha Sharay Davis, Aimee Herman, Essence Revealed, Dominick, and Audacia Ray at Happy Ending Lounge. Credit: David Kornfield.

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 Cowles Charitable Trust, the Abbey K. Starr Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Taking a Trip

The Time Is Now
12.28.12

Write an essay about a trip that you've taken during which you were in search of something. What were you in search of—family connection, relaxation, adventure? What did you find? Was it what you expected?

A Free House in the Sun: Tucson’s Casa Libre en la Solana

Readings & Workshops Blog
12.21.12

Kristen E. Nelson is a founder and the Executive Director of Casa Libre en la Solana, a non-profit writing center in Tucson, Arizona. P&W has co-sponsored the center's Weekend Residency program for the past four years. Nelson is the author of Write, Dad (Unthinkable Creatures Chapbook Press, 2012), and has recently published work in Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Tarpaulin Sky Journal, Trickhouse, Dinosaur Bees, and Everyday Genius.
 
What makes your organization and its programs unique?
The mission of Casa Libre en la Solana is to support and enhance the creativity of professional and novice writers by providing a community venue for classes, readings, and other professional development opportunities.

The diversity of our programs and high level of community involvement is what makes Casa Libre stand out. In addition to our own creative writing workshops and reading/performance series, we provide an event base for many other Tucson groups, including Kore Press, Queer People of Color, Pan Left Productions, Read Between the Bars, and the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam.

What recent program have you been especially proud of?
Participants in our program Made for Flight, a transgender youth and ally empowerment workshop series, walked in the annual All Souls Procession in Tucson, a huge community procession to honor the lives of ancestors and loved ones who have passed away.

Made for Flight incorporates transgender history, ally development, creative writing, and kite building to commemorate the lives of the transgender individuals who have been murdered in the last year. TC Tolbert, Casa Libre’s assistant director, began this program three years ago, and this year we had approximately one hundred people show up to help us carry the kites that Tucson youth created in the procession.

It is inspiring to see the large number of allies who show up to lend their support to bringing awareness to the disproportionate number of transgender people (specifically women of color) who are murdered each year.

How do you find and invite writers?
Our organizational structure is a bit like an octopus. Each arm functions independently and in collaboration with the main body of the organization. Each of our programs is curated by a different local writer drawing from a diverse group.

I curate our Weekend Residency programs and through personal or professional connections have invited Camille Dungy, Samuel Ace, Maureen Seaton, and most recently Rebecca Brown to lead a weekend full of workshops and reading series. All of these Weekend Residencies could not have happened without the generous funding provided by Poets & Writers.

How has literary presenting informed your life and writing?
Casa Libre is my life. I live on the grounds in a community of seven households of writers and artists. Since I founded this place nine years ago, the programs and people who are a part of it have shaped who I am. This community is full of thinkers and creators. Every day there are conversations in our courtyards about writing projects, creative inspiration, and new programs. The Casa Libre community extends far beyond our grounds into Tucson and across the country. Passionate people who care about writing and creating come here. This is a nourishing place that I am proud to be a part of and call home.

What do you consider to be the value of literary programs for your community?
The staff and board members of Casa Libre are deeply invested in fostering creativity. We are devoted to honoring and making space for thinking, writing, conversation, art-making, and performance in a world dearly in need of artistic vision, creative solutions, and celebration of the human mind. Because we believe expression is a vital part of nourishing the human spirit, Casa Libre inspires writers and artists to take risks and manifest their artistic dreams.
 
Photo: Kristen E. Nelson. Credit: Sarah Dalby. Photo: Casa Libre's Weekend Residency with Rebecca Brown (at left). Credit: Samuel Ace.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Tucson 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.

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