Ten Writers on Writing Advice: 2025
Ten authors answer the tenth question in our Ten Questions series: What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
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Genre: Poetry
Poets of Place & Body: Teresa Dzieglewicz
Caption:
In this Beyond Baroque celebration of Teresa Dzieglewicz’s debut collection, Something Small of How to See a River (Tupelo Press, 2025), poets Jessica Abughattas, Meghann Plunkett, and Arumandhira Howard read their work exploring strength, care, and radical joy along with Dzieglewicz, whose collection is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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Neraki International Writers Workshops
The 2026 Neraki International Writers Workshops will be held from June 5 to June 14 at a seaside private home and seminar space in Katigiorgis, Greece. The workshop features craft classes, generative writing sessions, small-group workshops, individual meetings with mentors, unstructured time for writing, and various wellness activities for poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. The faculty includes poet and fiction writer Paula Closson Buck and fiction and creative nonfiction writer Jim Buck.
Type:
CONFERENCE
Ignore Event Date Field?:
no
Event Date:
June 5, 2026
Rolling Admissions:
no
Application Deadline:
February 15, 2026
Financial Aid?:
no
Financial Aid Application Deadline:
January 31, 2026
Free Admission:
no
Contact Information:
Neraki International Writers Workshops, c/o Paula Closson Buck, 145 Jean Boulevard, Lewisburg, PA 17837. (570) 412-2366. Paula Closson Buck, Cofounder.
Paula Closson Buck
Contact City:
Katigiorgis
Country:
GR
Writeaway in Italy
Writeaways offers a weeklong retreat from April 10 to April 17 to poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers (including creative nonfiction writers) at the 17th century Villa Cinci and Villa Casanova located in the Chianti region of Tuscany, Italy. Residents are provided with time and space to write, writing workshops, private writing consultations, and a cooking class. The faculty includes poet and fiction writer Mimi Herman and fiction and nonfiction writer John Yewell.
Type:
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?:
no
Event Date:
April 10, 2026
Rolling Admissions:
no
Application Deadline:
February 1, 2026
Financial Aid?:
no
Financial Aid Application Deadline:
January 31, 2026
Free Admission:
no
Contact Information:
Writeaways, Writeaway in Italy, P.O. Box 62012, Durham, NC 27715. Mimi Herman and John Yewell, Codirectors.
Mimi Herman and John Yewell
Codirectors
Contact City:
Tuscany
Country:
IT
Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network: Legacies Reading
Caption:
In this Green Apple Books event, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) presents a night of readings featuring writers François Luong, Aimee Phan, Minnie Phan, and Thien Pham, sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library and San Francisco Arts Commission.
Poetry and Comics
“It was happily free of theoretical ambitions, such as being avant-garde or radical or even funny,” writes Ron Padgett in the foreword to The Complete C Comics (New York Review Books, 2025), which collects the two issues of comic books created by Joe Brainard in collaboration with New York School poets in the 1960s. Brainard created the drawings and poets, such as Padgett, John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, Frank O’Hara, and Peter Schjeldahl, provided text for speech balloons and captions. This week experiment with the energy and humor of this illustrative format. Take inspiration from classic comic book icons and characters and write a poem that channels the childlike playfulness of comics, giving them your own “adult” spin, perhaps incorporating elements of surrealism or parody, or even accompanying your own doodles and sketches.
Open Chapbook Competition
Finishing Line Press
Entry Fee:
$20
Deadline:
February 15, 2026
A prize of $1,500 and publication by Finishing Line Press is given annually for a poetry chapbook. Leah Huete de Maines will judge. Submit a manuscript of 16 to 34 pages, a brief bio, and a cover letter with a $20 entry fee by February 15. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
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Terry J. Cox Poetry Award
Regal House Publishing
Entry Fee:
$25
Deadline:
January 31, 2026
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Regal House Publishing is given annually for a poetry collection. The editors will judge. Submit a manuscript of 48 to 100 pages with a $25 entry fee by January 31. Visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.
Emerging Voices Fellowship
PEN America
Entry Fee:
$25
Deadline:
January 31, 2026
Nine fellowships of $1,500 each and participation in a virtual five-month mentorship program, which includes one-on-one mentorship with an established writer; introductions to editors, agents, and publishers; a professional headshot; and a one-year PEN America membership, are given annually to emerging poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers “from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in the publishing world.” Fellows also participate in workshops on editing, marketing, and building a professional platform. Writers who have not yet published a book and who do not hold an advanced degree in creative writing are eligible. Using only the online submission system, submit a writing sample of up to 10 pages of poetry or 15 pages of prose, a series of personal statements, a curriculum vitae, and contact information for at least one reference with a $25 entry fee by January 31. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Furious Flower Poetry Prize
Furious Flower Poetry Center
Entry Fee:
$20
Deadline:
February 15, 2026
A prize of $1,500 and publication in Obsidian, the literary journal of Illinois State University, is given annually for a group of poems in conversation with the Furious Flower Poetry Center’s mission to ensure the visibility, inclusion, and critical consideration of Black poets in American letters. The winner also receives a $500 honorarium to give a reading at James Madison University. Poets who have published no more than one book are eligible. Major Jackson will judge. Using only the online submission system, submit up to three poems totaling no more than six pages with a $20 entry fee by February 15. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
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