Poets & Writers

Editor in Chief KEVIN LARIMER Managing Editor ARIEL DAVIS Senior Editor EMMA KOMLOS-HROBSKY Associate Editor SPENCER QUONG Assistant Editor INDIA LENA GONZÁLEZ Art Director MURRAY GREENFIELD Copy Editor ANTOINE DOZOIS Contributing Editors MICHAEL BOU

DURING THE FINAL WEEKS OF PRODUCTION FOR THIS ISSUE, my children, like millions of others, took their first steps into a school for full-time, in-person instruction after an extended, exasperating absence. To say I rejoiced is an overstatement; I was

DESTINY O. BIRDSONG is the author of the poetry collection Negotiations, which was published by Tin House in 2020, and the triptych novel Nobody’s Magic, forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing in 2022. EMMA HINE is the author of the poetry collect

“By the time you read this, you may have figured it out.” My Monticello (Henry Holt, October 2021) by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. First book, story collection. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff. Editor: Retha Powers. Publicists: Clarissa Long and SallyAnne

In 2013, Colleen Kinder started asking writers “about the strangers lurking in the back rooms of memory,” the chance encounters and passing acquaintances that nonetheless shaped the trajectory of their lives. Now, in Letter to a Stranger: Essays to t

“Tiny by design” is how publisher Shanna Compton describes Bloof Books (bloofbooks.com), a press known for its beautiful linocut chapbook covers, eclectic tastes, and investment in each of its writers. “I’ve found a direct, hands-on collaboration wit

“What words were turning inside her, as she cooked, waited for us to come home from work, from school, as she ate, slept?” asks a character about her grandmother in Ye Chun’s story “To Say.” Versions of this question thread throughout Ye’s story coll

Hanif Abdurraqib trusts writers to be abundant—in our ideas, in our talents, and in the communities we build with them. In July, Tin House announced that the New York Times best-selling author of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Pe

“Dear Mother, I have so many questions. What city were you born in? What was your American birthday? Your Chinese birthday? What did your mother do?” writes Victoria Chang in the first letter of her nonfiction book, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, S

On the Fourth Hill of the city we call Constantinople, but which the inhabitants at the time simply called the City, across the street from the convent of Saint Theophano the Empress, in the once-great embroidery house of Nicholas Kalaphates, lives a

IN LATE 2016, adoptee poet and Kundiman fellow Leah Silvieus initiated a research project about the ways in which emerging adoptee poets contend with identity, loss, culture, and family in their work. She sent a query through the Kundiman network, lo

Six Editors on Starting, Sustaining, and Stopping a Small-Press Publishing Project ■

The J. Michael Samuel Prize will be given annually to LGBTQ writers over the age of fifty who are working in any genre but have not published a book or have a book under contract (up to one self-published book is acceptable). Application materials in

Julie Carrick Dalton of Boston, age 50, author of the novel Waiting for the Night Song (Forge Books, January 2021) Nancy Johnson of Chicago, age 50, author of the novel The Kindest Lie (William Morrow, February 2021) W. S. Winslow of Trenton, Maine,

I received five full manuscript requests from top agents after sending queries about my debut fiction manuscript starting in the summer of 2020. While I’m normally a patient person, this is how long I’ve been waiting for responses: 256 days, 254 days

FOR years journalist Chloé Cooper Jones, who was born with a rare congenital disorder called sacral agenesis that affected the development of her hips and legs, had been filling free moments between assignments by writing journal entries on how stran

Fiction writer David Diop of Pau, France, and translator Anna Moschovakis of New York City and Delaware County, New York, won the 2021 International Booker Prize for Moschovakis’s translation from the French of Diop’s novel, At Night All Blood Is Bla

Michelle and David Baldacci The E.H.A. Foundation, Inc. Maureen and David Egen Macmillan Publishers National Endowment for the Arts New York City Department of Cultural Affairs New York State Council on the Arts James Patterson Penguin Random House R

The Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference will be held online from November 12 to November 15 and from January 14, 2022, to January 17, 2022. The conference features workshops of book-length poetry manuscripts with poets and editors. The faculty for t

POETS & WRITERS IS MORE than a magazine. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving creative writers. We pay fees to writers giving readings and leading workshops, provide information and advice to authors, and help them connect with one an