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At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!

A dirty secret: you can only be a writer if you can afford it

make money writing graphicA dirty secret: you can only be a writer if you can afford it

When students ask me for advice with regard to how to “make it as a writer”, I tell them to get a job that also gives them time and space somehow to write; I tell them find a job that, if they still have it 10 years from now, it wouldn’t make them sad. I worry often that they think this means I don’t think their work is worthy; that I don’t believe they’ll make it in the way that they imagine making it, but this advice is me trying help them sustain themselves enough to make the work I know they can.

Contest :: Jacar Press Book & Chapbook Contests 2020

Jacar Press Winter LitPak flier

Jacar Press, A Community Active Press, publishes poetry chapbooks, full-length collections, anthologies, and an award-winning online magazine, One which features Pulitzer Prize winners and new poets from 6 continents. Book sales support progressive organizations, including groups that address racism, gender discrimination, immigration issues, women’s initiatives, violence and abuse, prisoner reintegration programs, and others. Jacar Press offers low-cost workshops featuring writers like Lynn Emanuel, Patricia Spears Jones, Dorianne Laux, Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Nelson, Ilya Kaminsky, etc. Chapbook and full-length contests open through April 30. Past judges have included Chana Bloch, Toi Derricotte, Hélène Cardona, Lola Haskins, Rickey Laurentiis, Dorianne Laux, Jamaal May, and others. jacarpress.com/submissions/#contests

Contest :: Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction 2020

The Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction is accepting submissions through March 14, 2020. Winner receives $2,000 and publication in the Fall issue of literary magazine Colorado Review. $15 fee to submit by mail or $17 via Submittable. Learn more…

Contest :: The Fiddlehead 2020 Creative Nonfiction Contest

The Fiddlehead Winter 2020 LitPak FlierJune 1 is the deadline to submit essays to literary magazine The Fiddlehead‘s 2020 Creative Nonfiction Contest. The reading fee entitles entrants to a one-year subscription. This also includes the 75th anniversary issue. Winner receives $2,000 CAD and publication in the Autumn 2020 issue. Learn more..

‘Her Sister’s Tattoo’ by Ellen Meeropol

Her Sisters Tattoo - Ellen MeeropolBook Review by  Jacqueline Sheehan

I’ve been a fan of Ellen Meeropol’s novels for ten years. Her three previous books merged personal drama with social justice. But not until Her Sister’s Tattoo has Meeropol so masterfully grasped the political strife in our country since the 1960’s. And as a true novelist can do, she allows us to experience the turmoil through the intimate lives of two characters whom we come to know and understand.

Rosa and Esther Levin are caught up in the passion and violence of the anti-war protests of 1968 in Detroit. When protest marchers are bloodied by the mounted police, the sisters spontaneously take an action to distract the police that would seem innocuous, even childlike. They hurl apples at the police. But a horse is spooked and a police officer is horribly injured. In that one moment, their lives change in unimaginable ways, driving a brutal wedge between the two sisters that will endure for decades. The dynamics of loyalty to family and one’s conscience become the battleground for a truly American novel.

Late in the book, (I’m not giving anything away here) a character says, “The Levin sisters taught me it’s not your family that determines who you become. It’s not even your abilities. Your choices define you.”

We all make choices every day that define us, but some of us make choices with more lethal consequences. Will our loyalties reside first with our loved ones, or should we sacrifice even our freedom to a larger belief in what is right? Meeropol pulls back the curtain on the lives of two sisters in the midst of this and by doing so, pulls back the curtain on a history of political activism that reverberates through time. For those with an eye for politics and fiction, Ellen Meeropol’s novel will not disappoint.

Her Sister’s Tattoo by Ellen Meeropol. Red Hen Press, April 2020.

About the reviewer: Jacqueline Sheehan, is a New York Times Bestselling author and a psychologist. Her novels include, The Comet’s Tale a novel about Sojourner Truth, Lost & Found, Now & Then, Picture This, The Center of the World, and The Tiger in the House. She also writes essays including the New York Times column, Modern Love. She is one of the founders and former president of The Straw Dog Writers Guild in Western Massachusetts. She teaches workshops at Writers in Progress in Northampton.

Orson’s Review has a New Website

Orson's Review screenshotBiannual online literary magazine Orson’s Review has a new website. It was formerly included on the website of parent company Orson’s Publishing, but has now branched off on its own.

The new site has a nice, minimalist design to highlight the work published.

All the archives have moved as well so you can read issues one through three on the new site. Plus, you can read interviews with contributors. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive notifications when Issue 4 is released soon.

Call :: Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop Anthology

The Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop is accepting essays taking a “contemporary look at silences around class and caste systems that divide us.” The anthology will be co-edited by a collective of award-winning incarcerated writers.

Submissions for the anthology are open through April 3, 2020. There is no fee to submit. The anthology will be published by Coffee House Press. Learn more…

Rattle – Spring 2020

Rattle - Spring 2020

The Spring 2020 issue of Rattle features a special tribute section of poems written by students of Kim Addonizio’s poetry workshops (as well as one poem by Kim herself). In the open section, the poems themselves are as good as their titles: “The Cow I Didn’t Eat.” “Social Experiments in Which I Am the [Bear].” “Ode to the Mattress on the Side of the Interstate.” Diverse as always, the new issue features a poem written in “the imagined voice of Frida Kahlo” (Barbara Lydecker Crane), “Young Dyke” by Alison Hazle, a duo of triolets by Carolyne Wright, and much more.

Call :: Tolsun Books 2020 Open Reading Period

Independent publisher Tolsun Books is open to unsolicited manuscripts made from parts through May 31. These can be either full-length or chapbook-length. Poetry, short stories, essays, hybrids, translations, and more. $15 fee. Free submissions accepted on the 15th of every month. Learn more…

New Orleans Review – Winter Spring 2020

New Orleans Review - Winter/Spring 2020

Find out more about the new online version of New Orleans Review. Contributors: Danley Romero, Kaylie Saidin, Britton Hanson, Maria Kuznetsova, Apryl Lee, Diana Valenzuela, Anna Claire Hodge, Ryan Burgess, Rage Hezekiah, Julia Cohen and Lisa Nikolidakis. Cover by Ashley Longshore.

Fiction Southeast – Feb 2020

Fiction Southeast logo

Fiction Southeast publishes work on a rolling basis. Contributors this year include work by Robin Littell, Ziaul Moid Khan, Jason Graff, Marianne Rogoff, Dakota Canon, Vandana Khanna, Andrea Jarrell, Jessica Love, Richard Sogliuzzo, Annie Mountcastle, Kay Sloan, Staci Mercado, and Mike Wilson.

Crossways Literary Magazine – No. 9

Crossways - January 2020

This issue includes poetry by Sinead McClure, Mary Kathryn Jablonski, Timothy Gordan, Beth McDonough, Milton Ehrlich, Breda Joyce, Susie Gharib, Alun Robert, and more; fiction by Patrick Doherty, J. Scott Hardin, Chuck Teixeira, Max Dunbar, and Fiona Billie Lawlor; and a book review by Nicola Spendlove. [no website]

Call :: Palooka

International literary magazine Palooka has been publishing featured, up-and-coming, established, and new writers, artists, and photographers for a decade. They are open to submissions for its journal and chapbook press year-round. They do charge a fee. Learn more…

Contest :: Cow Creek Poetry Chapbook Prize

Pittsburg State University and its literary magazine Emerald City are accepting submissions to the Cow Creek Poetry Chapbook Prize. Deadline to submit is May 15. Winner receives $1,000, publication, and 25 author copies. This year’s judge is Marcus Wicker. Learn more…

Contest :: Gival Press 2020 Contests

Gival Press Winter 2020 LitPak FlierGival Press is hosting three contests in 2020: the Gival Press Novel Award, the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award, and the Gival Press Short Story Award. The Novel Award deadlines is May 30. The prize is $3k and book publication in 2021. The Oscar Wilde Award for the best LGBTQ poem deadline is June 27. The prize is $500 and online publication. The Short Story Award deadline is August 8. The Prize is $1,000 and online publication. For complete details on each contest, visit: www.Givalpress.Submittable.com.

Program :: University of North Carolina Greensboro MFA

UNCG MFA Winter 2020 LitPak FlierApplication Deadline: January 1 (annually)
One of the oldest creative writing programs in the country, UNC Greensboro’s MFA Writing Program offers fully funded graduate assistantships with stipends, tuition remission, and subsidized health insurance. The MFA is a two-year residency program with an emphasis on studio time for the writing of poetry or fiction. Students work closely with acclaimed faculty in one-on-one tutorials and small classes, including courses in contemporary publishing and creative nonfiction. Our campus features a Distinguished Visiting Writers Series of authors and editors; other professionalization opportunities include college teaching and hands-on editorial work for The Greensboro Review. More at mfagreensboro.org and greensbororeview.org.

Event :: Elk River Writers Workshop 2020

2020 Elk River Writers Workshop FlierDeadline: Rolling (July 1 final deadline)
Elk River Arts and Lectures is now accepting applications to our summer writers workshop, August 16–21, at historic Chico Hot Springs Resort, 30 miles from Yellowstone National Park. We host some of the most celebrated nature writers in the United States to work with students in an area of Montana that has inspired the work of conservationists and writers for decades. Workshop classes are limited to 10 students in each genre. This year, Rick Bass, Linda Hogan, and J. Drew Lanham, William Pitt Root, and Pamela Uschuk will serve as our core faculty. Apply via Submittable or visit: elkriverwriters.org.

Contest :: EVENT Non-Fiction Contest 2020

EVENT Winter 2020 LitPak FlierDeadline: October 15, 2020
EVENT: A home for writers. A destination for readers. Now in its 49th year of publication, EVENT is an award-winning, internationally recognized literary magazine that inspires and nurtures writers, showcasing the best contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, notes on writing, and book reviews three times a year, with stunning cover art and illustration. We are now accepting submissions of 5,000 words or less to the annual EVENT Non-Fiction Contest. $3,000 in prizes, plus publication. Entries must be postmarked or submitted online by October 15, 2020. Visit www.eventmagazine.ca for exclusive online content, and to learn more about our unique Reading Service for Writers.

Program :: Jackson Center for Creative Writing

Hollins University MFA flierApplication Deadline: January 6
For well over sixty years, this highly regarded Hollins MFA has supported lively and determined writers who want to concentrate on craft. Our intensive two-year graduate program helps students find their way in an atmosphere of cooperation and encouragement. Our students work successfully in poetry, short fiction, novels, and creative nonfiction—and in between genres. Our faculty writers take time to work with students in this vibrant, supportive community. Our alums have a remarkably high record of publication. Program provides graduate assistantships, teaching fellowships, travel funding, and generous scholarships. Most of all, a vibrant, supportive community. For information, www.hollins.edu/creative-writing-MFA.

Call :: Club Plum Literary Journal

Submissions open for flash fiction of no more than 800 words and prose poems. Send unusual or lyrical pieces. Club Plum also seeks art: Please send one image only of pen-and-ink line art, pencil drawings, watercolor, experimental, impressionistic or abstract pieces, black-and-white or color. The editor will pass on photography. See clubplumliteraryjournal.com for details.

’50 Miles’ by Sheryl St. Germain

50 Miles by Sheryl St. GermainBook Review by Karen J. Weyant

Sheryl St. Germain opens her newest book, 50 Miles, with a simple statement: “My son was born into a family cursed with substance abuse.”

It’s this curse St. Germain explores in her collection of intertwining essays that examine the life, the struggles, and the eventual death of her son, Gray. Along the way, she also looks at her own clashes with addiction, struggles that mirror the demons that haunted many of her family members including her father and her brother. Continue reading “’50 Miles’ by Sheryl St. Germain”

Call :: Tin Can Literary Review & From the Depths 18

Tin Can Literary Review flierHaunted Waters Press is accepting submissions of fiction to the inaugural edition of Tin Can Literary Review. It is also accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, and flash to literary magazine From the Depths 18. They do charge a fee and are a paying market. Deadline is August 31. Learn more…

Call :: Fictional Cafe

The Fictional Cafe logoFictional Café is a highly regarded online ‘zine, seven years old with 800 Coffee Club members in 47 countries. Fiction only, please, that titillates the readers’ senses and provokes their minds. Your short story or novel excerpt should be extremely well written with engaging characters and a unique, avant-garde, or unconventional plot. Visit our site and read some recent works on the pictorial slider. Join our Coffee Club, then review our submissions guidelines. If you’re exploring fiction’s boundaries, we’re interested in reading your work. www.fictionalcafe.com

NewPages Book Stand – February 2020

Book Stand - Feb 2020The February 2020 Book Stand is now up at NewPages! Visit for new and forthcoming titles in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, anthologies, and children’s/YA. Our New & Noteworthy section features work from six different presses month.

Diode Editions announces five forthcoming titles this spring: The Last Human Heart by Allison Joseph; Good Timing & Gertrude Stein: Inside Snoopy’s snout maggots feats upon my blood by Julia Cohen; Prismatics: Larry Levis & Contemporary American Poetry: Interviews from the Documentary Film A Late Style of Fire edited by Gregory Donovan and Michele Poulos; Wider Than the Sky from Nancy Chen Long; and The Minister of Disturbances from Zeeshan Khan Pathan. Visit our LitPak for more information.

The People’s Field by Haesong Kwon (Southeast Missouri University Press, October 2019), winner of the Cowles Poetry Prize, reflects on the sounds, ideas and histories of the Korean peninsula with attention to the Japanese occupation and the Korean War and its aftermath.

Juan Herrera invites readers to touch Connie Post’s Prime Meridian (Glass Lyre Press, January 2020) “in order to traverse the present age.”

River Teeth celebrates twenty years of publishing nonfiction with an anthology edited by founding editors Joe Mackall and Daniel W. Lehman (University of New Mexico Press, February 2020).

In Shining Man (Livingston Press, December 2019), Todd Dills “explodes themes of economic opportunity, identity and the individual’s place post-Great Recession in a politically polarized, culturally isolated, and class-stratified America.”

Debut collection A Small Thing to Want by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood (Press 53, May 2020) “chronicles the choices people make about whom to love and whom to let go, their yearnings that either bind them or set them free, and the surprising ways love shows up, without reason or restraint.”

You can learn more about each of these featured titles at our website, and find out how to place your book in our New & Noteworthy section here: https://npofficespace.com/classified-advertising/new-title-issue-ad-reservation/.

NewPages Bookstore & Library Mailing Lists

NewPages mailing listsPlanning on marketing your book to indie bookstores and libraries this spring? Let us help you get started. NewPages offers digital and physical mailing lists to bookstores, libraries, and newspapers within the United States. With a new, lower rate on our digital lists and guaranteed delivery to postal addresses, our lists are a great value and a big help getting your book into the hands of booksellers and readers across the country. Visit our website to learn more.

14th Mudfish Poetry Prize Winner & Honorable Mentions

Mudfish - January 2020The newest issue of Mudfish features the winner and honorable mentions of the 14th Mudfish Poetry Prize. The 2019 judge was John Yau.

Winner
“Fluencies” by Mark Wagenaar

Honorable Mentions
“Not Yet Across” by G. Hanlon
“Crossing Lake Pontchartrain” by Stokes Howell

The 15th Mudfish Poetry Prize is currently open until March 15 and will be judged by poet and novelist Erica Jong.

Blink-Ink – True Crime Issue

Blink Ink - Issue 38

Magazine Review by Katy Haas

True crime seems to be all the rage lately, from books on famous cold cases to Netflix documentaries to hit podcasts. Blink-Ink tries its hand at covering this theme in Issue 38 wherein 16 writers use micro-fiction to explore true crime.

JR Walsh writes about a B&E at an ex’s house where the criminals’ “fingerprints never moved out.” Katie Yates writes of a husband who steals a puppy for his wife. In Craig Fishbane’s “Weapon of Choice,” one weapon is social media, the other is a gun. Leah Rogin-Roper provides four related pieces on a juvenile detention center. The stories in this issue cover a wide array of crimes in creative ways, and it’s fun to see a fictional take on truth.

Blink-Ink publishes stories that are 50 words or less. This makes for short, snappy stories that toss readers headfirst into the drama. In this issue, we never have to wait long to find out who did it in these whodunnits.

Terrain.org

Terrain.org February 2020

New this month on Terrain.org, find nonfiction by Sharon Dolin, Cara Stoddard, and Rachel Findlay; fiction by Michael McGuire and John Colman Wood; and poetry by Lex Runciman. Currently featured on the website: the winner of the Terrain.org 10th Annual Contest in Poetry are three poems by Stacey Balkun.

Mudfish – No. 21

Mudfish - January 2020

The newest issue of Mudfish features the winner of the 14th Mudfish Poetry Prize, judged by John Yau: Mark Wagenaar with “Fluencies.” Honorable mentions G. Hanlon and Stokes Howell are also included. Other contributors this issue: Dell Lemmon, Michael Lyle, Aillie McKeever, Beth Suter, Claire Scott, Vincent Bell, Marjorie Power, Angela Dribben, Yuyutsu Sharma, Holly Day, Jason Koo, James Trask, Jake Bauer, Francis Klein, Neal Zirn, Bob Coles, A. Kaiser, Kristin Entler, Tim Nolan, Kirk Wilson, Toni Hanner, and many more.

Missouri Review – Feb 2020

Missouri Review - Winter 2020

Inside our “Liberation” issue, First fiction from Thea Chacamaty and Bradley Babendir on Jewish comic novelists. Featuring Heather Christle, Samantha DeFlitch, Patricia Foster, Catherine Gammon, Terrance Manning Jr., Askold Melnyczuk, John R. Nelson, Anya Silver, and Paul Smith.

Call :: I Don’t Cry Anymore Poetry Anthology

Liminal Press seeks poetry submissions from writers who are sexual-trauma survivors. There is no fee to submit. Works will be published in the anthology I Don’t Cry Anymore in Fall 2020. Artist, poet, and educator Flo Oy Wong will co-edit. Deadline to submit is March 31. Learn more…

Contest :: Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry 2020

2020 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in PoetryDeadline: April 15, 2020
Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry: A poetry manuscript contest sponsored by The University of Utah Press and the University of Utah Department of English. $1000 cash prize plus publication for your poetry manuscript. Prize includes an additional $500 payment for travel and a reading in the University of Utah’s Guest Writers Series. See www.UofUpress.com/ali-poetry-prize for more details.

The Antioch Review – February 2020

Antioch Review - Fall 2019

The “Atention!” issue of The Antioch Review includes Heinrich Böll’s “Cause of Death: Hooked Nose” (translated by Robert C. Conard) which captures Nobel laureate Boll’s vivid imagery about the corollary of unfettered hatred, unchallenged propaganda, and fearful inertia for countries, communities, and consciences. Rachel Rose’s “Buccal Swab” airs the concerns and realities families face when a member harmlessly hands over DNA to Ancestry.com or some other DNAanalyses company. Stuart Neville’s thriller “Coming in on Time” unfolds in the eyes of a child naïve to passions that stir so strongly and sting so seriously. Find a full list of contributors at The Antioch Review‘s website.

Just a Few Billion Years Left to Go

Until the End of Time graphicUntil the End of Time. Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe By Brian Greene. Book Review, New York Times.

“In the fullness of time all that lives will die.” With this bleak truth Brian Greene, a physicist and mathematician at Columbia University, the author of best-selling books like “The Elegant Universe” and co-founder of the yearly New York celebration of science and art known as the World Science Festival, sets off in “Until the End of Time” on the ultimate journey, a meditation on how we go on doing what we do, why and how it will end badly, and why it matters anyway.

“Until the End of Time” is encyclopedic in its ambition and its erudition, often heartbreaking, stuffed with too many profundities that I wanted to quote, as well as potted descriptions of the theories of a galaxy of contemporary thinkers, from Chomsky to Hawking, and anecdotes from Greene’s own life — of which we should wish for more — that had me laughing.

NewPages Winter 2020 LitPak has been Mailed!

The NewPages Winter 2020 LitPak was mailed to colleges and universities with graduate and undergraduate writing programs and classes last week!

Featured in this LitPak are fliers from

  • Diode Editions
  • Elk River Writers Workshop
  • UNCG MFA in Creative Writing
  • Jackson Center for Creative Writing
  • The MFA at FAU/Swamp Ape Review
  • Killer Nashville
  • Summer Writers Institute at Washing University in St. Louis
  • Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop
  • Rattle
  • december
  • Nimrod
  • The Fiddlehead
  • Fourth Genre
  • Jacar Press
  • Gival Press
  • EVENT
  • Colorado Review
  • University of Utah Press
  • The Main Street Rag
  • St. Petersburg Review/Springhouse Journal

You can view the majority of the fliers included in this LitPak on our website. Feel free to download, print, and share. If you are interested in getting the next LitPak delivered straight to your doorstep, you can purchase a subscription here: npofficespace.com/litpak/subscription/.

Call :: The Awakenings Review

The Awakenings Review is a literary magazine devoted to publishing works from writers who have some connection with mental illness. The connection can be their own, friends, or family members. Work does not need to be related to mental illness. Submissions accepted year-round. There is no fee. Learn more…

Women of a Certain Rage

Women of a certain ago jpegWomen of a Certain Rage. Two New Books Tackle Getting Older—and More Pissed Off. Bitchmedia.

…I can’t say whether the despair I regularly feel is statistical or situational—the world is both literally and figuratively on fire, after all; I don’t trust anyone who isn’t despairing on some level. But as a woman, I also know that there can’t be any discussion of unhappiness at any numerical point of what we call “midlife” without acknowledging the powerful cultural narratives of gender and aging.

Those narratives, and the economic, political, sexual, and pop cultural impact of them, are at the center of two new books. Ada Calhoun’s Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis and Susan J. Douglas’s In Our Prime: How Older Women are Reinventing the Road Ahead both approach their subject matter from generational perspectives, each starting from a place of unsettled personal clarity: Well, shit, I got old. Now what? 

Patti Smith awarded PEN Award

Patti Smith jpg2020 PEN/Audible Literary Service Award: Patti Smith. Pen America.

Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has release 12 albums, including Horses, which has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time by Rolling Stone.

Smith had her first exhibit of drawings at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973 and was represented by the Robert Miller Gallery for three decades. Her retrospective exhibitions include the Andy Warhol Museum, the Fondation Cartier, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Her books include Just Kids, winner of the National Book Award in 2010, Witt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, Auguries of Innocence, M Train, and Devotion.

2020 Rainbow Book List

Rainbow Book ListRainbow Book List – GLBTQ Books for Children & Teens

The Rainbow Book List Committee is proud to announce the 2020 Rainbow Book List. The List is a curated bibliography highlighting books with significant gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning content, aimed at children and youth from birth to age 18. This list is intended to aid youth and those working with youth in selecting high-quality books published in the United States of America between July 1, 2018 and December 31, 2019.

This year, our committee has noticed an abundance of genre fiction, as well as books whose plots do not revolve around anxiety concerning a queer character’s identity. Micro trends that we’ve noticed this year have been books about birds or with birds in the title, and books about queer witches. We’ve also seen an increase in books with non-binary, asexual-spectrum, and bisexual characters.

 

“Poet Laureate? Poet Illiterate? What?”

Luis J Rodriguez poet laureateDoes poetry matter? L.A.’s former poet-in-chief Luis J. Rodriguez explains why it’s life changing. Los Angeles Times.

Confusion aside, I felt it was about time “poet laureate” became a household term. The United States now has more poet laureates than ever before. There are poet laureates for states, counties, cities, communities, small towns, and Native American reservations (Luci Tapahonso became the first poet laureate of the Diné Nation). Claudia Castro Luna, a Salvadoran American, served as Seattle’s poet laureate and later held the same post for Washington state. Two Xicanx poets, Laurie Ann Guerrero and Octavio Quintanilla, did the same for San Antonio. Sponsored by New York City–based Urban Word, there is also a Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate (I helped pick two of them) and the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate, eighteen-year-old Amanda Gorman.

…It’s hard to figure out poetry’s worth when there is a hierarchy of “values” hanging over our heads determined not by nature or skill but by powerful men in the publishing, media, and political industries — entities that are about making money. I’m not talking about family values or cool traits. I’m talking net worth, the bottom line: “If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.”

If that’s the case, poetry should perish.