The What and the How of It
An excerpt from “The What and the How of It” by John Biguenet (in Before During After, edited by Elizabeth Kleinveld, to be published by the University of New Orleans Press in 2010).
Article Archive
Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
Finding the Right Words
A writer grapples with his decision to abandon writing, flee New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and become a passive witness to a narrative spun by nature.
Writers, Interrupted
One writer's monthlong journey with her family from her home on the Gulf Coast to three different cities as she searches for a respite from the storm, meeting others along the way whose loss puts hers in perspective.
Believe It or Not
A writer who stayed in the French Quarter during and after Katrina measures the spirit of America’s oldest Bohemia before its reincarnation.
The Written Image: Race Car Poetry
Race car driver Alex Grabau has customized his car with a decal of a poem by Jim Daniels. From July 9 to 11, Grabau will compete in Giants Despair, an uphill race in Laurel Run, Pennsylvania. He will race again at the Duryea Hillclimb in Reading, Pennsylvania, from August 20 to 22.
Literary MagNet
Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features Isotope, Gigantic, Bombay Gin, Ploughshares, the Harvard Review, and Prairie Schooner.
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Necessary Agent
An editor reveals how the best agents—Molly Friedrich, Jud Laghi, Chris Parris-Lamb, Scott Moyers, and Jennifer Joel among them—work behind the scenes to help their clients’ books get the attention they deserve.
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Inside Indie Bookstores: Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee
In the fourth installment of our series Inside Indie Bookstores,
contributor Jeremiah Chamberlin travels to Milwaukee to talk with Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Book Company.
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Small Press Points
Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features Blue Hour Press, an independent poetry publisher in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that is “dedicated to bridging the gap between the beauty and tradition of print and the accessibility and possibility of the Web, releasing digital chapbooks that are satisfying, respectable, and innovative.”
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Roosevelt's Writers
The Federal Writers' Project was established seventy-five years ago, and according to one author and documentary filmmaker, it was a watershed event, if not a turning point, in the history of American literature. Employing up to 7,500 people annually during its four-year run, the Writers’ Project nurtured a generation of authors who otherwise might have been forced into nonliterary careers.
Digital Digest: The Changing Economics of E-books
Apple’s entry into the e-book market has given publishers the leverage they needed to force a marketwide shift from a wholesale to an “agency” model of e-book retailing, but the long-term impact of the move—for both publishers and authors—remains unclear.
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3 for Free
In this regular feature, we offer a few suggestions for podcasts, smartphone apps, Web tools, newsletters, museum shows, and gallery openings: a medley of literary curiosities that you might enjoy.
Literary New Orleans, Post-Katrina
On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, several local and national arts organizations, including the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society and the Poetry Society of America, are presenting readings in New Orleans to commemorate all that was lost—the lives, homes, businesses, and communities—and to celebrate a flourishing of the literary arts in the area since the storm.
Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
With so many good books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and Joshua Mohr's Termite Parade, as the starting point for a closer look at these new and noteworthy titles.
American Wins Rolex Mentorship
The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative recently announced that this year’s mentor in literature, German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger, has chosen as his protégée American poet Tracy K. Smith. This is the fifth year a mentorship has been awarded to a writer, and the first time the winning writer has hailed from the United States.
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Q&A: Halpern's Enduring Poetry Series
On the thirtieth anniversary of the launch of the National Poetry Series, Halpern speaks about both its history and its future.
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Poets Take Action in Wake of Gulf Coast Disaster
On Tuesday the second annual United Nations World Oceans Day was observed, a date that also marked the seventh week of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Judge and Genre: A Profile of Scott Turow
There’s more to novelist Scott Turow than a knack for compelling plotlines and a sales history that stands at more than thirty million books—and we’re not just talking about his day job as an attorney.
Agent Advice: PJ Mark of Janklow & Nesbit Associates
The agent of authors such as Samantha Hunt, Dinaw Mengestu, and Josh Weil offers advice on shaping a query letter and when to follow up after pitching your book.
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First: Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn
Today, Karl Marlantes's debut novel is garnering praise for its vivid, trenchant portrayal of American soldiers in the thick of the Vietnam War. But for more than thirty years, the manuscript languished in literary purgatory, while the author struggled to find an agent—not to mention a publisher—willing to take it on.
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Digital Digest: Vooks Look Like a Brand-New Read
Since last fall, an Alameda, California–based start-up has been blending digital text, images, video, and social networking to produce what it calls "vooks" (a portmanteau word formed from video and book), which can be accessed through any Web browser or downloaded to mobile devices via Apple's iTunes Store.
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Open-Air Publishing
Broadsided, a monthly literature-and-art project that brings poetry and prose into people's everyday lives by posting it in public spaces, reaches beyond local schools, streets, and shops to take open-air publishing global.
The Written Image: Playing With Books
A look at a sculpture by U.K. artist Su Blackwell, one of the thirty-three artists showcased in the art book and craft guide Playing With Books: The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book, published by Quarry Books in April.