Poets & Writers, Inc. is one of the largest nonprofit literary organizations in the United States serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. The organization publishes a bi-monthly magazine called Poets & Writers Magazine, and is headquartered in New York City.
In 1970, the director of New York’s famed 92nd Street YM-YWHA Poetry Center, Galen Williams, leveraged seed money from the New York State Council on the Arts to launch a new organization for writers that would provide them with fees for giving readings and teaching workshops. The organization began in an apartment on the fringe of the Theater District. Since that time, Poets & Writers has grown into one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the country for writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Poets & Writers cultivated new sources of revenue, enabling the organization to expand its programs and publications. Award-winning editorial and design changes elevated Poets & Writers Magazine to new subscription and advertising levels. The organization’s Readings/Workshops program was offered in new regions across the country, connecting writers and audiences in California, Chicago and Detroit, in addition to New York State, where the program began. And the Writers Exchange program, which would introduce writers to the New York literary community, was initiated.
In 2006, Poets & Writers successfully completed its first capital campaign, raising $3 million and establishing an endowment to bring the Readings/Workshops program to six new cities: Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, Seattle, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.
On June 18, 2022, Poets & Writers decided to join the National Coalition Against Censorship because Efforts to limit readers’ access to books are an affront to freedom.
On the same day the NCAC welcomed the move. [1]
Frequency | Bi-monthly |
---|---|
Circulation | 60,000 [2] |
Publisher | Poets & Writers |
Company | Poets & Writers |
Country | United States |
Based in | New York City |
Language | English |
Website | pw.org/magazine |
ISSN | 0891-6136 |
Poets & Writers Magazine is a widely distributed bi-monthly magazine. [3] The publication features literary-based news articles, critical reviews and interviews with prominent authors. [4]
Poets & Writers Magazine also serves as a resource for thousands of writers, with up-to-date information on literary grants and awards, literary magazines, presses, jobs, author directories and literary events. It's been called the "must-have journal for scribes." [5]
Beginning with the May/June 2010 issue, the magazine has been available in digital format. [6]
The Jackson Poetry Prize, established in 2006, honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least two books of recognized literary merit. Initially offering an award of $50,000, this prize has grown to $85,000 in 2023. The Jackson Poetry Prize is designed to provide what all poets need—time and the encouragement to write. There is no application process for the Jackson Poetry Prize; nominees are identified by a group of poets selected by Poets & Writers who remain anonymous; final selection is made by a panel of esteemed poets. [7]
Honorees include the following:
Initiated in 1984, the Writers Exchange Award provides two emerging writers with an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City where P&W arranges meetings with agents, editors, and prominent authors. The winners' visit culminates in a public reading in Manhattan. [24]
Each year, two writers from one state are invited to submit manuscripts to Poets & Writers. To date, 76 writers from 30 states have received the Writers Exchange Award. Many of the winners have gone on to get their books published, receive other awards, and secure teaching positions.
In 2007, a special grant enabled P&W to offer the Writers Exchange to two writers from California. Two writers from Missouri also received the Writers Exchange Award this year.
In 2008, Writers who live in Tennessee are invited to apply for the 2009 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award. [25] Bryn Chancellor was the WEX award winner of 2014. [26] In 2016, the Maureen Egen WEX Award invited Maine writers and poets to apply for the 2017 Award. [27] The 2017 winners were Joan Dempsey and Brian Evans-Jones. [28] In 2019, the award selected writers from Oklahoma to admit their works, with a different state selected for different years. At the time, 40 states and Washington DC had participated. [29]
The Amy Award is presented to women poets age 30 and under living in the New York City metropolitan area or on Long Island. Winners receive an honorarium and a reading in New York City. The award was established by Paula Trachtman and Edward Butscher of East Hampton, New York in memory of Ms. Trachtman's daughter, Amy Rothholz, an actor and poet.
Established in 1996, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, which is presented at P&W's annual dinner, recognizes authors who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community. Honorees are nominated by a committee composed of past winners, other prominent writers, and the Board of Directors of Poets & Writers. Title of the award has been given to Barnes & Noble in appreciation of their extraordinary support of Poets & Writers.
James Arlington Wright was an American poet.
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach activities such as National Poetry Month, its website Poets.org, the syndicated series Poem-a-Day, American Poets magazine, readings and events, and poetry resources for K-12 educators. In addition, it sponsors a portfolio of nine major poetry awards, of which the first was a fellowship created in 1946 to support a poet and honor "distinguished achievement," and more than 200 prizes for student poets.
Harryette Mullen, Professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles, is an American poet, short story writer, and literary scholar.
Mark Doty is an American poet and memoirist best known for his work My Alexandria. He was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008.
Claudia Rankine is an American poet, essayist, playwright and the editor of several anthologies. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two plays and various essays.
Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2023, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020.
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation, which also publishes Poetry magazine. The prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. It honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition"; its value is $100,000 making it one of the richest literary prizes in the world. The prize has been called "among the most prestigious awards that can be won by an American poet".
River Styx is a literary journal produced in St. Louis, Missouri, and published two times a year by the Big River Association. It is the oldest literary journal in St. Louis, Missouri.
Belladonna* Collaborative is a small press non-profit publisher and collaborative organization based in Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1999 by Rachel Levitsky as a reading series at Bluestockings in New York, NY. The reading series quickly expanded to a matrix of readings, publications, and informal salons, featuring avant-garde feminist writing, with an emphasis on hybrid and language-focused writing. Currently, the press operates as a non-hierarchical collaborative, publishing books and hosting literary events with attention to diversity in its roster of authors and editorial board.
The Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing is a graduate program in creative writing based at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine, United States. Stonecoast enrolls approximately 100 students in four major genres: creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and popular fiction. Other areas of student interest, including literary translation, performance, writing for stage and screen, writing Nature, and cross-genre writing, are pursued as elective options. Students also choose one track that focuses an intensive research project in their third semester from among these categories: craft, creative collaboration, literary theory, publishing, social justice/community service, and teaching/pedagogy. Stonecoast is one of only two graduate creative writing programs in the country offering a degree in popular fiction. It is accredited through the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC).
Alice James Books is an American non-profit poetry press located in Farmington, Maine and affiliated with the University of Maine at Farmington.
Angela Jackson is an American poet, playwright, and novelist based in Chicago, Illinois. Jackson became the fifth Illinois Poet Laureate in 2020.
Sandra Beasley is an American poet and non-fiction writer.
Cave Canem Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1996 by poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady to remedy the underrepresentation and isolation of African-American poets in Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs and writing workshops across the United States. It is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Sandra Lim is a Korean American poet and professor.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Saddiq Dzukogi is a Nigerian poet and assistant professor at Mississippi State University's Department of English. He is the author of Your Crib, My Qibla, a highly-acclaimed poetry collection which has earned him the 2022 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, and the 2021 Julie Suk Award as a co-winner. The collection was also shortlisted for the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature.