1. Untitled photograph from Nydia Blas’s series The Girls Who Spun Gold. The heart of this photograph is a length of shiny gold fabric that covers the faces of two Black women who are seated on a couch, joining them as one magical unit despite the sp

1. Mind-set. The first thing to know about collaborating with cats is that they don’t have owners. They have staff. You’re their staff writer. Some writers think they want total independence, but others know the value of productive constraints, assig

1. King Lear, Edmund’s soliloquy (Act 1, Scene 2) by William Shakespeare. Edmund was my Shakespeare villain crush, and his soliloquy lives permanently in my head. Hear the crescendo: “villains by necessity; fools by / heavenly compulsion; knaves, thi

1. Black tourmaline. I’m a big crystals person, and on my desk I keep black tourmaline. Tourmaline is good for reducing stress and boosting mental awareness, things I desperately need. 2. Pyrite. Speaking of crystals, I also keep pyrite, which is tri

For more than fifty years, Poets & Writers has paid writers to give readings or teach writing workshops in partnership with grassroots organizations. While the mini-grants we distribute through our Readings & Workshops program are modest, they can pr

THERE WAS A POINT DURING THE EDITING OF THIS ISSUE’S special section on inspiration when, I must admit, I felt a little overwhelmed by the veritable sea of ideas flooding my e-mail inbox each day, as contributors responded to my invitation to compile

When food or drink is mentioned in writing, the mind races and rushes for associations or memories. Food or drink often has a subtext—a layering or, forgive me, a flavor—tinged with grief, joy, shame, desire, nostalgia. In The Hungry Ear: Poems of Fo

Movement is the modus operandi of nonprofit publisher Nomadic Press (nomadicpress.org). Geographically, philosophically, and creatively, the press aims to cross boundaries. “It’s about moving away from the idea of a focus on product to a focus on pro

A fellowship of $25,000 is given biennially for the translation into English of a work of modern Italian poetry. The winning translator will also receive a five-week residency at the American Academy in Rome. Jennifer Scappettone, Graziella Sidoli, a

“If I could only see more clearly my own seeing—” writes Katherine Indermaur in the first line of her book-length lyric essay, I|I (Seneca Review Books, November 2022). The book’s title is pronounced by repeating the pronoun “I,” with a pause after t

ALISSA GREENBERG is a writer at PBS Nova and a freelance journalist reporting at the intersection of science, history, and culture. Her work has appeared in print and online at the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, and more. PRISCILLA WU

The 2023 General Artist Residency Program offers residencies of two weeks or one month during July, September, October, and November to poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators at Tower View, a 350-acre historic estate in

1. Somewhere (2010), written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Coppola is our greatest living director. The interiors (and exteriors) of the Chateau Marmont hotel in L.A. are beautiful here. So is watching a man (Stephen Dorff) in existential trouble. A

1. Turn your mind inside out. One of my favorite discoveries has been dry-erase paint. I fully painted two of my office walls, and it’s where I do my first project outlines. The temporariness of it gives me permission to be messy and the space to con

Suggested Reading: Black Women Writers at Work (Haymarket Books, January 2023) edited by Claudia Tate Originally published in 1983 by Continuum, the late Claudia Tate’s collection of interviews has long been out of print. This new edition, with a for

Sometimes I forget why I should keep writing. I hope you make a list of your own. Here is mine: 1. Write for God. The cave. The envelope. 2. Write for your mother. Your father. Your friend who is sick. 3. Write for the future. Write for the past. Wri

1. Untitled (2006) by Ellen Gallagher. I encountered this untitled painting for the first time on the cover of Dawn Lundy Martin’s book Good Stock Strange Blood (Coffee House Press, 2017). I still remember submerging into the painting for the first t

Marilyn Nelson of Cleveland won the 2022 Wallace Stevens Award. Nelson, whose most recent collection is Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2011 (Louisiana State University Press, 2012), received $100,000. The Academy’s board of chancello

1. The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day (Chronicle Books, 2015) translated by Ogden Goelet, Raymond Faulkner, Carol A. R. Andrews, J. Daniel Gunther, James Wasserman. On not dying a second time. Nor losing your heart in the g