For The Root, I write my annual year-end round up of 16 wonderful books published by black authors in 2017. Others great ones I would have loved to include are Bunk, by Kevin Young, The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin, Ordinary Beast by Nicole Sealey, I’m So Fine, A List of Famous Men & What I Had On by Khadijah Queen, & Lower Ed by Tracey Clayton…but don’t worry, I’m showing some love for those books elsewhere soon soon.
Creative Nonfiction has nominated my essay “The Animal in the Yard” from their summer 2017 “Adaptation” issue for a Puschart Prize. Many thanks to Hattie, Lee, and the rest of the good folks at this wonderful magazine.
Over at Jacket 2, Nathan Suhr-Sytsma has a lovely review of The Leaving and the other chapbooks in the New Generation African Poets Tatu release.
Many thanks to Border Crossing Magazine for nominating my poems for a Best of the Net Award.
“Donald Trump referred to Hillary Clinton as a “nasty woman” during one of the Presidential Debates–and women poets across the country responded with a vengeance. These poems of resistance to misogyny are powerful, moving, funny, and wise. Coeditors Bauer and Kane have assembled a rich collection of poems in this beautifully put together volume. I highly recommend this book.”--5 Star Review from Amazon.com
“What a fine anthology! Topical. Brilliant!”–-5 Star Review from Amazon.com
“This collection is so wonderful I hardly know where to start. It may be sufficient to say that as you read it you’ll laugh, cry, get in a rage, but above all rejoice about being a woman.”--5 Star Review from Amazon.com
“I love this book so much! It’s smart, sassy, and raw. The poets in this anthology are some of the most powerful feminist voices today at their finest. Julie Kane and Grace Bauer have put together one beautifully nasty collection of poems from a diverse group of women. It’s a testament to the power of poetry and women everywhere.”–5 Star Review from Amazon.com
Honored to have my poem “Job (War Survivor’s Guilt” in the Nasty Women Poets anthology edited by the wonderful Grace Bauer and Julie Kane.
I have a new essay at Creative Nonfiction Magazine. It’s not online, but you can look at a picture of the issue here. You can even buy it. Or you can go to a bookstore or library. They are both pretty great. You can discover all sorts of things.
I have a new poem at Foundry.
Incredibly honored to be named a finalist for the Rita Dove 2017 International Poetry Award. Congrats to the other finalists and the winner, Danielle Zaccagnino. Read more here.
The National Endowment for the Arts has announced that Hope Wabuke is one of 37 writers to receive an FY 2017 individual creative writing fellowships of $25,000.
“The NEA has an excellent record of supporting writers who have gone on to have impressive literary careers,” said NEA Director of Literature Amy Stolls. “With their talent and diverse backgrounds, this year’s Creative Writing Fellows, including Hope Wabuke, will add to our country’s rich literary history.”
“I am extremely grateful to the NEA for affirming my poetry in this way,” says Wabuke. “I will use the resources from this fellowship to complete work on my poetry collection The Body Family, which explores my family’s escape from Idi Amin’s Ugandan genocide and the aftermath of healing in America.”
Wabuke was selected from more than 1,800 eligible applicants. Through its creative writing fellowships program, the National Endowment for the Arts gives writers the time and space to create, revise, conduct research, and connect with readers. Applications are reviewed through an anonymous process on their artistic excellence. Fellowships alternate between poetry and prose each year and in FY 2017 fellowships are in poetry. The full list of FY 2017 Creative Writing Fellows is available here.
Many American recipients of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and Fiction were recipients of NEA creative writing fellowships early in their careers. For more information on NEA Creative Writing Fellowships, visit the NEA’s Writers’ Corner.
