News & Reviews
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News

June 19, 2019: Joy Harjo Is the New U.S. Poet Laureate loc.gov/item/prn-19-066

January 5, 2017: Karla Huston has been named Wisconsin Poet Laureate host.madison.com/news/local/huston-named-state-s-new-poet-laureate/article_fb633344-eb72-5673-b53e-4153e2d671d4.html

Wisconsin Writes
MADISON —The Department of Public Instruction is filling a void in the world of educational materials thanks to a collaborative project involving DPI staff and more than a dozen authors from around Wisconsin. The video series, called “Wisconsin Writes,” features walk-throughs of the writing process by each author and a look at their typical work day. Each author who agreed to participate appears in two types of videos. First, they demonstrate their writing process by moving forward on an actual piece they were working on. The second element, a straightforward interview, gives students advice on writing and a sense of what it’s all about. Featured writers include the state’s poet laureate, Kimberly Blaeser of Burlington, poetry, Wisconsin Poet Laureate, “Goodbye to All That.” Numerous other writers from throughout the state donated their time to help students understand writing.

6/10/15: Juan Felipe Herrera Named U.S. Poet Laureate: washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/juan-felipe-herrera-becomes-first-hispanic-american-us-poet-laureate/2015/06/09/12de51b8-0eb0-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html

Urban Spoken Word Collective, the third-Thursday slam and poetry reading at Genna's on the Capitol square, was named one of Madison's best ways to live it up on a budget. m.isthmus.com/article.php?article=40890

The poems from Bridge I, II, III, and IV are now up on the Chazen website: chazen.wisc.edu/about/multimedia-center/publications.

Calls for Submissions

The Wisconsin Humanities Council awards grants for public humanities programs, which deepen our understanding of life, culture and society through reflection and conversation rooted in the study of history, literature and other branches of the humanities. Our grants are offered to non-profits and ad hoc committees for programs—and many of them involve poetry! Our grants are up to $10,000.00 in seven different cycles throughout the year, and giving grants to small communities in Wisconsin is one of our top priorities. Programs we have helped to bring to fruition include a poetry festival by The Friends of Lorine Niedecker in Fort Atkinson, a workshop and reading featuring Todd Boss at the McIntosh Memorial Library in Viroqua, and a Native American reading series in Lac du Flambeau. Learn more about how your own local community can be aided in providing poetic programming to the general public by checking out the WHC grant guidelines, and calling Shoshauna Shy at (608) 262-0706. Upcoming events statewide that we have helped with financial support at wisconsinhumanities.org

Awards & Publications

2016 WISCONSIN WRITERS AWARDS ANNOUNCED BY COUNCIL FOR WISCONSIN WRITERS

Eight Wisconsin writers have been named winners of the Wisconsin Writers Awards for work published in 2016. The Council will award each winner $500 and a weeklong writing residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point. Honorable mentions will receive $50 and a residency at Painted Forest, Valton, WI. Awards will be presented at the Council's annual banquet to be held this year on May 13 in Milwaukee.

The Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award goes to Patricia Skalka, Sturgeon Bay, for Death in Cold Water, University of Wisconsin Press. Honorable mention is awarded to Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden for Death on a Starry Night, University of Wisconsin Press.

Paula Dáil, Spring Green, is the winner of the Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award for Mother Nature's Daughters: 21st Century Women Farmers, McFarland, while James Campbell, Lodi, receives an honorable mention award for Braving It: A Father, A Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into the Alaskan Wild, Crown, Penguin Random House.

Catherine Jagoe, Madison, is the winner of the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award for the book Bloodroot, Settlement House Books. Honorable mention goes to Jon Loomis, Eau Claire, for The Mansions of Happiness, Oberlin College Press.

Rachel Davidson Leigh, Madison, is winner of the Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award for Hold, Interlude Press/Duet Books. Dean Robbins, Madison, receives honorable mention for Two Friends, Orchard Books/Scholastic.

Liz Wyckoff, Madison, is the winner of the Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction for “Like This, Like That,” Copper Nickel. Jeff Esterholm, Superior, is the recipient of an honorable mention for “Flaming Chevy Lodestar,” RE:AL Regarding Arts & Letters.

Carolyn Kott Washburne, Whitefish Bay, is the winner of the Kay W. Levin Short Nonfiction Award for “A Natural Ken,” Milwaukee Magazine. Patti See, Chippewa Falls, receives honorable mention for “Diary of a Bone Marrow Donor” 1966: A Journal of Creative Nonfiction.

The Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award for five individual poems goes to David Southward, Milwaukee. Honorable mention goes to Georgia Ressmeyer, Sheboygan.

Contest winners and honorable mentions were selected by out-of-state judges.

The Council for Wisconsin Writers’ Major Achievement award honors a Wisconsin writer for work that deserves special recognition for literary merit without regard to genre or category. The winner is chosen by the CWW Board of Directors. This year’s Major Achievement award will be presented to John Gurda, Milwaukee.

The public is invited to celebrate our state’s fine writers at the CWW’s Awards Banquet at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 13, at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee. Banquet tickets must be reserved by Tuesday, May 9.

More information about the winners, judges, banquet registration, and the Council for Wisconsin Writers can be found at its website, www.wiswriters.org.

F.J. Bergmann, Madison, has won the 2016 Gold Line Press poetry chapbook contest for A Catalogue of the Further Suns, to appear in 2017.

Catherine Jagoe of Madison has won the 2015-16 Settlement House American Poetry Prize. Her collection of poems, Bloodroot, was published in 2016.

Motherlung, by Lisa Marie Brodsky, has been published by Salmon Poetry.

"Lisa Marie Brodsky's poems are like a knife cutting away subcutaneous fat to reveal the abnormal tissue that needs to be excised before the healing can begin. Motherlung, in its quiet emotive passion, chronicles the tenuous strength of the mother- daughter relationship in terms so stark and final it leaves the reader gasping for breath at the end of each poem … and understanding at the end of each life. These poems will stay with you, a perpetual guiding play of light and shadow over the soul." —James P. Roberts

Old Reviews: Reviews previously posted on this page.