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201 Posts

Authors / Interviews

5 Reasons to Teach This Book: Wound from the Mouth of a Wound

Bailey Hutchinson — 12/08/2020

Welcome, friends, to the latest installment of 5 Reasons to Teach This Book! In this interview series, we examine what we can learn from Milkweed’s titles by discussing our books with educators, authors, and booksellers. This month, we’re featuring the 2020 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry winner, torrin a. greathouse and her debut full-length collection of poetry, Wound from the Mouth of a Wound.

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound is a deftly transformative text—one that resonates with prosodic brilliance. torrin’s formal variety is electric enough on its own, but combined with her stinging imagery and unreserved depictions of disability, physical…

Authors / Interviews

Deep Cuts—Larry Watson's Let Him Go

Bailey Hutchinson — 11/11/2020

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts. In this series, we dive in with some of our authors and discuss the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their books.

We’re all about transformative literature here at Milkweed—y’all know that—but this month we got to see a slightly different kind of transformation: Larry Watson’s Let Him Go, a novel we originally published in 2007, transformed into a Focus Features film. What sorts of changes happen between page and screen? How might an author feel seeing a character they wrote find life (literally) in an actor…

Authors / News / Awards & Prizes

Michael Kleber-Diggs Wins 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize

Milkweed Staff — 10/16/2020

We are thrilled to announce that Michael Kleber-Diggs is the winner of the 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. His manuscript Worldly Things was selected by judge Henri Cole and will be published in June 2021. In addition to publication, Kleber-Diggs will receive $10,000.

Michael Kleber-Diggs was born and raised in Kansas and now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. His work has appeared in Lit Hub, the Rumpus, Rain Taxi, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Water~Stone Review, Midway Review, North Dakota Quarterly and a few anthologies. Kleber-Diggs teaches poetry and creative non-fiction through the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop. Worldly Things

Authors / News / Awards & Prizes

Devon Walker-Figueroa Wins 2020 National Poetry Series

Milkweed Staff — 10/14/2020

We are thrilled to announce that Devon Walker-Figueroa has been named one of five winners of the National Poetry Series for 2020. Her manuscript Philomath was selected by Milkweed poet Sally Keith and will be published in September 2021. In addition to publication, Walker-Figueroa will receive $10,000.

Devon Walker-Figueroa is a writer, editor, and erstwhile professional ballet dancer who grew up in Kings Valley (a ghost town in the Oregon Coast Range). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the 2018 recipient of New England Review’s Emerging Writer Award, Walker-Figueroa has published poems in such journals as the American Poetry Review, …

Authors / Poetry & Migration

5 Reasons to Teach This Book: The Century

Bailey Hutchinson — 10/08/2020

Welcome, friends, to the latest installment of 5 Reasons to Teach This Book! In this interview series, we examine what we can learn from Milkweed’s titles by discussing our books with educators, authors, and booksellers. This month, we’re featuring Éireann Lorsung’s recently-released collection, The Century.

These poems navigate cross-continental histories as best they can with the flawed vehicle we have collectively inherited: language. “I need a language more open / than the language of forms, more / spacious than the language poetry / can be,” Lorsung writes, cueing readers to this book’s mission: not to solve the dilemma of situating…

Authors / Interviews / Watch & Listen

Deep Cuts: Screen Smiles and World of Wonders

Bailey Hutchinson — 09/28/2020

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts! In this series, we dive in with some of our authors and discuss the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their books. We’re doing things a smidge differently this month—in a moment, I’ll hand the mic over fully to Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who will take us on an audiovisual tour of some favorite featured friends from her new essay collection, World of Wonders.  

But let me gush for just a sec: I admire World of Wonders so much. By moving through the world with an eye…

News

Meet our 2020 Fellows

Milkweed Staff — 09/24/2020

We are so excited to introduce you to our two Fellows, Kachina Yeager and Tijqua Daiker, who both joined our team this year. Milkweed Publisher & CEO Daniel Slager, who helped establish our Fellowship program, reflects on these two new team members:

”In these challenging times, we are particularly pleased to welcome these Fellows to our team, and to work alongside them in publishing transformative books, from acquisition to release. I am confident they will enlarge our perspective as a publisher, and it is our great hope that they will contribute to the expansion of our field in…