Portland, OR —

Portland Book Festival: "Jump-Starting Your Poems with Wonder," with Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Portland Book Festival hosts a writing workshop taught by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Lony Haley-Nelson notes: “Wonder is valuable…because it leads us to learn and remember.” Using the language and vocabulary of myth, folklore, science, and natural history as inspiration for poems, this generative workshop will help you jump-start the blank page in front of you. Limited to 40 students; register here.

Portland, OR —

Portland Book Festival: Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Kawai Strong Washburn, & John Freeman

Portland Book Festival hosts a cross-genre discussion of environmental justice and the inseparableness of the climate crisis and economic inequality, featuring John Freeman, editor of Tales of Two Planets and author of The Park. John will be in conversation with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, acclaimed poet (Oceanic) and author of the illustrated essay collection about the natural world and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us, World of Wonders; and Kawai Strong Washburn, whose debut novel is Sharks in the Time of Saviors, in which supernatural events force a family to reckon with the meaning of heritage and the cost of survival. RSVP here.

Tucson, AZ —

Dear America Virtual Town Hall: Real Patriotism, ft. Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Tune in for the final Dear America Virtual Town Hall, sponsored by Terrain.org and Trinity University Press, featuring readings and discussion by Sherwin Bitsui, Fenton Johnson, Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Debra Marquart, and facilitated by Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin. Learn more here.

Milwaukee, WI —

The Poetics of Urban Gardening with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ross Gay, & Kelsey Marie Harris

Ahead of their Saturday reading, authors and gardeners Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ross Gay, and Kelsey Marie Harris will join Venice Williams, the founder of Alice’s Garden in Milwaukee, to discuss the intersections between creative collaboration, gardening, poetry, social justice, and well-being. Woodland Pattern executive director Jenny Gropp will moderate, and the conversation will open to a Q & A toward the program’s end. Register here.

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, …

Devon Walker-Figueroa

Devon Walker-Figueroa grew up in Kings Valley, a ghost town in the Oregon Coast Range, and received her education from Chemeketa Community College, Cornell University, Bennington College, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and New York University, where she was the Jill Davis Fellow in fiction.

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