Cisneros Celebrates Macondo

Twenty-five years ago author Sandra Cisneros founded the Macondo Writers Workshop when she invited eight people to convene in the kitchen of her San Antonio, Texas, home.

At Home With Elizabeth Bishop

We consider its lines to be the most elegant thing in Key West,” wrote poet Elizabeth Bishop to a friend upon purchasing the house at 624 White Street, where she would primarily live in Florida’s southernmost city from 1938 to 1946.

You Get Your Own Island

Exploring Wilderness Residencies at National Parks Across the Country

An Alaska Retreat For Women Writers

Mystery writer and Alaska native Dana Stabenow spent last summer watching cabins and a main house take shape amid a meadow of violet lupines in Homer, Alaska.

Force of Will

THE STORY OF EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL’S DRAMATIC ASCENT TO THE BEST-SELLER LIST AFTER THE PUBLICATION OF HER FOURTH NOVEL, STATION ELEVEN, HOLDS VALUABLE LESSONS FOR WRITERS ABOUT HARD WORK AND PERSISTENCE. HER RESPONSE TO THE HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR HER FOLLOW-UP, THE GLASS HOTEL, MAY BE EVEN MORE INSTRUCTIVE.

Energy

“WE ARE ALIVE BECAUSE OF STORY. IT IS ONE OF OUR ANCESTORS’ MOST POWERFUL TECHNOLOGIES. AND WE ARE ALL STORYTELLERS. A STORY IS AN ENERGY, AND LIKE THE WALLS OF JERICHO, MAYBE IF WE PUT ENOUGH OF OUR STORIES OUT THERE, INTO THE AIR, THE WALLS WILL START FALLING; THEY ARE ALREADY CRACKING.” —NATALIE DIAZ, WHOSE NEW BOOK, POSTCOLONIAL LOVE POEM, WILL BE OUT IN MARCH FROM GRAYWOLF PRESS.

Distribution And Discoverability

Independence comes at a price. While supply-chain optimization, technological innovation, and shifts in reading and buying habits have lowered operating costs for many in the book business, publishers included, the price of independence is still mostly paid in the form of costs related to diffusion, such as fees paid to third-party sales and distribution companies, without whom it would be logistically impossible for indie presses—at least those like Europa Editions—to deliver books to our retail partners and, through them, to readers.

Digital Distribution Models

Distribution. Format. Editorial. In publishing—as with almost all media—these three elements work in tandem to define the business models that allow creatives to be creative for a living.

A Call For Change

The future of independent publishing must be innovative.

Name A Song

REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS IN CONVERSATION WITH MAHOGANY L. BROWNE

Right In Front Of You + Immersive

MY HOPES for the future of independent publishing involve three major elements: stronger “channels” of interest that drive better visibility for writers, particularly fiction writers; more collaboration among writers to create these channels and gather power; and deeper experimentation with format and delivery.

Dream House

IN HER NEW BOOK, IN THE DREAM HOUSE, CARMEN MARIA MACHADO REIMAGINES THE MEMOIR FORM BY EXAMINING HER PERSONAL STORY OF DOMESTIC ABUSE USING DIFFERENT NARRATIVE TROPES AND SHINES NEW LIGHT ON THE HISTORY AND REALITY OF ABUSE IN QUEER RELATIONSHIPS.

A Great Good

Upon the release of Another Brooklyn, her first novel for adults in twenty years, Award-Winning author Jacqueline Woodson discusses New York city’s literary legacy, the strength in being a person of color, putting humanity on the page, living in the age of beyoncé, and happiness.

The Business Of Relationships

How Authors, Agents, Editors, Booksellers, and Publicists work together to reach readers. 

Standing The Test Of Time

Secrets of maintaining a long-term agent-author relationship.

Barbershop Books

Growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the nineties, Alvin Irby wasn’t much of a reader.

Shadow Narratives

Paisley Rekdal says writing her sixth poetry collection,Nightingale, out in May from Copper Canyon Press, was“like trying to conduct a whirlwind.” The result is a stunningbook about transformation that will change the way we readviolence, silence, and the stories handed down to us.

Hala Alyan

whose debut novel, Salt Houses, was published in May by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Writing The Self

Some Thoughts on Words and Woe.

The American Writers Museum

The American Writers Museum

Vagrant & Vulnerable

Two Of The Most Dynamic Poets Writing Today, Dawn Lundy Martin And Nicole Sealey, Both With New Collections Out, Explore Issues Of Poetry And Craft, Aesthetics And Language, Luxury And Yearning, Drag And Systematic Repression.

The African Poetry Book Fund

It is not surprising that several world-class writers collaborated to bring the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) to life. Nor is it surprising, given the vast number of prolific African American and African-born writers in America, that such a fund—whose mission is to celebrate and promote the poetic arts of Africa—could have its roots here.

The Art Of Reading James Baldwin

I WENT looking for the devil, but James Baldwin found me first. I had good reason to be looking: not only because I was a wobbling Catholic (beware of any other kind) but also because I was almost born prematurely in a movie theater in 1974 as my parents sat trembling to The Exorcist. I’d always known this; it was one of the first things I could remember my mother telling me: “Never watch that movie. It nearly made you a preemie.”

Truth and Imagınatıon

In a New Novel, Moonglow, His First Since the Best-selling Telegraph Avenue, Michael Chabon Spins a Magical Family Narrative That Is as Grand and Mysterious as the Literary Form in Which He Presents It. 

Angles Of Experience

In All Of Her Writing, Including Five Books, Most Recently The Novel Lost Children Archive , Valeria Luiselli Grapples With Enormous Questions About Immigration, Incarceration, And The Invented Spaces Of Language And Identity, Not By Dwelling On The Answers But By Telling Stories As A Way To Better Ask The Questions.

Shape-Shifter

Marlon James, The Man Booker Prize–Winning Novelist Whose New Book, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Is The First Title Of An Epic Fantasy Trilogy, Sits Down With Kima Jones For A Wide-ranging Conversation about Los Angeles, Literary Fame, Facebook,and The Freedom Of Genre-defying Fiction.

Twenty-Two Of The Most Inspiring Writers Retreats In The Country

Recommended By Twenty-two Of The Most Inspiring Writers

Prize For Thrillers Sparks Debate

Be it Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train, novels that feature violence toward women have dominated the thriller market in recent years, selling millions of copies and leading to major screen adaptations.

Poetry To The People Tour

For the past two years, the literary nonprofit House of SpeakEasy has been bringing books to neighborhoods in and around New York City in the back of its bookmobile, a festive maroon box truck outfitted with bookshelves and movable side panels that serves as a pop-up bookstore and donation center wherever it’s parked.

Be Bold

Following the acclaim of his debut poetry collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, Ocean Vuong confronted expectations for his second book. Rather than craft more poems or turn to memoir, he found power in imagination and freedom in embellishment and wrote a stunningly original novel: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.