Poets & Writers, Inc.
Partner with Jentel Foundation
Under a partnership formed in 2003, Poets & Writers, Inc. and the Jentel Foundation began awarding recipients of the Poets & Writers Exchange Program a one month residency. Poets & Writers Inc. is a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation organized for literary and educational purposes, publicly supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the California Arts Council, foundations, corporations and individuals.
Initiated in 1984, The Writers Exchange Program is designed to encourage the sharing of works and resources among emerging writers nationwide. Winning writers are flown to New York City for a weekñlong visit with literary agents, editors and prominent writers with their visit culminating in a public reading. Bonnie Rose Marcus, Director of the Writers Exchange commented that the program introduces emerging poets and fiction writers to literary communities outside their home state and provides them with a network for professional advancement. Many participants have achieved professional success as a result of the program-getting their books published, receiving awards and fellowships, securing teaching positions, and setting down groundwork for their career as a writer. Mary Jane Edwards, Executive Director of the Jentel Foundation noted that the partnership will further enhance the quality of writers who come to Sheridan County and interact with members of the community through Jentel Presents, our monthly outreach program. Edwards added, ìWe are thrilled with the partnership and what it has to offer the community.î
Poets & Writers, Inc. publishes Poets & Writers Magazine with a circulation of 70,000 copies nationwide. The magazine is the primary source for what creative writers need to know. Along with essays on the literary life and interviews with contemporary writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, the magazine publishes articles with practical applications for both emerging and established writers. In addition, it provides the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prizewinners available in print.
Poets & Writers WEX Jentel Residency Recipients
2008
July
Andres Rodriguez
Kansas City, Missouri/Flagstaff, Arizona
Andres Rodriguez is the author of Night Song: Poems and Book of the Heart: The Poetics, Letters, and Life of John Keats. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared or will soon appear in Drunken Boat, New York Quarterly, Harvard Review, Cortland Review, Valparaiso Review, Palabra, Bilingual Review, Sagetrieb, and other journals. His poetry has been represented in the anthologies Primera Pagina, Dream of a Word, Currents from the Dancing River, New Chicano/Chicana Writing, and Wild Song. He has degrees in English from the University of Iowa, Stanford University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work was selected by Major Jackson as winner of the 2007 Maureen Egan Writers Exchange Award in Poetry sponsored by Poets & Writers. While at Jentel Arts, Rodriguez worked on poems for a new manuscript of poetry. He began teaching literature at Northern Arizona University in the fall of 2008.
When asked what he liked best about his Jentel residency, Rodriguez responded, ìAlthough I cannot compare Jentel to any other residency program (this was my first residence as a writer), I can say that my heart and mind were very stimulated by the physical environment. This place allowed me to work without interruption, fatigue, or anxiety, think about my vocation as a writer, and consider my attitude to my work in ways often difficult to do in the normal, hectic context of life. I enjoyed and benefited from conversations with fellow resident artists about life and art, which is a thing, again, not always possible in the course of a workaday world. Jentel is an oasis, a refuge, a salvation, a nexus. I hope it continues for a long time to come, and that many artists find as much inspiration and good tidings as I have found there.î
2008
June
Shena McAuliffe
Seattle, Washington
Shena McAuliffe is a fiction writer whose stories have been published (or are forthcoming) in Conjunctions, Alaska Quarterly Review, Black Warrior Review, Land-Grant College Review, and CutBank. Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also taught fiction writing. She was the winner of the 2006 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award, sponsored by Poets & Writers. She now lives in Seattle and teaches writing at Highline Community College.
Shena added, ìI grew up in Colorado, so Wyoming felt a little bit like home. I loved the sun, the open spaces, the dramatic storms, the nearby mountains. The time to read and write without restriction was a relief and a pleasure. I was pleased to find my way back into my (slow) creative process and unearth the things that lingered there. The other residents quickly became friendsóthey were both inspiring and encouraging. Talking, hiking, swimming or eating a meal with them provided perfect balance for the solitude of my work.î
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2007
June
Paige Ackerson-Kiely
Lincoln, Vermont
Paige Ackerson-Kiely’s work has appeared in: Pleiades, Bellingham Review, Ninth Letter, jubilat and other journals. Her first book, In No One’s Land was selected by D.A. Powell for the 2006 Sawtooth Poetry Prize, and is available through Ahsahta Press. Paige is on the faculty of the New England Young Writer’s Conference, and was a participant in the University of San Francisco Emerging Writer’s Festival in April 2007. She received a travel grant from the Vermont Arts Council to cover her expenses to and from the Jentel Artist Residency. She lives a quiet life in Vermont with her young family and dog and works as a clerk. She also tutors High School students in writing through a grant from The Willowell Foundation. Paige is the co-editor of a new literary journal, Handsome, which will make its debut in September of 2007. She is the recipient of the 2006 Poets & Writers Writer’s Exchange Award. She is currently undertaking several new writing projects, including a second book of poems and a novel about infanticide.
When asked what she valued about his Jentel residency, she replied, “The space and time afforded by the Jentel residency came at a time when I was growing tired of my voice and hopeless about my new projects. Typically, my life allows little time for reflection, and what time I do have must be used for creation rather than thought, research, or visioning. Often I find myself bearing up under the strain of my mediocrity because the two hours I have to finish a piece is all I’m gonna get, and I have to find some level of satisfaction, no matter how meager, so that I may carry on in my little way. My time at Jentel allowed me to look at my work in a new way, allowed me to try new techniques that normally I would shelve in favor of the mania-induced frenzies which I have grown to rely upon as a means of getting something down on paper. It was pure luxury to be able to go back to a poem infinitely, to disallow the detritus of my personal conflagration to usurp my vision for the piece. I am leaving Jentel refreshed, full of ideas, and a personal trajectory that I believe will see my myriad of projects through the next year.”
2006
January
Anthony (Tony) Brusate
Lexington, Kentucky
Tony Brusate was the recipient of the 2004 Poets and Writers Exchange Award for poetry, a 2005 Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship, and an Edna Meudt Memorial Award from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. He holds a degree in Secondary Education from Central Michigan University and received his MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Alabama, where he worked on the staff of The Black Warrior Review and ran S&N Press, a fine edition letterpress. His poems have appeared in such literary magazines as Rattle, The Cream City Review, and The Distillery.
"Most poets need a day job," said Tony Brusate, who sells Mercedes automobiles in Lexington, Kentucky. "The trick is keeping your day job from getting in the way of your poetry. Jentel gave me a chance to get away from the assiduous life of the car lot and give my writing more of the attention it deserves."
2004
August
Jane Wampler
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Jane Wampler is a poet whose works, nominated for a 2000 Pushcart Prize, have appeared in a number of journals including The Missouri Review, Atlanta Review, the eleventh Muse, Hanging Loose, and the Seneca Review. She is the recipient of a 2003 Poets and Writers Exchange Award and a 2002 Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship in poetry. She has taught creative writing at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs and is currently faculty at the Colorado College for the fall of 2004. Before receiving her M.F.A. in Poetry from Vermont College, Jane spent a decade writing news, politics and features for newspapers and magazines. Her stories, columns and commentary have appeared in publications such as the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, the Houston Post, Texas Monthly, and the Denver Rocky Mountain News. In addition, she is president of Poetry West, a 22-year old Colorado Springs-based non profit organization. Poetry West strives to foster the literary arts through free monthly workshops, critiques, public readings and by giving Colorado Springs poets a sense of community and support. While at Jentel, she focused on her first book of poems, a manuscript entitled Horse, I Reason.
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