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2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction – Alaya Dawn Johnson

Visiting Professor Alaya Dawn Johnson has been chosen for the shortlist for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction!

The prestigious Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is an annual $25,000 cash prize given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. Just ten books were chosen by the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation, with the final winner to be chosen by a selection panel of authors: Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Megan Giddings, Ken Liu, and Carmen Maria Machado.

Each year, we invite a new writer to teach with us every year so that students can dive further into different aspects and genres of writing and get a fresh perspective on their work. Alaya Dawn Johnson has definitely continued in our tradition of great Visiting Professors! Her nomination for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, as well as her recent win of the Best Fiction for Younger Readers Award by the British Science Fiction Association, shows the kind of expertise you can expect from our faculty!

Congratulations to Alaya for this incredible nomination! We’re hoping for more good news when the final winner will be announced on October 21st!

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News

Jason Tougaw makes the homepage of Salon

That’s right, our very own Director, Jason Tougaw made the homepage of Salon this week with his article “Dems, listen to Eminem’s one-man culture war.”

Salon has been a trusted destination for progressive journalism since 1995, so Jason’s exploration of Eminem’s evolving political consciousness is the perfect piece to be number one this week in this essential publication!

You should go check it out right now:

https://www.salon.com/2024/08/30/eminem-slim-shady-democrats

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Events

A Reading by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Writers at Queens is proud to present a reading by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Johnson is this year’s visiting faculty at the Queens College MFA Program and, fresh off her win of Ursula K. Le Guin Award, will be reading from her impressive body of work.

After the reading, Johnson will join in a conversation with the QC community led by MFA alum Megan Pindling, which will be followed by a reception with refreshments and books for sale.

We hope you take the chance to meet and greet this award-winning author! Admission is free to all, and will also be streamed over Zoom, via the URL below. We hope to see you there!

September 30th at 7PM
Queens College
Choral Room 264, Aaron Copland School of Music
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81060471449?pwd=nkqiiFe3dlrDeuU4KBYz1ERqo53aBR.1


BIO:

Alaya Dawn Johnson is an award-winning author of speculative fiction for adults and young adults. Her most recent adult novel, Trouble the Saints, was the recipient of the World Fantasy Award for best novel. Her short story collection, Reconstruction, was published by Small Beer Press in January 2021. Her latest YA novel, The Library of Broken Worlds, is a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin award. She is current a Visiting Professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation at CUNY Queens College.

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News

Chandanie Somwaru Wins Ruth Lilly Fellowship

MFA alum Chandanie Somwaru has just been named a recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship.

The Poetry Foundation awards five Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships annually. Among the largest awards offered to young poets in the US, the $27,000 prize is intended to support exceptional US poets between 21 and 31 years of age.

The fellowships were established in 1989 by the Indianapolis philanthropist Ruth Lilly and expanded in 2013 with a gift from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund.

Chandanie won the Birdhouse Chapbook Prize from Ghostbird Press for Urgent \\ Where the Mind Goes \\ Scattered (2021) when she graduated, so we knew she was destined for great things. Her writing has been published in Poem-A-DayHoney LiterarySolsticeSWWIMThe Margins, and other outlets.

Congratulations, Chandanie!

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News

Jason Tougaw: Psychology Today

Our own Jason Tougaw has an interview in Psychology Today with Iraq War veteran Michael Ramos about Ramos’ memoir The After: A Veteran’s Notes on Coming Home. In the interview, Tougaw and Ramos explore writing for multiple audiences and other craft issues arising from depicting his experience as a soldier.

There’s a reason why Psychology Today listed this under their Emotional Essential reads! Go find out for yourself while you read the interview for yourself:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-elusive-brain/202408/a-soldiers-perspective

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Events

Small Press Flea 2024

When: August 17, 2024
Where: 316 Ten Eyck St, Brooklyn, NY

Small Press Flea (SPF) is back—and at a new location. Join us at Amant’s campus for BOMB’s fair featuring your favorite local publishers and magazines.

BOMB’s Small Press Flea is a day celebrating independent publishers and the small press community.

Rain or shine, unless it’s pouring, 10AM–4PM. We’ll see you there.

Participating publishers:

3 Hole Press, 53rd State Press, 8-Ball, A Public Space, Anarchist Review of Books, Archipelago Books, Autonomedia, The Baffler, Belladonna*, Birds, LLC, Black Sun Lit / Vestiges, Common Notions, Daba, The Feminist Press, Hanging Loose, Inpatient Press, McPherson & Company, n+1, Nightboat, OR Books, Pioneer Works, Poets & Traitors Press, Radix Media, Secret Riso Club, Seven Stories Press, Song Cave, Ugly Duckling Presse, Verso Books, Wendy’s Subway, Winter Editions, Wonder, World Poetry, Zone Books
 

RSVP

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Events News

Jonathan Alexandratos: Sewing Bears

MFA alum Jonathan Alexandratos has created a play from idea to finish using what they are calling “The Colbert Method,” based on an anecdote seen on the Late Show tiktok account (@colbertlateshow) Stephen Colbert where he mentioned he and his friends used to take plays from concept to stage in nine days.

The final product, called Sewing Bears, is based on the 1907 “Teddy Bear Scare” and is set to open on July 17th, running for only two nights: July 17th and 18th at 7:30pm in Chelsea Market’s Maker’s Studio (448 West 16th Street, New York, NY). Tickets are at $10 and $20 levels and can be purchased here. All profits benefit Girls Who Code, an organization dedicated to tearing down gender barriers in tech. 

You can read more about Jonathan’s process in bringing this play to life, alongside their collaborators, in Broadway World, or buy your tickets directly at this link:

https://events.humanitix.com/sewing-bears-a-play-with-pockets/tickets

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News

Nicole Cooley Should Be On Your Summer Reading List

Our own Nicole Cooley is featured in LitHub’s “Six Poetry Collections to Read in July.” This list, curated by Rebecca Morgan Frank, has been crafted not just to bring you the best of the best of just-published poetry books but also to bring you places during these summer months, as Morgan Frank puts it “New Orleans and small towns in Virginia and Michigan; the varied landscapes of California; Jeju City in Korea; and where we all meet up far too often: cyberspace.”

Who doesn’t want to travel on the cheap? Head over to LitHub to hear about Nicole’s latest book of poetry, Mother Water Ash, and all the places you might go this summer, thanks to your local bookstore:

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News

Liv Mammone – Poem of the Day

A big congratulations to MFA alum Liv Mammone, who is the Poem-a-Day on the Academy of American Poets website!

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series of the Academy of American Poets featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. torrin a. greathouse is the guest editor of July.

This is fresh off the heels of Liv being selected as the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day back at the end of June, so you know that Liv’s upcoming book, Fire in the Waiting Room (Game Over Books, 2025) is going to be much acclaimed.

Go read (or listen) to Liv’s poem now:

https://poets.org/poem/fear-2

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Events

Book Launch for Jonathan Kravetz – 6.25.24

MFA alum Jonathan Kravetz is having his book launch for his debut novel, How We Were Before, tomorrow night as part of the Half King Reading Series at Revision Lounge and Gallery tomorrow night!

If you’re free, head down to Avenue B tomorrow night!