Spending Poetry Friday at the Baltimore Book Festival

Writerly Friends, it's Baltimore Book Festival weekend!

Janet at Poetry for Children is hosting
this week's Poetry Friday festival of posts.

I'll be reading, writing, and speaking down at Baltimore's Inner Harbor all weekend. I'll catch up on the Poetry Friday festivities later.

The list of featured authors includes several poets and children's authors I hope to see:

Kwame Alexander
Katherine Applegate
Sandra Beasley
Celeste Doaks
Frederick O. Foote
Erin  Hagar
Meg Medina
E. Ethelbert Miller
Laura Shovan
Carole Boston Weatherford

Did you see a familiar name on there? Here's where you can find me:

Saturday, 1 PM at the CityLit Stage

Chapbook Champions: Winners of the Harriss Poetry Prize

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Harriss Poetry Prize is a chapbook competition open to poets nation-wide who have not published a book-length collection.  Named in honor of the patron saint of Maryland poetry and independent publishing, Clarinda Harriss, and published under the CityLit Press imprint, the prize has been judged by acclaimed poets such as Dick Allen, Marie Howe, Tom Lux, and Michael Salcman, who serves as the series editor.

Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka (Oblige the Light) is the author of Face Half-Illuminated, a book of poems, translations, and prose. Her poems, translations, essays, and interviews have appeared in Akcent; Driftwood Press; International Poetry Review; Lalitamba; Little Patuxent Review; Loch Raven Review; Notre Dame Review; Passager; Przegl?d Polski, Nowy Dziennik; and The Baltimore Review, and elsewhere.

Rebekah Remington (Asphalt) holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her poetry has appeared in Linebreak, The Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, Bellingham Review Online, Hayden Ferry’s Review, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of two Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in poetry.

Bruce Sager (Famous) works as a corporate officer in a systems integration firm. He has been the recipient of Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in both fiction and poetry, a Baltimore City Arts Grant in poetry, and the 1986 Artscape Literary Arts Award in poetry, judged by William Stafford. Prior chapbooks include Nine Ninety-Five and The Pumping Station.

Laura Shovan (Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone) is poetry editor for the literary journal Little Patuxent Review. She edited the Maryland Writers’ Association anthology Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems. The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, her novel-in-verse for children, will be published next year.

Sunday, 12 PM at the CityLit Stage

The Poet's Response: A Conversation on Social Justice and Poetics (Little Patuxent Review and Split This Rock)

Co-Sponsored by Little Patuxent Review and Split This Rock, the D.C.-based national network of socially engaged poets, this panel and poetry reading explores how poets respond to issues of social justice, and how activism shapes, informs, and invigorates the poet's craft. The conversation is co-moderated by Sarah Browning, executive director of Split This Rock, and Steven Leyva, editor of Little Patuxent Review.

Mahogany L. Browne is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and Poet’s House, and is the current curator and host for the Friday Night series at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café in New York. Her most recent projects include Redbone: A Biomythography, #Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out Online in 140 Characters or Less, and Swag.

zakia henderson-brown currently serves as Associate Editor at The New Press and on the board of the Brooklyn Movement Center. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming inBeloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, and Vinyl. zakia is a Cave Canem fellow and resides in her native Brooklyn.

Goldie Patrick has been a feature poet and performer at several poetry venues nationwide. Most recently named one of the top 40 under 40 by the Envest Foundation, Goldie is a self-proclaimed “hip-hop womanist,” inspired to create conversations and movements that empower and liberate the stories of Black women and girls.

Laura Shovan is poetry editor for Little Patuxent Review and editor of two poetry anthologies. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, her novel-in-verse for children, will be published in 2016.

If you're going to BBF, look for the SCBWI table! 

This is the first year that our local region will be represented at the festival.

Check out our local authors on Friday, 4 pm at the Inner Harbor Stage.

So You Want to Write a Children’s Book

Introduced by: Joyce Garczynski, Research and Instruction Librarian, Towson University

Members of the MD/DE/WV region of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators share their paths to publication in a panel discussion.

Panelists: Timothy Young, Ann McCallum, Laura Gehl and Rebecca Evans.

I'm excited to meet Laura Gehl, who has been featured here at Author Amok.

I can't leave without sharing a poem.

E. Ethelbert Miller's website has a wonderful selection of his poems. "Circus Animal" is a powerful short poem. I think this is a great one for eliciting a powerful discussion with your high school students. You'll find the poem here.