This issue we are extremely proud to feature the work of two highly acclaimed literary talents (and NY Writers Coalition faves) – Poet Hal Sirowitz (Who Takes Care of Black Babies) and Fiction Writer George Saunders (Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz.) We know. Wow.
In addition, we are grateful for the opportunity to showcase the talents of emerging voices from such diverse locales around the globe as Kentucky, Spain, and of course, right here in Brooklyn.
Thanks to our incredible Editors on this issue: Brooklyn represents! This month’s Poetry Editors are Felisha Brown, Shaquanna Cole, and Monet Daniels, three enormously talented and inspiring young women from NY Writers Coalition workshops at the Brooklyn Public Library New Lots and Eastern Parkway Branches.
A salute to Aaron Zimmerman, Deborah Clearman, and our dedicated group of volunteers who keep our mighty coalition moving.
And to our readers, and our friends, and all of the supporters of NY Writers Coalition across the country and beyond.
Thanks for stopping by…
Nancy L. Weber
NYWC
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About the Poetry Editors
On a chilly Brooklyn afternoon, three teenage girls settled into their seats at a big table in a big room, pouring over the large piles of stapled papers placed in front of them. They had just come from taking their Regents Exams, and to the surprise of the two adults in the room, they seemed fresh and focused on the task at hand. For the next four and a half hours, they read, made notes, asked questions, read more, ate pizza, read some more, until the piles of over one hundred poems were limited to just a few – pieces that spoke to them, images that stayed with them.
Shaquanna Cole and Monet Daniels, both ages 17, are participants from the NY Writers Coalition workshop at the Brooklyn Public Library, Eastern Parkway Branch in Crown Heights. They joined Felisha Brown, age 14, a long-time member of the NYWC workshop at the BPL New Lots Branch in East New York, for an absolutely inspiring day acting as Poetry Editors for the fourth issue of Plum Biscuit. The girls are dedicated and talented young writers themselves, and were excited about the challenge of working with adult pieces and having their voices, their ideas, matter in the editorial selection process.
Monet Daniels found it “very interesting to go through the pieces and decide which ones I liked, and I found that as a writer, it was a good experience.” Felisha Brown said that she was “delighted to do it,” but also found the experience to be difficult. “It was good to know that I could be stern,” Felisha said, but she also added that she was “glad [she] didn’t know the people who submitted – that made it easier.” Felisha found that the most valuable part of the process for her was “experiencing different forms of poetry. Seeing different forms in poetry has helped my writing. I liked having the chance to see what older people write about. I knew that if I wrote like that, I could be good too.”
Felisha is good – you will be able to see her work in the upcoming New Lots Review, an NYWC publication due out in April 2007.
Special thanks to Angeli Rasbury, the tireless leader of both the New Lots and Eastern Parkway workshops. Through her workshops at BPL, Angeli continues to nurture and develop the most prolific, intelligent, and inspiring group of young voices in the NYWC.
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