Robert Boswell Interviews Tony Hoagland at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers

Tony Hoagland Interviews Robert Boswell at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers

Two 2018 Levis Prizes of $5,000 for a First Book of Poetry and First Book of Fiction

Two Larry Levis Post-Graduate Stipends, one in fiction and one in poetry, are given to support graduates of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers who are completing first books. Each 2018 award will be made to a writer in the amount of $5,000. Judges will be announced with the winning manuscripts.

Eligibility

The Levis Stipends are open only to alumni who have not yet published a full-length collection in the selected genre in a standard edition. A standard edition is defined as 150 or more pages in a print run of 1500 or more copies for fiction, and as 48 or more pages in a print run of 500 or more copies for poetry. Entrants to the competition must hold the MFA degree from Warren Wilson College. All alumni are eligible.

Guidelines

1. All submissions must be made via Submittable. An entry fee of $30 is required to process the application.
2. Include in your application a statement regarding how the award will be used, projected completion date of the book manuscript, and a list of publication credits.
3. Include a 40-page fiction manuscript or 20-page poetry manuscript. Document margins should be at least one inch; text should be in an easily readable 12-point typeface. Pages submitted beyond the page count will not be considered. Manuscripts are judged blindly; your name should not appear anywhere on your project statement or manuscript. If it does, your application will be disqualified and removed from consideration.
4. Submit your entry via Submittable. Do not use your name in Submittable project title or filenames. (Your project title can be either the title of your manuscript or something like “Levis poetry manuscript.”) Label your attachments “cover letter” and “manuscript.” Both must be submitted as .pdf files.

Deadlines

Submissions will be accepted between September 1 and November 15, 2018.

Stipends will be awarded in January 2019. Stipends are fully taxable under United States tax laws, and Friends of Writers must declare the awards to the Internal Revenue Service. Taxes and payments of taxes are solely the responsibility of individual award winners.

About Larry Levis

Larry Levis (1946-1996) was an award-winning poet who wrote six books of poetry during his lifetime. His collection, Elegy, was published posthumously. A Selected Poemswas published in 2000. The Darkening Trapeze, a collection of last poems, was published in 2016. Levis was a much-beloved member of the faculty at the MFA Program for Writers, cherished as much for his incisive mind as for the care and attention he gave to his students.

Any queries or requests for more information should be addressed to:

Ashley Nissler Levis Fellowship Administrator [email protected]

Dear Poet: An Anthology of Essays on How Correspondence between Poets and Mentors Fostered the Writing of Poems

Dear Community of Writers:

Friends of Writers seeks essays, short craft memoirs, and excerpts of letters for a new anthology that will explore the central and unique teaching tool of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College: the exchange of letters between students and their faculty mentors. We are looking for edited exchanges, essays, and other writings that capture a lively, moving portrait of the program. Unlike prior anthologies, this one will be the first to include work by poetry alumni about their apprenticeship.

We are inviting poets to submit an abstract describing the way in which a set of letters between you and a faculty mentor illuminated your work, changed your process, or otherwise affected the making of a poem. In this abstract, please make reference to any supporting material pertinent to sections of letters between you and a faculty member. Ideally, your essay will demonstrate how an exchange of letters fostered your writing and deepened your understanding of craft. Read more

Public Lectures: Friday, January 12

In Canon Lounge, Gladfelter

Friday, January 12                                                  MAURICE MANNING: How to Build a Haunted
10:00 AM  Fellowship Hall                         House: Or, Tell Me a Story About Farming, Ceremony, and Poetry in Motion         
                                                                                                
Longer, ambitious poems, while stunning in their presentation and apparent singularity, are nevertheless composed of smaller elements.  These smaller elements, whether the metrical line, a conventional stanza, a free-verse arrangement of lines, or simply an accumulation of lines followed by open space on the page, constitute poetic form, in general terms.  A sonnet or a villanelle is a specific form.  This lecture is interested in discussing poetic form more broadly, and implies the notion that form is not simply an arrangement of material, but is, in fact, a living thing, a generative feature of the poem itself.  To make elements of a poem consciously formal is a ceremonial act, it sets them apart and signals their importance.  The formal elements of a poem are not merely stately, however; they become vital, and are therefore always in motion, shifting and hovering and resonating beyond the static meaning of words.  There is a vibrant living thing below or above the poem, in other words, and this lecture is an attempt to articulate that fact!  This poetic fact finds a kindred spirit in farming, namely, the pasturing of livestock and the required motions of a healthy farm.  Farmers and farm-familiar poets will be invoked.  Our primary text will be Robert Penn Warren’s long poem, Audubon: A Vision.  Those attending this lecture will be invited to read this poem in advance, but relevant sections of it, and the complete versions of other poems discussed will be provided.

Public Graduating Student Readings
Friday, January 12—4:30 PM, Fellowship Hall; followed by graduation ceremony

Sonya Larson, Carlos Andres Bates-Gómez, Kristin Hewitt, Meghan Williams

It’s time to stop revising! The deadline is looming: November 15, 2017.

To submit your manuscript, please click here. 

The Levis Prize is named for Larry Levis (1946-1996), an award-winning poet and much-beloved MFA Program for Writers faculty member. Levis Prizes will be awarded to two alumni completing first books, one in poetry and one in fiction.

(Here’s the link: https://friendsofwriters.submittable.com/submit/88762/larry-levis-post-graduate-stipends)