Virtual AWP: Writer to Writer Conversations & Readings

AWP proudly presents a new series in its Virtual AWP lineup: Writer to Writer Conversations & Readings. These events will feature discussions and readings with former mentors and mentees of the Writer to Writer mentorship program. Now in its fourteenth season, AWP’s free, biannual program matches emerging writers and published authors for a three-month series of modules on topics such as craft, revision, publishing, and the writing life.

Writer to Writer Conversations & Readings will explore mentorship as an experience and a practice, celebrate the generous contributions of our volunteer mentors, and allow attendees to hear first-hand from participants about their time in the program. Just in time for National Poetry Month, the series kicks off with a poetry reading by the mentees of poet and literary translator J. Kates, who has returned each year as a mentor since joining in 2017. He has guided four mentees through the program: Lucas Jacob, Lynn Pattison, Joyce Schmid, and Susan Tatiner.

Books from this event can be purchased on the AWP Bookshop affiliate page.

To receive a reminder and a direct link to this free event, as well as updates on future events, register online.

Registration is free, and you do not have to be a member of AWP to do so. However, to participate in the live Q&A, you will need to sign in to YouTube.

Mentor Bio:

J. Kates is a minor poet, a literary translator, and the codirector of Zephyr Press. He has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation. He has published three chapbooks of his own poems and one full book, The Briar Patch (Hobblebush Books). He has translated a dozen books by Russian and French poets and has edited two anthologies of translations. He has also collaborated on four books of Latin American poetry in translation.

Mentee Bios:

Lucas Jacob is the author of the full-length poetry collection The Seed Vault (Eyewear Publishing, 2019) and the chapbooks A Hole in the Light (Anchor & Plume Press, 2015) and Wishes Wished Just Hard Enough (Seven Kitchens Press, 2019). His poetry and prose have appeared in journals including Southwest Review, Cherry Tree, Hopkins Review, and RHINO. He is a high school teacher whose career has brought him many wonderful things, including the honor of serving as a Fulbright Fellow in Budapest, Hungary.

Lynn Pattison is a poet from Michigan and the author of Matryoshka Houses (Kelsay Press, 2020), in addition to three other poetry collections: tesla's daughter (March St. Press), Walking Back the Cat (Bright Hill Press), and Light That Sounds Like Breaking (Mayapple Press). She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times and for inclusion in Best Microfiction. Pattison’s work has appeared in Ruminate, Moon City Review, New Flash Fiction Review, the Notre Dame Review, RHINO, Smartish Pace, and numerous other publications.

Joyce Schmid’s poems have appeared in Literary Imagination, New Ohio Review, Antioch Review, Missouri Review, Poetry Daily, and other journals and anthologies. Her work has twice been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, longlisted for the National Poetry Society Award and the Plough Prize, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, commended for a Hippocrates Prize, and given honorable mention for the Tor House Poetry Prize. She lives in Palo Alto, California.

Susan Tatiner lives and writes in central New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in Artemis, the Voices Project, the Front Porch Review, and other publications. She is the author of one chapbook, Traitor’s Bluff, and is currently completing a second. Susan teaches creative writing online at the Writers Studio.