News and Events

David Taylor Nominated for Writer's Guild Award

"Soul of a People," the companion documentary to David Taylor's recent historical nonfiction book of the same title (Wiley, 2009), was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award. "Soul of a People" explores the Federal Writer's Project, a Depression-era WPA program that employed a "who's who" of contemporary American writers, from pulp crime fiction writer Jim Thompson to Zora Neal Hurston of Harlem Renaissance fame. As Taylor writes, their efforts "made up America's first self-portrait" and "revealed the eccentricity, humor, brutality, and ingenuity" of its people.

Winners of the Writer's Guild Awards were presented on February 20, 2010 at ceremonies in both Los Angeles and New York. Watch the official promo video for "Soul of a People" :

For more information on the film, the book, or the WWPH author who started it all, visit davidataylor.com.

WWPH Hosts First Annual Writers' Ball

On October 17, 2009, WWPH hosted its first annual Writers' Ball. Poets, journalists, novelists, playwrights, speechwriters, essayists, short story writers and friends of writers gathered at Danzon Art Gallery in Adams Morgan to support and celebrate WWPH, which has published and promoted local writers for over 35 years.

WWPH would like to thank everyone who helped make its fundraising event a huge success! Special thanks to our sponsors: Diageo, Eatonville Restaurant, Busboys and Poets, Whole Foods, Occasions Caterers, and the Four Seasons Hotel.

For photos from this year's Ball, visit our Writers' Ball page.

Washington Writers 2010 Competition Now Underway

From now until November 1, 2009, WWPH is accepting submissions in the categories of poetry and fiction for its annual book competition. Writers from the Washington and Baltimore areas are welcome to enter. The winning manuscripts will be published in fall 2010; winners will receive $500 and 50 copies of their book.

UPDATE: WWPH has extended its submissions deadline. All those who have not yet submitted their manuscripts are encouraged to do so until November 10, 2009.

For more information, including contest rules and how to enter, visit our Become an Author page.

2009 Fiction and Poetry Winners

WWPH is pleased to announce the winners of its 2009 fiction and poetry contests.

Calvin, a novel by William Littlejohn, won the fiction prize and was published on October 15, 2009.
In the summer of 1940, ten-year-old Billy Smithson’s headstrong and capricious mother abducts Billy from her former husband’s home and leaves the boy with her father in Athena, South Carolina. The boy’s grandfather, in turn, delivers the boy into the care of the title character, Calvin, an African-American servant. What happens over the summer and the months to follow is explored in spare but evocative prose. For more information, visit William Littlejohn's author page or the Calvin Facebook page.

From the Fever-World, a poetry collection by Jehanne Dubrow, won the poetry prize and was also published on October 15, 2009. Set in the invented Polish town of AlwaysWinter and written in the voice of the nonexistent Yiddish poet, Ida Lewin, this collection is an extended meditation on Eastern European Jewry in a world before Auschwitz. Transgressive, erotic, and rooted in the experience of the senses, Fever-World is the result of Dubrow’s research of Yiddish literature, oral histories, and testimony, which she completed while serving as a Sosland Foundation Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington, DC. For more information, visit Jehanne Dubrow's author page or the From the Fever-World Facebook page.

News and Reviews

Elisavietta Ritchie gave a reading of her poetry at Montgomery College, Rockville, MD on October 29. The same day, a professor at University of California, Los Angeles, held a reading of Richie's "Awaiting Permission to Land" and "Raking the Snow" from an audio recording. Copies of the recording on CD are available for sale via WWPH.

Kim Roberts recently published four poems in the print journal Ocho's 23rd issue, guest edited by Grace Cavalieri. Roberts was also featured with one poem in a chapbook anthology titled The Lowly, Exalted, and Other Poems, published at the University of Southern Maine to accompany an exhibition at their Atrium Art Gallery entitled "Spineless Wonders: Invertebrates as Inspiration."

Kim Roberts also has poems in two new issues of online journals. Five poems from her "Imaginary Husband" Series appeared recently in No Tell Motel. Another poem, "Hearing Loss," appeared in Unsplendid. The poems can be accessed at notellmotel.org and unsplendid.com.

Barbara Lefcowitz has recently set up a website of selected poetry and prose. Her website can be accesssed at blefcowitzpoetry.com.

David Taylor's Success: Stories is a finalist for the 2009 Library of Virginia Literary Award in fiction. Awards are given to outstanding Virginia authors in the areas of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and are presented at the annual Virginia Literary Awards Celebration in Richmond, VA. For more information, visit lva.virginia.gov.

Elisavietta Ritchie's short story "Maybe It Was The Moths" appears in the new Gargoyle anthology, Gravity Dancers (Peabody Press, 2009). She also created and published Here, Even The Blue Crabs Compose, an anthology of 20+ poets in Anne Arundel and Calvert counties. Ritchie will run a poetry-in-the-schools program at Chesapeake Montessori in Annapolis this fall.

Brandel France de Bravo is editor of a forthcoming anthology called Mexican Poetry Today: 20/20 Voices (Shearsman, 2009). For more information on this title, visit shearsman.com.

David Taylor gave a talk at Fountain Books in Richmond, VA on July 5th about his new book, Soul of a People: The WPA's Writers' Project Uncovers Depression Era America (Wiley, 2009). The event was featured by CSPAN2's BookTV.

Jane Satterfield's new book, Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond (Demeter, 2009) was featured in Library Journal's May 1st article, "Short Takes: Memoirs for the Beach, Backwoods, or Flu Bunker," in a list of this summer's featured memoirs, or "the new novels." The article can be accessed at libraryjournal.com.

Brandel France de Bravo won the 2009 Larry Neal Writers' Award in poetry given by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Submissions by local youths, teens, and adults (both amateur and professional writers) were judged by professionals in four literary genres: poetry, short story, essay, and dramatic writing.