So many things have changed in publishing. There have been positive changes that came out of the #BlackLivesMatter and #PublishingPaidMe movement and there have been difficult changes—mergers, layoffs, paper shortages—during the pandemic.

But one thing that hasn’t changed is that aspiring writers must be active and genuinely enthusiastic literary citizens to get anywhere in this industry. You really must support the industry that you want to support you! From buying books from independent bookstores and reviewing them online, to subscribing to literary magazines and newsletters and following your favorite literary stars on social media, it is relatively simple and rewarding to join the literary community with or without an MFA.

Here are some ideas.

There are a lot of reasons writers don’t attend an MFA program: they’re categorically opposed to them; they can’t afford them (financially and/or emotionally); they don’t know that they exist. I was in this latter case. I lived in France for most of my twenties, and by the time I moved back to America and woke up to the fact that most authors had MFA programs in their bios, I felt too old, too married, and too financially unstable to pursue an MFA. I was, however, longing for a literary community, and it wasn’t initially clear how I could find one outside of an MFA program. I was living in a really rural part of Massachusetts with very few people—much less writing people—around. A serendipitous part-time job offer in New York City gave me the chance to try to find my kinfolk. In order to get as much out of my time in a metropolis as possible, I decided to attend a reading series for each of the four nights that I would be in New York, and to introduce myself—in person—to one stranger at each reading. I did this for four months straight, and although the positive outcomes I experienced were aided by my extraversion, I’m nevertheless convinced that there are solid, actionable, and affordable things you can do to build a literary community without an MFA. Some of these suggestions are free, others require an investment. For the paid options (attending summer conferences or an online writing class), remember to save receipts for tax time so you can deduct these costs as a business expense.

Attend too many reading series.

You know the musical expression “playing by ear”? At reading series, you can train your ear to help your writing. Take it from someone who survived a writer’s twenty two-minute “autofiction” revelation about a particular type of oral servicing he once received on a couch: once you hear someone bomb in front of a microphone, you will do anything—everything—to avoid terrible writing. In-jokes, tangents, potentially offensive content, narrative indulgences—attend a lot of reading series and you will be only too happy to remove these malignancies from your work.

Volunteer as a reader for a literary magazine.

Being a reader for literary magazines allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of what people are writing—and not writing—about, and it can be very useful for your creative writing process to be a gatekeeper for a while. Understanding what makes you want to accept or reject a story will inevitably inform the choices you’re making in your own work. Are you trying too hard to be funny? Do you go on tangents? Do your characters do nothing but stare out the window drinking tea? There is just as much to be learned from reading flawed writing as there is from reading polished work, plus you’ll come away with a new respect for the form rejection letter after you’ve been exposed to a bog of misspelled, uniquely formatted submissions from misanthropes and misogynists who are only too proud to tell you that they couldn’t be bothered with your submission guidelines because this attached thirty- five-thousand-word novella about a man without a girlfriend absolutely needs to be in your poetry journal. NOW.

Attend a summer writing program.

The cons of these are that they can be prohibitively expensive (it’s nearly four grand to attend the ten-day Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference without a scholarship), competitive to get into, and alcohol fuels a great deal of the socializing, but the pros are that you can get nearly a semester’s worth of contacts and inspiration in as little as a week. Poets & Writers has a solid database of writing conferences that you can navigate by event type, location, even f inancial aid deadlines.

Although there isn’t a writing conference where alcohol is specifically prohibited (yet), the writer Vonetta Young said that the VONA conference (for writers of color) doesn’t provide any conference-sponsored alcohol, and writers Caitlin Horrocks and Tara Lindis-Corbell both said the same thing of the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Librarian and inn manager Jesica Sweedler DeHart says that food takes center stage at the Orcas Island Literary Festival where most of the events are hosted by a tea or coffee company.

If you need extra support around alcohol, look for programs that have recovery meetings that are relatively easy to get to and attend. “Going somewhere with a strong recovery presence,” suggests the writer Hallie Goodman, “can help you connect with other writers who are feeling a little alienlike as they see all of their peers get sloshed.”

Take an online writing class.

Since the advent of digital technology, there might not be a better boon for writers than the online writing class. Though the classes are online, the students and the teachers are real people, busy ones like you. And with the rising popularity of online writing classes, the standards set for teachers are very (very!) high: as I write, the likes of Arif Anwar, Yahdon Israel, and Leigh Stein are all teaching online, and the talent in the student pool is equally impressive.

Even if you’re not meeting in person, online classes offer emerging writers important social benefits: you might make a friend you can go on to workshop with privately; if you have a positive relationship with your teacher, you can ask them for a recommendation letter at some point in the future. Learning to take—and give—feedback from your peers will also help you gain the technical skills you’ll need to be more self-reliant when you are revising your own work. In addition to expanding your personal writing network, online classes can bolster your creativity and imagination, too. Would you try a screenwriting class in an MFA program if you were accepted there for poetry? Maybe not. But with their affordability, convenience, and lower stakes environment for experimentation, you can try out translation, travel writing, memoir, erotica, and many other genres you might not have had the time—or even the permission—to try in an MFA.

Join (or start) a writing group.

If you haven’t had any success finding an existing writing group through the common channels (your local library, bookstore, or good old word of mouth), it might be time to start one of your own. You can post flyers in actual brick-and-mortar places, or use social gathering sites like Meetup to gauge interest in your group. Remember that your group doesn’t have to be stylistically homogenous; it will serve you as a writer if your comembers have varied life experiences and are working in different genres than you.

Attend AWP.

It’s not cheap to get to and it usually takes place in the godforsaken month of February, but AWP (which stands for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs [which should actually be abbreviated as AWWP, but... artistic license?]) is an annual conference attended by thousands and thousands of publishing professionals and writers. A conference as large as this one can feel panic-attack-level overwhelming at times, but there’s no better one-stop shopping for all your career needs. At the many parties and off-site readings offered throughout the five-day conference, you can hear new work and socialize with like-minded artists; at the book fair, you can spend hours talking with conference and writing-program managers about the different opportunities they offer; you can network for job opportunities in academia and publishing; you can browse everything from quirky chapbooks to door-stopper bestsellers, and enjoy conversations with the editors, publicists, and interns who brought those books to life. If you’re feeling up for it, you can even pitch projects to an editor, and you can flick something grody at the editor from [name of literary magazine redacted] who has rejected every piece you’ve ever sent. A word to the wise: AWP lists discount codes on its website for hotel and airline fare. Make sure to use these discounts when you book!

Join a book club if you’re not already in one.

Learning to read other people’s work, to question it, and to praise it in a clear and concise manner are skills essential to any writer, as is the proper handling of oneself around copious amounts of white wine. Read. Duh, right? Not so fast. If you want to be an active member of the literary community, you have to read beyond the kind of work you normally gravitate toward, in both genre and style. Every fall there are lists about the top ten or twenty books out that year: earmark BuzzFeed’s most-anticipated novels, read the National Book Award poetry finalists, set yourself a goal. Subscribe to literary magazines (and read them), and visit the areas of your local library that you usually avoid. Challenge yourself to leave well-thought-out reviews of these books on social-cataloging sites like Goodreads, so that you learn to speak respectfully about other people’s work. In an MFA program, you would be thoughtfully critiquing other people’s writing on the regular, so don’t slack on this skill set.

A quick tip about book reviews, especially online: Do not leave negative reviews of authors whom you might one day want to beseech or befriend. Early in your career, you might not know who these people are yet, so book-review with caution. As a general rule of thumb, if you have negative thoughts about somebody’s creative output, it’s best to let them die a silent death inside your mind.

Volunteer at a literary festival

If you can’t be invited by them, join ’em. Literary festivals are always in need of volunteers, and they’re one of the best ways to stay connected to the writing world. If you offer up your services, make sure to choose a committee that actually suits your career interests: event planning will give you an idea of how panels are organized (with a sneak peak at the kind of topics you can one day hope to talk about yourself), public relations will give you experience writing press releases and interfacing with the media, and hospitality can put you in the same orbit as the authors you admire.

If your volunteer time is limited, festivals, arts organizations, and literary magazines always need extra help during their end-of the-year fund-raisers.

If you do all these things, or even half of them, while also keeping up a regular writing practice, you’re going to find your book people, and they’re going to find you. If you still find yourself yearning for a more codified community after all these efforts, start researching part-time and/ or low-residency MFA programs. More affordable, less competitive, and more flexible with scheduling than their full-time counterparts, part-time MFA programs will only need you on campus two to three times a week (usually at times that are convenient for nine-to-fivers), and low-res programs offer long-distance education with site-specific meetups one or two times a year.

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ABOUT COURTNEY MAUM

Bio: Along with her latest novel, ALAN OPTS OUT, Courtney is the author of five previous books, including the romantic comedy TOUCH (A New York Times Editors’ Choice) and the memoir THE YEAR OF THE HORSES, chosen by the Today show as one of the best reads for mental health awareness. Creator of the groundbreaking publishing guidebook BEFORE AND AFTER THE BOOK DEAL and the bestselling Substack newsletter by the same name, Maum is an educator and writing coach hellbent on preserving the joy of art-making in a culture obsessed with turning artists into brands. In addition to her advocacy work for writers at The Author’s Guild, Courtney runs a workshop in New Mexico where she combines twenty years of experience in advertising with a deep love of craft to help writers boost their confidence and industry know-how. Learn more and sign up for her writing classes at CourtneyMaum.com

Visit Courtney’s Bookshop.org page for reading recommendations by genre.

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Excerpt from ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19

The old man raises his cane
and fences with the swords of gladiolus.
He’s frenzied in the garden. The sun inches west
and on its last red edge
matches are being struck, lighters thumbed,
the candles begin

though some people are already asleep:
the postman, his fingers inked by commerce
and wordy romance, not one promise or plea
written to him; the early rising baker,
a bachelor till his last baguette;
the fisherman, whose wife stands at the window
staring at a sea that contains nothing
but her vague reflection on the glass.
And the butcher’s wife, reluctantly, lies down
for her heavy husband, and after a time
feels like meat pounded on the gristle.
The preacher sips red before a blank page
certain the sermon will appear whole
once he finds the first word,
while the silence of the house presses down.
Nearby the drunkard prepares his singing voice
and wonders who did this to his hands.
The old man is led to his room and left there.

These nights of candles,
these heartbreaks burned low,
are not the only kind. Somewhere, someone
is making a toast to ten friends, some man
is kissing a woman’s belly and she’s laughing.
A baby under blankets breathes
like the moon’s phases, like falling snow.
Some candles light a page or a window
or a church or a birth
or a friend’s or a lover’s face.

But tonight, like most nights,
when I cup my hand
behind the flame, when it highlights
every whorl and ridge and fortune teller’s line
and I breathe in,
I know I am about to lose you forever
again, and no kind of light can save me,
and I cannot help breathing out.

There’s a brief glow in the wick’s tip,
but then the smoke. The old man
sits a hard chair and remembers.
Down in the street a moonbright hound
howls and howls and howls

ABOUT STEPHEN P. KIERNAN

Bio: As a journalist and novelist, Stephen P. Kiernan has published nearly five million words. His newspaper work garnered dozens of awards — including the George Polk Award for medical reporting, the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, and the Freedom of Information Award from the Joseph Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida.

Stephen’s newest novel, POLLOCK’S LAST LOVER, will be out on May 19, 2026. His most recent novel is THE GLASS CHATEAU. He is also author of the novels UNIVERSE OF TWO, THE CURIOSITY (now in television series development), THE BAKER’S SECRET (a regional bestseller), and THE HUMMINGBIRD. He has written two nonfiction books, LAST RIGHTS and AUTHENTIC PATRIOTISM. His work has been translated into many languages and four alphabets.

Website: stephenpkiernan.com
Facebook: Stephen P. Kiernan

ABOUT 1455

1455 is a nonprofit organization seeking to advance the appreciation of and passion for the creative arts through programs that support expression, education, and the sharing of storytelling.

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Excerpt from ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19

The worst day I had during the pandemic took me by surprise. It was 5 PM at the end of a workday & I was looking forward to a socially distanced walk with my friend Kirsten--who then texted me: Don’t go out—there’s a shooter on the Common.

Kirsten lived on one side of the Boston Common and I the other, and we met for socially distanced strolls, each other’s in person connection. Missing one walk wasn’t a big deal, but when I got that text I slammed my iPad closed. I was done. I wanted to go outside. I needed that one excursion into open air. I wanted exercise. I wanted nature. The magnolias were blooming on Commonwealth Avenue, heavier and more lustrous than I could remember. The previous day I’d lifted my face to the blossoms and inhaled—but I could barely catch the scent through my mask.

Now I was done. Done having to enjoy flowers through a filter. Done not being able to walk. Done with the Blaze—I wanted to go back to writing. I wanted the gym. I wanted my friends. I wanted my dog, who’d a few months before. I wanted my mom, who’d died a year before that. I wanted there not to be a shooter. OR a pandemic.

My friend Stephen called at that particular moment to see how I was doing.

“Checking in, my dear,” he said. “How are you?”
“Honestly? I’m bad,” I said.
“How so?”
I told him. “I’m done with Covid. I’m done with the whole thing.”
“Have you eaten today?” he asked.
“NO,” I said. I went to the refrigerator and opened it, then slammed it closed. “I don’t WANT to eat.”
“Have you showered?”
“Of COURSE not,” I said.

“All right, here’s what I want you to do,” Stephen said. “Go run a bath. I’ll even try hard not to imagine you naked.”

I was in such bad shape I didn’t even banter back—our friendship was flirtatious. “FINE,” I said, once I’d stripped and the water was running. “I’m in the tub.”

“Good,” he said. “Now I’m going to read you some poetry.”
“I DON’T WANT ANY FUCKING POETRY,” I said. “I just want my LIFE BACK!”
“I understand,” Stephen said. “Now: listen.”

I sat in the tub with Stephen on speaker, scowling as he read me poem after poem. I couldn’t concentrate. The words slid off me. They meant nothing. But I didn’t hang up. I let Stephen’s voice wash over me. I lay back and shut my eyes.

“Better?” asked Stephen. I grunted.
“Not yet, apparently,” he said. “Let’s try this one.”

For an hour he read as I lay with the water cooling. Eventually, I was able to bite down on what he was reading, my brain starting to make sense of the words. It was like a picture coming into focus, only the picture was myself. I sighed.

“Better?” Stephen asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
“It’s my privilege,” he said. “Will you be all right?”
“Now I will,” I said. “Stephen?”
“Yes?”
“That last one was yours, wasn’t it,” I said.
“Good ear, my dear,” he said. I smiled. The last poem was the first one I’d been truly able to hear.

ABOUT JENNA BLUM

Bio: Jenna Blum is the New York Times and # 1 internationally bestselling author of novels Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, and The Lost Family; memoir Woodrow on the Bench; audiocourse “The Author at Work: The Art of Writing Fiction” and WWII podcast The Key of Love. Jenna’s fifth book and first psychological thriller, Murder Your Darlings, will be published by HarperCollins in January 2026.

As CEO of online author interview company A Mighty Blaze, which she cofounded during the Covid-19 pandemic, Jenna earned a reputation as a publishing industry community builder and innovator. As on-air host, Jenna has conducted hundreds of interviews for the Blaze, from literary legends to new voices.

Jenna is one of Oprah.com readers’ Top 30 Women Writers. She earned her MA at Boston University in Creative Writing and has taught workshops for Boston University, Grub Street Writers, A Mighty Blaze, and numerous other institutions for over 25 years. She interviewed Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and is a professional public speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to speak about her work.

Jenna is based in downtown Boston, where she’s the proud human of her black Lab Henry Higgins.

Website: jennablum.com
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ABOUT 1455

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Excerpt from ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19

It was the time of late empire,
science and song
were all the rage. Chart after nightly chart
were rushed to the screen. Hieroglyphs
better left undeciphered. The news reports
forecast the magnitude of impending losses,
how late we were
in our arrival.

It was the time of loud lies
and we baked until the stores ran out of flour;
our cookies delectable with a dusting of cinnamon
to warm the tongue, our butter browned, our sugar
raw, indelicate.

It was the time of virtual gatherings
and together we named the flowering street trees
beyond our windows. Prunus spinosa that erupted
in flowers like globes of snow,
prunus serrulata that canopied
our cautious strolls.
Our distant loved ones were closer
and more unreachable as the largest birds
of our era lay dormant in our airports.
They sent photographs of their trees, too.
Tilia cordata
of childhood memory, jacaranda mimosifolia
not yet bloomed, a symphony on the verge.

It was the time of best case scenarios
and we tracked and catalogued, each of us
drafting a field guide for the terra nullius
that awaited us. Stay home Stay home
Melospiza melodia chirped
with singular clarity. Cyanocitta stelleri
rustled through evergreens in azulene flashes,
a choir, discordant,
in the silence of cities ailing
and freeways shorn of their gridlock.

It was the time of paltry metaphors,
and even the believers among us
soured at the prospect of April miracles.
Our grief gusted and down-poured, vernal
restlessness swelling each day beneath our roofs.

It was the time of superlatives,
and we languished. Postponements cluttered
our calendars. Between fears and stretching
we alternated, child and parent, bewildered.
We wiped down every surface, renewed every frailty.

ABOUT LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA

Bio: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s first book, Water & Salt, won the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry. Her chapbook, Letters from the Interior, was published in fall 2020.

ABOUT 1455

1455 is a nonprofit organization seeking to advance the appreciation of and passion for the creative arts through programs that support expression, education, and the sharing of storytelling.

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Excerpt from ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19

I’m an introvert, like many writers, considering the solitude my attic office a luxury. But I also need balance: coffee dates with friends, exchanging a smile of solidarity with the woman lifting weights next to me at the gym, and asking my local bookseller’s for their must-reads of the month. I depend on these daily interactions to energize me. All of these people are threads in my safety net, most without realizing it, helping to keep me buoyed above chronic, sometimes debilitating, depression. I know from experience that, too easily, staying home can turn from a luxury to a state of paralysis.

When the stay-at-home order was enacted, my connections with the outside world were frayed, as I was reduced to watching on screens as the killer virus swept through our country. Our president held press conferences declaring confidently: It will go away. I so wanted to believe him.

By the third week of quarantine, it was clear this was not going away anytime soon. Driving home this point, I received a devastating blow: the contract for my second novel was cancelled due to the plummeting economy. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who lost their livelihood. Unemployment claims surpassed 15 million and lines at understocked food banks stretched toward the horizon. Small businesses were going bankrupt by the scores, forced to shut down for a few weeks, then months. No one was really sure how long it would be before they could re-open, assuming they were still solvent.

This uncertainty, no end in sight, launched our entire country into a fugue-like state of shock.

Taking some kind of positive action, moving outward into the world again, became a necessity for my survival. I wondered, what could I do? I didn’t have money or powerful influence, but one thing I did have was my community of writers, some of whom had launched their own fundraising and awareness campaigns against social injustice. Jessica Keener had sent me and dozens of other authors an email the past summer, asking us to donate manuscript consultation services to raise money for organizations working to stop border and detention camp abuses. The action one person, reaching out to her community, and then those people widening the circle until it included hundreds stuck with me. (#authorsAgainstBorderabuse raised $17,000 in just three months.)

The tipping point was when I saw Roxane Gay on “The Daily Show,” explaining why she tweeted an offer to give ten people $100 each, no questions asked. She said, “In a better world, the government would handle this, but we don’t live in a better world.”

I wanted to live in a better world.

An idea began forming, a gut-feeling that energized me for the first time in weeks. Maybe I could rally authors to support the booksellers who had placed so many of our books into the hands of readers, and now needed our help. Long before the pandemic hit, independent bookstores were the pillars of a worldwide literary community and the mainstays of neighborhoods across the country, providing inviting spaces to connect over ideas and coffee. My local bookstores have been a big part of my personal safety net, as well as “must visit” cultural hubs when I travel. Perhaps most important, these business owners and their employees are also pillars of a democratic society, spotlighting books you might not find elsewhere and giving marginalized people a voice through author readings and other events.

I started by putting out feelers, posting on Facebook and sending emails to authors I knew through my work as a journalist and novelist. I made a concrete, to-the-point ask: Could they contribute an essay or poem about their COVID-19 experiences to a fundraising anthology for struggling indie booksellers? Within twenty-four hours, dozens of authors were onboard, and I became bolder, reaching out to a diverse range of writers I admired. During the next month, I jumped out of bed each morning, excited to see what would land in my email that day. Every poem and essay submittal was a potential fragment of the soul of what I called my Lovely Monster, not knowing exactly what I was creating.

Part of the tremendous unease during the pandemic has been recognizing we are in the midst of transformation, no clear sense of where it will lead and little reassuring guidance along the way. From the beginning, the missives arriving daily nourished me. There were stories of love triumphing over social distancing: The joy of a Zoom wedding, pandemic date night via steamy and funny texts, a mother and daughter growing closer through phone-in cooking lessons. There were also surprising, moving images of love intertwined with grief and comfort: a woman trying hard to connect with her estranged sister while social distancing, and failing. A man contemplating the comforting role of lavender in his ailing father’s life, his own life, and the tumultuous history of their Latino culture. A woman professing her devotion to aloneness, and realizing that her deep attractions are to nature, not humans.

The poems were mostly constructed of possibilities: images of something new cracking open, of a glittering road, of shedding our hatred and fear like a virus.

As the pandemic stretched into May, the stories and poetry reflected the rising anxiety and anger permeating our country. One woman worried about how her husband was handling quarantine and the inequity of how their Black community was being handled. Another woman drove to the grocery store daily, mostly to escape from her house, coming home exhausted from the anxiety of being in the world, and falling asleep dreaming of the sumptuous meal she’d make. A Black man contemplated the mask he has been forced to wear all his life.

And then George Floyd’s murder united so many of us in a grief that certainly was not new. His final words, “I can’t breathe,” sparked a connection that took us out of our dark COVID-19 fugue state. It had us asking a vast, overwhelming question that became the pumping heart of this book: What Now?

Uniting for a common good with 75 authors (55 in the print book and another 22 in the e-book edition) from diverse cultures and backgrounds was both a privilege and reward of putting together this Lovely Monster. She has developed a soul thanks to every one of them. She is our collective pain and our dreams. I hope she offers you what she has given me: possibilities. In telling our stories, we hope to enable you to tell your story. That’s the sweet spot of connections, where the healing happens.

ABOUT JENNIFER HAUPT

Bio: Jennifer Haupt has published essays and other work in many publications. She is the author of the novel In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills and Come as You Are.

Website: jenniferhaupt.com
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Director’s Note

We know this much to be true: writers write. No matter if it’s during periods of prosperity or peace, eras of scarcity or conflict, our authors will be there, attempting to make art (some even manage to make sense) out of the mess we consistently make of things.

Here’s the thing: even within the mostly quiet and industrious demographic of those who pick up pens instead of swords, and despite the necessary isolation and disconnection from day-to-day drama, these writers require the sustenance community provides. For many, there’s seldom enough solidarity to go around; for some, whatever they manage to find is everything. During a global crisis, one thing we share is the impulse to protect ourselves and our loved ones. In extraordinary times, our vulnerabilities, if bravely and honestly faced, can be what unite us; they can be what save us.

Productive writing is seldom easy or painless (unless you’re Stephen King), and in 2020, as Nathan Leslie describes, it’s easy for paralysis to become the default setting. Gwydion Suilebhan and Bethanne Patrick found solace—and inspiration—by rekindling ties with old friends. For Ed Aymar, finding community was only half the battle; he took it upon himself to create a community that, before this year, would have been less necessary, even unimaginable. And how do we manage the communities we’ve already created? As Jeff Coker and Leigh Tivol illustrate, in some cases we need to recreate what exists, adapting and improving by whatever means necessary. In all of these instances we see ingenuity, urgency, empathy.

1455 is honored to share exclusive excerpts from an important and timely new anthology, ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19, with an introduction from its editor, Jennifer Haupt. This collection, inspired by feelings of disconnection and despair, became not only a clarion call for unity and creativity, it was a purposeful statement of conviction; a rallying cry for engagement and compassion.

The stated mission of 1455 is celebrating creativity and building community. These aspirations have only assumed urgency during the last year, as our world confronts the most significant pandemic in a century. For this issue of Movable Type, we’re sharing the stories of individuals who are inspired to sing during dark times. Despite facing the setbacks and disruption familiar to us all, they continue to do the work. The work of connecting people, sharing resources, and inspiring hope instead of despair.

About this darkness. It’s important we understand there are forces in our world encouraging confusion and exacerbating anxiety. These forces want nothing more than fear, lack of connection, and violence (the kind we inflict on one another and the kind inaction inflicts on everyone), and—above all—apathy. The writing here rejects indifference and asks for accountability, from ourselves and for each other. These writers, through their words and works, glow with purpose, revealing how we define, build, and find community. They prove that during the darkest times there will be some amongst us shining their light, in defiance of the darkness.

Download Movable Type Issue No. 2

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There was a time in my life when I often found myself thinking about growing old as well as dying.

Some of this was probably linked to my bouts with depression. The writing profession is pretty much a solitary one. Two eyes on a page, one hand on a pen or two hands typing away on a keypad. In 2015 I found myself suddenly unemployed after working forty years at Howard University. I clearly remember the day because a few hours after I took my boxes home from the office I was sitting in the ballpark getting ready to watch the Washington Nationals. In many ways staring at the green outfield was meditative and a way of exhaling and letting go. In between innings I thought about where my life was and what I now hoped my future would be.

For much of my life I defined myself as a literary activist. I was especially concerned with the promotion and preservation of black literary culture. I was not a writer with an agent and a New York publisher. I was somewhat marginal to the business of writing. When I started writing poetry it was not for the purpose of pursuing money and being able to raise a family, it was a calling” and a desire to have my voice join a chorus of cultural workers using art for social change. As a literary activist I spent a lot of time studying how writing careers began, how they were sustained and, at times, somehow sadly fell apart. A few well known writers had literary assistants, people who loved and respected their work. They aided a writer with everything from editing and proofreading to helping them maintain their personal schedules. Assistants at times were first responders, they understood the moods of the people they were working with. They were navigators making sure creative work reached the safe harbor of publication.

A good relationship between a writer and an assistant should be a strong binary one. It can be a successful pairing if the assistant is also a writer with a career. A good literary partnership is better than a marriage. Maybe this is because there are no vows and expectations, only a love for literature and the celebrating of the creative process.

When I met Kirsten Porter in 2007, then a student, on the Marymount University campus in Virginia, I had no idea our lives would become connected, braided together. From our meeting at Marymount to her journey to George Mason University for an MFA and then back to Marymount to teach as an English professor; it was like following Marco Polo. During the journey Kirsten became a popular and dedicated teacher.

Maybe it was getting to know her through her students that I began to admire her. When I was invited to be a guest speaker at Marymount, it was her students who embraced me with warmth as well as a critical understanding of my work. Over the years our conversations expanded into discussions of Kirsten’s own work and the themes she was exploring in poetry. I was very much interested in her career path and who she was as a person. I was impressed with Kirsten’s love and compassion for dogs needing to be rescued and the closeness she had with her parents. Her caring provided a window into her character and the holy tenderness of her soul.

If you have to place your life in someone’s hands you want that person to share your breath, to have their heart touch yours. I’ve been blessed by Kirsten Porter being that person. I feel this woman cares for my life as well as my work. When she edited The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller (2016), I asked her to write a long introduction. I wanted her to be the defining voice on what I had written.

As my literary assistant, Kirsten Porter helps me manage what has become a very busy life. Many new doors and opportunities opened after my departure from Howard University. I became a If you have to place your life in writer full-time. I started hosting a regular television and radio show. My work load tripled. Without Kirsten’s aid it would someone’s hands you want that person to share your breath, to be difficult to manage and respond to have their heart touch yours. various requests. When she asked me to contribute to the first issue of 1455’s Movable Type, I gave her full access to any of my work she wanted to use. I trust her judgement and editor’s eye.

Kirsten is the first person who receives a copy of everything I write. She is the first individual I share good news with. Today I’m more efficient thanks to her. I’m deeply grateful for all the time she has invested in my work and helping me share it with an audience as well as with what Ayi Kwei Armah called “the beautyful ones not yet born.”

ABOUT E. ETHELBERT MILLER

Bio: E. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist and the author of two memoirs and several books of poetry. He hosts the weekly WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV which received a 2020 Telly Award. Currently he serves on the boards of the DC Collaborative for Humanities and Education and The Inner Loop. Miller’s latest book If God Invented Baseball (City Point Press) was awarded the 2019 Literary Award for poetry by the American Library Association’s Black Caucus.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eugeneethelbertmiller/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ethelbert.miller/

Download Movable Type Issue No. 1

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Director’s Note

Movable Type. This was the technological breakthrough that made printing books on a large scale possible. Although it’s well-documented that initial advancements were made centuries earlier in Asia, it was Gutenberg who revolutionized the use of movable type in Europe, on paper. Every book in every library and, to an extent, all e-books and magazines and newspapers can be traced back to this paradigm shifting invention. 1455 is celebrated as the year books were produced on a massive scale, effectively moving civilization into modernity, arguably the most democratizing innovation in human history.

And the rest is history. And yet it isn’t. Books are still with us, even if many of them are now read on portable and handheld devices. Of course, the ways and means of creating and sharing content are myriad and ever-evolving. As such, we are proud to commemorate 1455 not merely as a milestone, but a concept. A free press, and presses that operate freely to publish stories (and opinions, ideas, etc.), ensure that the dissemination of information is controlled by neither an elite class nor censors.

The process of democratizing content continues today. Movable Type, then, offers several connotations, and we recognize this name as symbolic of the continuum between 1455, today, and tomorrow. The need for personal narrative is strong as ever, and the ability to create and share these stories has never been more accessible. At 1455, we believe in the magic of words, the transformative power of creativity, and the collective imperative of building community. Our mission is to provide time and space for writers to create, connect, and share resources to assist writers anywhere and everywhere.

1455’s Movable Type, which will publish every other month, is meant to showcase personal stories by exceptional writers, offer invaluable resources, and foster solidarity. Each issue will provide a forum for a diverse array of poets, masters of prose, essayists, educators and anyone with passion for written expression. I’m grateful to the authors assembled for our first issue, and proud to have Kirsten Porter—a remarkable writer, editor, and human being—helping manage all aspects of this achievement, from conception to execution.

Thank you for reading, and we look forward to hearing from you as we continue celebrating creativity and building community.

Be well, and keep writing!

Download Movable Type Issue No. 1

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Director’s Note

We know this much to be true: writers write. No matter if it’s during periods of prosperity or peace, eras of scarcity or conflict, our authors will be there, attempting to make art (some even manage to make sense) out of the mess we consistently make of things.

Here’s the thing: even within the mostly quiet and industrious demographic of those who pick up pens instead of swords, and despite the necessary isolation and disconnection from day-to-day drama, these writers require the sustenance community provides. For many, there’s seldom enough solidarity to go around; for some, whatever they manage to find is everything. During a global crisis, one thing we share is the impulse to protect ourselves and our loved ones. In extraordinary times, our vulnerabilities, if bravely and honestly faced, can be what unite us; they can be what save us.

Productive writing is seldom easy or painless (unless you’re Stephen King), and in 2020, as Nathan Leslie describes, it’s easy for paralysis to become the default setting. Gwydion Suilebhan and Bethanne Patrick found solace—and inspiration—by rekindling ties with old friends. For Ed Aymar, finding community was only half the battle; he took it upon himself to create a community that, before this year, would have been less necessary, even unimaginable. And how do we manage the communities we’ve already created? As Jeff Coker and Leigh Tivol illustrate, in some cases we need to recreate what exists, adapting and improving by whatever means necessary. In all of these instances we see ingenuity, urgency, empathy.

1455 is honored to share exclusive excerpts from an important and timely new anthology, ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19, with an introduction from its editor, Jennifer Haupt. This collection, inspired by feelings of disconnection and despair, became not only a clarion call for unity and creativity, it was a purposeful statement of conviction; a rallying cry for engagement and compassion.

The stated mission of 1455 is celebrating creativity and building community. These aspirations have only assumed urgency during the last year, as our world confronts the most significant pandemic in a century. For this issue of Movable Type, we’re sharing the stories of individuals who are inspired to sing during dark times. Despite facing the setbacks and disruption familiar to us all, they continue to do the work. The work of connecting people, sharing resources, and inspiring hope instead of despair.

About this darkness. It’s important we understand there are forces in our world encouraging confusion and exacerbating anxiety. These forces want nothing more than fear, lack of connection, and violence (the kind we inflict on one another and the kind inaction inflicts on everyone), and—above all—apathy. The writing here rejects indifference and asks for accountability, from ourselves and for each other. These writers, through their words and works, glow with purpose, revealing how we define, build, and find community. They prove that during the darkest times there will be some amongst us shining their light, in defiance of the darkness.

Download Movable Type Issue No. 2

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At 1455, we believe story connects, heals, and transforms. If you share that belief, we invite you to subscribe to us here on Substack for new interviews, essays, and events celebrating the creative community.

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Your support helps us keep all 1455 programs free and accessible—please consider making a donation to sustain our mission and amplify diverse voices around the world.

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Director’s Note

Reading writers who have helped change the world changes you. You come to appreciate what William Carlos Williams meant when he wrote “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” Certain seminal works alter your perception of the big picture: cause and effect, agency vs. incapacity, and history vs. ideology.

Writing from different cultures and different times inevitably denotes truths (even if couched in fictional narratives) that are outside of time and agenda. It is, then, easier to make connections between Irish immigrants who worked the coal mines in Pennsylvania, Lithuanian immigrants who worked in the meatpacking plants in Chicago, and Mexican immigrants—especially the illegal ones—who labor in sweltering kitchens and frigid fields all across our country. It’s impossible not to put human faces and real feelings alongside this suffering and start connecting the dots that define how exploitation works. We discern the uneasy lines connecting our shared histories and possible futures. And then, at last, there’s a chance for recognition, empathy, culpability.

Why bring politics into it, one might ask (and a certain political party reliably does)? Short answer, duh. Longer answer, courtesy of the ever-reliable (and prescient) George Orwell: “The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” As someone who writes fiction and poetry but also reviews and champions art, I’m cognizant of my status as a straight white male, while also feeling the desire to showcase traditionally under-represented voices is imperative, and consistent with the mission of any critic with integrity: broaden dialogue and celebrate marginalized voices. If we’re made to see others it’s possible we’ll see ourselves. Bearing witness requires listening as much as speaking out. This is one meaningful way writers can hold others— and themselves—to account. Without engagement none of this is possible and, in 2021, it seems not only irresponsible, but immoral to look away.

Tara Campbell, as a writer and advocate for writing, is an artist whose work often deconstructs the here-and-now. Her collection, Political AF: A Rage Collection, is a timely and necessary addition to contemporary discourse, and we are honored to showcase her as this issue’s Featured Writer. Her essay “Write, Edit, Act” sets the ideal tone for the pieces that follow, and her original poem, “In Contradiction to the Commander’s Standards and Wishes,” functions as statement of purpose and rallying cry. Matthew Davis muses on the relationship between democracy and imagination, while Tom Kapsidelis explores rites of passage and the politics of gun rights. Bethanne Patrick recalls the Watergate trial and her introduction to political controversy, and Kathleen McInnis advocates for more women with roles in national security and policy. Justen Ahren poetically explores his recent experience working with refugees, and my essay goes back to the future with a proposition that understanding—and exploiting—the power of narrative is perhaps the most effective way to influence hearts and minds to bring about necessary and overdue policy.

Orwell, again: “It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows.” I hope you find the writing that follows enlightening and inspiring. We will need all the support and solidarity possible in the months and years ahead.

Download Movable Type Issue No. 3

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Director’s Cut

It was March 2020 when many of us began to recognize—if not fully accept—that COVID was going to be a serious disruption, and not a fleeting one either. Here we are, one year later (or one hundred COVID years later), and nothing is the same, which doesn’t mean everything has changed. Or, as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr put it much more poetically, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more things change, the more they stay the same).

At 1455 we were obliged, seemingly overnight, to reconsider how we conceived and positioned our programming. Until last year, poetry readings, author interviews, concerts, and festivals all were by definition in-person events. For a variety of perfectly understandable reasons, many organizations suspended or cancelled their programs. Until further notice threatened to become the new reality. This seemed unacceptable and I, equal parts stubborn and optimistic, realized that the proverbial show must go on. 1455 took our free events online and tried to find a silver lining for every potential setback.

We certainly anticipate returning to semi-normalcy in the coming months, and acknowledge that nothing can replace or even approximate the intimacy of live events. That said, we could hardly have imagined the opportunities provided by virtual programming. As we saw with last year’s Summer Festival, the potential for genuine inclusivity is significant: we more than tripled the number of panels and speakers, reaching many thousands of people across the country and the world. We have even grander plans for our third annual festival, this July.

It seems there’s been at once too much and not enough discussion about the ways this past year has impacted our artistic communities, on both macro and micro levels. When assessing the state of the art (or, arts), anyone hoping to stay abreast of what’s happening—much less what’s coming—must have at least a familiarity with how things have always been. This issue of MOVABLE TYPE attempts to explore what has (and hasn’t) changed for writers and writing.

Courtney Maum, who has already established herself as a brilliant novelist, has delivered an incredible gift to aspiring (and even established) authors with her recent book BEFORE AND AFTER THE BOOK DEAL. Exhaustively researched and carefully assembled, it’s an instant-classic, with comments and quotes from countless authors, editors, and agents. Any writer hoping to navigate the ever-complicated literary landscape would do well to acquire this, and we’re honored to showcase Courtney as our Featured Writer this month with an excerpt from her book. Vonetta Young discusses how—and why—in times of uncertainty, she turns to words. We’re fortunate to have the insider perspective from two important fronts: Anna Sproul-Latimer explores the state of things from her vantage point as an agent, and Gregg Wilhelm, who directs GMU’s Writing Program, offers a candid appraisal of what’s going on (and why change is always necessary and welcome) in the MFA workshop. Finally, we have Detroit’s Estuary Collective, who epitomize the power (and potential) of poetry, and the urgent need—now more than ever—to prioritize collaboration over competition. And, not least, this is the first issue of Movable Type overseen by its new editorial director, Bethanne Patrick, whose indefatigable love of writing and unparalleled experience will help take this publication to the next level.

In uncertain times, one thing remains immutable: storytelling is crucial and people can—and must—find ways to create, share, and connect. Everything is changing. Nothing has changed

Download Movable Type Issue No. 4

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Director’s Note

When we began kicking around possible themes for the fifth issue of Movable Type, we all had transition on our minds. Winter seemed to have made its last stand (though in D.C., you never know) and the warmer weather portended the return of vitality and, with more people getting vaccinated, a good reason to be out and about. It’s also been a heavy year, filled with disruption, adjustment, and a growing sense that we won’t be returning to what we consider normal. As with any type of change, it’s complicated, but there’s reason for optimism: trying new things means moving on from things that wanted improvement. As writers know, revision is everything, and a final draft seems forever like Ahab’s white whale: elusive, an illusion, tantalizingly out of reach.

We started to circle around the idea of coastlines, real and imagined. The tides are all about transition; what happens on the shore signifies both ecological and emotional matters. For those worried about the world and what we’re doing to it, the waters get quite deep very quickly. Looking back at what will be documented as an extraordinary year in human history, it’s hard to know exactly how to feel. We’ve celebrated sacrifice and innovation; we’ve also suffered through incompetence that staggers the imagination, and defiance of civility (not to mention reality) that might drive one to despair. The loss of life, on a global scale, has been intolerable. Nevertheless, we persisted.

This issue of Movable Type is, by design, a series of explorations that range from serene beaches to unquiet minds. It’s an investigation of our place in history, the state of our planet, and why, no matter what happens, those left behind must bear witness and carry on. Our Featured Writer is Dara McAnulty, and we’re honored to showcase an excerpt from his memoir Diary of a Young Naturalist (Winner of the Wainwright Prize), which combines a passion for nature and a commitment to activism and awareness. Melissa Scholes Young takes us to Hannibal, Missouri, and her essay “Flood Stage” examines some of what’s lost and all that might return when water overruns the land. Jessi Lewis acclaims the Outer Banks, and throughout “Promise on the Tide” we appreciate why she loves Avon, North Carolina, and how she’s already preparing—however resignedly—for its inexorable destruction. To be in a locale and worry if it will be there for future generations is no longer the stuff of science fiction or political debate, it’s the not-so-brave new world we’re bestowing to our children’s children. In the piece “Just a Normal Freak,” Sarah P. Weeldreyer interrogates normalcy, isolation, and the journeys (literal, f igurative) her panic attacks have taken her on, and how she’s learned to navigate an occasionally unfamiliar world in her own authentic way. For a fitting and elegiac finale for this issue, Beth Ann Fennelly, poet laureate of Mississippi, lovingly tells the story of her mother-in-law, who epitomized a kindness and a service to others that seems sadly quaint in a culture where we’re too often the center of so many stories we’re always telling (to and about) ourselves.

Immersed in this writing, I found myself at times informed, infuriated, and inspired, which seems just about right. I also kept recalling the legend of King Canute and his imperious attempt to repel the tides. In simpler times, this allegory spoke succinctly and indelibly to man’s hubris, as well as our impermanence. Today, the perverse synergy of our action and inaction (all we do, all we’re not doing)—driven by greed, abetted by denial—suggests a profound disconnect between the world we imagine and the one we’re busy creating, in our image. Once again, we must find the words that lead to action, cognizant that both change and hope begin inside our minds and hearts.

Download Movable Type Issue No. 5

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Director’s Note

Having completed another successful Teen Poetry contest as part of 1455’s third annual Summer Fest, I can confirm two things: the contest gets bigger and better each cycle, and choosing a grand prize winner becomes more difficult. It’s a labor of love, and I’m grateful to all the teen poets from America and beyond for sharing their writing. I’m also proud to note that we more than doubled last year’s total of poems; over 130 submissions were received and, once again, narrowing that down to ten proved almost impossible.

As a reminder, the theme for this year’s contest was Finding Community During Crisis, and the guidelines requested the poems to reflect on or react to the contemporary sociopolitical and cultural environment (including but not limited to #BLM, #MeToo, COVID, etc.); every poem that made the final cut successfully explored the guidelines, but the diverse and provocative variations on these themes were extraordinary. Just like last year, some of the poems seemed pieced together by newspaper headlines; others invoked family histories (the kinds found in photo albums and especially the kinds kept secret or spoken about for the first time), and there were ingenious, if inevitable references to science, politics, ethnicity, anger, and shame. This being a heavy subject, the weight of these collective words was not inconsiderable, but like the best art, these poems inspire dialogue, they seek understanding, they inspire solidarity. In a time where we’re seeing a general lack of courage and common sense (by our elected leaders, by our neighbors), these poems are at once an indictment and an aspiration to our better angels.

This past year has been a period of intense turmoil and disruption; it’s also been a time of grace, generosity, beauty, and witness borne. As always, we hear our politicians and self-appointed spokespersons eager to opine (but seldom enlighten or console), and as ever, it’s our poets, whom Percy Bysshe Shelley famously declared “unacknowledged legislators of the world,” who best explain and interrogate our lives.

1455’s mission is to celebrate creativity and build community. We do this by encouraging storytellers, and poets are anything but unacknowledged in our corner of the world. Indeed, all of our free programming is offered with the goal of connecting worthy writers and diverse audiences. If we’re able to showcase under-represented artists, all the better. And being able to support young writers is a critical and inextricable part of this process. We are proud and honored to shine a light on voices we can learn from, and as is so often the case, we stand to learn more from our young minds than they do from us.

Download Movable Type Issue No. 6

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Director’s Cut

The discovery of the first cave drawings offers conclusive evidence of at least one thing: the power of story has been with us as long as we’ve been able to communicate. One might suggest these crude but often beautiful images are the earliest examples of what Whitman lovingly christened barbaric yawps: individuals using whatever means were at their disposal to create, warn, instruct, or impress. Mostly impress. And thus, storytelling was invented.

The trajectory we can easily trace from these primordial sketches to social media involves the magic of narrative. 1455 takes its name in commemoration of the year Gutenberg began printing books—arguably the signal most important sociopolitical advancement of the millennium. Without this miracle, the act of storytelling would remain, at worst, an oral tradition; at best, reserved for an elite class controlling both the creation and dissemination of information. As such, knowledge, literacy, and an appreciation of cultural traditions were advanced, practically overnight.

Flash forward several centuries, add the Internet and, circa 2021, it’s never been easier or less expensive to get one’s story into the world. On the other hand, there’s never been more competition—more content—in this ever-crowded space. 1455’s mission is at once humble yet ambitious: we want to promote creativity and build community, and we achieve this by extolling the art of storytelling. This includes interrogating what storytelling is; how we define it, who produces and receives it, what cultural and commercial mechanisms enable (and prevent) it’s distribution, etc. In an important way, storytelling is what connects us with our earliest ancestors: the compulsion to convey what we see, how we feel, what we want. Importantly, the fact that so many stories are overlooked or never have a chance at getting told—because of cultural or economic factors—is itself a story, and one 1455 seeks to ameliorate.

Our annual Summer Festival is, in every sense, a celebration of storytelling, designed to showcase the art and joy of this uniquely human form of expression. This year, our biggest and best event yet, featured a diverse array of more than 200 speakers across 75+ panels all focused on the power of storytelling and the crucial role it plays in the creative and academic fields, as well as the business and political arenas. We welcomed participants from around the country and globe including Africa and the UK, all uniting across three focal tracks of “Inspiration & Advocacy,” “Timely & Topical” and “Craft & Community.”

For this issue of Movable Type, we invited some of these speakers to share a bit more about the stories they told and are telling. The results are at once a distillation and continuation of the festival and what it provides: insights on the craft, recollections from the event, and original poetry. For those who were unable to participate in real time, these pieces should entice you to seek out the original sessions, all of which were recorded and can be viewed, anytime, for free, at 1455’s YouTube channel.

Our story at 1455 is our daily work to seek those storytellers, find them, and whenever possible, provide them a forum. 1455’s Summer Fest (and our year-round, free programming) serve to remind us we can—and should— come together to honor those who entertain, inform, and inspire us. We hope this event serves as a reminder that when we recognize what unites us, we’re capable of anything.

Download Movable Type Issue No. 7

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Read Movable Type Issue No. 8

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At 1455, we believe story connects, heals, and transforms. If you share that belief, we invite you to subscribe to us here on Substack for new interviews, essays, and events celebrating the creative community.

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1455 Needs Your Support

Your support helps us keep all 1455 programs free and accessible—please consider making a donation to sustain our mission and amplify diverse voices around the world.

Donate to 1455 through our website

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Instagram: @1455litarts
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Connection: The Primary Impulse of Art

Why do we tell stories?

To inform, to inspire, to connect.

The miracle of art is the way it enables us to express things at once inextricable from ourselves and more encompassing than the sum of an individual existence. More, it facilitates an exchange, across language, time, and space. In short, it provides the opportunity for connection.

The methods and meanings of connection are in constant flux, just as art evolves, over time. Back in a different, arguably simpler era, connection occurred in the present tense, in person. Or did it? Another miracle of art is the way it defies death (literal, figurative): so long as human eyes, ears, and hearts are available to receive it, art can align us through centuries. Who hasn’t, on occasion, felt closer to an author or work of art than their closest relatives?

Art has the possibility of teaching us so many things, and in ways that cut across economic, geographic, and even historical barriers. An exceptional poem, song, story, painting, or photograph can present experiences from a life we don’t know or could only imagine, or it can remind us that most human beings are desperate for the same things: love, peace, understanding, justice, compassion, community, beauty.

Art reveals recurring themes (good, bad, ugly) in human history, and homes in on what makes kings, soldiers, parents, orphans, the working poor, and the wealthiest one percent identical: we all, after a fashion, are seeking meaning in our brief time on this planet. Stories heal and inspire when they force us to ask questions, understand there are often many answers to any question, and that by seeing ourselves in others (and vice versa), we’re less likely to be intolerant, lazy, or unkind. There is a quiet power in the ways art unites us.

Creative storytelling is never a static act. Whether intended to unify or disrupt, the reaction, when it’s received, is an antidote to solitude (sometimes even despair)—and instigates progression, on personal or societal levels. The impact of art can be empowering, and a human being has changed, invariably for the better, having been part of the connection.

***

Our world recently lost two cultural icons who dedicated their lives to describing—and demonstrating—the power of story: why we do it, what happens when it resonates, and how we’re moved by the magic of artistic expression. 1455 dedicates this issue of Movable Type to the memory of Joan Didion and bell hooks.

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

–Jon Didion

The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.

–bell hooks

Read Movable Type Issue No. 9

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Your support helps us keep all 1455 programs free and accessible—please consider making a donation to sustain our mission and amplify diverse voices around the world.

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Director’s Cut

It’s true that the theme for this issue was chosen many months ago and power, like death or love, or time or money, will always be a concept deeply relevant and inextricable from our daily consciousness (yesterday, one hundred years from now). It does, nevertheless, seem that March, 2022 is an opportune, if somber time to reflect on what power means.

According to Plato, the measure of a man is what he does with power.

George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about what drives human behavior—and with a couple more centuries of history than Plato was privy to—declared: the object of power is power.

Both of these sentiments, wise in ways that cut across sociopolitical, military, religious, and academic concerns, seem especially apt when reflecting on current events. They also remind us that, as it relates to humankind’s worst tendencies, power—which can be defined as leverage, ownership, access, agency, subjugation, or some combination of all these—is invariably the prime, primal impulse.

One might be tempted to observe that we too are animals, and what is nature if not a never-ending battle for supremacy and survival? Well, humans, with our big brains (and libraries of documented atrocities committed by and against our own kind) and evolved hearts, remain the only inhabitants of this world who know might doesn’t make right, yet fabricate or justify reasons why this time it’s different, and violence and collateral damage are, alas, unavoidable. Of course, to our disbelieving eyes, we see events unfolding right now—in the 21^st Century—where a dictator is scarcely attempting to rationalize his barbarity.

We expect our world leaders to guide us, as peacefully and purposefully as possible, through these crises (and the less optimistic amongst us might argue our human experiment has been one ceaseless crisis, filled with terror and exploitation). We look to our politicians and journalists to explain and debate, giving context or providing talking points, reminding us—intentionally or not—what we’re seeing is nothing new.

What, then, does art tell us at times like this?

Quite a bit, actually—and it always has. Plato the philosophizer and Orwell the author both used storytelling to describe and explain who we are, what we do, and why we do it. Is there any multi-volume narrative that can tell us more about the pernicious tendencies of the powerful than what Percy Bysshe Shelley achieves in only 14 lines with “Ozymandias”? Does any big-name biography explain conflict and what drives it better than Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” (or Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” if you prefer)? No words are necessary for a genius like Goya to indelibly illustrate corruption and brutality—and once you’ve seen his work you never unsee it.

Perhaps that’s the rub: the people who are drawn to art are seldom the ones most in need of its lessons. More: if so many of our worst ambassadors, including psychopaths ranging from Cortés to Hitler to Putin, were able or willing to expose themselves to the intellectual and spiritual riches our best storytelling imparts, we might have answers to questions that shouldn’t need asking.

1455 exists to connect communities, instigate discourse, and celebrate storytelling in its myriad forms. All our free programming is dedicated to this mission, and we remain proud that Movable Type serves as a viable showcase for the type of talent and empathy on display throughout this issue. Please help us spread awareness and do our small part to shine some light in this darkness.

Read Movable Type Issue No. 10

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Your support helps us keep all 1455 programs free and accessible—please consider making a donation to sustain our mission and amplify diverse voices around the world.

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Director’s Cut

• Our times are not getting less extraordinary. Or insane. And once again, reading the news—and defying the deep pockets that work ceaselessly to sustain a dysfunctional status quo—one must ask: what can art do to address any of this? And the answer, as ever, is: nothing; everything.

• Actual change requires actual people actually getting involved. But our best storytellers remind us that narrative is everything, and inspiration usually precedes engagement.

• The only thing worse than cynicism is apathy, and the only thing worse than apathy is aggression—and worst of all is cupidity. (Elon Musk is a miracle of sorts in that he manages to combine all of these awful qualities; a repugnant waste of potential.)

• It’s possible, if not probable that our digital toys have provided us with everything but perspective, making us increasingly oblivious to the realities of people we’re not familiar with. This might help explain a country, like ours, with unlimited access to all sorts of content being as polarized (politically, psychologically, personally) as any time in recent memory.

• Technology and the times we live in ensure that art is changing and evolving; if it doesn’t, it—and the people who make it—will be outdated and irrelevant. This has always been the case.

• I continue to find comfort in the fact that, despite increased competition for some sliver of space in our info-overload creative landscape, necessary and otherwise marginalized voices have a fighting chance of being heard.

• That said, I still shudder with disdain recalling the veteran literary agent, during a panel I recently moderated, blithely insisting that good writing gets recognized, and artists need only concentrate on doing the work. This attitude reeks of entitlement and arrogance: it was misguided decades ago; to hear it in the 21^st Century only proves there’s a great deal of work still to be done.

• No artist today, even a privileged one handed every opportunity, can avoid multitasking; hustle is the new normal.

• It’s not that, in 2022, old-fashioned love poems are a luxury (they are); rather, it’s recognizing the fact that poems advocating for justice and awareness are love poems.

• Still true: writing skills will facilitate any number of career paths. This does not mean you will get paid to write, but the ability to communicate effectively remains a superpower in corporate America.

• There’s a direct correlation between our society’s increasingly dire empathy gap and the ceaseless deprecation of Humanities degrees.

• We’re grappling more than ever with how to assess brilliant work by dishonorable men. George Saunders, then, presents the closest thing we have to a grand slam: arguably the best writer of his generation, and by all accounts, one of the nicest, and most decent. There’s fortunately no shortage of writers whose prose, or work ethic, or versatility (etc.) one can admire and emulate, even if they are pigs in their private lives. Saunders is rare—and refreshing—proof that nice guys occasionally finish first. I read (and re-read) Saunders hoping it helps make me a better writer; more importantly, I read him and learn how to be a better person. (Here he is, interacting in his inimitable way with readers, and offering the guidance he was born to provide.)

• Don’t be cynical: find a charity you can feel good about supporting, endorse the efforts of our great artists, tell your parents you love them, appreciate—and savor—the friends who always have your back. Be good to strangers and be better to yourself: you deserve it.

Read Movable Type Issue No. 11

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At 1455, we believe story connects, heals, and transforms. If you share that belief, we invite you to subscribe to us here on Substack for new interviews, essays, and events celebrating the creative community.

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1455 Needs Your Support

Your support helps us keep all 1455 programs free and accessible—please consider making a donation to sustain our mission and amplify diverse voices around the world.

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Director’s Note

Having completed another successful Young Poets Contest as part of 1455’s fourth annual Summer Fest, I can confirm two things: the contest attracts more diversity and talent each cycle, and choosing grand prize winners becomes more difficult. It’s a labor of love, and I’m grateful to all the poets from America and beyond for sharing their writing.

As a reminder, the theme for this year’s contest was Freedom, and the guidelines requested the poems to reflect on or react to the contemporary sociopolitical and cultural environment (including but not limited to #BLM, #MeToo, COVID, etc.); every poem that made the final cut successfully explored the guidelines, but the diverse and provocative variations on these themes were extraordinary. Just like previous years, some of the poems seemed pieced together by newspaper headlines; others invoked family histories (the kinds found in photo albums and especially the kinds kept secret or spoken about for the first time), and there were ingenious, if inevitable references to science, politics, ethnicity, anger, and shame.

Like the years preceding it, 2022 has been a period of disruption, polarity, anger, and confusion. During dark and complicated times, we look to our artists to find grace, beauty, and witness borne. As always, we hear our politicians and self-appointed spokespersons eager to opine (but seldom enlighten or console), and as ever, it’s our poets, whom Percy Bysshe Shelley famously declared “unacknowledged legislators of the world,” who best explain and interrogate our lives.

The Young Poet’s Contest winners gathered virtually to read their work during 1455’s Summer Festival last month. We encourage you to watch the recorded reading below to experience the winning poems read by their poets.

1455’s mission is to celebrate creativity and build community. We do this by encouraging storytellers, and poets are anything but unacknowledged in our corner of the world. Indeed, all our free programming is offered with the goal of connecting worthy storytellers and diverse audiences. If we’re able to showcase under-represented artists, all the better. And being able to support young writers is a critical and inextricable part of this process. We are proud and honored to shine a light on voices we can learn from, and as is so often the case, we stand to learn more from our young minds than they do from us.

Read Movable Type Issue No. 12

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At 1455, we believe story connects, heals, and transforms. If you share that belief, we invite you to subscribe to us here on Substack for new interviews, essays, and events celebrating the creative community.

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Your support helps us keep all 1455 programs free and accessible—please consider making a donation to sustain our mission and amplify diverse voices around the world.

Donate to 1455 through our website

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Instagram: @1455litarts
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Director’s Note

Having offered our first live programming since Covid shut the world down, it’s at once a source of pride and anxiety to recall those early months of 2020, when we struggled to ascertain: how does a public facing organization continue to operate when no one can get together—and the whole notion of author readings or interviews assumes a live setting?

An unexpected and most welcome result was that a robust, virtual slate of events enabled us to stay flexible and, more important, provide very inclusive programming; 1455 suddenly was a legit global proposition, albeit an exceedingly modest one. So, while we’ve been able to include both artists and audiences from Africa, Europe, South America and Asia, and will continue to do so, it’s refreshing to be back in the mix with an evening of genuine (necessary, overdue) human interaction.

With hindsight, this unpredictable path from planning a physical writers retreat (2017), to leaning into free online programming (2021) to becoming a hybrid that celebrates storytelling anywhere, anytime, serves as a metaphor for what 1455 is right now: like so many organizations and individuals, we’ve been obliged to adapt and stay nimble. I’ve learned to vibrate with what the world is telling us our direction could or should be; not unlike writing a novel now that I think about it.

All of which brings us to the key word that resonates throughout everything 1455 has done: Community with-a-capital-C. I remain convinced that both charity and community begin at home, and by home I mean myself: having a vision that attracts likeminded, generous, and creative people, then working to involve as many other human beings as possible; the goal to invite anyone who can share something or benefit from what we’re doing.

So, what’s next? It’s possible this endeavor could continue to evolve and grow in the right ways, or we might eventually face the reality that running an arts-oriented non-profit that doesn’t sell anything is never going to be feasible as a business proposition. For now, I intend to exist as comfortably as possible in this space where, as a writer, I’m both a supporter and participant in the so-called Literary Industry. I’ll also acknowledge, with concern, that this space—and arts in general—has become more of a zero-sum game—whether it’s the book publishing or music or movie industry, there are increasingly less risks taken or tolerated; funding and promotion generally goes to the established, and so much worthwhile creative output is getting lost in the margins. As I’ve opined many times during the last decade, it’s never been easier to get one’s work into the world, and it’s seldom been more difficult, considering all this competing product, to be noticed.

I see part of my life’s work helping champion voices that might otherwise remain unheard, while connecting communities in an increasingly bifurcated climate that creates barriers and isolation. A win for me is helping facilitate communication and connection amongst passionate people who might otherwise never engage with or discuss things they care about with people outside their bubble. What I’m saying is, we know these dislocations are a pressing sociopolitical issue, but they also pertain very much to the art world.

As such, I am proud to repeat that 1455’s mission is transparent as it is positive: we celebrate storytelling and connect communities, by any means possible. I think we’d all agree this has never been more critical, for our collective and individual well-being. Our commitment to keeping all our programming free is non-negotiable; this includes events like tonight, our annual Young Poets Contest, our monthly Author Series, our digitial e-zine Movable Type, our workshops, and public events.

There are many ways to assist 1455 with our mission: you can sign up for our newsletter, spread the word via your social channels, or get directly involved by introducing potential partners, sponsors, or donors. After five years I’m certain of one thing: if we remain for the community and by the community, this is the key to remaining inclusive, positive, and—with luck and your support—sustainable.

Read Movable Type Issue No. 13

Join Our Community

At 1455, we believe story connects, heals, and transforms. If you share that belief, we invite you to subscribe to us here on Substack for new interviews, essays, and events celebrating the creative community.

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1455 Needs Your Support

Your support helps us keep all 1455 programs free and accessible—please consider making a donation to sustain our mission and amplify diverse voices around the world.

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Follow 1455

Website: 1455litarts.org
Instagram: @1455litarts
Facebook: facebook.com/1455litarts
X (Twitter): @1455litarts
YouTube: 1455 Literary Arts Channel
LinkedIn: 1455 Literary Arts