Poets & Writers

PUBLICATIONS AND PROGRAMS

Poets & Writers Magazine, the organization's flagship publication, is the leading journal of its kind. Along with essays on the literary life and interviews with writers, the magazine publishes articles with practical applications for both emerging and established authors. In addition, it provides the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prize winners available in print.

Poets & Writers Online includes a searchable database of over 6,000 writers; advice on topics such as copyright, publishing, and finding a writers conference; along with links to over 1,500 Web sites of interest to writers. Another popular feature is the Speakeasy Message Forum, which serves as a central meeting place and community center for writers.

Each year, through its Readings/Workshops Program, P&W sponsors more than 1,700 literary events throughout New York and California, as well as in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and Seattle. P&W makes matching grants (restricted to the payment of writers' fees) to a variety of organizations—from grassroots to nationally acclaimed presenters and distributes more than $200,000 annually to some 750 writers.

P&W's Information Services offers publishing advice to writers and maintains a directory of writers, an online database of more than 6,000 authors, including contact information and publication credits. The directory makes it easier for writers to stay in touch with one another and for reading series coordinators, editors, and agents to find writers.

In 1984, the Writers Exchange Contest was established to introduce emerging writers to literary communities outside their home states. Each year one poet and one fiction writer are selected from one state to participate in the program. Writers are selected based on manuscripts they submit to P&W and flown to New York City for an all-expenses-paid, weeklong trip, during which they meet with literary agents, editors, publishers, and writers. To date, 70 writers from 28 states have participated in this program.

As a co-founder of the Literary Network, Poets & Writers continues to champion the cause of freedom of expression and advocates on behalf of writers for public funding of literature and the arts.

The Friends of Poets & Writers is a generous group of donors who provide financial support for P&W's programs. The Friends are writers, readers, and others who wish to support contemporary writers and literature. To thank them for their support, Friends receive special benefits.

http://www.pw.org