aquariuswillowbooks

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Our Return to Idlewild

After some years, our press is returning to Idlewild, Michigan for the 2nd annual conference. Every year since we first appeared there, people have been asking when we would return. We were waiting for the right time, and the time is now. Take a look at the words of one of our registrants from the first conference, who now serves on our faculty this year, Qiana Towns: I like to think of Idlewild…

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Black Fire This Time Volume 2

The next volume in the acclaimed Black Fire This Time series is set to debut next month. Volume 2 contains the work of over 75 award-winning poets and writers on the ongoing theme of “Black is Beautiful, Black is Powerful, Black is Home.” The volume includes the work of living legends Judy Juanita, pioneer of Black Studies across the country and the seminal play by Jimmy Garrett, And We Own the…

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Black Fire This Time Featured in New York Review of Books and Supported by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Black Fire This Time Featured in New York Review of Books and Supported by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

The momentum for the Black Fire This Time anthology continues to grow and has reached the notice of the New York Review of Books. In today’s article, “A New Flame for Black Fire: What Will be the Legacy of the Black Arts Movement?” author and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Ishmael Reed describes Black Fire This Time as heralding a new golden age of Black writing for the 2000s. Reed, a founder of the…

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Afrofuturism Album Released

Black Fire This Time team releases new audio collection on Afrofuturism The creative team behind the Black Fire This Time anthology has just released a new album of audio works on the subject of Afrofuturism. Black Fire This Time: Afrofuturism features 16 tracks of poetry and storytelling on this growing movement in literature. Afrofuturism was first described as “speculative fiction that treats…

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Willow Books Open Reading Period Opens

Willow Books Open Reading Period Opens

Willow Books, the award-winning imprint of Aquarius Press, is currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts from November 15, 2022-January 15, 2023. The mission of Willow Books is to develop, publish and promote writers of color. Previous Open Reading Period selections include Califia’s Daughter by devorah major, San Francisco’s Third Poet Laureate, Why I Am Like Tequila by 2022 Texas Poet…

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Ruth Lilly Prize Awarded to Black Fire This Time Poets

Ruth Lilly Prize Awarded to Black Fire This Time Poets

The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, awarded annually to one living US poet with an award of $100,000 in recognition of their outstanding lifetime achievement, was awarded to three poets anthologized in Black Fire This Time, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez and Haki Madhubuti. The award was extended to 11 recipients for this year. The critically acclaimed anthology Black Fire This Time features over 100…

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Willow Poet Lupe Mendez Named 2022 Texas Poet Laureate

Willow Poet Lupe Mendez Named 2022 Texas Poet Laureate

Lupe Mendez is the author of Why I Am Like Tequila (Willow Books). From the Texas Commission on the Arts: …The 2021 appointees include Texas Poet Laureate Cyrus Cassells of Austin, Texas State Musician Leon Bridges of Fort Worth, Texas State Two-Dimensional Artist Annette Lawrence of Denton, and Texas State Three-Dimensional Artist Jennifer Ling Datchuk of San Antonio. The 2022 appointees…

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Willow Announces Pushcart Nominees

Willow Announces Pushcart Nominees

Willow Books is pleased to announce nominations for the Pushcart Prize 2020:

This is Where by Louise K. Waakaa’igan. Waakaa’igan is enrolled at Odaawaa Zaaga ’iganiing (Lac Courte Orielles Reservation) in northern Wisconsin. Louise is the recipient of the 2017 PEN Poetry Prize and also the first-place winner of Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop’s Broadside Competition (2016). Louise’s work has…

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Black British authors top UK book charts in wake of BLM protests

Black British authors top UK book charts in wake of BLM protests

In solidarity with our black authors in the UK!

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Rachelle Linda Escamilla honored at Library of Congress

Rachelle Linda Escamilla honored at Library of Congress

At this very moment, Rachelle Linda Escamilla is a Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress, Hispanic Division. Her poems are being recorded for their “Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape” Collection. 

Since this spring, Rachelle has been making incredible strides:

Co-founded, with Angel Dominguez, the Latinx Poetix Symposium @ California State University Monterey Bay last spring.

Recently…

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LitFest2018 Debuts in New York!

LitFest2018 Debuts in New York!

LitFest is coming to New York!

Our national LitFest will take place Saturday, June 2, 2018 starting at 7 p.m. at Cassava House, 2270 1st Avenue in East Harlem. The event will feature poetry readings, a book fair and live music.

Since 2012, LitFest has appeared in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. 2018 marks our first New York appearance. A pioneer in the live…

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Willow Launches Weeksville Summer Arts Residency

Willow Launches Weeksville Summer Arts Residency

“The Future of the Arts, with an Eye on the Past.” That’s the motto for Willow’s grand vision for its upcoming decennial (okay, that’s still a strange word to me–i.e., Willow’s 10th anniversary). Watch for announcements on our upcoming multidisciplinary Arts Residencies. Our new era kicks off with the first-ever Weeksville Summer Arts Residency July 27-29. This will be a one-of-a kind experience,…

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The E Project: Take Your Pick (But Choose Wisely)

The E Project: Take Your Pick (But Choose Wisely)

A chat with Kirsten Porter, editor of the upcoming The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller Choices. Please do not ask me if I want Chinese take-out or pizza. In a crowded movie theater, do not tell me to choose where we will sit. Packing for a trip, I will throw in my suitcase six blouses in different shades of purple and end up wearing only one. I can teach a course on indecisiveness. But now…

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The E Project: Game Plan Notes—Research + Insight

A chat with Kirsten Porter, editor of the upcoming The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller Ethelbert. Who is this man really? As a son, brother, husband, father, friend? As poet, writer, literary activist? Thanks to years of raiding the poetry sections of used bookstores, much of the preliminary research I needed was pulled from my own bookshelves. I am standing in front of yet another first…

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The E Project: The First Challenge—Tackling Self-Doubt before You Can Play the Game

A chat with Kirsten Porter, editor of the upcoming The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller I’m on the phone with Ethelbert Miller. It’s back in early November, a few weeks after he asked me to edit his book of collected poems. The first day he asked me I was elated. You know that scene in the movie Singing in the Rain when Gene Kelly is so over-the-moon in love that he shrugs off his umbrella…

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The E Project: Where did it start?

A “pregame” chat with Kirsten Porter, editor of the upcoming The Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller

When Ethelbert Miller asks you to help him with a project, you don’t need to stop and think about it before you respond. You don’t pull out your calendar to see if you can pencil him in. You don’t demand details and time frames. You just say without hesitation, emphatically—sign me up!

So…

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Imaginary Animal, Poetry Grand Prize Winner Imaginary Animal was constructed for my family, really. It began as a way of chronicling the stories and images and sentiment around the different identities for the different women in my life: from campesino to cannery workers to cooks to house cleaners to caregivers to…