in the space between suggestion and shrapnel, fist and firestorm—
reaching up
to build a hometown fit for our wounded
in this terrible bright place that loves us
too well to leave us alive.
for the record: a compilation of seven poems not available anywhere else online. 100% of proceeds will benefit Black visions collective (https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/). $5 minimum donation, $10 suggested donation, though you are always welcome to give more. if you’d rather donate directly or have another org / fund working toward justice for Black communities in mind, message me and we can talk about proof of donation / getting you a download link!
my hope is that a small gift will help give people the push to put their money where it matters and tangibly support people on the ground fighting for justice. thank you for reading.
INTRODUCING GLASS KITE ANTHOLOGY'S 2018 SUMMER WRITING STUDIO FOR YOUNG WRITERS
high school creative writers! the time has come to GET CRACKING once more because glass kite anthology's summer writing studio is back for another round! with yours truly in tow as a mentor for the FOURTH year in a row, who'd have thought?
under the stunning direction of margaret zhang and the luminous mentorship of a true dream team (lily zhou, devanshi khetarpal, rona wang @findx, kathryn hargett, kristin chang @moonflock, erin o’malley @explorationsoferin, and safwan khatib), you'll get a 100% free 5–6 weeks of craft and camaraderie in prose and/or poetry. i am so excited to be a part of keeping this beautiful program alive and unleashing my wildest syllabus ideas every year. and i know each and every one of us would be pleased as punch to work with you. so please send us your applications and writing samples by july 8th! they have a loving family waiting for them. and for you!
does princeton have a rly strong english/ creative writing program? i see a lot of writers matriculate there and i was wondering why
hi there! in my opinion, that’s definitely true. princeton was my dream creative writing program—directed by u.s. poet laureate tracy k. smith feat. writing faculty like monica youn, terrance hayes, mark doty, michael dickman, and jhumpa lahiri… i mean, in my mind, this was THE cw program i wanted in my life. plus, the certificate program allows you the opportunity to write a creative thesis i.e. get close mentorship from one of these faculty members for a YEAR!
also, i didn’t personally apply as an english major (that sociology program was too cool), princeton does have one heck of an english department that offers a wide variety of tracks within the concentration (princeton’s word for major). i will stop now but! i truly in my heart believe that princeton is an amazing place for creative writers! i am very excited about it!
(eta: that said princeton does not have the only creative writing / english programs worth looking into! and for some people, the best creative writing / english educations do not come within the frame of academia. so all things to keep in mind!
After not being offered a place in the Adroit writing mentorship, I'm contemplating other ways I can improve my poetry. I'm planning to expose myself to more poetry and attend the few summer writing workshops I can. Is there anything else you'd suggest as an accomplished poet? Thanks!
hello there! i’m sorry to hear about adroit, but you’re definitely doing the right thing by seeking out other ways to keep up with your craft. that mindset is everything in the end! (also it’s so kind and wild of you to call me an accomplished poet! you’re a gem!)
actually, glass kite anthology’s summer writing studio (where i am mentoring poetry / prose! hi hi!) just opened up for applications. a more detailed post is coming up pronto, but we would love to see your app in our inbox!
i think it’s critical that we keep discourse alive about prioritizing the inherent value of art over external recognition, which christina and peter already do brilliantly. while the latter is a good thing, the former is what truly makes adroit as a writing community special. (7)
(part 7 of 7; note that this anon’s views are their own and do not necessarily reflect mine)
when students with strong writing awards get into ivies like harvard or upenn or columbia, it seems like causation not correlation for some high-achievers. this is all speculation on my part, as i’ve never had any experience with that sort of thing, but it’s liable to happen as the adroit community expands over the years. i think it’s critical that we keep discourse alive about prioritizing the inherent value of art over external recognition. (6)
(part 6 of 7; note that this anon’s views are their own and do not necessarily reflect mine)
of course, i’m not as integrated into adroit as christina, and the individuals who make up the community are very different in personality and beliefs, so i can’t say anything about the sub-cliques within adroit. there may (and i don’t know for sure) be people- particularly high schoolers fueled by the college app mania, which is already inherently problematic - who are unduly toxic about who gets what prize and which publication, and thus exclude non-adroit people or unsuccessful writers. (5)
(part 5 of 7; note that this anon’s views are their own and do not necessarily reflect mine)
you often hear of top adroit alums getting presidential scholar or best of net nominations, attending ivy league schools like harvard or upenn or columbia. adroit hypes them up, making their name known and thus success begets success (or fame, praise, whatever). it might seem like favoritism (which is well-deserved), but certainly not elitism - i’m fairly no-name but peter and the adroit staff members i’ve talked to have been nothing but kind to me. (4)
(part 4 of 7; note that this anon’s views are their own and do not necessarily reflect mine)
(personally, i’m of the opinion that even favoritism based on external recognition like awards, college admissions, etc. can be harmful / its own form of elitism. i have issues with seeing young writers’ “success” being framed in terms of “accomplishments” rather than the artistic power of their work. that said, this anon’s experience and mine before winning awards seem to be similar re: interacting with adroit staff.)
i think it’s commendable that adroit listened to its critics and lifted the fee; not too many businesses would value the human over the dollar.but onto my third point, which is the “elitism” issue that the anon brings up. as a disclaimer, i am not very successful as a writer. i didn’t win youngarts, bennington, the adroit prizes, or any of the other major awards that christina and her similarly talented peers have won. i was in the mentorship two years ago but maybe that’s my peak. (3)
(part 3 of 7; note that this anon’s views are their own and do not necessarily reflect mine)
(also feel the need to add that i have many, many talented peers who have not been recognized in these competitions, and i think we should be careful about equating that recognition with being “successful as a writer”)
second, what kanika and topaz bring up is perhaps a larger core problem that is generalizable to the entire online writing community, if not society as a whole. it’s unfair when writing opportunities hinge upon payment first (thus excluding a group of writers who can’t pay but are equally talented) and skill level second, but that’s how life works. it’s not adroit’s onus to rectify this issue; as a business, it is merely trying to stay competitive with literary journals. (2)
(part 2 of 7; note that this anon’s views are their own and do not necessarily reflect mine)
(i personally disagree with the idea that adroit is a “business” that needs to “stay competitive” with other literary journals. though funding is necessary to run any journal of this size, adroit is not a commercial venture. most online literary journals, in my opinion, aren’t. and i’m firmly of the opinion that especially as a publication with a special focus on young and/or emerging writers, it has a responsibility to avoid reinforcing classist norms in the publishing world. so while one journal can’t possibly solve classism in the literary landscape, said journal should absolutely work against classism in its own practices. thus, i’m uncomfortable with the part of the rhetoric here that’s seemingly attempting to absolve adroit of responsibility for this decision.)
just thought i might contribute some thoughts to the adroit discourse -- i personally agree with both sides. first, adroit's decision to charge a $45 fee is a smart move business-wise as the journal itself expands over the years, but i think the cost is too excessive, and, like kanika said, places an undue burden on high school students to covert cost. (1)
(part 1 of 7; note that while i agree that the app fee burden was unfair by any standard and was rightly removed, this anon’s views are their own and do not necessarily reflect mine)
i know you have a lot of publications/awards so maybe you're not the best person to ask but you're the most accessible person i know (since topaz and kanika aren't really affiliated with adroit.) i have submitted to their mentorship and magazine five times but i have always been rejected (i don't have lots of publications or awards.) lots of people say they're really mean if you're not well known in the writing scene so as in insider i wonder what do you think about all this? thank you :) (2/2)
hi again! so this is a really layered / insightful question that i think i should tackle in several parts. i’ll do my best to talk about things as i’ve seen them over the ~3 years i’ve been a part of adroit’s community, but please know that i’m very imperfect and that this only represents one person’s experience! so mine shouldn’t be considered a definitive take on anything. (this gets long, so continued under the cut.)
so first off, i think it’s important to note that adroit as a whole is made up of many, many individual people that non-affiliated writers may have interactions with. so i don’t know if this is a phenomenon that people see as tied to individuals or to the organization at a macro level. i also don’t know exactly what kind of “cruelty” you’re referring to, but i’ll try to address things based on how i see them in your message.
secondly, i personally have never been subjected to elitist bias when interacting with adroit at any level. i applied to and was accepted to their summer mentorship program in 2015. back then, i had just started writing poetry and had zero major poetry publications / awards on my resume. even so, every program staff member i interacted with was overwhelmingly willing to look at my work, give advice, point me to submission opportunities, and so on. they treated me like they saw potential in me even with my lack of “external cred,” so to speak. the validation and support i got from their encouragement was one of the major forces keeping me going before i started winning awards / getting published.
thirdly, i’m not totally up to date / certain on adroit’s submission evaluation policies, but i have been told that when i have submitted to the adroit prizes over the past two or so years, i have been read blind. this means that my previous publications / awards had no bearing on the way my work was read. i don’t know if this applies to the general journal submission pool, and it can’t apply as much to the mentorship pool because the personal statement exists. but i will say that from my interactions with adroit, i do not believe that adroit accepts or rejects work based on a writer’s awards or publication credits.
that said, this is one person’s experience, and this is a criticism of adroit that i have heard before. so here’s where the flip side comes in.
notably, i did adroit’s mentorship program in 2015. over the past three years, the program has grown exponentially in terms of scale and influence. the application process has therefore likely become exponentially more competitive, and that may have led the organization to lean on external publications / awards as a way of differentiating among many very worthy applicants. i have no role in mentorship admissions, so i do not know for sure.
i will also say that people in / around the adroit community started treating me very differently after i started gaining some external recognition—especially after i was recognized by youngarts. this was a phenomenon i observed a while after i had left the mentorship program as a student, so think about mid-2016. i have been respected / embraced / sometimes put on a pedestal to a level that i don’t think i necessarily would have been if i had never won those awards.
i find that there is undeniably elitism present in the adroit community. i hear where you’re coming from. i want to be clear about that. but i don’t think this is an adroit-specific problem. i think that it’s a pervasive issue throughout many writing communities—the tendency for us writers to view our peers in terms of external accomplishments. in a capitalist framework that pressures us to quantify the worth of our beautiful and unquantifiable craft, we are (to an extent) conditioned to have that mindset. i know it’s something i have to be constantly conscious of. i know it’s something adroit staff members have discussed with me at length because they want to do their best to avoid it. i know it’s something non-adroit-affiliated writers have talked to me about because they’ve experienced it from people affiliated with adroit.
i think that one reason adroit gets cited so often as That Elitist Publication is that as an organization, it does like to celebrate the external accomplishments of contributors, mentorship students, staff members, etc.—arguably more than most literary journals. i’m conflicted about that, because i love the idea of celebrating people in the community, but i also see how it can feel like there’s an exclusive “cool kids club” being created by that practice.
another reason i think that this particular community is so frequently in the spotlight is because it’s so involved with high school-age writers. this means that adroit has much more extensive interactions with “emerging” writers who don’t have a lot of awards / publications to their name. so this may—and this is just based on my experience—create more opportunities for that elitism to rear its ugly head. additionally, this certainly doesn’t apply to everyone, but many of those high school-age writers see writing as one way to make them competitive in the college admissions process. so a lot of us are already embedded in a deeply elitist process that places a disproportionate amount of value on quantifiable accomplishments, and that shapes the way young writers in the journal’s community view each other.
anyway, this doesn’t even get into the potential classist implications of submission fees that you might have been getting at in the first part of this question, but i feel like that question is already being addressed by people far more knowledgeable and well-argued than me. kanika and topaz handled it brilliantly on twitter, and i’d also point to rachel mennies’s very cogent analysis on the subject, which addresses fees in poetry publishing as a whole.
if you were generous enough to read to the end of this (thank you!), i’m glad that you asked this question, and i hope that some of this answer makes sense. if you want to have more of a conversation on this, i’m open to it. adroit is an organization that’s shaped my development as a writer, and i will always be indebted to it for all the love and opportunities it’s given me. but it isn’t perfect. and being willing to see that, i think, will make us all better.
since you've been answering questions, here's one- what do you think of adroit's elitism? i ask because (idk if you saw but) topaz winters and kanika lawton called them out about their application fee and it started a conversation about how adroit has been really cruel to writers who don't have lots of publications/awards (kanika and topaz didn't start the conversation about that it was just a few of us who saw their tweets) and i know you're affiliated with them so what do you think? (1/2)
hey anon! since this is a two-part ask, i’m going to go ahead and post both parts before responding—so if you’re looking for it, you can see my answer on part two.
(erasure of donald trump's "response" to the 2/14 parkland school shooting. i am 17. my school has been targeted by threats of a shooting before. i am tired of being failed by a government that gives such threats power.)
christina you are loved! i love YOU for being a kind beautiful person and i also love your style of writing. seriously you can manipulate language like no other. well hope it’s been a good day for you!!
hello, anon! wow! this is really, really good and generous of you to say. thank you. so much love right back—this day is certainly a good one now that you’re here.
how do i get involved in the teen writing community (on tumblr and elsewhere)? i rly love to write but i feel like i'm lacking the importance of support/advice/friendship from other writers :/
hi there! i understand this feeling—i definitely used to get it a lot, too. with that in mind, i’ll try and speak to my experience, but i think the biggest takeaway i’ve gotten from my experience in online writing communities is that there is no one unified Community. and that’s okay! it just means there’s an infinite number of ways to find your people. and i think that’s really, really exciting.
keep in mind that i didn’t originally find my community on tumblr, so maybe not all of this will be helpful. but i’ll do my best!
some things i’ve found helpful while navigating online writing spaces:
look for shared interests. some of the best community-building i’ve ever gotten to do has been a result of having loved the same author as elementary schoolers, or being in love with the same album, or or or. one thing to keep in mind is people usually really enjoy talking about things they adore! so if someone has a similar interest as you, there’s no harm in talking to them about it.
people are usually much more open than you think. i can’t stress this enough. people’s generosity and interest have surprised me time and time again. so start that group chat! make that comment! this can be much easier said than done, i know, so it’s totally understandable to need to work up to it. and if you want more specific help with this, my inbox is always open to you.
structured community-building is extremely cool! but not a prerequisite. as much as i love having online mentorship programs that connect me to new people (the adroit journal, glass kite anthology, and venus magazine all run terrific ones), you can find people without those programs. there are ways you can make yourself more likely to meet like-minded writers (joining tumblr networks, applying to mentorships, joining writing sites like wattpad, etc.). but there’s also just the option of reaching out, and that shouldn’t be seen as a less legitimate way to go.
maybe this isn’t the most helpful bottom line, but at the end of the day, i don’t think there’s a method to finding your community. it requires some trial and error, some weird leaps, and some luck. but there are so many good people you haven’t met yet who will love you for your work and your soul. i wish you all the best in finding them. <3
