AWP 2023 Shiny Fam!

Check out the Gigantic Sequins Shiny Family at the following #AWP23 events, on and off-site!

We can’t afford to be there this year, but we’re so proud of all of our past contributors, contest judges, editors, readers, etc. who will be participating in these events. Check as many out as possible!

PRE-RECORDED

12pm/on-demand: Arisa White, panel: Bodies in Archives: Researching Personhood, Researching as a Person

12pm/on-demand: Aram Mrjoian, panel: We Are All Armenian Launch

WEDNESDAY 3/8

6pm: Katie Prince, off-site reading: Inspired by Iceland: A Multi-Media Poetry Reading

6pm: Mag Gabbert, off-site reading: City Feet, Swamp Mouths: A Louisiana Regional Offsite Reading at AWP

7pm: Jose Hernandez Diaz: Quarter After 8 Launch Party & Reading

THURSDAY 3/9

9am: Kimberly Gray, panel: Poetic Experiments: Incorporating Play into Writing and Teaching

1:45pm: Mónica Gomery, panel: Jewish Diasporist Poetics

4pm: Isle McElroy, off-site reading: The Future is No One

5pm: Alina Stefanescu, off-site reading: AWP: Wandering Words & Wild Euphony

6pm: Dorothy Chan, off-site reading: Diode Editions Presents: Poetry

9pm: Muriel Leung & Ronaldo V. Wilson, off-site event: Nightboat All Night

FRIDAY 3/10

9am: Caits Meissner, panel: Those who can…TEACH, Sponsored by WITS Alliance

10:35am: Saul Lemerond, panel: Not Lazy and Stupid: Atypical Minds Fighting for Space on the Page

1:45pm: Gabrielle Bates, panel: So You Want to Publish a Poetry Collection

1:45pm: Jericho Brown, panel: How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill, Sponsored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation

1:45pm: Jose Hernandez Diaz, panel: “Surprised by Joy”: The Generative Writing Workshop

1:45pm: Rachel Mennies, panel: The Best of All Worlds: Partnering to Support Presses, Nonprofits, and Writers

1:45pm, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, panel: How Writers of Color Use Humor To Tell Their Stories

3:20pm, Caits Meissner, panel: Through the Walls: Working Equitably with Incarcerated Writers

3:20pm: Dustin M. Hoffman, panel: Wonderfully Weird and Small: How to Build a Thriving Small Press

5pm: Gabrielle Bates and MICHAEL CHANGE, off-site reading: We Keep Beginning • An AWP 2023 Offsite Event

5:30pm: Cheryl Clark Vermeulen, off-site reading: The Word Works

6pm: Ronaldo V. Wilson, off-site reading: MarginShift Presents: an AWP off-site with Counterpath Press

7pm: Arisa White, off-site reading: The Wilds—Pleasure, Power, and the Erotic—Celebrating Miah Jeffra’s American Gospel

7pm: jay dodd, off-site reading: AWP: Group Reading with Nightboat, FC2 and The Elephants

7pm: Alyse Knorr & Kathleen Rooney, off-site reading: Switchback, Futurepoem, Action, VOLT, Jellyfish, Boa, & Everybody: AWP Off-site Extravaganza

7pm: Sommer Brownding, off-site reading: Rendezvous: An AWP Offsite

7pm: Gabrielle Bates, off-site reading: Brooklyn Poets AWP Seattle Offsite Reading

7:30pm: S. Brook Corfman, off-site reading: Autumn House Queer Nature Anthology

7:30pm: Kristina Langley Mahler, off-site event: AWP Offsite

8pm Jose Hernandez Diaz, off-site reading: Harbor/Acre Poets AWP Off-Site Reading: Where the Sea Meets the Land

SATURDAY 3/11

9am: Kayleb Rae Candrilli, panel: From Poe and Plath to Meds and Co-Pays: Poetry and Mental Illness

10:35am: Jericho Brown, panel: Growing the Garden: Paying Tribute to Joanne Gabbin and Furious Flower

10:35am: Wendy Xu, panel: Poets of Chinese Heritage: A Reading

12:10am: Alina Stefanescu, panel: Writing Abortion in the Wake of Roe

3:20pm: Keetje Kuipers, panel: Begin Again: New Editors on Taking the Helm, Sponsored by CLMP

3:20pm: Saul Lemerond, panel: The Nuts and Bolts of Podcasting: Practical Advice for Teaching Out Loud

3:20pm: Isle McElroy, panel: Laughter in the Time of Suffering: Writing Humor from the Margins

5:30pm: Jennifer Fliss, off-site off-site reading: Words with Music…And Friends

6pm: Maurice Carlos Ruffin, off-site reading: Glitterati

WELCOME TO TEEN SEQUINS 2022!

Greetings readers! Today kicks off the release of our featured Teen Sequins writers of 2022. Follow along this week as each day we reveal our featured poets for 2022: Yechan (Chloe) Lee (age 14), Arihant Jain (age 15), Caitlin Villacrusis (age 16), Taber Cannon (age 17), and Jessica Kim (age 18). We couldn’t be more excited to share these poems with you!

Along with our feature, we also celebrate all those who submitted with a truly deserved honorable mention. An honorable mention means: We hear you, we see you, and we can’t wait to see where you’ll go next. 

Honorable Mentions, Age 14:

Ali Nasir, Hyunsoo Nam, Minha Kyun, Sophia Wong, Hanna Masudi, Nora Gupta

Honorable Mentions, Age 15:

Dorian Andrews, Brookelyn Bates, Julia Sholl, Aakriti Garg, Urja Shah, Yarima Gonzalez, Ava Jones, Hasmik Tumasyan, Erin Yoo, Charlotte Lebedeker, Sarah Ding, Keira Armstrong, Victoria Huang, Soleil Wizman, Shaliz Bazldjoo, Heather Qin, Iris Cai, Fiona Jin

Honorable Mentions, Age 16:

Kian Dierks, Vivian Huang, Ava Yu, Skyelar Wiedrich, Hanna Warren, Haley Deng, Serena Young, Katie Tian, Julia Sholl, Rho Bloom-Wang, Dylan Eskovitz, Paul Reiger, Larkin Helman, Kashvi Ramani, Hasanah Mishahal A. Mansour, Julia Ongking, Sabrina Guo, Cooper Branch, Ruby Parker, Sean Kim, Madina Khasanboeva, Isabel Connolly, Tara Prakash, Thatcher Mulholland, Allison Xu, Eric Zhu, Ava Chen, Eileen Budiyono, Kaili Revak, Sherice Kong 

Honorable Mentions, Age 17:

Logan Meredith, Amiyuh Tobias, Carissa Ceasor, Isabel Brown, Taejah McKnight, Ivy Chen, Yelaine Aguilar, Zachary Cho, Chu-yi Rachel Ngai, Caitlyn Iaccino, Annie Johnson, Kevin Zhu, Joseph Mir, Yujia Li, Catherine Tang, Julianne Park, Mulan Pan, Daniel Son, Fiona Lu, Valli Pendyala, Eva Zheng, Ursula Beitz, Estan Rodriguez, Yemaya Gaspard, Anna Feng, Mimi Yang, Alyssa Tang, Amy Wang, Elyse Hwang, Samantha Hsiung

Honorable Mentions, Age 18:

Helen Chen, Alina Marine, Keiran Elden, Adrian Mora, Alor Sahoo, Sydney Lyons, Bruno Drake, Anna Carolina de Oliveira Alves, Amaya Turner, Ashi Soni

We are so grateful to everyone who has submitted and can’t wait to see what you all do in the years to come. 

Sincerely, 

Teen Sequins Editorial Staff 2022

GS @ 2022 AWP / Shiny Family Schedule!

Check us out at T548 in the bookfair–our EIC Kimberly Ann Southwick, Poetry Editor Billie R. Tadros, and CNF Editor LaTanya McQueen will be joined by readers E Kerr and Saul Lemerond Thurs-Sat. 9am-5pm! Come by, grab a free sticker and/or some candy–maybe a back issue?! Maybe our current issue!? We’d love to see you, even if it’s just to say hi.

Here’s everything else you should do besides the above while you’re in PHL:

WEDNESDAY 3/23/2022

7-9pm / Jose Hernandez Diaz (GS 7.1) / Readings On the Pike/MoCo Underground Do AWP!

THURSDAY 3/24/2022

ON-SITE

9-10am / VIRTUAL / Jericho Brown (GS’s 2nd Annual Poetry Contest Judge) / “The Poetics of Film: Five Poets on the Influence & Impact of Cinema“

10:35-11:50am / Sofia Samatar (GS 8.2) / “Myth & Monsters in Memoir: Using Folklore to Structure Personal Writing“

10:35-11:50am / Saul Lemerond (GS 8.1 & current Fiction Reader) & Kimberly Ann Southwick (GS Founder & EIC) / “The Neanderthal & the Fax Machine: Teaching the Surreal & Absurd“

10:35-11:50am / Bianca Stone (GS 6.2 & 2015 Winter Poetry Comics Judge) / “Honoring American Poet Ruth Stone in a New Film about Her Life & Poetry“

10:35-11:50 / VIRTUAL / Tracy Fuad (GS 7.2) / “AWP Award Series Reading“

12:10-1:25pm / MIchael Czyzniejewski  (GS issue 12) / “Flash Fiction: Forward to the Future!“

1:45-3pm / Kayleb Rae Candrilli (GS 8.2, issue 11, & 10th Annual Summer Poetry Contest Judge) / “Shaping a Poetry Manuscript That Has a Chance in Today’s Literary Landscape”

1:45-3pm / Chloe Martinez (GS issue 11) / “Change of Plans: The Pleasure & Pain of Walking Away from Academia“

3:20-4:20pm / VIRTUAL / celeste doaks (GS 7th Annual Poetry Contest Judge) / “United We Stand: How Diverse Collections Create Space“

3:20-4:20pm / VIRTUAL / Rachel Mennies (GS 5.1) / “Beyond Representation: Intersections of Poetry & Mental Illness“

5-6:15pm / Dawn Lundy Martin (GS 3rd Annual Poetry Contest Judge) / “A Reading & Conversation with Elizabeth Acevedo, Dawn Lundy Martin, and Deesha Philyaw, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts“

OFF-SITE

3-5pm / Spencer Silverthorne (GS issue 13) / UL Lafayette CW Program Off-Site Reading

5:30pm / Mag Gabbert (GS issue 12) / The Arkansas International and The Massachusetts Review Present: an Evening of Poetry and Prose

5pm / Sara Fetherolf (GS issue 13) / “New American Press Celebrates New Writing“

6pm / Tracy Fuad (GS 7.2) / Minza’s Off-site Reading: The Experimental Issue

6pm / Athena Dixon (Past GS Reader) / Women’s Voices, Women’s Stories – An Evening of Memoir Readings

6pm / VIRTUAL / Meredith Clark (10.2) / Platypus Press Presents…

7pm / Kimberly Ann Southwick (GS Founder & EIC), & Nicole Steinberg (GS 6.2) / Bedfellows Thursday Thirst & Issue 11 Launch

7pm / VIRTUAL & IN-PERSON / Jennifer Fliss (GS 9.1) & Ellen Rhudy (GS issue 11) / Alternating Current & Okay Donkey Collaborative Reading

7pm / Sommer Browning (GS 6.2 Guest Poetry Editor) / A Reading by Birds LLC, Fence, Fonograf Editions, & the CSU Poetry Center

8pm / Tracy Fuad (GS 7.2) / AWP Conference Off-site Reading by Austin Segrest, Anne Barngrover, Tracy Fuad, and Keith Kopka

8:30-10pm / Jim Daniels (GS 2.2) / Glassworks Magazine 10th Anniversary Reading

FRIDAY 3/25/2022

9-10:15am / Marcela Sulak (GS issue 12) / “Reverberation: The Book Review as Literary (Labor) Labor“

9-10:15am / Chloe Martinez (GS issue 11) / “Admit It, You’re Writing a Poem: Ars Poetica & the Awkward Confession“

10:35-11:50am / Len Lawson (GS 10.1) / “The Future of Black: The Advent of 21st-Century Second-Wave Afrofuturism Poetry“

10:35-10:50 / Jane Wong (GS 3.2) / “Teaching & Writing Asian America in the CW Classroom“

10:35-10:50 / Annie Liontas (5th Annual Flash Fiction Contest Judge) / “Both/And: Boosting Women, Genderquee,r & LGBT Writers“

10:35-11:50am / Kayleb Rae Candrilli (GS 8.2, issue 11, and 10th Annual Poetry Contest Judge) / “Saturnalia Books Twentieth Anniversary Reading“

12:10-1:10pm / VIRTUAL / LaTanya McQueen (GS CNF Editor) / “Research & Reckoning: How Nonfiction Research Allows Us to Reckon with the Past“

12:10-1:25pm / Arisa White (9th Annual Poetry Contest Judge) / “Total Strangers: Undergrads, Authors, & Editors on Amplifying International Voices“

1:45-3pm / Mag Gabbert (GS issue 12)/ “Empowering New Writers: Strategies for Teaching the Hesitant Poetry Student“

3:20-4:20pm / VIRTUAL / Tyler Barton (GS 9.1) / “Houses Full of Houses: The Structure & Craft of Building Story Collections“

3:20-4:20pm / VIRTUAL / Tafisha A. Edwards (GS 7.1 & GS Poetry Editor) / “Call Me by My Name: Poetry of Black Womanhood & the Erotic“

3:20-4:35pm / Saul Lemerond (GS 8.1 & current fiction reader) & Billie R. Tadros (GS 7.1 & GS Poetry Editor) / “Multimodal Identities: How Podcasting Can Unbind Creative Voices“

3:20-4:35pm / Olivia Kate Cerrone (GS 3.1) / “Building Sustainable Writing Communities in a Postpandemic World“

3:20-4:35pm / Keetje Kuipers (GS 5.1) / “Transparency & Transformation: The Literary Institution at the Tipping Point“

OFF-SITE

5pm / Dorothy Chan (10.1) / Friday Poetry @ Brickbat Books

6:30-8pm / MICHAEL CHANG (GS issue 13), Mónica Gomery, Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes (GS issue 12) & Bianca Stone (GS 6.2 & Poetry Comics Contest Judge) / The Gigantic Sequins, Iterant, Ruth Stone House, & Rose Metal Press Off-site Reading at Young American Cider

7pm / Alyse Knorr (7.2) / Switchback Books, Jellyfish Review, & Furniture Press Books Reading

SATURDAY 3/26/2022

ON-SITE

9-10:15am / Michael Czyzniejewski (12.1) / “Bowling Green State University MFA’s Fiftieth Anniversary Reading“

12:10-1:25pm / Paul Lisicky (GS 2018 Flash CNF Contest Judge) / “Chosen Families: A Reading & Conversation Presented by Red Hen Press“

1:45-3pm / Atom Atkinson (GS 2.2) / “Sum = {Poetry + New Media + Politics + Performance}“

1:45-3pm / MarÍa Isabel Alvarez (GS 8.1) / “Embracing Bilingual Writing & Bicultural Narratives“

3:20-4:35pm / Jane Wong (3.2) / “In Order to Be Totally Free: Teaching via the Writing Constraint“

OFF-SITE

3-5pm / celeste doaks (GS 7th Annual Poetry Contest Judge) / ?th Annual Rock & Roll Reading

6pm / Jameka Williams (7.2) / Bloom: A Spring AWP ’22 Offsite Poetry Reading

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

Brewery ARS (in South Philly & Fishtown)

Philly. Style. Bagels. (in Fishtown & Old City)

Philly AIDS Thrift & Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room (aka “queerbooks.com)

Head & the Hand Books (Fishtown)

Brickbat Books (South Philly)

Harriett’s Bookshop (Fishtown)

Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse (Fishtown)

Please do not leave this city without trying the scrumptious dessert WATER ICE, eating a SOFT PRETZEL (they really are better here), and getting yelled at by someone–preferably someone riding a bicycle who is righteous in their yelling at you OR someone in Philly sports gear who is not righteous in their yelling at you.

Welcome to TEEN SEQUINS 2021 !

An insect’s feast, an east wind, the motorcycle’s younger brother and a self-portrait in erasure and consent and time after death — this is just some of what you’ll find in the poems of our featured Teen Sequins writers of 2021. Follow along this week on our website as we reveal each day our featured poets for 2021: Emma Tian (age 14), Sophia Liu (age 15), Alexander S (Age 16), Stella Lei (age 17), and Suraj Singareddy (age 18). The feature starts TOMORROW, November 8th, and we couldn’t be more excited to share these poems with you.

Since 2015, we have set aside a week each year to celebrate the writing of teenagers, and the mission to choose just one poem to feature for each age category is nearly impossible — there is so much poetry deserving of praise. We celebrate here in our kick-off all those who have submitted with truly deserved honorable mention!

Honorable Mentions, Age 14: Shaliz Bazldjoo, Julia Dun Rappaport, Chloe Lee, Iago Macknik-Conde, Matthew Martins, Ryan Park, Avantika Singh, Emma Tenzler, Ziyi Yan

Honorable Mentions, Age 15: Samaira Bhalla, Marlo Cowan, Kiera Darling, Katherine Dyal, Sabrina Guo, Madhalasa Iyer, Daniel Kim, Anna Laine, Sophia Liu, Asanda Mdikeli, Abby Nelson, Jamie Nguyen, Michelle Park, Tara Prakash, Kashvi Ramani, Franny Shaloum, Katie Tian, Rachel Xu, Suchita Vanguri, Aileen Zhao, Selina Zheng

Honorable Mentions, Age 16: Alli Benthien, Faith Bet, Anna Feng, Arriyana Franklin, Isabella Fron, Amelia Harrington, Jay Jarboe, Andrew Kang, Gayatri Kapoor, Elane Kim, Shannon Kim, Anoushka Kumar, Sangeeta Krishen, Aebby Lee, Ella Lüking, Avery Mcguire, Isabella Merino, Francesca Mills, Aamina Mughal, Eric Pak, Amrutha Reddy, Vivian Rong, Lena Singh, Jazmine Thomas, Tara Tulshyan, Noel Ullom, Amy Wang, Andrew Wang, Ally Wong, Katherine Wei, Amanda Zhou, Kevin Zhu

Honorable Mentions, Age 17: Miriam Alex, Julia Bertino, Daniel Boyko, E.J. Carnegie, Ana Carpenter, Helen Chen, Viviane Fontoura, Kevin Gu, Yong-Yu Huang, Andy Hunjan, Lauren Hyunseo Cho, Jasmine Kapadia, Erin Kim, Tyler Kruger, Mia Hoppel, William Kim, Zoe Lafontant, Amelhyne O’Regan-Farineau, Yahir Ortiz, Irene Park, Halle Preneta, Evy Shen, Jordan Teitelbaum, Courtney Trusty, Sakshi Umrotkar, Hanishree Vichare, Yixuan Wu,

Honorable Mentions, Age 18: Antonius Dalsgaard, Fallon Davidson, Cole Granahan,  Naya Dukkipati, Julie Larick, Divya Mehrish, Sylvia Roussis, Grace Song

The GS 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominees

We are honored to be able to nominate the following 6 pieces for a Pushcart Prize this year, all of which can be found in our sole 2020 issue, issue 11!

“Higher! Higher!” by Ellen Rhudy

“Brainchild” by Cheryl Clark Vermeulen

“Spacesuit, or Learning How to Float Through Public Space” by Alan Chazaro

“True Owl” by Brendan Curtinrich

“How a Person Becomes a Body” by Paula Marafino Bernett

“After Ariana Grande” by Amy Zimmerman

Image that looks sort of 80s in pink, black, and white, reiterating the information already on this page: the winners' names and works' names.

Teen Sequins 2020, Day 5: Heather Laurel Jensen, age 18 

 Elegy Apologizing in Hindsight
  

 I hear:  July will bring the second coming,
               monsoon season, and a stock market crash. 
               Each light on the water tower will blink
               and then strobe. A cougar will sleep 
               under my trampoline for weeks. Dogs 
               will break into every antique shop and
              devour fine china. From there the moon will roll 
              across a cliff and crush the nearest mobile home.
  
 Today they are dredging my best friend’s body from the lake.
 She is wrapped in pink tarp and identifiable
 by her ponytail. The edges of each day are ochre and 
 pulling up at the corners like linoleum. Occasionally 
 when I take a shower, there is vomit already 
 in the bathtub. I should not be here,
  
 not like this. Three weeks ago we were kneeling
 at the gulf of a psych ward, with my hands 
 pressing a Ziploc to her nose and mouth in lieu
 of a paper bag. In hindsight,
             
             I am not even 
             an effective attempt at
             a solution. A threat is
             still a threat when
             you pretend it’s benign.
             Sorrow is still sorrow
             with my headphones in. Her grief
             was still grief when I 
             avoided it. In the future,
             I hope to be unafraid
  
 of asking questions. Her parents will join
 a nunnery. The lake will drain
 through a metal slit in the earth. Her old
 things will appear on every subway 
 in the world. In hindsight, I will look for
 the cliff crumbs in the cuffs of her jeans. In
 hindsight, I will call the hospital and tell them 
 her name.


Heather Laurel Jensen is a freshman at the University of Arizona. She served as National Student Poet of the Southwest in 2018 and is currently co-president of Creative Youth of Arizona, an organization that administers the Phoenix Youth Poet Laureate program and develops creative opportunities for young Arizonans. Her poetry, short stories, and photography have been published by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, diode poetry journal, and the Live Poets Society of New Jersey, among others.

Teen Sequins 2020, Day 4: Jaewon Chang, Age 17 

 Silent Adieu
  
 Each day is a land silently waiting
 to be unmasked. This evening,
  
 I’ll find the revolver wrenched
 in my father's closet. The barrel
  
 seems to extend longer than
 the time it allows for farewells.
  
 Sometimes, I wonder if holes are made
 easier during the night. That a trigger
  
 soiled with daylight might be easier
 to unroll. I’m gripping the gun, but
  
 dawn is only as bright as we wish
 to call it. Perhaps, the frail body
  
 lying against the front porch isn’t
 as scary at night. Soon, I’ll bend down
  
 and recognize his face, like a bullet
 waiting before it begins to whisper.

Jaewon Chang is a high school junior living in the Philippines. His works have been recognized by the Scholastics Art and Writing awards on a national level and he is a Foyle Young Poet. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cleaver Magazine, Austin International Poetry Festival Youth Anthology, National Poetry Writing Month Anthology (2020), Ilanot Review, Bitter Oleander Press, and elsewhere. During his free time, Jaewon enjoys traveling the city on foot.