An exciting line-up of wonderful poets and writers will visit The Notebooks Collective over the course of the year. We are so excited to have these people in conversation as we learn about what drives them to create and how they do it. Plus, we can sit back and enjoy as they read from their work that has brought them to join us.
We couldn’t be more thrilled and we hope you check out the good news here and head over to the events page to register for events!
Above: Dzivinia Orlowsky discusses her new book, Those Absences Now Closest, during our February event.
Here we are at the end of 2025 — we made it! We’re thrilled to provide this round-up of all the awesome things folks have been doing out in the world.
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Allison Adair has been selected as Brookline, Massachusett’s poet laureate.
Ellen Austin-Li’s heroic crown of sonnets, The Fourth Column, has been accepted for 2027 publication by Milk & Cake Press. Her poem “You’ve Started Wearing Cologne Again” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize byYearling: A Poetry Journal from Working Writers. Ellen’s in-person monthly reading series in Cincinnati, OH, has changed venues to Urban Artifact and is now titled Poetry at Artifact (formerly Poetry Night at Sitwell’s). She hopes you’ll visit on the first Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. ET if you’re in Cincy!
Fleda Brown has a new book out, End of the Clockwork Universe, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press.
Eileen Cleary‘s book Wild Pack of the Living (Nixes Mate Review) was a longlist nomination for the Massachusetts Book Award.
Quintin Collins‘s book Lord, Don’t Tell Me the Scale of My Unknowing, was a longlist nomination for the Small Harbor Publishing Laureate Prize.
Jessica Cuello’s first translation, While Percival Fell, is out from Tiger Bark Press in February and is available for preorder.
Meg Kearney‘s new heroic crown of sonnets, Cardiac Thrill, was released by Green Linden Press in September, and her 2020 heroic crown, The Ice Storm, went into its fourth printing this fall.
Michael Kleber-Diggs‘s poem Gloria Mundi was featured on The Slowdown.
Danusha Laméris‘ third book, Blade by Blade was released in 2024 by Copper Canyon Press. Her poem, “Night Bird” received a Pushcart Prize, while “Second Sight” appeared in The Best American Poetry 2025. She also launched Litfield, a writing community that meets four times a month and includes writing together from prompts, an open mic, a conversation with a beloved guest poet and a deep read of their work, as well as small feedback groups. To learn more or get on the wait list, go to www.Litfieldwriters.com. She has also been announced as part of the 2026 roster of curators for The Academy of American Poets‘s runaway hit program Poem a Day! She will curate April’s selections.
Jennifer Martelli’s book, Psychic Party Under the Bottle Tree (Lily Poetry Review) was a longlist nomination for the Massachusetts Book Award.
January Gill O’Neil‘s book Glitter Road (CavanKerry Press) received the Poetry Honor from the Mass Book Awards.
Anne-Marie Oomen and co-author Linda Nemec Foster, have learned that the Lake Huron Mermaid, the second tale-in-poems in the Great Lakes Mermaid series, is a finalist for Book of the Year in Poetry, selected by the Chicago Writers Association.
Ali Kinsella and Dzivinia Orlowsky were finalists for the 2025 PEN America Award for Translation in Poetry and long-listed for the 2025 ALTA National Translation Award for their co-translation from the Ukrainian of Halyna Kruk’s Lost in Living (Lost Horse Press). Dzivinia has three new poems “Giving it Away” “Moths Eat My Giorgio Armani Dress” and “Ode to Hairy Legs and Hot Pants” in Plume Poetry Issue #170, October 2025.
Jennifer Perrine‘s fifth book, Beautiful Outlaw, was published by Kelsey Street Press this summer after winning their QTBIPOC Book Prize.
Sun Yung Shin was awarded a 2025 McKnight Fellowship for Writers in Creative Prose from The Loft Literary Center and her book, Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in May, 2026.
Mark Turcotte was named as the 6th Illinois Poet Laureate.
Marcela Sulak has started a new podcast! FROM POEM TO BOOK. She has an open call for recent TNC guests with new books to put themselves forward to be considered on the podcast. In the podcast, she talks about how we make books–how to revise, how to structure, how we know we have books. In addition, her translation of a book length elegy, Music of the Wide Lane by Sharron Hass, is out from the University of Texas Press.
Sara Moore Wagner‘s poem “The Vampire Wife” has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize.
Monica Lee Weatherly‘s second poetry chapbook was released on October 14, 2025 titled, “Summer In Kosciusko: Poems.” Summer In Kosciusko is a poetry collection rooted in the black southern experience, displaying all its joy and sorrow. It’s about looking at life through the eyes of a child and the adults they become. It’s about neighborhoods and family. It’s about history that holds you up and haunts you all at the same time. It’s laughter through tears and beauty through surviving.
Zoë Ryder White‘s new book, The Visible Field, is available for preorder from one of our favorite small presses, River River Books.
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If you have good news to share, please reach out and we will update this post! We love hearing from you.
On 11/11, longtime poetry collaborators, Zoë Ryder White and Nicole Callihan read from their collaborative works and discussed their process. The two began collaborating in 1999 and have two published chapbooks–A Study in Spring, winner of the Baltic Writing Residency Prize (2015) and Elsewhere, winner of the Sixth Finch Chapbook Prize (2020)–as well as many other works in progress.
We were so happy to host Iain and Nathan on October 21 for a reading and conversation. Iain’s newest book, All the Possible Bodies, was published this fall.
Like so many in the poetry community, we were devastated to learn of Jenn Martelli’s passing. Not only was Jenn a Notebooks Collective guest (in conversation with Kathleen Aguero), she was a literary citizen we deeply respected and learned from, watching her cheer on and champion others as she wrote luminous, incisive, insightful poems that left us, often, in awe.
Her legacy of an abiding love for poetry–and for poets–is one we’ll long remember and do our best to honor. It’s been a balm of sorts to see journals and poets share her poems these last couple of days. In that spirit, here’s a video of Jenn reading her poem, “The Angels of Hanover Street,” from her conversation with Kathi.
She was a welcoming, spirited, and inclusive force in the poetry community and will be deeply missed.
We welcomed Taylor Byas & jason b. crawford to The Notebooks Collective in September. We were thrilled to have these two brilliant poets join us to talk about craft, friendship, using poetry as a means to reckon with oppression and more.
We welcomed Valerie Smith & Monica Lee Weatherly to The Notebooks Collective in August. We were thrilled to have these two poet-educators join us to talk about working in community, sharing cultural histories, and the importance of place.
A long-time friendship across continents. Both with roots in Washington, D.C. and with a deep attention to the world. Watch this In Conversation to learn about their new work and relationship with writing. And a very special crow.
We celebrated the launch of Incidental Pollen, the debut full-length collection from Ellen Austin-Li in June. She was joined by her friend and mentor, poet Pauletta Hansel. Enjoy some poems and some conversation around the making of this beautiful new collection.
Two poets interested in affairs of the heart and the abiding loneliness at the center of the human experience. Two poets who overlapped at Warren Wilson’s MFA program yet who have different styles of writing.
This conversation touches on maintaining a creative practice alongside life’s many competing demands (both in school and after it), what a first book changes and does not change, and the importance of literary/poetry friendships.
Massachusetts poets and friends Richard Hoffman and January Gill O’Neil joined The Notebooks Collective for an evening of craft, conversation, and literary citizenship.
Emotional openness. An invitation to think together. Fleda Brown and Anne-Marie Oomen aren’t just contemporaries; they’re friends and deep admirers of each other’s work.
Both acclaimed poets and essayists, Fleda and Anne-Marie are also both teachers, Michganders, and friends. They admire one another’s work because they see and listen deeply and make space for each other to explore the written word in various forms. There’s something magical about creatives who are so knowledgeable about each other’s work, and that’s the kind of conversation this was: intimate, warm, curious and generous. Enjoy.
When two long-time friends talk poems, writing, and promotion, you know it’s going to be a treat. Sarah and Cynthia first met more than 20 years ago in London, where they were both active in the open mic scene. In this In Conversation event they talk about both creativity and process: the structures of their respective collections as book-length “projects,” how their own journeys with OCD/anxiety have impacted their work; form and the relationship of form to writing in other genres (specifically how their recent collections opened the door for prose), and the benefits of joining forces this past year on book tour and book promotions.
What a joyful event! Dzvinia & María Luisa read poems and talked about multilingualism, translation, and poetry as church. While their relationship started as one of mentor and student, they now call one another cherished friends with a shared passion for exploring how primary languages shape identity and existence.
