John Warner Smith
John Warner Smith (born December 22, 1952) is an American poet and educator. He formerly held the position as the Louisiana Poet Laureate. His poems have appeared in numerous published works. Life, education, and career Smith is a native of Morgan City, Louisiana. He grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and received his M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of New Orleans. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a B.S. in accounting and a B.S. in psychology from McNeese State University. Smith teaches English at Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he resides. He studied with instructors and poets Terrance Hayes and Tracy K. Smith. He is also the chief executive officer of Education's Next Horizon, a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to PreK-12 education reform in Louisiana. Prior to joining Education's Next Horizon, Smith worked as a banker for Chase. He also served as Secretary of Labor in the adm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Morgan City, Louisiana
Morgan City is a small city in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, United States, located in the Acadiana region. The population was 11,472 at the 2020 census. Known for being "right in the middle of everywhere", Morgan City is located southeast of Lafayette, south of Baton Rouge, and west of New Orleans. Morgan City sits on the banks of the Atchafalaya River near its intersection with the Intracoastal Waterway. The town was originally named "Tiger Island" by surveyors appointed by U.S. Secretary of War John Calhoun, because of a particular type of wild cat seen in the area. It was later changed for a time to "Brashear City", named after Walter Brashear, a prominent Kentucky physician who had purchased large tracts of land and acquired numerous sugar mills in the area. It was incorporated in 1860. Morgan City, and all of St. Mary Parish, is included in the Lafayette-Opelousas-Morgan City CSA. History Capture of Brashear City During the American Civil War, the Star Fort of F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lafayette, Louisiana
Lafayette ( , ) is the most populous city in and parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, Lafayette Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located along the Vermilion River (Louisiana), Vermilion River. It is Louisiana's List of municipalities in Louisiana, fourth-most populous city with a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 121,374; the consolidated city-parish's population was 241,753 in 2020. The Lafayette metropolitan area, Louisiana, Lafayette metropolitan area was Louisiana's third largest metropolitan statistical area with a population of 478,384 at the 2020 census. The Acadiana region containing Lafayette is the largest population and economic corridor between Houston, Texas and New Orleans. Originally established as Vermilionville in the 1820s and incorporated in 1836, Lafayette developed as an agricultural community until the introduction of retail and entertainment centers, and the discovery of oil in the area in the 1940s. Since the discovery of o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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MadHat Press
''MadHat Press'' is an American and international book-publishing company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. History MadHat was founded in 2010 by poets Carol Novack and Marc Vincenz as a platform for new American and international writing. At first, MadHat published a poetry magazine, ''MadHatters' Review'' that has later grown into a poetry press. Writing about ''MadHatters' Review'' in PiF Magazine, poet Kristina Marie Darling noted that it "provides a unique forum for writers to experiment with form, narrative, and the relationship between text and other mediums." After Carol Novack's death that occurred in December 2011, Marc Vincenz has become editor-in-chief. In an interview with American Book Review, he outlined the magazine's editorial policy: The press had an imprint, ''Plume Editions'' edited by the poet Daniel Lawless. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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African Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Bel Edwards
John Bel Edwards (born September 16, 1966) is an American politician, attorney, and Army veteran who served as the 56th governor of Louisiana from 2016 to 2024. A Southern Democrat, he previously served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2008 to 2015. Edwards represented parts of the Florida Parishes and served as minority leader from 2012 to 2015. Edwards graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in engineering and served in the United States Army as an infantry officer for eight years. In 1996, he was honorably discharged with the rank of Captain. After leaving the Army, Edwards attended and graduated from LSU Law. Following his tenure as a law clerk to Judge James L. Dennis, he returned home to Amite and began his career as a lawyer in private practice. First elected to the Louisiana House in 2007, Edwards became Democratic minority leader in 2012. He defeated Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter in the second roun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louisiana Endowment For The Humanities
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities is a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering the education of residents of the state of Louisiana. In its mission, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities pledges to provide access to and promote an appreciation of the history of Louisiana and its literary and cultural history. It was founded in 1972 as a result of initial funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Founding and history Beginning in 1971, the National Endowment for the Humanities initiated an experimental adult education program consisting of grants to the states to promote state-based programs of informal adult education in the humanities. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities came into existence in 1972, as the 17th program of its kind in the United States. It is one of more than fifty state humanities councils established to give individual states and territories greater autonomy in the humanities. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright (September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960) was an American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries suffering discrimination and violence. His best known works include the novella collection ''Uncle Tom's Children'' (1938), the novel ''Native Son'' (1940), and the memoir ''Black Boy'' (1945). Literary critics believe his work helped change Racism in the United States, race relations in the United States in the mid-20th century. Early life and education Childhood in the US South Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on September 4, 1908, at Rucker's Plantation, between the train town of Roxie, Mississippi, Roxie and the larger river city of Natchez, Mississippi. He was the son of Nathan Wright, a sharecropper, and Ella (Wilson), a schoolteacher. His parents were born free after the American Civil War ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Whiting Awards
The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g .... The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. , winners receive US$50,000. The nominees are chosen through a juried process, and the final winners are selected by a committee of writers, scholars, and editors, selected each year by the Foundation. Writers cannot apply for the prize themselves, and the Foundation does not accept unsolicited nominations. Recipients References External links {{Commons category, Whiting Award winnersCurrent Winners [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thomas Sayers Ellis
Thomas Sayers Ellis (born Washington, D.C.) is an American poet, photographer and bandleader. He previously taught as an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Bennington College in Vermont, and also at Sarah Lawrence College until 2012. Life He was raised in Washington, D.C., and attended Dunbar High School. In 1988 he co-founded the Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an organization that celebrated and gave greater visibility to emerging and established writers of color. He is the leader and a founding member of the band Heroes are Gang Leaders. Ellis received his M.F.A. from Brown University in 1995. Ellis is known in the poetry community as a literary activist and innovator, whose poems "resist limitations and rigorously embrace wholeness." His poems have appeared in magazines such as ''AGNI'' ''Callaloo'', '' Grand Street, Harvard Review, Tin House, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art,'' and anthologized in ''The Best Americ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Book Award For Poetry
The National Book Award for Poetry is one of five annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers"."History of the National Book Awards" . (NBF): About Us. Retrieved 2012-01-05. The judging panel is made up of five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field"."How the National Book Awards Work" . NBF: Awards. Retrieved 2012-01-05. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pushcart Prize
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to submit up to six works they have featured. Since 1976, anthologies of selected works have been published on an annual basis. These initiatives are supported and staffed entirely by dedicated volunteers. Editors The founding editors were Anaïs Nin, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Newman, Daniel Halpern, Gordon Lish, Harry Smith, Hugh Fox, Ishmael Reed, Joyce Carol Oates, Len Fulton, Leonard Randolph, Leslie Fiedler, Nona Balakian, Paul Bowles, Paul Engle, Ralph Ellison, Reynolds Price, Rhoda Schwartz, Richard Morris, Ted Wilentz, Tom Montag, Bill Henderson and William Phillips. Many guest editors have served this collection over the years. They are listed in each edition that they edited. More than 200 contributing ed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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River Styx (magazine)
''River Styx'' is a literary and visual arts magazine produced in St. Louis, Missouri, and published by Big River Association. It is the oldest literary journal in St. Louis, Missouri. Early years ''River Styx'' was founded in St Louis, Missouri in 1975, but its history reaches even farther into the past. In the late 1960s, poets and musicians would gather after poetry readings to read their own writing and the work of poets they admired. These sessions evolved into the ''River Styx Poets'' radio program, which ran from 1970-1973. Regulars on the show included founding editors Michael and Jan Castro, Danny Spell, and Marvin Hohman. The magazine has always prided itself on its multicultural approach to publishing and reading series. Early contributors to the magazine included David Meltzer, Jerome Rothenberg, Maurice Kenny, Joy Harjo, Terri McMillan, and Quincy Troupe. The magazine included interviews with Ntozake Shange, Gary Snyder, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ansel Adams, Robert B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |