MWC Press, the publishing imprint of The Midwest Writing Center, announces the latest selections in its Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series, which features exciting poetry, prose, and hybrid work from around the Midwest. Two manuscripts have been selected for publication:
If you have ever thought poetry is “difficult” or “hard” in some way you couldn’t quite place, the Midwest Writing Center has just the thing: a reading and writing workshop focused on identifying, reading through, and working with different kinds of “difficulty” in a four-week workshop series facilitated by poet and MWC Executive Director Ryan Collins.
The workshop will ground itself in the essay “On Difficulty in Poetry” by the seminal American poet Reginald Shepherd (1963-2008), which breaks difficulty in poetry down into several categories (lexical, allusive, syntactical, semantic, formal, modal). Each week, we will look at 1-2 of these categories of difficulty, while reading poems that demonstrate them. We will discuss the Shepherd essay, the sample poems, and try writing our own work using the understandings we arrive at via our readings, discussions, and experience.
LOCATION UPDATE!
The Young Emerging Writers (YEW) Summer Internship Program will host a two-part party to celebrate the release of the latest issue of THE ATLAS, the Program’s literary magazine, on Thursday, August 13 at the downtown Rock Island Public Library and Rozz-Tox.
The event will start at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Room of the downtown Rock Island Public Library with the release of THE ATLAS 21, where the 2026 YEW interns will give a brief reading of their work from the magazine. Copies will be available for $10, along with other local literary artists selling their work. Light refreshments will be served.
Then, at 8:00 p.m., the party will move down the street to Rozz-Tox, featuring an open mic for YEW alumni and staff, followed by live music from KAS.