Async Studio

Dear poets,

We are halfway through the year, and it’s time to examine our artistic practices and writing goals. While the craft of poetry and the field of publication can seem opaque, we would like to invite you into our Summer Async Studio, which aims to educate and provide new inspiration and direction for your poetry.

This summer, I am excited to share with you seven mini lectures on poetry craft topics, which were created by Palette Poetry editors and other talented poets in our community. Our intention is to give you accessible and rewatchable advice to aid you in developing your poetry. You will explore strategic line breaks, revision strategies for poetry, putting together a chapbook, and more. 

You will also receive direct feedback on your poetry. After a close read of your submission, our guest editors will send you an editorial letter full of observations, next steps, and possible paths to publication. 

This summer, we invite you to work closely with the Palette team to shift your poetry practice into its best shape yet.

Write on!

Marcella Haddad

Editor in Chief

 

our partner instructors:

A combination of individual feedback and expert instruction, the Async Studio is our latest endeavor to support writers who want to make progress in their craft. We’re thrilled to partner with some wonderful poets to launch this project, with short craft videos from:

Joanna Acevedo (she/they) is a writer, educator, and editor from New York City. She is the author of four books and chapbooks, including Unsaid Things (Flexible Press, 2021), List of Demands (Bottlecap Press, 2022), and Outtakes (WTAW Press, 2023). Her work can be found across the web and in print, including or forthcoming in Jelly Bucket, Hobart, and The Adroit Journal. She is a guest editor at Palette Poetry, Frontier Poetry, The Masters Review, and CRAFT, and a regular contributor to The Masters Review blog, in addition to acting as assistant fiction editor at Foglifter Journal. Currently, she is working as the Sales Rep & Events Coordinator at Black Lawrence Press. She received her MFA in fiction from New York University in 2021, teaches writing, interviewing and communication skills for both nonprofits and corporations, and is supported by Creatives Rebuild New York: Guaranteed Income for Artists.

Flower Conroy is an LGBTQIA+ writer, a National Endowment for the Arts and a MacDowell fellow, and a former Key West poet laureate. She is the author of Snake Breaking Medusa Disorder (NFSPS Press, 2019), winner of the Stevens Manuscript Competition; A Sentimental Hairpin (Tolsun Books, 2021), listed as a November 2021 best seller by Small Press Distribution; and Greenest Grass (WSU Press, 2023), winner of the Blue Lynx Press Prize. Conroy’s work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Community of Writers, and the Key West Literary Seminar. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and the Pushcart Prize. Conroy has exhibited her poetry and assemblage art at The Studios of Key West.

Rebecca Evans writes the difficult, the heart-full, the guidebooks for survivors. Her debut memoir in verse, Tangled by Blood, bridges motherhood and betrayal, untangling wounds and restorying what it means to be a mother. She’s a memoirist, essayist, and poet, co-hosting Radio Boise’s Writer to Writer on Stray Theater. She's earned two MFAs, one in creative nonfiction, the other in poetry, University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. She’s co-edited an anthology of poems, when there are nine, a tribute to the life and achievements of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Moon Tide Press, 2022). You can find her poems and essays in fine journals like Narratively, The Rumpus, Hypertext Magazine, War, Literature & the Arts, and The Limberlost Review.

Marcella Haddad (she/her) is the author of Sidewinder (Gateway Literary Press) and Witch House (Ghost City Press). Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in Apparition Lit, Okay Donkey, Variant Literature, and others. She received her MFA from University of Massachusetts Amherst and was a Tin House YA Scholar. She is the editor in chief of Palette Poetry and the managing editor of Moonflake Press. She teaches at Grubstreet and Clarion West. You can find her in a tree or at marcellaphaddad.com

Laura S. Marshall (she/they) is a poet, educator, and former linguist who lives outside Albany, New York. Their work appears in South Dakota Review, Bennington Review, The Dodge, trampset, juked, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction, as well as longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions. They received an MFA in poetry from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and have served as an editor for jubilat.

Joshua Roark is the founder of Palette Poetry. He also serves as poetry and pedagogy faculty at Antioch University Los Angeles’ MFA program, as well as the founder and director of PocketMFA. He lives with his wife in Los Angeles, where they’re always at work making stories, poems, novels, or films.

Michael Zendejas Michael Zendejas is the Senior Hybrid Acquisitions Editor for Abode Press. He received a Fiction MFA at University of Massachusetts Amherst and runs the film blog, The Chicano Film Shelf. An inaugural recipient of the Rose Fellowship, a Juniper Fellow, a 2022 winner of the James W. Foley Memorial Prize, and a member of the inaugural cohort of the Emerging Writers Fellowship, he consults and teaches classes on fiction, poetry and screenwriting via GrubStreet. His work is featured or forthcoming in: Stanchion, North American Review, Latin@ Literatures, and elsewhere.

participants receive:

• a 2-3 page feedback letter from an editor with specific suggestions and developmental edits, as well as suggestions for places of submission;
• access to 7 mini master class lessons (each under 15 minutes) from our guest instructors: “Repetitions” by Joanna Acevedo, “Deepening Emotional Subtext” by Flower Conroy, “Ghazal” by Rebecca Evans, “Accessibility vs. Mystery” by Marcella Haddad, “Revision Strategies” by Laura S. Marshall, “Putting a Chapbook Together” by Joshua Roark, and “Line Breaks” by Michael Zendejas;
• and one free submission in a forthcoming Palette Poetry contest.

Feedback letters will be received no later than September. Early submissions may yield earlier feedback.

submission guidelines:

• Please submit one poem if you are requesting a single letter ($99), and up to three poems if you are selecting the three-letter option ($199). All submissions must be under 10 pages.
• Your poems must be submitted via Submittable, our online submissions manager, between July 1, 2024, and July 31, 2024.
• Multiple submissions are permitted, but each must be submitted separately with a new fee.
• Submissions are open internationally to any poet writing in English. However, some code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
• Please include a brief cover letter that shares your bio, any applicable content warnings, as well as ideas or questions you’d like to address with your editor.
• Review our FAQ page for more information.
• If you haven’t already, please verify your email address with submittable for more consistent communication.
• We are not seeking AI-generated work at this time. Please submit original work.