This city has always been a literary one. Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, and W.E.B. Du Bois all called Baltimore home at one time or another. This is also the city that gave us contemporary brilliance from people like Ta-Nehisi Coates, D. Watkins, and historian Martha S. Jones. So it only made sense that our team has put together an issue dedicated to books, just in time for the The AWP Bookfair and Conference here from March 4 through 7.
AWP is the largest single gathering of writers in the country and will bring with it hundreds of enthusiastic readers, publishers, and thinkers.
“Created in 1967, initially to address the growing number of literary writers in academic programs, today the Association of Writers and Writing Programs supports independent writers and colleges and universities as members,” Carla Du Pree, executive director of CityLit Project, writes in this issue. “Each spring, writers savor the announcement of AWP’s selection of panels, when both local and national writers offer their expertise on a plethora of subject matter.”
Also in this issue, we partnered with students from local literary arts organization CHARM to publish their literary map of Baltimore. For the map, young people documented the spaces here in Baltimore that helped shape them as writers.
You’ll also find a piece written by romance novelist Roxanne Taylor. Taylor writes about the ways that Black urban literature has found success while also facing great stigmas in the literary world.
“If bookstores, especially indie ones, are serious about diversity and inclusion, they can’t keep centering the version of that inclusion that feels safest,” Taylor writes. “That means carrying the full range of Black romance, including urban romance. Because that’s how you showcase Black love in all its forms and treat it as a permanent part of the romance canon.”
Jaisal Noor writes about the ways that local organizers are using zines to overcome online algorithms to get communities the information they need to survive.
“In Baltimore, the demands of grassroots movements — abolishing ICE, opposing American intervention in Venezuela, supporting Palestine — are sitting in storefront windows, stacked up on café counters, and circulated at protests,” Noor writes. “They are often created collectively in community spaces and coffee shops, and more residents are getting interested in this direct, alternative approach to media, messaging, and organizing.”
In addition to our community and arts and culture calendars, you can find a listing of AWP-related events all over Baltimore. Also, you won’t want to miss our photo gallery of recent performances and Dominic Griffin’s review of “Love Beats Rhymes,” a 2017 drama directed by Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and starring singer Jill Scott. Iya Osundara Ogunsina has March tarotscopes to help us get our acts together.
Thank you for reading and to our friends from AWP: welcome to the city that reads.
