At 10 a.m. Friday, “The Poetics of Food and Farming,” an event at New Dominion Bookshop, will look at the ties between farming and poetry. Tess Taylor, author of “Work & Days,” and Karen Washington, who contributed to the anthology “Letters to a Young Farmer,” will be on hand.

Tess Taylor reads her poetry at the University of Louisville as a part of the Axton Reading Series on March 1, 2018.  Listen to the podcast on soundcloud here or on iTunes

Literary

Anne and William Axton Reading Series. University of Louisville, Belknap Campus, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 1; 10 a.m. Friday, March 2. Tess Taylor, author of the poetry collection “The Forage House,” and “Work & Days,” will read from her works Thursday, Bingham Poetry Room Ekstrom Library. She will lead a master class Friday, room 300, Bingham Humanities Building. Free.

The 41st-annual Writers Week was carried out from Feb. 12 to Feb. 17, bringing a total of 20 writers to the UCR campus to read from their selected works and address questions. From UCR faculty, alumni and internationally recognized artists spanning several generations, the voices heard throughout the event resonated with audiences young and old.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's indictments accusing 13 Russians of conspiracy to meddle with the election have now given us a clearer picture of Russian efforts against the United States. Their strategy was simple: infiltrate groups on both the left and the right to heighten rhetoric, and use bots to intensify our discord. As Jonathon Morgan, chief executive of New Knowledge, which studies online disinformation campaigns, said to the New York Times: "The bots focus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systematically."

"If you want to learn about publicity, talk to a publicist." Tess talks with three indie publicists "about what writers should be doing for themselves, what indie publicists do on behalf of their clients, and how they’d advise me to think about shaping the way I approach getting my own work into the world."  Read more...

(CNN)Wednesday night in the Bay Area, where I live, there was an earthquake. It roused me from a deep uneasy dream about a sea leviathan, and as I woke, I realized we were riding bareback on the skin of the earth. 

This winter, just after I'd written an op-ed for CNN about gun violence, I received a bunch of notes, mostly lovely ones, in my inbox. Some were unpleasant, and among them two really stood out to me -- one threatened my life, while another truly charming correspondent wrote: "Women like you should just shut up. We were great at enforcing the Second Amendment before you all had the right to vote."  Read more...

Poetry reviewer Tess Taylor shares three collections she says speak to different slices of American life in a way that reminds her of Walt Whitman.

Listen Here

Article about Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon Press), and anthology in which Tess was included.

Tess addresses gun violence in a CNN Editorial.

(CNN) - When I was 12, in the sixth grade in El Cerrito, California, one of my classmates brought a gun to school. She was a bright fellow student -- flamboyant, funny, sometimes moody -- occasionally in trouble, fun to play kickball with. I still remember her throaty laugh. I also remember the awful day while we stood on the play yard, as she pulled a gun out of her backpack and pointed it at a group of sixth-grade girls, threatening to shoot.  Read more...

Tess Taylor | Queen's University Belfast Creative Writing Scholar Award (2016-17)

Michele Kennedy, Soprano and Emily Manzo, Pianist
Music by Aaron Siegel @apsiege
Poetry by Tess Taylor
Premiere at Scholes Studio, Brooklyn, NY June 2017