Poetry Consultations with MK Chavez

During the month of November, Black Lawrence Press author MK Chavez is on board to critique poetry manuscripts.

MK Chavez is an Afro-Latinx writer, educator, multi-disciplinary artist, and curator. Chavez is co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival and co-founder and curator of Lyrics & Dirges and teaches and supports writers at Ouroboros Writing Lab. Chavez’s writing explores identity, social injustice, environmental degradation, horror cinema, magic, and ritual and has been recognized with a Pen Oakland Josephine Miles award, the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award. Chavez is a 2018 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award recipient and a 2023 YBCA 100 fellow. Chavez’s literary offerings include Dear Animal, Mothermorphosis, the lyric essay chapbook A Brief History of the Selfie, and Virgin Eyes. Chavez’s work can be found among the trees in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park through the Voices of the Trees Project.

MK Chavez is accepting single poems, folios, chapbooks, and full-length collections for critique. The fees and parameters for each of these categories are as follows:

  • Individual Poems, up to 2 pages in length, $25
  • Folios, up to 7 pages in length, not to include more than 5 poems, $55
  • Chapbooks, 16-40 pages in length, $225
  • Full-length collections, 45-80 pages in length $350

All manuscripts should be formatted in 12-point font. The deadline to submit work for this consultation program is November 30. MK will complete her work and respond to all participants by December 31.

We’re delighted that so many of our alums have gone on to publish the work that they entrusted to our consultation program! Check out their publications and accolades here.

Consultations

Poetry Consultations with MK Chavez

Click Here to Submit Deadline: November 30 How to submit ›

Statement of Purpose

There is a profound urgency I find in writing and reading. I am drawn to the spaces where varied narratives collide, overlap, and diverge. In the realm of words, it’s the process of transmutation, the alchemy of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, that pulls me in. For me, the magic emerges when a piece of writing detaches from its creator to converse directly with the reader.

I look below the surface, into the energy of words, their intent, but also something beyond. Understanding and honoring the core is a primary goal but I also consider how the work conveys and perceives beyond the experience of the creator—searching the dynamic and ethereal space of the gaze. While reviewing the writing of others I inhabit the lens of a reader and writer and use this dual vantage point, to ask questions and offer insights about the work’s impact and where opportunities offer themselves for expansion or shapeshifting.

In my own writings, I’m deeply influenced by the spirit of exploration—be it documenting the nuances of life, studying the resonance of language, or the transformation of experience into art. I’m intrigued by the stories embedded in our surroundings and the juxtaposition of our complex histories. I have a penchant for voices that document brave spaces, trust their readers, see beyond the immediate, and can hold the universal and are imbued by timelessness.

My personal writing is engaged with new eco-literature, ekphratic works based on American Horror Films, documentary poetics, and writing that is born of and occupies liminal spaces. I have been inspired by the writings of Anne Carson, Octavia Butler, Carmen Gimenez, James Cagney, Maw Shein Win, Alejandra Pizarnik, Bhanu Kapil, and Claudia Rankine. Authors whose new books are inspiring me are mimi tempsett’s, The Delicacy of Embracing Spirals, Omotara James’s, Song of my Softening, and Tureeda Mikell’s, Body: Oracle of Memory.

 

MK Chavez

MK Chavez is an Afro-Latinx writer, educator, multi-disciplinary artist, and curator. Chavez is co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival and co-founder and curator of Lyrics & Dirges and teaches and supports writers at Ouroboros Writing Lab. Chavez's writing explores identity, social injustice, environmental degradation, horror cinema, magic, and ritual and has been recognized with a Pen Oakland Josephine Miles award, the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award. Chavez is a 2018 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award recipient and a 2023 YBCA 100 fellow. Chavez’s literary offerings include Dear Animal, Mothermorphosis, the lyric essay chapbook A Brief History of the Selfie, and Virgin Eyes. Chavez’s work can be found among the trees in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park through the Voices of the Trees Project.

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How to Submit

Black Lawrence Press accepts submissions and payment of the entry fee exclusively through our online submission manager, Submittable. We are not able to accept submissions via email or postal mail.

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