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Poetry Consultations with Claudia Cortese

During the month of June, Black Lawrence Press author Claudia Cortese is on board to critique poetry manuscripts.

Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her debut full-length, Wasp Queen (Black Lawrence Press), won Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Award for Emerging Poetry. Her work has appeared in Bitch Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast Online, and The Offing, among others, and she writes reviews for Muzzle Magazine. Cortese received a 2018 OUTstanding faculty ally of the year certificate from the LGBTQ+ Center at Montclair State University. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey.

Claudia 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 June 30. Claudia will complete her work and respond to all participants by July 31.

Consultations

Poetry Consultations with Claudia Cortese

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

Statement of Purpose

When reading your work,  I will point out where I see it most succeeding—where it pops and sings and electrifies the page—and where I see it most struggling—where it falls flat or turns dull. There are many literary traditions—from hip-hop to confessional poetry to fabulism, to name just a few—and though all artists have biases and aesthetic preferences, I will work hard to not get so mired in my own tastes that I cannot see beyond them. In other words, I will try to understand the traditions and aesthetics that inspire you, even if they are not my own aesthetics and traditions. I often get most excited by artists who write in ways I never could—succeed in ways I often fail.

I will offer both micro-level comments about diction, rhythm, lines, imagery, and so on, and macro-level comments about the issues and themes your poems constellate around. I love hybrid work and I myself write in many genres, so please feel free to submit even if your poems are not strictly, well, poems! The writers I draw the most inspiration from—Nickole Brown, Claudia Rankine, Adrienne Rich, Khadijah Queen, Carmen Maria Machado, to name a few—write at the intersection of multiple genres.

In addition to written comments on each piece and at the end of your manuscript, I will provide you with a link to a short video in which I discuss your work.

I look forward to reading your poems!

© Boris Tsessarsky

Claudia Cortese

Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her debut full-length, Wasp Queen (Black Lawrence Press), won Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Award for Emerging Poetry. Her work has appeared in Bitch Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast Online, and The Offing, among others, and she writes reviews for Muzzle Magazine. Cortese received a 2018 OUTstanding faculty ally of the year certificate from the LGBTQ+ Center at Montclair State University. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey .

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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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