The Writer’s Coin

This magazine is one of those treats whose value I am constantly forgetting.

The first subscription I ever got was as a gift and I have been renewing it ever since, going on three years. As opposed to other magazines like Writers Digest that are more practical and “tip driven,” Poets & Writers takes a more detached look at writers and poets. By detached I mean that instead of saying “Here is a writing prompt that will help you bust out of your block,” PW will feature a longer piece on a well-known writer’s piece of work and how he overcame his particular case of writer’s block.

It seems like a small detail, but as a writer you really connect to those kinds of insights from other writers’ experiences and not as much from a practical, “here’s how to do it” voice.

But that may just be me.

Anyway, yesterday on my lunch break I sat at my desk and read through a couple of the articles (one was about a poet I’ve never heard of and the other was about Benjamin Percy, the author of the great story Refresh, Refresh) and after 45 minutes of that I felt so refreshed and on such a high, it was like being away from my computer for three hours.

PW does that a lot, and it fills your unconscious with all kinds of motivating forces that can get you writing. Sometimes I forget why I’m so into writing and how satisfying it can be, but PW always comes, bimonthly, to save the day.

Tags: magazine, poets and writers, Writing