The Alabama Writers’ Forum and Mobile Poet Laureate Charlotte Pence have been awarded a grant from the American Academy of Poets.

From the American Academy of Poets: “The Academy of American Poets, a leading champion of poets and poetry for ninety years, announced today that it will award $50,000 each to twenty-two poets serving as poets laureate in cities and states across the United States. In addition, the Academy will provide $90,944 total in matching grants to eleven local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations collaborating with laureates on their work.”

“Charlotte Pence will offer poetry workshops to teenagers incarcerated at Mobile’s Strickland Youth Center and on parole under Strickland’s jurisdiction. At the end of the 2024–25 academic school year, the students will celebrate their creative accomplishments with the publication of a print anthology and a ceremony attended by local and state officials. Through this project, Mobile will join the Alabama Writers’ Forum Writing Our Stories Program that aids incarcerated and paroled youth.

Pence is the author of Code (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), which received the 2020 Book of the Year award from the Alabama State Poetry Society, and Many Small Fires (Black Lawrence Press, 2015), winner of the INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award from Foreword Reviews, as well as two award-winning poetry chapbooks. She is the editor of The Poetics of American Song Lyrics and the director of the Stokes Center for Creative Writing at University of South Alabama.”

Learn more here: https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-2024-poet-laureate-fellows