The Alabama Writers’ Forum
The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, works to cultivate our state’s literary culture. We do that through supporting writers at all stages. We encourage our young writers to find their creative voice through the Father Goose Poetry Festival for Kids!–and through our Alabama High School Literary Arts Awards. We support the work of our state’s literary community through our Alabama Authors Directory, First Draft magazine, and other programming and opportunities for writers across the state. And we celebrate our state’s rich literary legacy through the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. We are, above all, a community of writers united by our desire to advance the literary arts in Alabama. If that describes you — join us! There are many ways to get involved.
Slaughterhouse for Old Wives’ Tales
Slaughterhouse for Old Wives’ Tales By Hannah V. Warren Sundress Publications, 2024 Paper: 16.00 Genre: poetry, speculative fiction Reviewed by Laura Secord Hannah V. Warren’s Slaughterhouse for Old Wives' Tales, winner of the 2024 Whirling Prize, is speculative poetry at its richest. Spanning millennia, Warren's book uses lyricism, research, and imagination to create a brave, beautiful, and disturbing connection through time. In her “note to the reader,” Warren asks us, “What do you invent when your bulbous flesh melts deep into swamp water?” Then she takes us on a journey through time, evolution, extinction, and transformation. Sci-fi and paleontology fans will latch onto this book in identification. Voiced by an elementary-aged girl who finds fascination and obsession with the shuttered dinosaur exhibit in her small Southern coastal town “This museum is a Jurassic wilderness where the grizzly parts are artificial craters imitation nectar and polyp detail you are here so often you sometimes forget all ferns aren't machine snipped echoes made from the same melted plastic as the moldy gumball machine at the front desk.” Warren organizes her collection into three, chapter-like sections: “Dinosaurs,” “Divinations,” and “Apocalypses.” In a novel-in-verse format, the speaker describes three characters: Your mother, “you find your mother inside// the museum boasts 12 visitors a week/ & she doesn't want to be here// she sings to you/ a faceless whisper [...]
