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$$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
A Letter from the Director:
Phillis Wheatley, Founding Mother
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Phillis Wheatley, by Elizabeth Catlett, bronze (1973) |
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Phillis Wheatley Peters should be given this recognition because she symbolizes what we understand in the twenty-first century as the urge toward liberation.Recently, I visited Gunston Hall, the home of George Mason, the primary author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Constitution. I went there to do a taped interview about Phillis Wheatley Peters, author of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), the first Black American to publish a book and, I would argue, a founding mother of this country….[read the full reflection from Wintergreen’s Executive Director, Dr. Joanne Gabbin]
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Save the date for our next Welcome Table Talk: “Thinking About Love and the Divine.” Join us on October 21, 2025 at 7pm ET for our much-anticipated Welcome Table Talk featuring Ajanaé Dawkins (Torch Literary Arts) and DaMaris B. Hill (Wintergreen Women Writers Collective). Dawkins, author of Blood Flex, "works through poetry, visual art, performance and audio to explore the politics of faith, grief and intimate relationships between Black women." DaMaris B. Hill is the author of several works, including the best-selling A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland. Her forthcoming work, Blood Bible: An American History, which has been described as "sometimes scathing and...musical, and always unflinching," will arrive in March of 2027.
Amanda Johnston, Poet Laureate of Texas and Executive Director of Torch, will moderate this conversation. RSVP here! You will need a free Zoom account to attend.
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Save the date for Wintergreen’s off-site event at AWP 2026 in Baltimore, MD! We will be holding a reading on Thursday, March 5, 2026 from 5:30-7pm. Light refreshments will be provided. Look for details in the AWP off-site calendar coming later this fall. We hope to see you there!
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What’s New at Wintergreen?
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Congratulations to Latorial Faison whose new collection, Nursery Rhymes in Black, has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry! Nursery Rhymes also garnered the Permafrost Book Prize in 2023. Purchase here |
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Nikki Giovanni’s The New Book: Poems, Letters, Blurbs & Things is a fitting finale from this celebrated poet known for her wit, acerbic ruminations, and capacity to speak love as unswerving faith in our future. Also available as an audiobook, our celebrated and much-missed sister-poet’s words are read by “an all-star ensemble of poets and performers”. Purchase here |
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Kudos to poet-scholar DaMaris B. Hill, newly appointed Chair of the Department of English at Morgan State University! As much as she is welcomed to MSU, she will be missed at University of Kentucky. |
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Congratulations to Brenda Greene on receiving both the 2025 Hurston/Wright Foundation Madam C.J. Walker Award (for innovative entrepreneurial support of Black writers and literature) and the John Oliver Killens Literary Achievement Award from the Harlem Writers’ Guild! |
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Our second Welcome Table Talk, “Stories From Our Past: Geneaology as Creative Inspiration,” was a success! Thank you to Daryl Cumber Dance and Remica Bingham-Risher (panelists), and Maryemma Graham (moderator). Of our nearly 200 registrants, we greeted ~100 attendees. Couldn’t make the event? Watch the recording here (passcode: 1b?BDqEW).
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This month, Wintergreen appeared on Books & Bounty Live, hosted by Stephanie Henderson. Opal Moore and Jessi Haley appeared on the September 16 episode of Books & Bounty Live to talk about our newly-minted partnership with Cita Press. |
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Alysia Dempsey, founder of Inspires and Wintergreen sister, will be hosting a panel discussion on "International Day of the Girl," at Busboys and Poets (Washington DC). Saturday, October 11, 5-7pm. She will be featuring Renèe Watson, Liseli Fitzpatrick, Gabriela Castillo and Samira Maddox. RSVP here! |
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Opal Moore’s recommendations: Trust by Hernan Diaz might be called a braided novel. Its layered stories brilliantly explore trust as money, and as betrayal. Non-fiction: BLACK! Feminist! FREE! Selected Writings, Interviews and Speeches by Beverly Guy Sheftall, eminent feminist scholar and founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College. |
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Joanne Gabbin’s recommendation: The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. An inspiring historical novel showing the dynamic and deep friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McCleod Bethune. |
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Mehron Price’s recommendation: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. From the author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, this debut novel marks a shift in Vuong’s literary trajectory. |
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Have a book recommendation, shoutout, or news to share with Wintergreen? Share it with us at info@wintergreenwomenwriterscollective.com to be featured in an upcoming newsletter!
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