The Next Draft: Inspiring Craft Talks from the Rainier Writing Workshop brings together a selection of the “morning talks” delivered by the renowned authors who teach at the prestigious Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program. These morning talks are a highlight of the residencies at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, featuring inspiring, innovative approaches to writing and literature across genres. For this collection, Brenda Miller has selected essays that feature diverse and illustrious writers such as Geffrey Davis, Marjorie Sandor, Barrie Jean Borich, Jenny Johnson, Oliver de la Paz, Lia Purpura, Kent Myers, Rebecca McClanahan, and others. Ranging from reading and writing in the Jewish tradition of midrash to the role of the writer as cultural critic in the 21st century, The Next Draft brings to life the kind of intellectual and creative excitement that underlies the intensive MFA experience at Pacific Lutheran University. Not only do these talks show innovative approaches to writing and literature across genres, they inspire the reader to think about how to read differently and thus bring their own work to a new level. 

How girls of color from eight global communities strategize on questions of identity, social issues, and political policy through spoken word poetry.

Around the world, girls know how to perform. Grounded in her experience of “putting a mic in the margins” by facilitating workshops for girls in Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania, and the United States, scholar/advocate/artist Crystal Leigh Endsley highlights how girls use spoken word poetry to narrate their experiences, dreams, and strategies for surviving and thriving. By centering the process of creating and performing spoken word poetry, this book examines how girls forecast what is possible for their collective lives.

In this book, Endsley combines poetry, discourse analysis, photovoice, and more to forge the feminist theory of “quantum justice,” which forefronts girls’ relationships with their global counterparts. Using quantum justice theory, Endsley examines how these collaborative efforts produce powerful networks and ultimately map trajectories of social change at the micro level. By inviting transnational dialogue through spoken word poetry, Quantum Justice emphasizes how the imaginative energy in hip-hop culture can mobilize girls to connect and motivate each other through spoken word performance and thereby disrupt the status quo.