Recently read, a New Orleans writers round up: Andy Young, Anya Groner, M’Bilia Meekers, Zach Bartlett, Nordette Adams, Tad Bartlett & Cassie Pruyn

Countless writers in New Orleans are ever plucking away at their keyboards, conducting research or interviews, or simply probing their memories and inner lives to create worthwhile work. Much of this is published online, scattered disparately throughout cyberspace. Here are a few things we at Room 220 read recently that compelled us to gather them together and share.

Poet and essayist Andy Young recently published a poem, “Visitor,” in One. The piece reflects on landscape, heritage, and identity.

Guernica recently published an essay from Anya Groner titled, “Healing the Gulf with Buckets and Balloons,” which focuses on how fenceline communities are coming together to combat environmental pollution.

New Orleans native, Lusher Creative Writing alumna, and current NYU MFA student M’Bilia Meekers had a poem, “Meditation on Aunt Shirley,” appear in The New Yorker this week.

Zach Bartlett’s book, Northern Dandy, has been released. The collection features humorous short prose and verse, originally performed with the popular reading series Esoterotica in New Orleans and his one-man stage show as part of 2015’s FringePVD in Rhode Island.

Cassie Pruyn had three poems published in CutBank this summer, “Talk,” “The Week Before Christmas,” and “The Last Time I Saw Her.” More recently, Cassie won the Walt McDonald First Book Prize in Poetry, for her manuscript, Lena, which will be published in 2017 by Texas Tech University Press.

Nordette Adams’ poem “digital anthropologists find our hashtags” appeared in  Rattle earlier this summer. The poem explores the emotional churn brought about by tragedy after tragedy.

Tad Bartlett‘s short story, “Riding in Cars at Night,” recently appeared in the Eunoia Review. The piece offers a narrator’s looking back at a night that could have changed everything for him.