Poetry Manuscript Consultation with Sumita Chakraborty
Poetry Manuscript Consultation with Sumita Chakraborty
I’ve taught at Emory University, the University of Michigan, and North Carolina State University, and this fall I’ll begin a position at the University of Virginia. At Michigan and NCSU, and newly at UVA, I’ve been on the core MFA faculty. Many manuscripts on which I have consulted have become award-winning collections with leading presses. Working one-on-one with writers is one of my favorite responsibilities. I have a particular love for questions regarding sequencing and for offering generative feedback, although I enjoy every aspect of manuscript critique, including offering practical recommendations and tips for publication and promotion (if desired).
My experience as a poet lends itself to helping writers re-envision what they have created; my experience as a scholar of poetry lends itself to offering nuanced readings of the text as it is as well as identifying areas it may wish to further explore. I also have a substantial editorial background: I’ve been poetry editor of AGNI (where my time on the editorial staff totaled thirteen years), art editor of At Length, a guest editor for the Academy’s Poem-a-Day, and served on the Alice James Books Editorial Board, and I’ve served as a reader or contest judge for several book prizes, among other commitments.
I am the author of Arrow (Alice James Books (U.S.)/Carcanet Press (U.K.), 2020), which received coverage in the New York Times, NPR, the Guardian, and other venues, and received the GLCA New Writers Award, the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize (U.K.), and other honors. Poems from my second in-progress collection, The B-Sides of the Golden Record, have been published in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Kenyon Review, The Offing, Massachusetts Review, Poetry, Split This Rock’s The Quarry, LARB Quarterly, and elsewhere. I’m also currently writing a scholarly book titled Grave Dangers: Poetics and the Ethics of Death in the Anthropocene, which is under advance contract with the University of Minnesota Press, and my peer-reviewed critical articles have appeared in Cultural Critique, Modernism/modernity, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and elsewhere. I’ve received fellowships from the Poetry Foundation and Kundiman, and I’ve been shortlisted for the U.K.’s Forward Prize.
Figuring out what makes books tick is one of my favorite things to do, and I look forward to working with you.
Manuscript review: This manuscript consultation includes an initial one-hour conversation about your book, your goals for it, and your sense of where it stands and what it needs. Next, I will provide a holistic reading of the manuscript and comment on the overall book concept, ideas, and major themes, including on sequencing and arrangement. You can also select up to 15 pages on which to receive extensive line edits and/or readings of specific poems. Manuscript length up to 80 pages. Additional fee to be negotiated for longer manuscripts.
Manuscript review + revision: At this level, I will also read the revised manuscript with the same level of response. Instead of an initial meeting, the second one-hour conversation will come after I have read the revision so that we can discuss my feedback, any additional questions you may have, and other associated topics that may be on your mind, such as publication.
Pricing: Manuscript review is $350, Manuscript review+revision $500
Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, essayist, and scholar. Her acclaimed debut collection of poetry, Arrow (Alice James Books, 2020) was praised in the New York Times as an “allusive and witty debut.” She is currently working on her first scholarly book, titled Grave Dangers: Poetics and the Ethics of Death in the Anthropocene, which is under an advance contract with the University of Minnesota Press, and a second collection of poems, titled The B-Sides of the Golden Record. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, The Offing, Massachusetts Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. She has published public-facing criticism in Rain Taxi and The Los Angeles Review of Books, and her articles have appeared in Cultural Critique, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment (ISLE), Modernism/modernity, College Literature, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships, honors, and awards from the Poetry Foundation, the Forward Arts Foundation, Kundiman, the National Humanities Center, the Seamus Heaney Centre, and more.
