The Open Road Blog

For the last day of National Poetry Month, we are delighted to feature this photo of Josephine Hart at her Poetry Hour at the British Library celebrating Robert Browning in 2009 (from left: Charles Dance, Rupert Evans, Josephine Hart, and Jeremy Irons).

"The story of the individual soul on its journey is the only one worth telling. That’s why I write. I have little or no interest—nor, I believe, any ability whatsoever—to describe the surface experiences of life." – Josephine Hart

Hart is the international bestselling author of six novels and two poetry anthologies. Her novels, which include Damage (1991), ...

In 1996, the Academy of American Poets dubbed April National Poetry Month, creating what it calls “the largest literary celebration in the world, [uniting] publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets in a celebration of poetry and its vital place in American culture.”

In honor of National Poetry Month, Open Road Media asked authors about the significance of poetry in their writings and lives—and received a range of enthusiastic, thoughtful responses.

Some writers, like Alice Walker, are themselves published poets and teachers of poetry (Once, Revolutionary Petunias, Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful), ...

May 16, 1929-March 27, 2012

One of America’s most acclaimed and controversial feminist, gay rights, and anti-war activists, Adrienne Rich, died on Tuesday at the age of 82. As part of our Women’s History Month series of blog posts, we’d like to honor her as a vital part of women’s history and literary legacy.

As a feminist firebrand, nationally revered poet, and university professor, Rich has had an incredible impact on both the American poetry tradition and our political landscape.

“I’m both a poet and one of the ‘everybodies’ of my country,” Rich declared in a 2006 article in The ...

Open Road Media is proud to present the second installment of our Critical Symposium on Hubert Selby, Jr. Yesterday we featured an essay by American literature scholar James R. Giles. Today author Rob Couteau examines the powerful role of violence in Selby’s work. As always, we invite you to join the discussion in the comments section below.

Rob Couteau is the author of the novel Doctor Pluss, the anthology Collected Couteau, the memoir Letters from Paris, and the poetry collection The Sleeping Mermaid. In 1985 he won the North American Essay Award, a competition open to North ...

“Alice Walker is a lavishly gifted writer.” —The New York Times Book Review

Open Road Integrated Media announces the ebook publication of nine titles by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, including novels The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Meridian; poetry collections Revolutionary Petunias, Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful, and Once; short story collections You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down and In Love & Trouble; and essay collections Living by the Word and In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. The titles join three novels published by Open Road Media in ...

You can learn a lot digging around in a writer’s archives. In the case of John Gardner, whose papers are housed at the University of Rochester, this is especially true. In honor of National Poetry Month, we've put together something truly unique from Gardner's archival material. 

In addition to being an accomplished novelist and critic, Gardner was also a talented illustrator and composer of light verse. In fact, Gardner’s first published work was a drawing that he submitted to Seventeen magazine while still in high school. He continued to draw and write poetry throughout his college years, ...