The Inner Loop and The Writer’s Center present a FREE virtual chat about the craft of poetry! We’re joined by Amanda Shaw to discuss her debut collection, It Will Have Been So Beautiful. Amanda is in conversation with award-winning poet Majda Gama.
It Will Have Been So Beautiful is The Inner Loop’s Author’s Corner spotlight. The Inner Loop cultivates and promotes the distinctive literary culture of Washington DC. Author’s Corner supports local authors’ independently published books by spotlighting them in community programming and collaborations.
RSVP below to receive login information (our virtual events are held via Zoom). FREE and open to the public, all times Eastern
We encourage you to order a copy of the book from your local, independent bookseller or online from Bookshop.org »
Amanda Shaw set out into the world with a vague idea of what was ahead. At each juncture, the desire to write returned. After two decades of teaching, she got her Master’s degree in Poetry from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson. Amanda is the book review editor for Lily Poetry Review, a member of The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, and a frequent contributor to Warren Wilson’s DC alumni community. Her debut poetry collection, It Will Have Been So Beautiful, will be published in March by Lily Poetry Review Books.
Majda Gama is the author of the chapbook The Call of Paradise, selected by Diane Seuss as winner of the 2022 Two Sylvias chapbook prize. Her full-length poetry manuscript won the Wandering Aengus Book Award and will be published in 2025. Her poems have recently appeared in The Adroit Journal, Four Way Review, The Offing, Ploughshares, POETRY, and are forthcoming from Prairie Schooner and Shenandoah where she is the current recipient of the Graybeal-Gowen award for Virginia poets. She can be reached at majdagama.com
About the Book
With urgency and compassion, humor and wonder, Amanda Shaw’s debut poetry collection, It Will Have Been So Beautiful examines the many dimensions of what it means to call anything “home,” including the earth as we know it. In a manner reminiscent of Eugène Atget, who wrote “will disappear” on his photographs of turn-of-the-century Paris, Shaw captures the unique melancholy of living in a time of unknowable change. At times playful and ironic, the poems celebrate language’s sonic capacities, probing art’s potential to move us from mourning to joy.
If you need an accommodation for this event, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.