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illuminatemics

@illuminatemics

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Husband. Dad. Author of FINNA, Wild Hundreds, etc. Poet. Professor. Editor. MC. Nupe.

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Hot off the press! Galleys of SOMETHING BLUE by @illuminatemics are here and we're so excited to get these in your hands!⁣
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This is a collection of love songs, hymns, and elegies for life’s great joys and stunning losses. Because even in a bruised world, there is still love.⁣
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Available March 9, 2026. Preorder now!

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Reminder: Submissions to the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation close soon, on October 31! It's judged this year by Jennifer Feeley and awards $1,500 plus publication. Learn more: https://tinyurl.com/kbdw4etm
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We’re also delighted to formally welcome associate editor Sarah Ann Wells, who now oversees the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation. And we were delighted to recently welcome Erika Meitner @rika99 as coeditor (joining longtime coeditor Sean Bishop) and Nate Marshall @illuminatemics as associate editor. Learn more: https://tinyurl.com/kbdw4etm
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#WisconsinPoetryPrizes #WisconsinPoetrySeries #WisconsinPrizeForPoetryInTranslation #poetry #poetryprizes #translatedpoetry #poetryintranslation @uwmadisoncw On the left and right sides, text reads "Last call for submissions" and "New members of the editorial team" and at the bottom "WISCONSIN POETRY SERIES." In the middle, the graphic soliciting submissions for the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation, judged by Jennifer Feeley, submit by October 31 at wicw.submittable.com; on the side of that graphic, there's a photo of judge Jennifer Feeley and photos of the covers of two of the previous award winners, What Sex Is Death? and Sleep Journeys. And then, below that graphic, photos of new Wisconsin Poetry Series editorial team members Erika Meitner, Nate Marshall, and Sarah Ann Wells

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Alice Randall is a New York Times best-selling novelist, award-winning songwriter, educator, food activist, and memoirist. A graduate of Harvard University, she holds an honorary doctorate from Fisk University, is on the faculty at Vanderbilt University, and credits Detroit’s Ziggy Johnson School of the Theater with being the most influential educational institution in her life. The Bronze Buckaroo Rides the Gotham Hotel is her first play. It draws from her novel Black Bottom Saints and her memoir My Black Country. Born in Motown Randall now lives in Music City. She is the mother of poet Caroline Randall Williams.

Come see The Bronze Buckaroo Rides the Gotham Hotel written by @msalicerandall October 21st at Live6 Alliance at 6pm‼️

Lynch Travis is a recipient of theatre awards from the Ann Arbor News, Detroit Free Press, Oakland Press, Encore Michigan, Lansing City Pulse, and the Detroit Theatre Examiner. The lauded actor and director has also won Subscriber Awards at the Performance Network and the Detroit Repertory Theaters where he serves as Workshop Director. His first act of accepting the call to direct the table read of The Bronze Buckaroo Rides the Gotham Hotel was to cast Edmund Alyn Jones. Lynch resides in suburban Detroit and is a proud Grandpa times 2.

Come see Lynch’s brilliant direction in The Bronze Buckaroo Rides the Gotham Hotel by @msalicerandall October 21st at Live6 Alliance at 6pm‼️

Nate Marshall is an award-winning writer, rapper, educator, and editor. He is the author of Finna and Wild Hundreds. Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, he earned his MFA at Michigan, and his BA at Vanderbilt where he was a student of Alice Randall’s.

Come see The Bronze Buckaroo Rides the Gotham Hotel October 21st at Live6 Alliance at 6pm‼️

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A little taste of what’s coming. 👀🧂

New voices. Fresh perspectives. Conversations worth having. Our newest interview series premieres Monday on Mouthful of Salt.

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Something new is coming to Mouthful of Salt. 👀

Monday October 12

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"Good morn' or evening, friends⁣
Here's your friendly announcer⁣
I have serious news to pass on to everybody⁣
What I'm about to say⁣
Could mean the world's disaster⁣
Could change your joy and laughter to tears and pain⁣
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It's that love's in need of love today⁣
Don't delay, send yours in right away⁣
Hate's goin' 'round breaking many hearts⁣
Stop it please before it's gone too far"⁣
—Stevie Wonder, Love's in Need of Love⁣
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Something new, something old, SOMETHING BLUE 💙⁣
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From award-winning author Nate Marshall @illuminatemics, this third collection is a book of love songs and elegies, weddings and funerals, family and friendship, new life and lingering grief. Written with his signature tender, affecting voice, SOMETHING BLUE asks what it means to keep choosing love in a world that keeps giving us reasons to mourn—because even in “a beautiful, bruised continent,” there will always be love.⁣
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Swipe for an excerpt from the collection!⁣
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SOMETHING BLUE by Nate Marshall will be available 3.9.2027

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Many many years of friendship in this photo. 1st grade. 4th grade. Smart kid summer camps. High school poetry slams and ciphers. Too many recording studios of every vintage from full professional to the hustle bag with the equipment borrowed from school and set up wherever was quiet enough. Record releases, book releases, rap shows, fist fights. Graduations. Cutting classes. First loves, breakups, weddings, divorces, babies being born, burying loved ones. Dirtbag 20s in apartments of various levels of legality. Housewarmings. House sellings. A lot of furniture moved. Got the job. Laid off. Quit that bullshit gig and threw a party. Money up. Money down. Money funny as full hour special. Worst days. Best days. Birthdays. Just a selection of crew I’ve collected all the way, not everybody.
I was born with no brothers. I have too many brothers to count.

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Brothers in Ink Day 7 🤎 We close where we started — in community.
This week we spotlighted 6 trending brothers: Percival Everett James, Rob Franklin Great Black Hope, S.A. Cosby All The Sinners Bleed / King of Ashes, Kwame Alexander + Nate Marshall, James McBride Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, Brandon Taylor Minor Black Figures.
This was never just a list. It’s a call to buy, borrow, and share Black male authors for Literacy Month and beyond.
My challenge: READ ONE, GIFT ONE. Buy one from a Black-owned store, gift one to a brother, son, nephew, student, or neighbor.
Now you: Drop YOUR favorite Black male author below — I’m adding 3 of your picks to my indie run this weekend.
Tag your favorite shop and a brother who needs a new book:
📍 44th & 3rd Bookseller
📍 For Keeps Bookstore
📍 The Listening Tree Bookstore
📍 Village Books
📍 Shrine Cultural Center and Bookstore
With love, your Purple Poet @tauheedahmichellethepurplepoet 🧿
#BrothersInInkSpotlight #LiteracyMonth #BuyBlackBooks #SupportIndieBookstores #ReadBlack ReadOneGiftOne

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I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt to any Black parent trying their best to navigate the impossibly booby-trapped labyrinth of raising a healthy and happy and conscientious Black child in this fucking country

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Brothers in Ink Day 4 🧿 Poetry IS Literacy
Today we honor the poets. Brothers who gave us verse as survival, as kitchen-table love, as memory.
Kwame Alexander (Why Fathers Cry at Night) — memoir-in-verse, letters, recipes, fatherhood, loss.
Nate Marshall (Finna) — Chicago-bred, sharp wit, musical, Black vernacular as declaration.
Black men have always been poets. Griots. Keepers.
Community prompt: Drop ONE line from a Black male poet that ever saved you. I’ll start: “We real cool. We left school.” — Gwendolyn Brooks taught me brevity, but Langston, Amiri, Marshall, Alexander keep me breathing.
🎤 Story idea: Record 30 sec of you reading your favorite verse today. Tag me.
#BrothersInInk #BlackPoets #KwameAlexander #NateMarshall #PoetryCommunity LiteracyMonth tauheedahmichellethepurplepoet
📍 Shrine Cultural Center and Bookstore — 946 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd SW, Atlanta — great books for children & adults

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The setup for tonight: poems by me, Nate Marshall, various awesome poets from Southern Cultures chapbook, Bounty.
On sound : Fable granular jont, Extra circuit bent kalimba by Damian Lintell-Smith, and my trusty Wingie 2 by Meng Qi. No jam tonight I just got the Kalimba so I am still working with it. Soon come….#thesealeychallenge #electronicmusıc #soundpoetry

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Upcoming conferences and panels + misc pics!

@awpwriter "Black Queer Masculinities and the Excavation of the Self," March 17-20, 2027, Chicago, IL

@pipercenter "Desert Nights, Rising Stars," Oct 16-17, Tempe, AZ

Slide 5: "808s & Otherworlds" inside @phxart bookstore

Slide 6: the anniversary announcement of "I Never Left"

Slide 7: "Blueprint for BreakBeat Writing" by @illuminatemics

Slide 8: part of my @randolphmfa reading list

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