Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Ornament, winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Smaller Songs, from St Brigid Press. New writing appears in the Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, the Gettysburg Review, and Electric Literature. Bell teaches at UNC Wilmington and is the editor of Ecotone. She lives with her family near what’s now called the Cape Fear River. annalenaphillipsbell.net
The Empowerment Avenue collective emerged from a simple need: incarcerated folks have limited support, on top of no internet and email access, to get their writing out of prison and into the hands of editors.
We see intimacy, an uneasy position within the natural world, one that requires mediation. And we see five emerging poets ready to reshape their futures according to their poetry.
Highlighting creative work in partnership with other mission-driven literary organizations, with a specific focus on nonprofit institutions and collectives invested in social justice and human rights.