Mar 3, 2026
For four days, Torch will join other writing organizations, writers, publishers, students, and more at the largest literary conference in the country.
Just one year after being awarded the inaugural Writing Organization Award by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), Torch is returning to the conference to highlight Black women writers. Events include a 20th Anniversary panel, Torch Feature & Fellow book signings, a Torch community photo, and more. Our Book Fair location will be booth #1264.
AWP recognizes writing conferences, festivals, centers, and other organizations that serve the writing community. AWP’s mission is to amplify the voices of writers and the academic programs and organizations that serve them. The association is committed to its members and the literary community, preserving writers’ intellectual property and their staff. The nonprofit was established in 1967 by fifteen writers across thirteen creative writing programs. You can learn more about AWP at awpwriter.org.
We are excited to reunite with Torch community members, including Features, Fellows, workshop attendees, readers, and supporters! Don’t miss our programs:
Thursday, March 5:
11:00 a.m. - Torch Fellow m. mick powell, author of Dead Girl Cameo, will be at our booth at 11 a.m. for a book signing.
12:15 p.m. - Attend our Torch 20th Anniversary Reading featuring Saida Agostini, Teri Ellen Cross Davis, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D., and Amanda Johnston in Room 318-319, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center (Session Code: T164).
Friday, March 6:
11:00 a.m. - Torch Feature by Khalisa Rae, author of Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat, will be at our booth for a book signing.
Saturday, March 7:
11:00 a.m. - Join the Torch community at Torch booth #1264for a group photo!
About Torch Literary Arts
Torch Literary Arts (Torch) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established with love and intention in 2006 to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Torch has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.
Help Torch continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.
About AWP
AWP is a professional association of creative writers and writing programs. AWP provides support, advocacy, resources, and community to nearly 50,000 writers, 550 college and university creative writing programs, and 150 writers’ conferences and centers. The AWP Conference & Bookfair is the annual destination for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers of contemporary creative writing. It includes thousands of attendees, hundreds of events and bookfair exhibitors, and four days of essential literary conversation and celebration.
About m. mick powell
m. mick powell is a queer Black Cape Verdean femme, an artist, an Aries, and the author of the chapbook threesome in the last Toyota Celica (Host Publications, 2023). Their debut full-length collection, DEAD GIRL CAMEO, is forthcoming from One World Books/Random House in Summer 2025. An assistant professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Connecticut and a 2023 Tin House Resident, mick enjoys chasing waterfalls and being in love. Keep up with them at www.mickpowellpoet.com or @mickmakesmagic.art on IG.
About Saida Agostini
Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet, and author of the full-length collection, let the dead in (Alan Squire Publishing, 2022). A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, she has been awarded residencies at Saltonstall, VCCA and Blue Mountain Center, amongst others.
About Teri Ellen Cross Davis
Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of a more perfect Union and Haint. Her fellowships and awards include The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, the Ohioana Book Award for Poetry, and a Maryland Individual Artist Award. She curated the O.B. Poetry Series at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C.
About Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D.
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D., is the author of three books: Big Girl, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and winner of the Balcones Fiction Prize and the Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel; The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora, winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the MLA; and the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love, winner of the Judith Markowitz Award from Lambda Literary. She has earned honors from Bread Loaf, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the Mellon Foundation, the Center for Fiction, the NEA, and others. Originally from Harlem, NY, she is Professor of English at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
About Khalisa Rae
Khalisa Rae is an award-winning poet, educator, and journalist in Durham, NC. She is the author of the debut poetry collection, Ghost in a Black Girl's Throat (Red Hen Press 2021), and Contributing Writer for Kindred. Her essays are featured in Autostraddle, Catapult, LitHub, as well as articles in Jezebel, Blavity, B*tch Media, NBC-BLK, and others. Her poetry appears in Southern Humanities Review, Gravy, Frontier Poetry, Florida Review, Rust & Moth, PANK, HOBART, among countless others. She is the winner of the Appy Award, Vulgar Genius, Bright Wings Poetry contest, the Furious Flower Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, among other prizes. Currently, she serves as Publications Coordinator for Split This Rock and EIC of Think in Ink BIPOC collective. Her YA novel in verse, Unlearning Eden, is forthcoming. Follow Khalisa on her website and on Instagram.
About Amanda Johnston
Amanda Johnston is a writer, visual artist, and the 61st Poet Laureate of Texas. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, as well as the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. She is also the editor of the anthology Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, The Moth Radio Hour, Bill Moyers, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, American Short Fiction, and the Academy of American Poets. She is a former Board President of the Cave Canem Foundation and the founder of Torch Literary Arts.
Media Contact Information:
Brittany Heckard
Communications Associate
bheckard@torchliteraryarts.org
(512) 641-9251