Yet Another Writer Scam: Fake PGH Book Fest

Today, I got another scam email targeting writers. This one purported to be from the PGH Book Fest. The email described my book Tree Fall with Birdsong and referenced my “recent work in poetry and translation.” It’s been quite a while since I published any translations, and this sounded a lot like some other AI slop I’ve received in scam emails, so my guard was already up. They also claim to be still reviewing applications for the festival that takes place on May 30. That would be insane.

I searched, and the PGH Book Fest is a real thing. They have also posted a warning on Instagram about reports of fake emails from someone charging a fee to register for the festival. Thanks to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh who posted the notice about the fake PGH Book Fest emails. It didn’t take me too much searching to find it.

The sender on this email was authors.pittsburghbooklitfest@gmail.com. Does that look suspicious? It should. A) because it’s a gmail account. B) because no one would have thier name as part of their account (rather than as their domain). C) because their domain does not include “booklitfest,” but is “pittsburghbookfestival.org.” D) the email looks like it was AI generated.

I’ll ignore this one and delete the email. But I wanted to write about it because it probably won’t be the last attempt to scam me with a book festival invitation. Be careful when you get these. Check them out before replying, and only reply when all the details line up and you can tell it is a legitimate offer.

I’m sure the real PGH Book Fest is a wonderful event. It’s infuriating that someone would try to scam writers by impersonating them and charging a fee to participate.

Another Bright Spot on a Rainy Day

This morning, I took a few moments to write on Substack about seeing a scarlet tanager and a couple of catbirds, two bright spots on what turned into a rainy day. Tonight, I happened across a review of the reading I did with John Miller at Ernest and Hadley Bookstore back in February. Since that also brightened my day, I thought I’d write about it here.

I took a screen shot from part of the cover image on the review, since I didn’t want to dowload the whole picture. Credit to Lilly Roehrig, who I assume was the photographer for this and two other photos that accompany her piece in Ripple Arts Review, a publication of the University of Alamaba English Department.

Lilly has a very good eye, and a good ear for poetry, and I’m not just saying that because she said nice things about my poems, though that never hurts. This is a well-written piece that examines more than John’s and my poems, but also reads the room and reflects on the writer’s own place in that space. She senses a tension between herself and the rest of the crowd, since she was the youngest person there. I get that, though I hardly noticed the age differences, being just as much of an outsider to the Tuscaloosa poetry scene.

For Lilly, the difference was between the university student and the town; for me the difference was living an hour away. I had the advantage, though, in that I was an invited guest and knew a few people: some former students were there, and I knew John from emails and sharing poems through Poetry South.

What Lilly probably didn’t realize is that many of the people in the room were in a similar boat. I talked to one person who had driven from Jackson, Mississippi, for the reading. He knew John, but probably didn’t know anyone else. One of my former grad students had come in from just the other side of Birmingham, the other is a fairly new PhD student in French who recently moved into Tuscaloosa. I talked to another young man who had come in from out of town and didn’t know either John or me, but had just seen a post about the reading. We might have all looked like we were a group because of the age difference, yet we were not a monolith.

But I get that it’s intimidating to go outside your comfort zone, especially as an undergrad on a campus large enough to be its own city. So kudos to Lilly for making the leap and also for acknowledging that she and her friends should do that more often. Lilly’s take-away from the reading and her own ambivalent feelings of discomfort and anxiety while still being welcomed, is that college students need to seek out more opportunities to interact with the local poetry scene, for as she notes, “excellent poets await you.”

I would add that the local poetry community might also more inviting. Maybe Ernest and Hadley could host a student reading in their space. And maybe they have; as an outsider, I have know way to know. I’m not thinking specifically of the poetry scenes in Tuscaloosa, in other words, but more about all of us. We need to be more willing to get outside of our comfort zones and experience what other people are up to, even when that is unfamiliar or a little intimidating.

For that reason, I also enjoyed reading Lilly’s article about an Eco-Poetry workshop she attended at the Turkey Creek Nature Preserve in Pinson, Alabama near Birmingham. This is another good desecriptive piece about making the leap to get outside of your own community and explore nature (and another community) about an hour away. Again, she dicusses both the poet Erica E. Wade and her own reaction to the workshop and the natural area, including its history and the community activists who stopped the development of a new county jail, turning the area into a nature preserve instead. She compares this successful action to the still ongoing, and so far less successful action against a data center in Bessemer.

Note to Lilly: I happen to know that one of my grad students, who was at the reading that night, is also deeply involved the the fight against the Bessemer data center and has written on it extensively. You had more in common than you realized.

We need more young poets like Lilly who are willing to get outside their comfort zones and explore, whether that is to go to readings in unfamiliar spaces or to drive an hour away to experience and write poetry and learn about the history and the environment of a new place. Maybe we have more of those poets, young and old, than we realize. Maybe we just need to connect with them by doing the same.

Two New Scams Targeting Writers

Actually, I’m not sure these scams are new, but they are new to me, and since people seem to be interested in this kind of thing, I’ll write about them.

I’ve been super busy lately (hence, very few blog posts, sorry!) so my junk mailboxes have really piled up. Tonight I finally got ahead enough that I could take a few minutes to go through them, and as I did, I took note of two scam emails. The first is one I had just read about earlier today: an invitation from a writer friend. Just click the link to find out more!

Of course, it’s not really from my friend who lives in Houston and to the best of my knowledge isn’t visiting. I had read about these fake invitations, and how when you do open the invitaiton, the link might not take you anywhere, but a virus will attack your computer. Or the link takes you somewhere and you’re asked to login, which gives the criminals your email credentials.

If I ever send an invitation from a place like punchbowl, I guess I had better be much more specific before I ask anyone to open my invitation.

The other scam I encoutnered may not be a scam at all, but I suspect it is. The email makes it look like an agent is interested in my book. I write poetry, so I doubt that Amazon optimization is going to help me sell a ton of books. If it did, that’d be great, but it’s probably not worth the investment

One dead giveawaty that this isn’t a real agency is that the address is a gmail address. Now, I have a few gmail accounts, but I dont’ use them for an agency. Then there’s the fact that Lantern Literary claims to represent authors of historical ficion. That’s not who I am.

It’s a shame that these kinds of scams make me mistrust every email from poeple I don’t know and even from people I do know.

Stay safe out there! Don’t click links in email, at least not until you have verified who it is from adn whether you can trust it.

Thanks Again, Elena

I guess you never know how far a post might reach. When I wrote about a scam email I received from a fake Elena Ferrante, I really wasn’t trying to do anything other than report out about a new kind of scam email I received. I didn’t even realize what a big deal Elena Ferrante is or how mysterious she is, though my search on the name had given me some clues. After I posted about it, I saw that she was top on a list at the New York Times. Still, I didn’t think that much about it. I did learn from comments on my post and after reading some more that her identity remains a mystery.

So imagine my surprise when a Google Alert (which usually tells me about posts to this blog that I’ve written or ocassionally alerts me to a review of one of my books) sent me to an article in The Observer, which has a sentence that apparently begins “The writer Lee Goldberg received a similar email, as did Kendall Dunkelberg, a poet and professor, both describing being flattered first and then …” That’s all I can read because there is a 1£ fee for a trial period. If anyone is a subscriber, you can tell me whether the article has anything more about me or my post. For now, I’m more than satisfied to bhe called a poet and professor by The Observer. They’re not wrong, and it goes to show they actually did take a look at my website. And even better, they spelled my name right.

So I can thank Elena Ferrante and her impersonator, both for giving me something to blog about and for getting my little blog noticed across the pond. Other readers have been reading and commenting on the post, so thanks to you, too.

And to all the other obscure bloggers, poets, or professors, and anyone else toiling away with words, keep it up! You never know where your words might land and where that might take you.

New Review of Tree Fall with Birdsong

I usually try to avoid checking places like Amazon and Goodreads for reviews of my books, but recently I was told A Writer’s Craft has 100 reviews on Amazon, which made me curious to go take a look. That number was correct, though most are star ratings and not reviews with text. The ones I saw with written reviews were mostly familiar to me, which is still a happy thing. I just try not to check on that too often because you never know what you’ll find.

That led me down the rabbit hole of looking to see what other reviews are out there: nothing new on Amazon for my poetry collections, though that’s hardly a surprise. That led me to some other book sites with similar results and finally back to GoodReads, where I had a very nice surprise.

Back in January, Tiffanee Mask Jackson took the time to write a long review that starts out with the tag “Gorgeous– a scrapbook of a place I learned to call home” and has a couple more substantive paragraphs. Naturally, I read them, and it made my day, though I’m writing about it not to brag (too much) but also to point out how helpful it is when someone takes the time to write a thoughtful response.

She reads a lot and posts quite a few reviews: some with stars and some with written comments. I’m grateful and honored she took the time to write what she did about my collection of poems.

If you have a book you’ve finished and can take a moment to write even a short paragraph in response, rest assured, the author will be grateful, especially if you liked the book, and so will other readers who will have a much better sense of what they’re about to buy (or check out from their library)!

Now you can go read her review and like it or comment to thank her for me.

MFA Advice for Writers 2026, Pt 4 AI—Just Don’t

As I said at the outset of this series, I want to talk about some things that ought not even need to be said, but then again, maybe they do. AI is one of those topics.

Every MFA program I know of either expressly states that you may not use AI in your writing sample or doesn’t state it outright yet, but also doesn’t want to see AI. Why would anyone who wants a graduate degree in writing even think it might be appropriate to let AI do the writing for you?

Well, there is a lot of hype out there, and that hype does create a fair amount of confusion, so I can see how it could seem like there are some gray areas, but I’m going to say that there really isn’t. Just don’t use AI. Period. That’s your safest strategy.

You might think it’s okay to use AI for spellcheck or grammar check, but it can be a slippery slope from that to allowing an AI tool to suggest ways to revise your writing, which ends up looking like AI wrote your work for you. Just don’t. There are still very good spellcheckers and even grammar checkers that don’t intrude on your writing. It’s fine to let Word underline what it thinks are grammatical or spelling issues, just don’t let it suggest how you should improve that passage — we want to see how you would write it, not how Word or Claude or ChatGPT or Grok would.

You might think it’s okay to use AI to help you come up with topics for your statement of purpose. Just don’t. It will give you topics it has gleaned from the internet, which is full of bad advice. It might even pull a smidgen of that advice from my blog, but it will still be bad advice because it’s filtered through the AI’s algorithms and not through your experience. I want to know about you. I don’t want to know what AI tells you it thinks I want to know. Just don’t. Don’t trust it. Trust yourself. I would much rather read that even if, or maybe especially if, what you want to say goes against all of my expectations.

Besides, AI has already stolen from me by using a pirated copy of one of my books for its training without my permission. Why would I want to see what it thinks you ought to write? Just don’t let it lead you astray.

Most agents and publishers have implemented anti-AI language in their contracts for creative books. Aren’t all books creative? Even a cookbook or a city guide will be suspect if written by AI, and because AI-generated content can’t be copyrighted, even AI-assisted text (beyond basic spellchecking and grammar checking) is essentially worthless to a publisher because they have no copyright protections.

Literary magazines are mostly implementing similar policies. Why should MFA programs treat AI-generated stories, poems, creative nonfiction (I shudder at the thought), or drama any differently? You might think that if you wrote the prompts that caused the output, then you have a claim to the intellectual property. But that’s not how copyright law works, at least not now, so just don’t even think about it.

Now, when I am reading writing samples, I’m actually happy when I see a few typos or grammatical inconsistencies, signs that a fallible human has had a hand in the creation of the text. I haven’t gotten to the point where I distrust every em-dash, but AI’s overreliance on them (which I’m sure will soon be programmed out of the algorithm) is probably a good reason to be extra careful not to overindulge in that habit. I like a good em-dash now and then. Just don’t overdo it—never a good idea.

The more you can do to authentically be yourself, the better. Just don’t be surprised if more MFA programs want to interview applicants before they make their decisions. We haven’t gone that route in my program yet, but it might come to that. I’m always happy to get on a Zoom call with applicants to discuss our program, I just haven’t started to require it or call it an interview.

I know AI companies want you to believe everyone is using it and it is the wave of the future, but that simply isn’t true, not to the extent they want you to believe. It is true that more and more people use it, but it’s also true that we as a society need to figure out what is legitimate use and what isn’t. Creative writers ought to be the ones to figure it out for creative writing, so just don’t let AI companies sell you on the hype. Real writers don’t use it, and you shouldn’t either, especially not when applying for an MFA in Creative Writing.

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

MFA Advice for Writers 2026, Pt 3 Magazines

Last time, I suggested that one way to show what kind of writer you’d like to be is to include a discussion of literary magazines in your statement of purpose or cover letter. Yet it occurs to me that literary magazines have another value for the MFA applicant.

Most programs publish a magazine, so if you are researching programs and trying to get a good idea of the kind of writing they like, you shoudl read their magazine. Most of these magazines are edited by students in the program, so the selections they make about the writers to accept for their magazine will tell a lot about the kind of writers in the program. I often suggest that prospecitve students read back issues of Ponder Review or Poetry South, which are available for free online in our archives. You can tell a lot from the selections we have made.

But you can dig deeper than just the work published. Consider the submission guidelines and the different tiers of rejection notices by looking them up at rejectionwiki.org. We prefer to use the term “decline” or “return” when we don ‘t accept a writer’s work. How a magazine handles this can give you insights into the program’s culture.

Or read a recent masthead to see who the graduate students working on the magazine have been. Then search to see where they’ve published or what they are doing today, especially if you’re looking at an issue from a few years back. In addition to looking up what and where faculty have published, it can be instructive to see where current and former students are active. This take a fair amount of digging, and you might not find everything, but the magazine editors are a great place to start.

Common advice for applicants is to research the faculty at the programs they want to apply to. That’s important because you’re likely to work with those faculty, but it’s equally important to try to get a sense of the students in a program, and the literary magazine may be the best place to learn about them. And if you end up enrolling in that program, one of the most valuable experiences you have may be working on that magazine. Is it run as part of a class or staffed by graduate assistants or volunteers? And if you’re headed to #AWP26, you can see copies of many magazines and even meet some of their staffs at the Book Fair.

MFA Advice for Writers 2026, Pt 2 What are You Reading?

When you write your statement of purpose (which in our program, we call a letter of intent) it is often a good idea to talk about writers you like. This can give a program a sense of the kind of writer you’d like to be and what you know about the literary world. But it can be hard to decide who to talk about. It’s a lot like choosing comps for the book you haven’t written yet.

On the one hand, you can simply be honest and list some of your favorite authors, but you don’t want to sound like you’re just name dropping. Or if you list the hottest new young adult or fantasy authors, for instance,there’s a good chance the person reading your letter will know those names. On the other hand, if you only list the names of classic writers, you run the risk of sounding out of touch or dated.

When listing comps for a book proposal, the standard advice is you shouldn’t list anything older than 3-5 years. That’s because an agent wants to know where your book might land in the current market. MFA programs aren’t looking for the same thing, but we do want to know that you have some sense of what writers are writing today. Mentioning someone who’s published in the past decade or two is probably a good idea. Just make sure you’ve actually read them and remember them well enough to say something salient, not just drop a name.

And I don’t mind if I don’t recognize every writer on your list. Let’s be honest, there are so many great writers out there doing great books, no one can know them all. I’d be amazed if someone mentioned the two books I bought last week: Sean Hill’s the Negroes Send Their Love and W. Ralph Eubanks’ When It’s Darkness in the Delta. Why should I be surprised that you admire someone I have to look up. Let me know what you love about their work, and it will tell me something about you, which is what I’m really after. Don’t just pull a few names off the latest Top 100 list, either. They won’t impress me as much as a good discussion of someone I’ve never heard of.

As I’m writing this, though, I’m thinking about that temptation to list the names of prominent writers. As underdstandable as it is, it’s also misguided. If what a program wants to know is what kind of writer you might become and whether you have a realistic sense of how to get there, it seems to me that a better strategy might be to talk about the literary magazines you read. After all, most writers get their start in magazines, and some familiarity with that world is a good indicator that you have some idea what it will take to get published.

In my “15 Things to Do Before a Low-Res MFA,” a somewhat tongue-in-cheek advice column, getting rejected by a literary magazine is one thing I list. Publishing isn’t a requirement, but learning about the process and being ready to take that step even if you haven’t had successes yet ought to be. One of our program’s goals is that every graduate will have been published at least once by the time they walk the stage. We don’t always achieve that goal—a few are hesitant and some take a little longer to reach success, often getting that first acceptance a month or two after taking our survey.

Mentioning the magazines you read or where you’ve submitted your work can tell us a lot about your understanding of the literary world and the kind of place you hope to find in it. As with authors, don’t just list the top tier magazines everyone knows about. Dig a little deeper. Pour through the excellent listings at ChillSubs, New Pages, Duotrope, The Grinder or Poets & Writers. Search by vibe a ChillSubs or search by genre or region. Don’t just list the coolest names. Read their issues and tell us what you found.

While you’re at it, you can research us but looking up recent magazine publications by our faculty. See what magazines we’ve published in. Read our work, if it’s available, or at least get a sense of the magazine. You can often learn a lot about a program without ever cracking open a book just by reading what’s available online or in journals.

And don’t forget your university or public library. Often they subscribe to magazines. They may not have the widest selection of print copies (still always my favorite way to read), but they might also have electronic access. Ask at the reference desk, since these are not always the easiest materials to find.

As you prepare to apply to MFA programs, spend some time educating yourself about this often mysterious world. Read Becky Tuch’s Lit Mag News, Erika Dreifus’s Practicing Writer, or other newsletters about publishing. Or follow ChillSubs, NewPages, Duotrope, or Poets & Writers on your favorite social media. No matter what MFA program you end up at, you’ll be glad you did this research before you got there.

And if you name some obscure and quirky lit mat in your cover letter, I might just be glad to find out about them, especially if you tell me who you read in a recent issue and why you loved it. That will tell me a lot about who you are as a writer, and after all, that’s the main thing I want to get to know.

MFA Advice for Writers 2026, Pt 1 #AWP26

For over a decade I’ve been writing advice for creative writers who are applying to MFA programs, but for the last little while I’ve slowed down, thinking that I might have said it all. The last thing I would want to do is just repeat what I’ve said in the past. And yet the older a post gets, the less traction it has, which also means people won’t see that advice as readily. In the lead-up to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs 2026 conference, March 4-7, it seems like a good time to update this series and address some topics that ought to go without saying, perhaps, but often are the kinds of information MFA applicants lack. So let’s start with AWP, a great source of information for anyone considering an MFA.

Naturally, the AWP conference has hundreds of panels on all kinds of issues that writers face, whether those are craft issues, advice on how and where to publish, or pedagogy panels. There are also many, many readings both on and off site. It is literally overwhelming how much there is to do and learn. And with an expected attendance of 14,000 writers or more, you need to be prepared to be awash in writing for three days.

Besides the panels, though, don’t forget the Book Fair, which is a bit of a misnomer. Many MFA programs will have tables there, as will many magazines, bookstores, publishers, writers’ residencies, and other services for writers. If you want to get to know what a program is like, go talk to them at their table, which often will be staffed by current students as well as faculty. This is so much better than researching a program online because you can get an immediate sense of a program’s culture or vibe. So if you find yourself in Baltimore, please stop by our table, T984, and say hi.

That’s not to say you don’t need to also do your research online, but you can learn a lot more by talking to someone, asking a few questions, or picking up brochures or sample copies of their magazines. And don’t forget to leave room in your suitcase for all the swag you’re likely to bring home.

The best advice I’ve heard for AWP is to wear comfortable shoes. Dress like yourself, whether that is the latest fashion, outlandish and quirky, or yoga pants or sweats. Walking the convention center, you will see folks in every style of dress, and no matter what you wear, you will either stand out or fit in, depending on what look you’re going for. Don’t worry that you have to seem pretentious or overly sophisticated—no one expects that. Just be yourself and be open to meeting new people and having new experiences. I’ve had great conversations with people I met at a panel, ran into in the hallways, or whose book fair table I decided to visit. Some were people I know, but many have been complete strangers.

In the evenings, there are the big name readings, like this year’s keynote, John Waters. But there are also many receptions and off-site events hosted by magazines, publishers, or programs. The conference is non-stop and exhausting, and another piece of good advice is to allow yourself some time away from the conference center to decompress.

Attending the conference is a wonderful idea, but I also realize it can be expensive. First there is the cost of travel and lodging, and then there’s the cost of registration, which can run from $260 to $380 depending on whether you’re a member or nonmember, if you register online by March 3. On-site registration is more: $435 to $580. Non-members, don’t miss the discounted rate if you add a membership when you register: $350 before March 3 and $525 on-site. Who would pay the full non-member rate rather than save $50 to get more? Current students can register for $75 or $155 on-site, and anyone who lives near enough and wants to go for Saturday only can get a one-day pass for $25.

Less expensive virtual passes are also available, which allow access to a limited number of recorded panels, but you don’t get the advantage of the book fair, where all the action is. Anyone can follow the hashtag #AWP26 on their social media, though, and see posts related to the conference before, during, and after the event. Our program will be posting regularly with this hashtag, so you can follow along virtually.

Even if you can only follow the hashtag, taking part in #AWP26 is one way you can become more knowledgable about the world of creative writing, and one space where you can get to know programs, their people, and their magazines better. That’s why I’m starting this series with AWP. In the coming two weeks, I’ll be back with more things you can do to prepare your best MFA application in Creative Writing.

Why all the Writer Scams Right Now?

I try not to be a conspiracy theorist, really I do. But these days, when nefarious forces loom large, it’s hard not to be. And when so many horrific things are happening in the world, from the killing of protesters and detaining of people who look like immigrants whether they are in the U.S. legally or not—or are even actually citizens—to the invasion of Venezuela to the attempt to acquire Greenland, and the list goes on and on, things like phishing emails sent to writers seem practically insignificant.

Yet I wonder.

If there is a grand conspiracy, isn’t it possible that shutting up writers might be part of the plan? Why target writers so heavily at this very moment? Is it just because the scammers think we’re all so gullible? Quite possibly that’s all there is to it, but I also wonder whether another motive is to sow distrust and thereby to undermine the value of free speech.

I would love to contact book clubs to market my collection of poems, and I would love to engage in conversation with writers I don’t know. Every scam email purporting to be a book club who will buy tons of copies of my book if I’ll just pay to help advertise it or every fake writer who sends spammy AI-generated compliments about my book or every publishing scheme that wants to buy up the paperback or movie rights if I’ll just invest in the project to help get the ball rolling or every scammer masquerading as an editor at a major publisher—every one of these scams and more make it just a little less likely that I’ll contact a book club, engage with other writers, trust an editor, or try to get my book in more markets.

Recently, I’ve seen several scammy ads on late night TV offering services to authors to help them find an agent, find a publisher, etc. These were on broadcast television, which I access over the airwaves, so I don’t think they could even be targeted at me because I am a writer, though the thought did cross my mind. I know better than to contact one of these snake oil salesmen, but what about the neophyte writer who has no idea how the industry works and can’t tell a fraudster from a legitimate agent?

Of course, vanity presses and so-called hybrid publishers have always been around. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen them advertise on TV, though. You were more likely to find them in the back of comic books. Maybe that speaks more to the devalued state of broadcast ads than to a grand, nepharious plot. And maybe writers are just the latest targets of the internet scammer set, and they will soon move on to another ploy and another group they think they can exploit. These people are making money off writers’ dreams, after all.

But if there were a force behind this craze of phony offers to writers, then it might make sense that the end game is to depress our speech by making us distrustful of each other and of the industry that supports our speech.

To learn more about the scams that are circulating out there, bookmark The Author’s Guild’s Publishing Scam Alerts blog or visit Writer Beware.

What else can you do?

Unfortunately, it is necessary to be skeptical of nearly every unsolicited correspondence you receive. Read carefully, be critical, but don’t just trash every offer you receive. I invite writers to the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium all the time, and I live in fear of someone just ignoring my invitation out of distrust. I write detailed invitations, laying out our terms in both the email (in summary) and in a letter and agreement form, etc. I always include a link to our website that is current and has a long history. There are news articles about prior symposia and many of the people who have been invited are well-known writers. I rely on the people I invite to look closely enough to judge that my invitation is legit and worth consideration. Many already know us, but some writers I contact each year are new and won’t have heard of us. I can only hope our reputation preceeds us.

Like me, you can do your best and maybe even redouble your efforts to build relationships, extend networks, and fight against the rising tide of distrust. Whether or not that is fostered by a conspiracy, the distrust is a side-effect of all the scams out there, and it is worth combatting whether or not it is the intended effect. Don’t be too trusting, and don’t be so mistrustful that you hurt yourself and others. Trust your instincts when something looks too good to be true, and do your research even when it does look legit.

You’ll be happier if you trust but verify than if you blindly trust or don’t trust at all.