All Write in Sin City
Let's talk about writers and writing, right here in Sin City. Before we were the Motor City, one of the nicknames we were known by was "Sin City." Maybe that's why we've got so many great stories to tell. Our Windsor-Detroit region is full of inspiring poetry, first rate fiction, outstanding non-fiction, amazing writers, and exciting publishers. At All Write in Sin City, we aim to bring them to you. Check out our shows here, or take a listen wherever you listen to podcasts.
All Write in Sin City
Late Invocation for Magic with Jim Daniels
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Jim Daniels has authored more than thirty collections of poetry, seven collections of fiction, and one collection of essays, and has written four produced screenplays. He has also edited or co-edited six anthologies, most recently RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music. He is a recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His books have won four Michigan Notable Books awards, the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, the Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, the Tillie Olsen Creative Writing Award, the Milton Kessler Award, and three gold medals in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, among others, and his films have won awards in film festivals around the world. His work has been published in The Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize volumes. He has read his poetry on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, and his poems were frequently featured on Keillor’s Writer's Almanac. Poet laureates Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, and Tracy K. Smith all showcased his writing as part of their work to bring poetry to average Americans. During his long career, he has warmed up for singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, read poems at a Jamestown Jammers AA baseball game, had his poem “Factory Love” displayed on a race car, and sent poetry into space as part of the Moon Arts Project. A native of Detroit, he lives in Pittsburgh, where he is the Baker University Professor Emeritus of English at Carnegie Mellon University. He currently teaches in the Alma College low-residency MFA program.
Author Jim Daniels spoke at Marshall District Library as part of the 2026 #MiNotableBks author tour and was also honored as the 2025-2026 #MiAuthorAward recipient. Special thanks to MDL for hosting and to the Library of Michigan Foundation for their support of both programs. Visit www.Michigan.gov/NotableBooks and www.Michigan.gov/MiAuthorAwardfor more details on each program.
An Ignorance of Trees: A Memoir in Essays was published in August 2025 by Cornerstone Press and won a Michigan Notable Book Award in 2026.
This was his fifth Michigan Notable Book Award: two in poetry, one in fiction, one in nonfiction, and one for editing (RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music.
More info on the Michigan Author Award at link above.
https://msupress.org/9781611865745/late-invocation-for-magic/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Daniels
Writers mentioned: Andrew Collard, Dustin M. Hoffman, R.S. Deneen