Why Anthologies Matter: Hot Topics and Varied Voices

We all know that quintessential prompt, often posed to students and bookworms:  "Name five writers you'd invite to dinner, if you had the chance." Now think of what the dinner table conversation might be like: the topic, the varied viewpoints, the parallels in perspectives, the vibe.

Anthologies can offer a variation on this fantasy literary dinner idea! In book form, they are collections. What they contain and how they are structured are just two of the many choices editors, publishers and contributors consider when setting out to create one.

Join us for a discussion about why this form is on the rise and fulfilling the needs of a curious population of readers. And how a book might be like a very lively dinner table!

Kathy Curto is the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood (Bordighera Press, 2018) and the editor of the multi-genre collection, What Are You Waiting For? An Anthology (Motina Books, July 2026.)  She teaches writing at Montclair State University, The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, and various public libraries and community centers in the metropolitan area. Kathy lives in the Hudson Valley with her family and can be found in her front yard most mornings, replenishing her Little Free Library with donated books. This practice has become one of her daily delights. Visit: www.kathycurto.com or IG @kathy.curto.

B.K. (Kate) Jackson is an author, developmental editor, book coach, and a journalist with bylines in HuffPost, The Los Angeles Times, The Sun, Whale Road Review, Hippocampus Magazine, WIRED and more. She earned a BA and an MA from UCLA. Kate is the editor of the anthology Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Family and the founder/editor of Severance (severancemag.com), a magazine and community for adoptees and individuals who’ve discovered misattributed parentage. 

Libby Copeland is an award-winning journalist in New York. Her book, The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are, explores the rapidly evolving phenomenon of home DNA testing and its implications for how we think about family, race and identity. The Wall Street Journal calls it “a fascinating account of lives dramatically affected by genetic sleuthing,” The Guardian named it one of The Best Books of 2020, and The Washington Post says it “reads like an Agatha Christie mystery” and “wrestles with some of the biggest questions in life.” A former staff writer for The Washington Post, Libby has also written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Smithsonian Magazine. She’s at work on a fiction project.

Edvige Giunta is the author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors and coeditor of six anthologies, including The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture and Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, recipient of the 2023 Susan Koppelman Awaad for Best Anthology in Feminist Studies in American and Popular Culture, published in Italy by Iacobelli as Le ragazze della Triangle. Her memoirs, essays, flash, poetry, and interviews have been published in anthologies, journals, and magazines in the US, Italy, and the UK. She is a Professor of English at Kean University.