Since 2009, SDEAG – The San Diego Entertainment & Arts Guild has been positively impacting the artistic community of San Diego by advocating for the arts through cultural and education events, workshops, and products.

We are proud to sponsor and publish the San Diego Poetry Annual, now in it’s 16th year. The three-volume anthology includes a bilingual volume of poems written in Spanish and translated into English, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, and the Kids! San Diego Poetry Annual, with poems from preteens (ages 6 – 12) written at free workshops, led by poet-teachers who themselves have been published in the SDPA. In concert with the March 1st release each year, we coordinate public readings by contributing poets at public libraries and art galleries throughout the region from March through November each year.  The Encinitas Library is the permanent home of the annual celebration for the Kids! SDPA.

In addition to the publishing the poetry annual, we also sponsor and host the awards ceremony for the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, with $1350 in cash prizes and publication in the SDPA. The San Diego Central Library downtown is the permanent home of The Kowit awards ceremony.

The San Diego Poetry Annual is part of the permanent collections of the San Diego County and City library systems, every college and university library in the county and the public libraries of independent cities throughout our region.

SDEAG created and sponsors the Rob Melton Lifetime Achievement Award, present to librarians and named after its original recipient, who retired as the Humanities and Special Collections Librarian at UC-San Diego and as curator of New Archive of Poetry.  Marc Chery, Supervisor of the Humanities Section of the San Diego Public Library, is the second honoree, receiving his award at The Kowit ceremony in 2019 at Central Library downtown.

With music being our other principal emphasis, we had partnered with iconic venue’s across the country to bring culturally-rich experiences to audiences spanning from straight-ahead jazz to songs from the great American songbook. In 2013, SDEAG partnered with Anthony’s Fish Grotto and the Star of the Sea Event Center to offer our take on a speakeasy with poetry and jazz performances every Thursday. “Stars at the Star” featured top musicians and poets, including Diane Wakoski, Steve Kowit, Sue Palmer, Jaime Valle and Robin Henkel.

Through the generous contributions and grants we’ve received from the San Diego County Employees’ Charitable Organization (CECO), the Chula Vista Performing and Visual Arts fund, Poets & Writers Foundation and private donations, we’ve been able to expand not just the reach out the Poetry Annual, but our events have raised thousands of dollars for music programs for youth as well as being able to produce outreach poetry workshops reach teens in Juvenile Hall, Native poets, Slam Poetry, and veterans in Jail.

We also plan seasonal music concerts, and are creating our latest effort — the San Diego Jazz Anthology, a book of original jazz compositions from local musicians, overseen by SDEAG board member Andrew Michel.