017 awp conference & Bookfair February —11, 2017 • Washington, dc

The Manifesto Project: A Reading and Conversation. (Tyler Mills, Jillian Weise, Vandana Khanna, David Groff, Rebecca Hazelton)

What does a poetic manifesto look like in a time of increased pluralism and relativism? How can a manifesto open a space for new and diverse

voices? Forty-five contributors wrote manifestos and chose their own poems for The Manifesto Project, a new book from the University of Akron Press. Here, four contributors will read their poems and discuss the act—their declarations of aesthetic, literary and political principles.
The New Normal in Nonfiction: Diverse Voices in Nonfiction from The Normal School: a Literary Magazine. (Steven Church, Jerald Walker, Jericho Parms, Jaclyn Moyer, Sarah Minor)

Four nonfiction writers representing diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives consider questions of race, identity, family, culture, and consciousness. Representing emerging writers, students, farmers, first-book authors, and tenured MFA program faculty, the panel members have all been published recently in the literary magazine, The Normal School. Celebrating a variety nonfiction styles, from the more traditional narrative essay to lyric essays and research-driven work.

The Poetics of Empire: Five Books. (Christopher Kempf, Becca Klaver, Jen Hofer, Heriberto Yepez, Sam Taylor)

In 1941, TIME publisher Henry Luce announced the American Century, inaugurating an era of American political and economic dominance. This reading features five poets whose recent collections explore the decline of the empire Luce envisioned, reading American hegemony, at home and abroad, through the many ways it inflects lived experiences of race, class, and gender. How, these poets ask, is waning empire registered in poetry that explores USAmerican and transnational cultures and identities?

The Resuscitation of Childhood: A WITS Reading. (Ellen Hagan, Nina Swamidoss McConigley, Peter Mountford, Glenn Shaheen, Renee Watson)

For many writers, childhood is an invention, an imaginative construction of the past. For writers who teach in Writers in the Schools programs, the students remind us on a daily basis what childhood truly entails. Students and writers inspire one another in a symbiotic style. This panel celebrates childhood and the ways in which teaching young children can enhance your writing. Writers who have taught in WITS programs share work by a student and then read some of their own.

The Wilderness and the PEN: A 25th Anniversary Reading and Discussion. (Nick Neely, Keetje Kuipers, Steve Edwards, Martha Silano, Gary Whitehead)

What’s it like to write alone in the backcountry for six months, but on a meadow where many other writers have dwelled? On the 25th anniversary of the PEN Northwest Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, hear from poets and nonfictioners who have lived fairly deliberately in the same woods. A discussion will ensue: How do you study wild material, endure silence, and bear down on the words while avoiding the bears? And to what extent should wilderness still figure in today’s environmental writing?

Trans & Gender Nonconforming Author Reading. (Everett Maroon, Imogen Binnie, Trace Peterson, Kelli Dunham, Carter Sickels)

Award-winning transgender and gender nonconforming writers and poets bring you their newest and best work in this reading that jettisons tropes around queer and trans people to reveal an exciting and nuanced nascent trans literature. Pushing against convention, form, and your MFA workshop leader's advice, these authors represent some of the best work across the country in a variety of genres including poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. A salon of transgender, trans-genre work!

TSR: The Southampton Review: A 10th Anniversary Reading. (Lou Ann Walker, Roger Rosenblatt, Neel N. Patel, Michelle Whittaker, Rebecca Foust)

Novelist Ursula Hegi has this to say about TSR: The Southampton Review, “The juxtaposition of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual arts is incredible.” And author Anne Fadimen says, “In the realm of memoir and personal essay, I can think of no journal in America—or, indeed, anywhere—that surpasses TSR. ” Join us as we celebrate TSR’s 10th anniversary with a reading from contributors, past and present. TSR is dedicated to publishing work from emerging and established authors.

University of Arkansas MFA 50th Anniversary Reading. (Brian Spears, Elizabeth Harris, Lucinda Roy, Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly)

Consistently listed in the top forty MFA programs by Poets & Writers Magazine, named one of the "Top Five Most Innovative Creative Writing Programs" in the nation by The Atlantic Monthly, the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas celebrates 50 years of poetry, prose and literary translation. Five representative graduates, distinguished and diverse, come together to read from their work.

Voices & Visions from Vermont Studio Center. (Paige Buffington, A. H. Jerriod Avant, Christian Campbell, Meng Jin, Ángel García)

For 32 years Vermont Studio Center (VSC) has committed to providing opportunities for artists & writers from underserved segments of the arts community. VSC will host a reading to celebrate fellowships sponsored by a collaborative alliance of organizations that have led the way in this much-needed work: Cave Canem, Callaloo, CantoMundo, Kundiman and the Institute of American Indian Arts. Five recent VSC Fellows will share a brief excerpt from works created during their month-long residencies.

Watching the Stars: New Latino/a Speculative Fiction. (Matthew David Goodwin, Kathleen Alcalá, Pablo Brescia, Alejandra Sanchez, Steve Castro)

In this panel, four Latino/a authors included in Latino/a Rising: An Anthology of Latino/a Speculative Fiction (Wings Press 2017) will give readings of their short stories. There is a growing movement of readers who are interested in the many incredible Latino/a writers who are creating science fiction and fantasy. Latino/a Rising demonstrates how these Latino/a writers are transforming the genres.

West Branch 40th Anniversary Reading. (G.C. Waldrep, Jean Valentine, Robyn Schiff, Shane McCrae, Laura Van den Berg)

A reading by established and emerging writers whose work West Branch has supported over its four decades of publishing.

Willow Books 10th Anniversary Reading. (Reginald Flood, Vanessa Hua, Qiana Towns, Yesenia Montilla)

Tenth anniversary reading celebrating the legacy of Willow Books. An award-winning publishing division of Aquarius Press, Willow Books’ mission is to develop, publish and promote writers of color. Willow has created an international platform for its authors to engage with the public through workshops, conferences, digital streaming broadcasts, and public readings, as well as through its annual Literature Awards. Its Willow Arts Alliance division hosts residencies in historic cultural districts.

Writing across cultures: Immigrant writers in search of home. (Reyna Grande, Alex Espinoza, Valeria Luiselli, Natalia Trevino, Gabriela Jauregui)

Mexican-born writers in the United States work within aesthetics that straddle and

scrutinize the complex relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. This panel of

immigrant writers will examine their ties to a Mexico rife with contradictions and a US deeply polarized on immigration. What responsibility do binational writers have in shaping the narratives of their two countries? How can bicultural writers bridge two countries and two cultures while belonging to both and neither at the same time?

Writing in a Time of Terror and Environmental Collapse. (Imad Rahman, Jacob Shoes-Arguello, william wenthe, Anne Sanow, Gail Folkins)

How do writers give shape to the experiences of war, terrorism, and the

disregard for life endemic on this planet? Muriel Rukeyser believed that

denying the responsiveness to the world could bring forth "the weakness that leads to mechanical aggression...turning us inward to devour our own humanity, and outward to sell and kill nature and each other." Given global terrorism and the spoliation of the planet, the stakes in being able to respond are terribly high. Writers working in both poetry, prose, and hybrid forms, will discuss their ways of meeting this challenge in their works past and present, including the difficulties they face and the sources from which they take inspiration.

Writing on the Frontlines of the Tex-Mex Frontera. (David Bowles, Amalia Ortiz, Erika Marie Garcia-Johnson, Edward Vidaurre, Daniel Garcia Ordaz)

The Texas-Mexico border is often depicted as an exotic, seedy tourist trap or as a tragic immigration battleground. Amid the confluence of cultures and languages in the Rio Grande Valley, however, there exists a welcoming hope and rich history that these multilingual authors embrace as home. This panel explores questions of what it means to be a border writer. What responsibility does a writer have to places of trauma? How does one write about it in a way that honors it but does not exploit it?

Writing South Asia, Writing Here. (Indira Ganesan, Marina Budhos)

We remember there; we interpret here. Subject matter becomes nebulous, cross-cultural, invented. We write inventing ourselves, in two worlds at once. We are accused of being inauthentic, not ethnic enough, too nostalgic, too bleak. We create fiction because we grew up on story, told to choose, declare loyalty, tally the differences. So we write, away from loyalties, tallies, and what we are told. We make up and we research, and we unlearn. If we are lucky, truth shimmers out.

Writing the Motherland: A Demeter Press Reading and Discussion. (Jane Satterfield, Kirun Kapur, Adrianne Kalfopoulou, Pauline Kaldas, H'Rina de Troy)

Founded in 2006, Demeter is an independent feminist press publishing literature on Mothering, Reproduction, Sexuality and Family. Borderlands and Crossroads: Writing the Motherland (2016) collects the work of forty-three award-winning writers who explore maternal landscapes. Spanning the globe, these intimate and honest narratives cross borders and define crossroads that are personal and political,old and new. Participants will read and discuss their contributions to the anthology.

Written on a (Woman's) Body: A Cross-Genre Reading of Bold Writings about Women and their Bodies. (Elizabeth Searle, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Melissa Pritchard, Shara McCallum, Debra Spark)

Birth, breast cancer, Botox, body art and what goes on behind bedroom doors: women's bodies and all they experience are being written about more frankly than ever before. DC is a fitting place for bold politically charged readings. Writing in fiction, nonfiction, scripts and poetry, the female authors in this reading/Q&A will offer samples of their most visceral works. Then, in the same bold spirit, they will discuss the unique challenges and rewards of writing about the female body, head on.

Zero Chill: Writers of Color Against Respectability. (Casey Rocheteau, Rachel Mckibbens, Jayy Dodd, Franny Choi)

When Marlon James responded to Watkins' "On Pandering", it began a broader discussion of gaze, respectability and audience within the literary landscape. This panel features a diverse array of poets and non-fiction writers speaking about how they contend with respectability politics in their work & literary communities. The discussion will be rooted in writing against respectability at a time when contemporary discussions of audience, intention and gaze provoke volatile reactions across genres.