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

Girlhood, Womanhood, Coming of Age. (Laura Donnelly, Janine Joseph, Monica Hand, Janet McNally, Jordan Rice)

Poets discuss writing coming of age poems for the 21st century, disrupting traditional narratives of girlhood and womanhood and exploring intersections of gender, race, class and sexual identity. Along with adolescence, we consider how the genre might include the thresholds of immigration, motherhood, trans experience, and divorce (among other topics). Poets read from their collections, share influences and craft advice, and offer suggestions for confronting challenges faced along the way.

Global Narratives as U.S. Literature. (Carolina De Robertis, Elmaz Abinader, Laleh Khadivi, Achy Obejas, Meron Hadero)

In a world where cultures transcend borders, what defines U.S. literature? How is a writer's experience, aesthetic, and vision shaped by carrying more than one country in her skin? What particular challenges and opportunities exist for writers whose work springs from a global, multicultural source? Four authors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction from Iran, Lebanon, Cuba, and Nigeria discuss their experiences in creating and publishing work as global voices working within the United States.

Going for Broke: Poor and Working Class Writers Talk about Choosing Careers in the Arts. (Kaitlyn Greenidge, Tiphanie Yanique, Melissa Chadburn, Tennessee Jones, Courttia Newland)

How do you navigate life as a working artist when you come from poverty? Five writers from racially diverse working class backgrounds in the Caribbean,US and Western Europe will discuss what it means to plot a career in the arts without a safety net. Topics will include: finding relevant career advice for those from low income backgrounds; making career choices or compromises based on your class; class and race; sustaining a career and the strengths and limits of poverty PTSD.

Going Serial: How to Turn Your Book into a Podcast. (Rob McGinley Myers, Kate Hopper, Marlo Mack, Sara Brooke Curtis)

Until recently, authors have treated audiobooks as a mere side business, devoting little attention to the quality of the final product. But as the world of podcasting explodes with new narrative forms, such as popular shows like Serial, it’s time for writers and storytellers to take full advantage of this new medium. This session will explore the nuts, bolts, and benefits of turning pieces of writing into sound-rich, spoken narratives that stand on their own as works of art.

Going There: Writing the Complicated Truth in the World’s Hot Spots. (Joanna Eleftheriou, Kimberly Meyer, Beth Peterson, Brittany Bennett, Natalie Bakopoulos)

In the age of the 30-second news clip, too often places of crisis beyond our borders become oversimplified and stereotyped. In this roundtable panel, four writers practicing in a variety of genres and writing about diverse hot spots—Norway’s collapsing glaciers, bankrupt Greece, the Sinai Desert with ISIS in the north, the US with its racial injustice—will examine ways to harness the energy bred by news clips while navigating the preconceptions readers bring to our work.

Greater Than the Sum: Collaborations Between Publishers. (Wayne Miller, Brigid Hughes, Kathryn Nuernberger, Martin Rock, Daniel Slager)

Now that small and independent presses do more of the heavy lifting in the literary world than was once the case, a number of presses and literary journals have sought out innovative collaborations to enhance visibility, production, and reach. The editors of Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Milkweed Editions, Pleiades Press, and A Public Space discuss the goals, methods, and benefits of collaborative publishing projects, paying particular attention to their own collaborations currently underway.

Guilty Pleasures: Autobiography into Fiction. (Bonita Friedman, Alice Dark, Patricia Foster, Marilyn Abildskov)

This panel will examine the ways that writers formed by memoir and the personal essay utilize their life story as a catalyst for fiction. How do writers use the emotional capacities of the self as a model for a fictional character? How do they embellish, complicate, and make revelatory the known self, the self whose paradox is the tension of their being? Such characterization suggests a delicate negotiation between vanity and abjection, aggrandizement and repression. Why not stay with memoir?

Gulf Coast: 30 Years in the Life of a Student-Run Journal. (Sean Bishop, Zachary Martin, Laurie Cedilnik, Martin Rock, Sasha West)

How do you curate something that is both institution and reinvention? Started by Donald Barthelme and Phillip Lopate in 1986, Gulf Coast changes editors every two years. Editors from the last 15 years will talk about favorite published pieces from their tenure. They will discuss how to navigate the unusual model of a journal that is both student-run and independent non-profit, that seeks to integrate visual and verbal arts, and that exists to launch both writers and editors.

Gwendolyn Brooks 100th Anniversary Tribute. (Mike Puican, Nora Brooks Blakely, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Reginald Gibbons)

2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Gwendolyn Brooks, the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. Despite her accomplishments and immense influence on 20th-century writing, her place in the canon does not sufficiently reflect her work as a poet, member of the Black Arts movement, and agent for social change. Five people who knew her, including her daughter, Nora Brooks Blakely, will read her work and share observations of her enduring artistic, social, and personal impact.

Half of Literature Lost: Women's Writing and the Politics of Erasure. (Rene Steinke, Cherene Sherrard, Terese Svoboda, Elizabeth Spires)

Why does the work of so many incredibly accomplished women writers regularly praised by the American literary establishment fall into relative obscurity on their death, and their legacy seemingly vanish? Ageism, gender bias, racism, the scattering of work, difficult executors and bad timing? Panelists will discuss the writing of Josephine Jacobsen, Lola Ridge, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, and Dorothy West.

Halo-halo: The Ingredients of the Global Conference. (Tim Tomlinson, Jane Camens, Fan Dai, Alvin Pang, Sarah Tooth)

Halo-halo is a Filipino dessert of many ingredients. It translates, roughly, as "mixed together," or (mistakenly) "mixed up." Both translations might apply to the global workshop/conference. What goes into the creation and execution of the successful global conference? How does the conference ensure a little energy, a little synergy, a little craft, a little theory, while at the same time providing flavorful measures of local experience? What's the balance between education and recreation?

Hmong American Writers' Circle. (Anthony Cody, Khaty Xiong, Ying Thao, Andre Yang, Soul Vang)

Over 40 years have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, and the Hmong American literary voice has started to emerge on a national landscape. First and second generation Hmong American writers read their works and discuss the ways in which literary citizenship has helped them navigate writing in an adopted tongue, process the trauma of exile and war, and insert themselves into publishing and editing to create their own spaces for growth and voice.

Home: A Four-Letter Word. (Kelly McMasters, Rachel DeWoskin, Hasanthika Sirisena, Naomi Jackson, Sonya Chung)

Home is a loaded word, a complex idea: it's a place that's safe, sentimental, difficult, nourishing, war-torn and political. It's a place we escape and a place we create. This panel of women writers will discuss the ways in which they confront home in their work, including writing within and rebelling against the idea of home as a woman's place. What choices do we make to reveal, deconstruct, and imagine homes for our characters? In what ways do our homes inform our real and imagined selves?

How to Publish Your Book Without an Agent. (Thaddeus Rutkowski, Robert Giron, Janice Eidus, Meg Tuite, Joanna Sit)

How do you place your manuscript with a good publisher if you don’t have a literary agent? Writers who have successfully done so will explain the process. This discussion will identify presses that consider unsolicited manuscripts and will tell how to find listings, reading periods and contests. Panelists are fiction writers and poets who have placed their books with independent publishers. The panel also includes the head of a respected small press, who will provide the publisher's perspective.

Hybrid Genres and Hybrid Forms: How YA Lit is Breaking All the Rules. (Bryan Bliss, Nova Ren Suma, Micol Ostow, Christine Heppermann, Kristen-Paige Madonia)

Whether writing a novel in verse or merging contemporary realism with historical fiction or horror, publishing hybrid fiction poses a wide-range of challenges and benefits. Panelists will discuss pros and cons of blending forms and genres and will examine ways hybrid novels can be used to engage reluctant readers and broaden an author's audience. We will provide a list of young adult hybrid “must reads” and will share craft techniques for those interested in experimenting with the hybrid form.

I Did It My Way: Writing Who We Are. (Susan Orlean, Luis Alberto Urrea, Kevin Young, Celeste Ng, Melissa Stein)

What is this writing voice we’re always hearing about, and do we need one? Does a unifying vision or voice just happen, or is it something we work at? And once we've established a style that feels like our own, how do we avoid pigeonholing ourselves? How can we counter pressures and expectations—internal, cultural, racial, gendered, genre, professional—and just write? Five award-winning poets and prose writers share insights on the role of style and identity in the creative process.

I Didn’t Ask to be in Your Story: When Real Names Matter and When They Don’t. (Michael Steinberg, Mimi Schwartz, Phillip Lopate, Richard Hoffman, Laurie Stone)

When do real names matter? The decision involves ethics, liabilities, trust, and friendship, and it is one we face whenever writing about family, friends and strangers whose stories are entwined with ours. Suppose we see people differently than they see themselves? Or they have secrets we need to reveal? Or there are unintended consequences? Suppose disguise limits or enhances truth? Five nonfiction teacher/writers will share their experience telling other people’s stories as part of our own.

I Sing the Body Queer and Crip. (Kathi Wolfe, Meg Day, Raymond Luczak, Lydia X. Z. Brown)

Due to ableism, homophobia and transphobia, the voices of LGBTQIA and disabled poets have rarely been heard. The panel I Sing the Body Queer and Crip will focus on the intersectionality of disability and queer poetics. Each panelist will read their poetry for 5 to 7 minutes; then talk from 5 to 7 minutes about their work. The remainder of the panel will be Q&A with the audience.

I Survived--and Thrived: Conference Veterans Discuss the Benefits and Drawbacks of Writing Conferences. (Eric Sasson, Sian Griffiths, Todd Kaneko, Amina Gautier, Jaquira Diaz)

Ernest Hemingway said, “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing.” We’re not so sure he’s right. This panel assembles veterans of the Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Tin House, Kundiman, and other conferences to discuss what one can and cannot expect. Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Are these simply writing “summer camps," or can the writer anticipate tangible results to her craft, critique, and community?

I Was Dreaming When I Wrote This: Prince as Influence and Icon. (Jess Row, Stephen Burt, Kaitlin Greenidge, Tisa Bryant, Martha Southgate)

After his death in April 2016, Prince was celebrated not only as a musician but as a cultural icon—an artist who refused to limit or categorize his gender, his religion, or the politics of his imagination. This panel considers Prince's enormous influence on contemporary American writing, from experimental poetry and writing in performance to autobiographical fiction and memoir.

I wouldn’t go there if I were you: Literary journalism and the craft of writing dangerous places. (Benjamin Busch, Jennifer Percy, Elliot Ackerman, Deni Béchard)

When writers of poetry, creative nonfiction, or fiction serve as overseas correspondents, the narratives they craft are deeply felt and unique. From travel and interpreters to notes and drafts, these writers ventured to the fringe to experience their stories. This panel explores how four writers chased curiosity into endangerment to bring back stunning portraits of war, disease, humanity and environment in crisis and how they teach ways to write literary reportage in workshops and MFA programs.

I'll Take You There: Place in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. (Ethan Rutherford, Paul Yoon, Edward McPherson, francine harris)

Establishing a strong sense of place in a work of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction is difficult but essential. As Dorothy Allison tells us, place is not just setting—a physical landscape—but so much more: it’s context, feeling, invitation, desire, particular language, and emotion. On this cross-genre panel, four writers will discuss the importance of place in their own work, how to put place on the page, and how to navigate the electric current between a physical landscape and an emotional one.

I’ve never heard of that country: Sri Lankan American writers on shaping an emerging literary identity. (SJ Sindu, Nayomi Munaweera, Vyshali Manivannan, Sunil Yapa)

Sri Lankan American fiction as a category is relatively new in the literary landscape. On this panel, SLA writers who have grown up in the U.S. will talk about their relationship with Sri Lanka, how they view their writing in relation to SLA lit, what they see as the contours of emerging SLA fiction (specifically in relation to violence and war, which SLA writers have inherited in blood-memory and familial trauma), and where they hope to see SLA fiction grow.

If You Build It, They Will Write: How to Curate, Edit, Pitch, and Release a Successful Anthology. (T.A. Noonan, Vanessa Villarreal, Carlo Matos, Lynn Melnick, E. Kristin Anderson)

Anthologies offer a unique opportunity to unify the voices of multiple writers under a single literary umbrella, but putting them together presents a number of editorial challenges. Among them are conceptualizing the anthology, drafting a call for submissions, soliciting authors, curating work, finding a publisher, and promoting the final product to potential readers. In this panel, five editors discuss strategies for bringing anthologies into the world.

If You Build It, Will They Come? (Becka Oliver, Nora Comstock, Sarah Colwill-Brown, Jennifer Dodgson)

Literary communities contain readers, writers, publishers, editors, agents, publicists, and booksellers with unique needs and goals shaped by their neighborhood, city, and regions. How can literary organizations and writing centers increase participation in and by their community? This panel will offer strategies for creating a more inclusive literary scene that is valued at the civic level just as visual arts, music, ballet, and opera are valued as a vital part of a city's cultural heritage.

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say: How to Write Stories People Don't Want Told. (Garrard Conley, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Michael Twitty, Kristen Green)

We all know not to talk politics, religion or money at the dinner table, but should these subjects be off limits for storytelling? Some of the best writing comes from tackling topics people would rather not discuss. These journalists and memoirists have written about gay "conversion" therapy, segregation in school, shameful family secrets, and tracing slave lineage. The panelists will explain how to report stories when sources don’t want to talk and will share the price they paid for doing so.

Imagining the Essay. (Rebecca McClanahan, Fleda Brown, Lia Purpura, Ander Monson)

Imagination, which might be defined as unfettered curiosity, a hunger for inner adventure, and a willingness to incarnate in the other, is at the heart of the essayist’s craft. On this panel four essayists/ teachers of the form (representing personal, lyric, narrative, and hybrid subgenres) discuss ways to imagine into one’s work by reconceiving structure and time, inviting contradictions and collisions, attending to the strangeness of fact, and moving aurally and physically with language.

Immigrants/Children of Immigrants: a Non-traditional Path to a Writing Career. (Ken Chen, Monica Youn, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Juan Martinez, Irina Reyn)

Not only do you not have an uncle in publishing or see people from the neighborhood get MFAs, immigrants and children of immigrants are inculcated to opt for "safe," "secure," often well-paying jobs; a writing career may seem like an unimaginable luxury or a fantasy. This panel of working writers will look at both psychic and structural issues that add a special challenge for writers from immigrant families

Immigration: Cultural Binding, Creative Chaos & The Survival of International Writers. (Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, Octavio Quintanilla, Deema Shehabi, Alexander Cigale, Hedy Habra)

How does immigration affect a writer's creative pursuit in another country? There are many success stories of immigrant writers, but there is yet another side of their stories to tell their challenges after migrating to another country, either by choice or in an event that forces a migration. Immigration results in binding of cultures, but also leads to a creative chaos in want of proper opportunities, recognition and an environment one needs to be creative and productive; a much needed debate!

In the Box / Out of the Box: Writing With/Against Your Gender/Race/Ethnicity/Etc. (Bich Minh Nguyen Nguyen, Luis Alberto Urrea, Kelly Luce, Rob Spillman, Christian Kiefer)

As fiction writers, we often feel pressure to write inside the confines our own experience, as defined by our ethnic identity, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, and so on. This panel explores the edges and interstices of that pressure. In what contexts is it acceptable to write outside such confines? In what contexts is it not? What does "diversity" mean when creating a fictional world? As writers, who has cultural permission to press past the confines of one's own identity?

Inclusive Anthologies: The Challenge of Building Books That Reflect Our World. (James Engelhardt, Holly Hughes, Nancy Lord, Jill Johnson, Tina Schumann)

Five anthology editors will discuss the choices they’ve made in soliciting writers of varied backgrounds and experiences to reach a broader, more diverse audience. How best to solicit diverse contributors? Should submissions be read “blind” or with knowledge of and attention to writer background? Each panelist will share what (s)he’s learned from creating anthologies that reflect our world, including strategies for making the experience both broadening and meaningful.

Independent Bookselling: Opportunities for Authors. (Jake Cumsky-Whitlock, Anna Thorn, Lissa Muscatine, Dennis Johnson)

As bookstore chains disappear and independent bookstores become even more important, what should writers and authors know about working with booksellers? This panel from DC-area bookstores will discuss how writers can work with independent booksellers to market a book. Topics will include author events, store placement, joint promotion, and how to spread the word to the book-buying public.

Indigenous-Aboriginal American Writers Caucus. (Shauna Osborn, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Karenne Wood, Edgar Gabriel Silex, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran)

Indigenous writers & scholars participate fluidly in AWP, teaching & directing affiliated programs, or working as independent writers/scholars, &/or in language revitalization & community programming. Annually imparting field-related craft, pedagogy, celebrations and concerns as understood by Indigenous-Native writers from the Americas and surrounding island nations is necessary. AWP Conferences began representative caucus discussions 2010-2016. Essential program development continues in 2017.

Invisible Illness, Tangible Language: How Disability Influences Craft. (Emily Corwin, D Allen, CL Black, Nicole Oquendo, Aubrie Cox)

If writing is a physical act, how does craft adapt when the body fails you? And what of the stigma attached to the label "disabled writer"? Five writers and editors will discuss how living with conditions such as fibromyalgia, Crohn's Disease, and PTSD influence writing practices and routines, form and content, and working with a publisher.

Invisible Scaffolds: The Writer-Editor Collaborative Process. (Tony Leuzzi, Joseph Salvatore, Matthew Vollmer, Peter Conners, Karen Braziller)

Successful collaborations between writers and editors must involve mutual trust and respect in order to best serve manuscripts and the needs and vision of the presses that publish them. This panel of widely-experienced editors, poets, fiction writers, and critics will explore the challenges and rewards of those collaborative processes that guide manuscripts from their initial acceptance, though various stages of revision, and ultimately to publication.

Jim Harrison: A Remembrance and Celebration. (Todd Davis, Chris Dombrowski, M.L. Smoker, Dan Gerber, Annick Smith)

With Jim Harrison’s death on March 28, 2016, the world lost a storyteller who worked outside the literary mainstream, celebrating his appetites for the natural world, food, good bird dogs, and physical love. Author of more than twenty volumes of fiction and fourteen books of poetry, Harrison’s influence on the landscape of American literature is indelible and undeniable. The panel will consider the import of his writing, celebrating his legacy by reading from his work and commenting upon it.

Judith Ortiz Cofer--Woman In Front of the Sun. (Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés, Kathryn Locey, Rafael Ocasio, Lauren Cobb, Judith Ortiz Cofer)

Author of 17 books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, Judith Ortiz Cofer mines the terrain of the immigrant, vulnerable and most marginalized in society. Her writing, particular and universal in scope, expound upon the lives of both island and stateside Puerto Ricans. A groundbreaking author of multi-genre works, Cofer has also served as a nurturing model for emerging writers under her tutelage. Former students/colleagues praise her artistry as well as pay tribute her caring teaching/mentoring.

Juggling from Within, The Art of Voice. (Helen Peppe, David Mura, Sue William Silverman, Alice Cohen, Suzanne Strempek Shea)

Nonfiction characterization is complex as we decide which version of our shifting selves to call up from memory. Our child narrator is years away, cognitively and physically, from our teenage narrators who, if we connect with our memories realistically, change with each breath and often not for the better. How do we disconnect from our present narrative selves who like to interfere with experience and reflection? Join us for a discussion on how to use voice to artfully narrate personal stories

Just Don't Read the Comments: On the Joys and Risks of Publishing Personal Essays Online. (William Bradley, Laura Bogart, Penny Guisinger, Sarah Kilch Gaffney)

Technological innovation has brought many opportunities to essayists. The rise of online magazines and websites that specialize in personal writing allow us to reach a large and diverse audience. However, these opportunities also come with problems, from mean-spirited trolls casting aspersions in comments sections all the way up to serious harassment and even physical threats. These panelists will discuss their own triumphs and frustrations with publishing personal essays online.