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

K-12 Educator Caucus. (David Griffith, Kim Henderson, Margaret Funkhouser)

A meeting of K-12 writer-educators to share best practices and strategies for building and maintaining writing series and programs in schools, and to discuss challenges of teaching creative writing in the K-12 classroom.

Know Your Place: Great Lakes Literary Arts Organizations on the Impact of Location. (Karen Schubert, Kelly Fordon, Janine Harrison, Lee Chilcote, David Hassler)

As literary arts centers, we consider ways we are shaped by community. How does our landscape frame the search for funding? What local problem might we take on? Who is our target audience, and what idiosyncratic barriers might they face? How does information move? Should we avoid duplicating other organizations? What is the artistic context and density of our place? Join nonprofits, new to seasoned, for a discussion on knowing the neighborhood and being responsive to a local community.

Latina Memoir: Writing a New Chapter of the American Experience. (Reyna Grande, Daisy Hernandez, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Joy Castro, Norma Elia Cantu)

Memoir begins with memory but is more than a collection of memories. Since memoir captures just a slice of the writer’s life, where to start and where to end, what to put in and what to leave out are crucial elements in its crafting. This panel of Latina memoirists discuss their unique approaches to writing, their fears of exposing themselves on the page, and their sense of responsibility to gender, family, community and culture. What power does memoir have to transform the writer, the reader?

Latino Caucus. (Ruben Quesada, Fred Arroyo, Suzi Garcia, Alexandra Regalado, Dan Vera)

The visibility of Latinos & Latin Americans is growing in the literary community. However a discussion surrounding systematic, institutional, & aesthetic challenges is needed. Latinos need a space to come together, to address inequalities in access, to meet with writers of varied Latino & Latin American identities, to discuss the obstacles to publishing (e.g. cultural expectations, stereotypes, & marginalization), & to discuss event planning to increase our participation at AWP.

Latinx Literary Activism: A CantoMundo Roundtable. (Celeste Guzmán Mendoza, Javier Zamora, Millicent Borges Accardi, Valerie Martinez, Denice Frohman)

How are Latinx poets occupying and transforming the roles and responsibilities of literary activists? This panel convenes fellows and faculty from CantoMundo, a national organization for Latinx poets, to discuss their literary activism as organizers, publishers, editors, performers, and directors of organizations that serve Latinx writers. Our roundtable conversation explores the particular challenges, visions, and contributions of Latinx literary activism.

Leashing the Beast: Humanizing Fictional Monsters. (Anna Sutton, Steven Sherrill, Clare Beams, Kate Bernheimer, Julia Elliott)

Want to write fabulous fabulist fiction? Bring your beasts to the table. Panelists will discuss their influences, inspiration, and how they go about creating characters who exist between human and monster, mundane and extraordinary. In addition, they will explore how writing a fantastical other can open up the conversation to contemporary societal issues, all while cultivating empathy within both the writer and the reader.

LGBTQ Caucus. (Tiffany Ferentini, Miguel M. Morales, Todd Summar, Samantha Tetangco, Sean Patrick Mulroy)

The LGBTQ Caucus provides a space for writers who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer to network and discuss common issues and challenges, such as representation and visibility on and off the literary page; and incorporating one’s personal identity into their professional and academic lives. The Caucus also strives to discuss, develop, and increase queer representation for future AWP conferences, and serve as a supportive community and resource for its members.

Liberate Literature: Creating an Artistic Culture outside of Academia. (Jennifer Fitzgerald, Rodrigo Toscano, Rosalyn Spencer, Ailish Hopper, Rosebud Ben-Oni)

Academic affiliation is not an option for many people of color, economically poor, geographically isolated, or traditionally excluded groups. Panelists will show how systems used for community organizing can be shifted to grassroots artistic organizing in the form of cultural centers, worker centers, readings, & workshops. Community building around art and literature creates a means of access for under-served communities. Attendees will leave with tangible solutions and plans for action.

Lit and the City: Challenges and Advantages of Urban Literary Centers. (Carla Du Pree, Joe Callahan, Reginald Harris, Michael Khandelwal, Gregg Wilhelm)

Literary centers make valuable contributions to a city's cultural tapestry, but running a center in a city has unique challenges. An organization's mission and programs must serve diverse constituencies who inhabit cities. Venue space can be scarce or available at a premium. Funding opportunities might be thin when larger institutions commandeer the lion's share of support. And some cities "roll up the sidewalks" after 5pm. Learn do's and don'ts of sustaining a center in the city.

Literary Awards: Help or Hindrance? (Paul Morris, Tiphanie Yanique, Jess Row, Mia Alvar)

Literary awards and prizes excite regular interest; writers, editors, publishers, and readers all pay attention to them. What roles do awards and prizes play in our literary culture? Who judges them, and for what constituencies? How are individual writers and groups of writers helped or hindered by them? What role can and should money play? Several writers who have judged or received literary awards and prizes will discuss the pros, cons, implications, and complications.

Literary Fascination: What happens when non-native American writers write about Native Americans? (Kimberly Blaeser, Erin Stalcup, Alexandria Delcourt, Kristiana Kahakauwila)

Why do non-native writers want to write about Native American cultures? Is this a form of colonization? A mixed panel of Native and non-native writers will approach these questions from both a historical and literary lens. The panel will discuss the effect this phenomenon has on contemporary Native writers, and also American fiction and history as a whole, considering how books about Natives are actually written by Natives themselves.

Looking Outward: Avoiding the Conventional Memoir. (Steve Woodward, Paul Lisicky, Belle Boggs, Angela Palm)

All too often, memoir falls into a familiar, conventional pattern of confession and redemption. But how do you tell a personal story when life doesn’t conform to that shape? And how can a writer with a variety of interests incorporate those subjects into a personal narrative? Three Graywolf Press nonfiction authors discuss their approaches to writing about life—and subjects as disparate as infertility, nature, friendship, science, grief, and art—in personal and intimate detail.

Loose, Faithful, and Literal: Adaptation from Novel to Screen. (Christine Vachon, Neal Gabler, Meg Wolitzer, Magdalene Brandeis)

In adapting a long story into the moving picture medium, screenwriters and directors may vary in terms of the degree and nature of how faithfully, loosely, or literally they cling to the original story. In a novel, a character can muse about his or her backstory, in a screenplay, the backstory has to be seen in an instant. The same is true about setting, character, plot, theme and story. An open discussion among the legends of the field about what makes stories work on screens of all sizes.

Low-Residency MFA Director’s Caucus. (Sean Nevin, Eric Goodman)

The low-residency director’s caucus is an open-forum caucus to discuss issues pertaining to the establishment and administration of all AWP low-residency MFA programs.

Major problems with minor characters in CNF. (Penny Guisinger, Sarah Einstein, Karen McElmurray, Lisa Chavez, Tessa Mellas)

Just like fiction, CNF includes major and minor characters. The ex-husband, the relative, the neighbor – these characters serve an important role in a minor way. We do not have the space to fully develop them, so we choose something about that person that best serves the piece. However, unlike fiction, these are real people who didn’t ask to be in our writing, and often don’t appreciate being represented one-dimensionally. This panel explores techniques for managing this problem.

Making Canons, Losing Friends: On Making, Revising, Critiquing and Reading Anthologies. (Stephen Burt, John Kulka, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Cate Marvin, Sina Queyras)

In theory, collecting new writing should be simple: you pick what you consider best. In practice, the practice involves complex, urgent questions about race, gender, style, privilege, geography, fairness, fame and finances. It's also awkward: when can you pick your friends? Five writers, critics, editors and publishers who have made US and non-US anthologies of poetry, essays and fiction consider their pitfalls, secrets, and rewards.

Making Space in Children's Publishing: An Intersectional Feminsit of Color Perspective. (Mathangi Subramanian, Zetta Elliott, Rhoda Belleza, Maya Gonzalez)

Lee & Low’s 2015 Diversity Baseline Survey shows that the publishing industry is dominated by straight, cisgender white women who don’t live with a disability. This homogeneity creates barriers for women of color (WoC) to find community and gain entrance into publishing, a fact support by data gathered annually by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center. In this panel, four feminist WoC authors will discuss the ways in which their intersectional identities have influenced their craft and careers.

Marking the Occasion: The Necessity of Occasional Poetry. (Katie Bickham, Richard Blanco, Ani Finch, Tony Barnstone, Tara Betts)

From the presidential inauguration to the birth of a baby, occasional poems, or poems written for special occasions, are irreplaceable in their capacity to commemorate and ritualize our human milestones. They are doubly valuable, however, in their ability to bring poetry to an audience who might not otherwise interact with poems in their everyday lives. Poets who specialize in the composition of occasional poems will discuss their approaches and processes and share their own occasional poetry.

Measuring up: Creative Assessment in Creative Writing Programs. (Matthew Monk, Bich Minh Nguyen, Sarah Harwell, Ellen Litman, Miciah Bay Gault)

AWP advises graduate creative writing programs to nurture and expedite the development of a literary artist. Good writing teachers do just this. But writing programs are also under intense pressure from accrediting associations to measure student achievement using quantitative and qualitative methods. This panel of faculty, administrators, and a college dean offers concrete ways writing programs use mandated assessment guidelines to enhance, rather than hinder, writing curricula.

Mentoring, Mansplaining, Mothering: Directing Creative Writing Programs While Female. (Leanna James Blackwell, Judith Baumel, Laura Valeri, Janet Sylvester, Stephanie Vanderslice)

What kinds of gendered obstacles do directors encounter in the academy? How do female directors counter sexism directed at faculty or students? Our panel brings together 5 creative writing program directors—three graduate and two undergraduate—to share the challenges of directing “while female.” Each will go beyond sharing these challenges to suggest specific ways directors can transcend sexism they might encounter in the academy and draw upon their strengths to enhance their programs.

MFA or Bust? (Nancy Hightower, Amber Sparks, Lincoln Michel, Brandon Taylor, Stephanie Feldman)

For increasing numbers of writers, MFA programs are an entry to the publishing world. How does this trend affect writers without the degree? What kinds of non-academic credentials can help all writers in their careers? How does one become part of a literary community? What are the attitudes towards writers who do not teach? This diverse panel discusses the increasing cross pollination between writers with MFAs and writers with other academic degrees that create a stronger literary community.

Mining a Dark Vein: Writing about Appalachia and America’s Working Class. (Larry Bingham, Jayne Anne Phillips, Amy Clark, Crystal Wilkinson, Jeff Mann)

Six hours from the capital, in the Appalachian coalfields, lives a working class—people feeling angry, marginalized and stereotyped. On display during elections, this misunderstood population spans 13 states but is largely absent from America’s literary conversation. In this panel, 5 writers with intimate knowledge of Appalachia explore how we can understand its traumas, value its truth and tell its complex stories.

Mommy Dearest/Daughter Darling: Putting Words in Her Mouth. (Michelle Herman, Kathyn Rhett, Cade Leebron, Meghan Daum)

Whose story is this anyway? Women writing about their daughters and women writing about their mothers--and a mother and daughter pair of nonfiction writers who frequently write about each other and thus offer an unusual lens on the question of "story ownership" and point of view--come together across the genres to talk about the challenges, joys, pressures, and consequences of exploring these relationships in both poetry and prose with real-life examples of writing and publishing experiences.

Money, Power, and Transparency in the Writing World. (Natalie Shapero, Sarah Blake, Kima Jones, Morgan Parker, Jane Friedman)

As writers, we’re too often in the dark about how money is allocated in the institutions where we work, publish, and produce. When we’re negotiating paychecks and contracts, we often don’t know how much to ask for, or we don’t have access to how the surrounding systems work. When we’re asked to do uncompensated work, we often don’t know if it’s worth it. Join us for some much-needed frankness about money from a freelancer, a publicist, an editor, a professor, and a screenwriter.

Mother Lode, Mother Load: Writing Difficult Mothers and Others. (Janice Gary, Lisa Chavez, Luisa Igloria, Karen McElmurray, Sue William Silverman)

Restless mother/from your breasts I sucked/ electrified milk/ harsh lessons, Neruda writes in “Ode to Restlessness.” This panel of five women writers—memoirists, poets, novelists, all from diverse backgrounds—explores how growing up with a mother or other adult who wielded wounding power over their lives has influenced their work. How does this mother lode work both as a vein of abundant resource and as inscrutable burden? What happens to writing after the spell of childhood is broken?

Murder She Wrote: Women Writers on Writing Violence. (Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Robin Wasserman, R. O. Kwon, Nancy Rommelmann, Chinelo Okparanta)

From the deaths of the Clutter family in In Cold Blood to Sethe’s murder of her daughter in Beloved, brutal violence figures prominently in some of our most loved books. But how much blood on the page is vivid, arresting writing—and how much crosses over into sensationalism or exploitation? Five writers whose books grapple with violence--both real and imagined--talk about the choices, ethics, and strategies of rendering moments of high crime.

My First Year: from Graduate School to Academic Life. (Callista Buchen, Amy Ash, Jennifer Colatosti, Louise Krug, Benjamin Cartwright)

How can mentors and students better prepare for a variety of academic paths? This panel takes a case-study approach—five recent creative writing PhD graduates share where they landed (from community colleges to small liberal arts colleges to large state schools), what they wish they had known (both at the start of grad school and at the start of the job search), and to what extent their experiences in graduate school prepared them for their different academic lives.

Mystery in the Writing Process: Discovery, Revelation and Withholding for Writers and Their Readers. (Kekla Magoon, William Alexander, Nova Ren Suma, David Macinnis Gill)

Cultivating a sense of mystery is at the core of what writers do. In the drafting process, we work to solve the mysteries of our story, while striving to keep the same sense of mystery alive for our readers in the final piece. The result is a compelling creative puzzle, in which we strive to know all but share only what is relevant. How much to reveal, and how much to withhold? Four middle grade and YA novelists explore this balance of suspense, discovery, and the careful reveal of information.

Narratives of Immigration and Displacement. (Ranjan Adiga, M Thomas Gammarino, David N Odhiambo, Snezana Zabic)

Displacement, exile, immigration are compelling motifs in literature, but are not always glorious to experience. Our panel features poets, essayists, and fiction writers from Kenya, Croatia, Hong Kong, Nepal, and the U.S. East Coast who have migrated out of choice or exile to find new homes in/within the United States. We will explore the tropes of “us” and “them”; histories and boundaries; assimilations and identities; and languages and voices that create our narratives and aesthetic choices.

National Monuments: The Poetry of Contested Spaces. (Chris Santiago, Craig Santos Perez, Aimee Suzara, Heid E. Erdrich, Brandon Som)

The U.S. has 121 protected areas known as national monuments, many of which can be found in Washington, D.C. A distinguished panel of poets considers these natural and human-made landmarks as conservation sites, as poetic subjects, and as contested spaces of living Native American, Mexican American, Asian American, and Pacific Islander cultures. The panel will also consider national monuments in the broader sense of the myth-making of nation states and ongoing struggles over canon formation.

No Easy Readers: On the Art and Craft of Writing for Children. (William Alexander, Tracey Baptiste, Laurel Snyder, Linda Urban, Anne Ursu)

Middle grade readers are independent, discerning, and critically merciless. They will not tolerate condescension, and their taste is impeccable. Writing for them is as much of a challenge as it a joy. In this conversation four of today's most exciting writers of middle grade fiction will discuss innovation and experimentation, inclusivity, the perils of the adult gaze, and other challenges unique to the craft of writing novels for the youngest, toughest readers.

Nope, That Still Ain’t a Story: Developmental Editing in Creative Nonfiction. (Susan Petrie, William Patrick, Amy Ryan, Anthony D'Aries, Annette Schiebout)

First-time authors can be ambivalent about the editing process. Will my story be altered? Will I retain my voice? This panel brings together 3 first-time small press authors with their developmental editor to clarify and explain what developmental nonfiction editing is and what it accomplishes. Participants will discuss how projects become refined, how storytelling skills improve, and talk about the importance of a more compelling, confident voice in a content-saturated environment.

Not Invisible: Editors of Literary Journals Speak Out on Disability and Building Inclusive Writing Communities. (Sheila McMullin, Marlena Chertock, Jill Khoury, Mike Northen, Sheryl Rivett)

Disability voices are underrepresented in literature; the VIDA Count further points to this. Examining social ramifications of exclusion, this panel explores ableism in the literary world, barriers to accessibility and publishing, and promotion of disability literature. Editors of online magazines actively seeking work from writers routinely excluded from the literary field discuss disability, impairment, and embodiment with the intention of building inclusive and dynamic writing communities.

Not Just Novelists: On Publishing Contemporary African Poets. (Matthew Shenoda, Chris Abani, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Tsitsi Jaji, Mukoma wa Ngugi)

Across a vast continent of more than 50 nations, contemporary African poets are writing into an increasingly global culture. Despite growing enthusiasm for the African novel, few are reading—and fewer publishing—African poets. Editors and writers from the African Poetry Book Fund, dedicated to publishing and promoting African poets, discuss the challenges in locating the most interesting poetry coming out of Africa and strategies to connect these writers to an international literary audience.

Novels and Short Stories: How a Narrative Finds Its Form. (Jeffery Renard Allen, Deb Olin Unferth, Jon Raymond, Sara Majka, J. Robert Lennon)

Five Graywolf Press authors read from their new and forthcoming books and discuss the differences inherent in writing short stories and novels. Are some narratives best suited to one form or another? How does each form demand a different approach to the writing process? Does the length and shape of the narrative restrict or enhance the story being told? These authors, who range in experience from established to emerging, bring a variety of perspectives to bear on these questions and more.

O Howard We Sing of Thee: HU Alumni Reflect on their Path to Poetry from “The Mecca”. (Abdul Ali, Yona Harvey, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Douglas Kearney)

To celebrate Howard University’s 150 year anniversary, a panel of Howard University alumni, who represent various styles, literary experiments and stages in their writing career, address the unique gift that Howard University provided in making each of them aware of a long literary tradition that dates back to the Harlem Renaissance, which took root, also in Washington D.C. Our goal is to touch on how attending a historically Black College provided a wonderful springboard into American letters.

Old Journals, New Writing: Editors on History and Discovery. (Jody Bolz, Kwame Dawes, Ethelbert Miller, Jeremy Schraffenberger, Don Share)

As editors of four of the nation’s oldest literary journals, the panelists are mindful of tradition but eager to break new ground in the contemporary literary landscape. The discussion will focus on how and why these publications—North American Review (since 1815), Poet Lore (since 1889), Poetry (since 1912), and Prairie Schooner (since 1926)—may be well positioned to recognize and welcome new writers because of what their archives reveal about literary history.

On Caucuses: Caucus Leaders Unite. (Miguel M. Morales, Bojan Louis, Ruben Quesada, Alyss Dixson, Tiffany Ferentini)

What do AWP caucuses do? Why are they important? Want to form a caucus or become more active? Come hear from minority caucus leaders (African Diaspora, Indigenous, Latino, LGBTQ) on the state of AWP's caucus system. Learn about the information sharing and the work our united caucuses are doing. Join one of the special initiatives we're launching to improve the AWP annual conference for everyone. We'll also offer a comprehensive guide to caucus events and volunteer opportunities at #AWP17.

On Girdling Digression: Plutarch’s Influence on the Contemporary Essay. (Matthew Gavin Frank, Adrianne Kalfopoulou, Elena Passarello, Inara Verzemnieks, Jericho Parms)

The malleable parameters of the contemporary essay, while sometimes overwhelmingly myriad, can be traced to the tenets perpetuated by Plutarch, the first known pioneer of the essay, in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. We will discuss the ways in which Plutarch engaged various cultural constructs, including, but not limited to ceremony, food, introversion, space and time, and how such meditations have impacted the stylistic philosophies that shape much of the literary essay writing of today.

On the Care and Feeding of Interns, the Lifeblood of Lit Mags. (Julie Wakeman-Linn, Marcia Parlow, Mark Drew, Erin Hoover)

Literary publications often depend on the contributions, support, and assistance provided by undergraduate interns. Managing this relationship can be a tricky process, often without specific, tangible rewards or payment. In this panel editors from a wide range of literary journals reflect on their experience working with interns—how to establish a fruitful relationship, how to train them, how to help them develop editing and publishing careers, as well as the joys and trials of the process.