Awp conference & Bookfair 2018 Tentative Accepted Events

Beyond Queues and Fees: Poetry Books Outside the Contest Model (Rachel Mennies, Dan Brady, Christopher Carmona, Katie Hoerth, Diane Lockward)

As it becomes increasingly common for poets to spend hundreds of dollars in contest submission fees, and as the numbers climb for manuscript submissions, this panel—comprised of five university and small-press editors who publish outside the contest model—will discuss our submission, funding, and publication approaches. This panel shares its practices in order to offer alternative approaches to the contest model for editors, hoping to sustain an inclusive and solvent poetry community.

Beyond Skirts and Pants: Considering Gender in Children's Picture Books (Mary Quattlebaum, J. Albert Mann, Cate Berry, Leah Henderson, Jonah Heller)

Gender-related messages are both overt and hidden in picture books, often the first--and thus, especially impactful--literature shared with youngsters. As writers, how might we discern and work against problematic messages? What gaps and challenges are especially salient as we head deeper into the 21st century? Five children's authors discuss what gender equality means in terms of authors, illustrators, child protagonists, featured parents, humor, gender markers, and the publishing industry.

Beyond the I: How Research Enlarges Personal Narrative (Mimi Schwartz, Michael Steinberg, Joe Mackall, Rebecca McClanahan, Tom Larson)

True memoir, writes Patricia Hampl, is “an attempt to find not only a self but a world.” Research, whatever form it takes (interview, site visit, archival or online searches), can deepen and complicate memoir by providing historical, cultural, and political context for personal narratives. Five memoirists and teachers of the genre discuss the ways that research, well used, can enable writers to move beyond the “I,” crafting work that connects individual stories to larger issues and concerns.

Beyond the Margins: Expanding a Book Review Section (Richie Hofmann, Corey Van Landingham, Shauna Osborn, Adam Clay, Rochelle Hurt)

What is the role of the book review in 2018? How can lit mags help to raise the discourse of reviewing? How does a reviewer successfully transition from the specifics of one book to a broader dialogue? How can we better support books by people of color, people who are queer, trans, living with disabilities, and authors at the intersection of these identities? Editors gather to discuss the challenges of expanding a book review section, and what it takes to edit and publish a vibrant review.

Black Women Writers Presenting, Preserving, & Protecting Black Childhood on the Page (Jennifer Baker, Ibi Zoboi, Leah Henderson, Tracey Baptiste, Renee Watson)

Black childhood in America is its own special kind of magic filled with creativity, joy, and resilience. Black children have been innovators in music, dance, and fashion, despite facing racism and marginalization in its many forms. What responsibility do black women have in writing books featuring black children in an industry that has historically left out our voices and continually publishes dehumanizing representations of black children? Five black women writers share their experiences.

Blood of my Blood: Writing about Family, Tribe and Inheritances of the Heart (Janice Gary, Camille Dungy, Angie Chuang, Connie May Fowler, Reyna Grande)

Writers of personal essay and memoir know that their story is shaped by family influences. But we may be more connected to the emotional life of our ancestors than we realize. Recent discoveries in behavioral epigenetics reveal that memory can be passed on in the genes, meaning that our stories are intrinsically tied to those who have gone before us. This diverse panel will explore what it means to mine truth by writing from the lens of generational legacies and inheritances of the heart.

The Blues-Poetic Intersect as Medium and Method for Dissent (Bruce Arlen Wasserman, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Richard Jackson, Robert D. Vivian)

The panel will unwrap the intersect of blues music and poetry to look at the purposing of the resultant poetics as a vehicle for cultural and/or political dissent. The topic will be explored through the evaluation of the history of the blues and its impact on poetics, through audio clips, close readings and parallel comparisons as well as personal and political associations that illuminate the blues-poetic junction as medium and method for dissent.

The Body’s Story: On Writing Narratives of Illness (Sandra Beasley, Sonya Huber, Suleika Jaouad, Porochista Khakpour, Esmé Weijun Wang)

When a writer’s body asserts its story, the writer must respond. How can we truthfully represent illness on the page? What are political and philosophical concerns, particularly when readers might expect a “cure” or other reassuring resolution? Nonfiction writers talk frankly about composition process, and suggest authors for further investigation and modeling. This panel addresses practical realities of navigating teaching and publishing as a writer with disability, disease, or chronic illness.

Born on the Bayou: Five Fiction Writers with Southern Ties (Alexander Lumans, Yuri Herrera, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Emily Nemens, Mary Miller)

To label a writer “Southern” creates polarizing reactions: from endorsement to denial. Yet writers continue to explore the extraordinary cultural and physical geography of the American South. This panel gathers five fiction writers with distinct connections to different Southern states. Panelists discuss how growing up in, moving to, or leaving the South has diversely influenced their literary identities, their evolutions of creative aesthetics, and their varied reactions to external labels.

Bread Loaf Orion: New Directions in Environmental Writing (H. Emerson Blake, Ross Gay, Camille Dungy, Pam Houston, Aimee Nezhukumatathil)

The Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference was established in order to hone the skills of people writing about the natural world. The 2018 workshop will mark the conference’s 5th anniversary. More than 300 students have participated, and faculty have included some of the most important nature writers of our time. This diverse panel will read original work and discuss new directions in environmental writing that have emerged from this unique collaboration.

Bread on the Waters:  How Giving to the Community Gives Back (Lynn Powell, Lauren Clark, José Olivarez, Emily Brandt, Alan Feldman)

“A poet is somebody who opens your imagination when you think you don’t have any,” wrote a first grader during a WITS residency in a small Ohio town.  But how are writers’ own imaginations opened by the work we do in our communities, cities, and schools?  As writers who have taught or served in libraries, community organizations, schools, and youth development programs, we reflect on how community engagement deepens our own creative work and affects our artistic practice as writers.

Bridges, Not Walls: Building the Literary Community (Barbara Cole, Noah Falck, Rachelle Toarmino, Jonathon Welch)

This panel explores the challenges of building and sustaining a literary community including success stories, nuts & bolts strategies, and lessons learned. As the 3rd poorest city in America, Buffalo faces numerous challenges; and yet, the literary arts continue to thrive in this Rust Belt city. Learn how & why. Discussion topics include supporting local writers, reaching underserved populations, and fostering a cultural ecosystem that promotes the literary arts as a cornerstone of democracy.

Bridging Campus and Community: Approaches to University-Community Writing Programs (Nancy Reddy, Emari DiGiorgio, Jan Beatty, Dora Malech, Erika Jo Brown)

Universities are rich in resources that support writing – not just money, but space, human capital, the ability to generate publicity – but these resources are often used to support writers who already have the privilege of academic affiliation. Panelists representing a range of programs, including community workshops, an emerging writers conference, and partnerships with underserved communities, describe ways writers inside academia can leverage resources to support writers beyond their campus.

Bridging the Gaps Between Countries by Translation (Gloria Mindock, Andrey Gritsman, Carmen Firan, Marc Vincenz)

In our time of political and cultural challenges, multiculturalism is a priority in order to better understand the world and its diversity. Encouraging translations can make a difference to the American cultural environment, in order to broaden and facilitate the access to the rich contemporary life of letters from other parts of the globe.

Broad Humor, FunnyGrrls, Excellent Women: Fiction Writers on Gender and Comedy (Julie Schumacher, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Eileen Pollack, Asali Solomon, Mo Daviau)

How does comic fiction addressing gender become distinctive and sustain its humor? What different strategies and forms can literary writers deploy to make their fiction funny, and how does gender factor into this work being taken... seriously? What lessons can we learn from the rise of women performing comedy? How do parody and satire register on the page? Women writers of fiction with distinctive humorous styles consider approaches to questions of form, genre, pacing, and laughs.

By One's Own Hand: Writing About Suicide Loss (Nick Flynn, Linda Gray Sexton, Ruth Nolan, Gayle Brandeis, Rob Roberge)

Suicide loss is a subject often shrouded in shame and silence. How do we write narratives of suicide loss (through poetry, fiction or creative non-fiction) that are honest and cathartic, but also artful? The panelists, all survivors of suicide loss, will explore the ethics, emotions, and craft of writing about suicide.

Caucus for K-12 Teachers of Creative Writing (David Griffith, KIm Henderson, Kenyatta Rogers)

The caucus creates a space where teachers in K-12 schools, as well as those who work part time with young writers, can share their classroom experiences with the hopes of helping one another understand the complex and diverse needs of young writers in the 21st century. The meeting will feature presentations by caucus members to help generate discussion around issues of pedagogy, and how to build a creative writing curriculum that is accessible to students no matter their identity or background.

A Celebration of Edmund Keeley: Colossus of Greek Letters (Willis Barnstone, Karen Emmerich, Tony Barnstone, Kathleen Crown, Aliki Barnstone)

More than anyone, Edmund Keeley’s translations of Cavafy, Elytis, Ritsos, Seferis, and others made Modern Greek poetry widely known, profoundly influencing literature in English. Karen Emmerich, Kathleen Crown, and poet-translators Aliki, Tony, and Willis Barnstone (who’s collaborated with Keeley and known him since 1949) will discuss Keeley’s impact and career—his poetry, fiction, memoir, criticism, and founding of the Modern Greek Studies Association. Keeley will cap the event with a reading.

Challenges and Triumphs: Underrepresented Voices in Publishing (Ayesha Pande, Sonali Chanchani, Emi Ikkanda, SJ Sindu, Myles Johnson)

In this panel, we’ll hear from a diverse mix of agents, editors, and authors at different stages in their careers. The panelists will talk about the challenges they face as part of communities underrepresented within the publishing industry, their approaches to overcoming these obstacles, and what we can do to foster diversity and inclusivity amongst both readers and publishing professionals.

The Civics of Literature (Eve Bridburg, Tree Swenson, Michael Henry, Britt Udesen)

Join the leaders of GrubStreet, The Loft, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and Hugo House to discuss the role narrative can play in addressing the deep cultural divisions we face today and in helping to reimagine the common good. They will share programs they've launched which address the refugee crisis, extreme poverty, homelessness, and juvenile detention, discuss the relevance of narrative to building a healthier culture, and lead a discussion with attendees to generate new ideas.

CLMP & SPD Annual Publisher Meeting (Jeffrey Lependorf, Montana Agte-Studier, Natalie Mesnard, Laura Moriarty, Brent Cunningham)

An event for all independent literary publishers: seasoned professionals, those just starting out, and all in between. Hear what CLMP and SPD are planning for the year and share thoughts on how we can best serve our stakeholders.

Collaboration on Creative Publishing: Supporting New and Diverse Voices (Elizabeth Hodges, Kadija George, Paul Coates, Suzanne Dottino, Ibrahim Ahmad)

With 115 collective years of experience in small press publishing of diverse writers, this panel of editors, publishers and writers, involved in both journal and book publication, will discuss their own successful and creative collaborations as well as explore, with the audience, specific ideas that not only cross publications but also genres and venues.

Complex Narratives: A VIDA Voices & Views Disability Focus Interview (Melissa Studdard, Sheila Black, Porochista Khakpour, Danielle Pafunda, Lydia X. Z. Brown)

The VIDA Count recently pointed to an underrepresentation of disability voices in literature. Seeking a better understanding of the causes, nature, and ramifications of exclusion, as well as possible solutions, this panel invites interviewees to share both their own creative works relating to disability and their personal and professional insights pertaining to ableism, promotion of disability literature, barriers to accessibility and publishing, and other issues facing disabled writers.

Complicating Florida (Erika Stevens, Raymond McDaniel, Lightsey Darst, Evelina Galang, Kristen Arnett)

Florida sometimes comes off as the court jester of the United States. But writing by Floridians exposes the incongruities and felicities of living in a state with such natural beauty and diverse culture but that is also infrastructurally and politically conservative. These authors—all of them Floridians— reflect in their work the complexities and contradictions of the state. This panel convenes in order to discuss how diverse writers' works can represent home's beautiful, complicated terrain.

Conflict, Crisis, Verse: Four Poets in Conversation (Peter Molin, Jehanne Dubrow, Dunya Mikhail, Benjamin Busch, Brian Turner)

During a period of political exigency and social anxiety, how can poets and poetry teach, inspire, connect, and heal? Four widely-published and celebrated poets--two military combat veterans, an Iraqi-American emigre, and the spouse of a military officer--draw on the urgency and insight born of their experience of war to trace the dynamic relationship of poetic voice and technique, personal circumstance and perspective, and turbulent national and global events.

Crafting the Weird: Techniques of Fabulist Female Fiction (Sarah Domet, Michelle Brower, Clare Beams, Brenda Peynado, Jamey Bradbury)

Surreal, magical, or fabulist fiction has traditionally been employed to attack political systems through subversive means. Yet, women writers have adapted this genre for their own modes of critique. In this event, panelists will discuss how they use elements of the weird to address subjects such as the domestic, the female body, otherness, and LGBTQ identity. Presenters will provide examples, methods, and techniques for crafting subversive fiction that offers new methods of witnessing reality.

Crazy, Sexy Miami: Reporters tell all (S.L. (Sandi) Wisenberg, Liz Balmaseda, Madeleine Blais, Sydney P. Freedberg, Peter Richmond)

In South Florida in the 80s, today’s hot topics were already in full evidence: racial tension, terrorism, free speech, LGBTQ rights, immigration, culture clashes, epidemics (then, incurable AIDS). To explore these complicated topics Miami Herald reporters became experts in long-form, immersion, and voice-driven journalism. Prize-winning (seven Pulitzers) former staffers will explain how and why they wrote what they wrote, and connect that writing to current creative nonfiction.

The Creation of Word Thug and the Intricacies of Cross-community, Cross-disciplinary Collaboration (Rossina Zamora Liu, Jeremy Swanston, Bernadette Esposito, Meg Jacobs, Stephen McNutt)

In an era of ideological conservatism and spending cuts, how might writers, artists, and teachers work to facilitate creative expression in communities? Panelists discuss the intricacies of cross-community, cross-disciplinary collaboration during the creation and pilot of Word Thug, a critical multimedia space for community artists and writers whose works challenge dominant language and culture. How do we collaborate to support projects on climate change, hip hop culture, and youths in politics?

Creatures from the Black Lagoon: Feminist Writing from the Deep South of Florida (Laura Minor, Diane K. Roberts, Avni Janakrai, Alissa Nutting, Anton DiSclafani)

Moving beyond the legacies of Zora Neale Hurston and Marjory Kinnan Rawlings, this panel of feminist writers from Florida explore what is it like to write from one of the most reactionary parts of the country. This diverse panel of women writers will discuss what the deep south looks like and how it's perceived from its contemporary women writers. This panel will explore how the current socio- and geo-political climate of Florida affects the feminist hivemind, voice, and literature.

Crip Lit: Writing our Truths (Marlena Chertock, Nicole Oquendo, Suzanne Bair, Minadora Macheret, Jill Khoury)

Disabled writers and writers with chronic illness explore #criplit and how vital it is in a time when the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid/Medicare, and disability rights are threatened. This panel will focus on how disabled writers, who have typically had fewer publishing opportunities than able-bodied writers, are speaking our own truths, writing main characters with disabilities, using forms and hybrid work to accommodate their bodies, and creating literary communitiesthat showcase these voices.

Critical Mass: How to Organize a Hot Literary Scene Wherever You Are (Danita Berg, Lisa Roney, John King, Susan Fallows, Jesse Bradley)

Orlando is known for its theme parks and traffic, but less so for its literary community. Five members of this city’s lit scene talk about how they’ve helped to create a flourishing writing community through their college’s English departments, curated reading series, strange podcasts, literary magazines, and local literary press.

Crowdsourcing for Publishing Projects (Carey Salerno, Glory Edim, Elaina Ellis, Dani Hedlund)

Lit mag and small press publishers have been successfully raising funds for projects using crowdsourcing tools such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Learn what makes a successful crowdfunded project, from what kinds of project work best to the best kinds of perks to attract backers.

Curated Obsession: The Persona Poetry Project (Valerie Wallace, Cornelius Eady, Tyehimba Jess, Catherine Bowman, W. Todd Kaneko)

Research, sustained focus, and particularities of craft will be talking points for a conversation with five poets at different stages of their careers, who have each created an entire poetry project based on voice(s)/persona different than the their own. Discussion topics will include but not be limited to, form, following inklings, research methods, and finding the arc after the spark. Each panelist will read examples from their persona collections.

Dazzling Jimi: A Tribute to Patricia Smith (Danez Smith, Fatimah Asghar, Paul Tran, Patricia Smith, Angel Nafis )

Patricia Smith, Guggenheim Fellow and winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize, has made American poetry swagger with righteous funk for over three decades. Her poems close imagined gaps between “page” and “stage,” making her the great Black formalist of our time. In this tribute to her teaching and literary citizenship, emerging poets of color taught by Smith will read work inspired by and from her catalogue. We offer testimonies on her good name and conclude with a brief reading by Smith herself.

De Aquí y de Allá: Emerging Central American Writers on Finding their Voices in the Literary Community (Roy G. Guzman, María Isabel Alvarez, Raquel Gutierrez, Ariel Francisco, Susana Aguilar-Marcelo)

Writing about family, identity, and home is a complicated process for Central American writers in the U.S. In a literary industry that practically lumps every Latinx writer beneath the same umbrella, this panel will bring emerging writers from the triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to discuss how they write about their heritage, get published, navigate MFA creative writing programs, and deal with a geographical landscape that has marked their imaginations and their creative output.

Decolonizing the Archive: Examining the Liminal Space Between Experience and Reality (Mark Haunschild, Lauren Espinoza, David Moody, Sara Sams, Bojan Louis)

Writers of diverse ideologies, regions, and cultural inheritances discuss how their poetics try to rectify an injury between language and history. In examining their methodologies, they seek answers to the following questions: What can be recovered from the residue of rhetoric and language that imposes its own historical record? How can poetry use imagery to describe a real environment that has collapsed under the idea of that environment? How can a poet give form to what has already been lost?

Deep-Fried Mic: Running Reading Series & Building Literary Community Down South (JD Scott, Jennie Frost, Cathleen Bota, Ashley M. Jones, Carrie Lorig)

What do Atlanta, Birmingham, Knoxville, Orlando, and Tuscaloosa all have in common? They’re home to various reading series working to build literary communities and expand artistic diversity in the South. We seek to bring literature into new spaces and expand the canon through the reading series we curate. We’ll talk about the challenge of building community and audience and how we use our platforms to exercise resistance, which will create safer spaces in the South and in the country at large.

Defeating Writer’s Block: Techniques for Breaking Through (Jean Kwok, Mira Jacob, Juan Martinez, Elizabeth L. Silver, Sari Wilson)

Every writer has felt that panic when facing the page. The desire to write burns within and yet nothing comes out. How do we keep ourselves from getting blocked? How do we develop a healthy, happy relationship with our writing? What does a day in the life of a working writer look like? How do we carve out the time and mental space to be creative? These diverse writers who have successfully overcome writer’s block share their techniques and offer advice, support and caution.

Defining Native Poetics, Genre and Criticism (Charlotte Gullick, Darlene Naponse, Gerald Himmelreich, Michaelsun Knapp, Terese Mailhot )

Alumni from the Institute of American Indian Arts will discuss indigenous poetics, exploring the connection between literary elders and our own current work, with a particular focus on form. The panel will offer readings from our key influencers and explicate the connection to our own writing. This question will be at the core of the panel: looking at influence, how do we acknowledge our language and way of life in our creations?

Depictions of Class in Contemporary Southern Fiction (Jennica Broom, Allie Marini, Chase Burke, April Bradley, Dianne Turgeon Richardson)

Class has long been a prevailing theme in fiction about the South. The current political climate has refocused our attention on matters of class and economic inequality. The goal of this panel is discuss ways a 21st-century understanding of class might be depicted in southern literature, giving special consideration to interrogating common literary stereotypes about the South and the ways that inclusion of marginalized voices might affect how we write about class in southern fiction.