Awp conference & Bookfair 2018 Tentative Accepted Events

Making Room for Essayistic Thinking During Fraught Times: The Personal and the Political (Dinty Moore, Kristin Kovacic, Heather Kirn Lanier, Randon Billings Noble)

With the rise of “alternative facts” and an increasing disregard for both science and literature, thoughtful and nuanced essays are more important than ever. But longer, deeper work takes more time than a quick response piece. How can essayists make room for nuanced thinking, for thorough explorations of hard truths, for humor, for slowness, for contemplation? This panel of diverse essayists offers practical suggestions and discusses theoretical concerns. Come, think, and—hopefully—be eased.

Matwaala: the Birth of the South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival (Pramila Venkateswaran, Ravi Shankar, Varsha Saraiya-Shah, Sasha Parmasad, Usha Akella)

Usha Akella, poet & Creative Ambassador of the City of Austin, planned a gathering in 2015 of South Asian and SA diaspora poets. Called Matwaala, which is the Hindi word for being drunk on language, the group gathered in its inaugural edition to honor Keki Daruwalla, one of India's finest poets. In 2017, the poets gathered again in New York City to honor Saleem Peeradina and perform at the Asian American Writers Workshop. Members of Matwaala will describe the rich Indian literary scene.

Memoir as an Agent of Social Change (Connie May Fowler, Alice Anderson, Joy Castro, Randall Horton, Sue William Silverman)

In both root and blossom, memoir has always served as an agent of social change. James Baldwin’s nonfiction, for example, resonates with calls for societal transmutation. Our panelists work in the same tradition, exploring addiction, child abuse, climate change, disability, domestic violence, gender, the industrial prison complex, misogyny, racism, and more. We’ll examine the necessity and transformative power of writing our truths through a personal lens.

The Mentor/Mentee Relationship for Creative Writers (Doug Ramspeck, Amina Gautier, Benjamin Ludwig, Christine Sneed, Amy Wallen ‎ )

Writers often point to the value of mentors, yet establishing effective mentoring relationships requires overcoming seeming contradictions. Is the mentor a peer or an authority, an advocate or a teacher, an ally or a gatekeeper? Panelists explore the problematic power structures inherent in these connections, looking at mentoring theory as it relates to teaching, to AWP’s Writer to Writer program, to writing centers, and to opportunities for finding mentors and becoming mentors.

MFA vs POC: A Discussion on Surviving and Thriving in Predominantly White Institutes (Elizabeth Upshur, Anuradha Bhowmik , Cameron Moreno, William Palomo, Gionni Ponce)

A diverse panel of current MFA students will focus on the experience of entering a creative writing program at a predominantly white institute (PWI) as a person of color (POC). Panelists will discuss both the challenges and the opportunities they have faced in their programs including confronting stereotypes in workshop, finding and working with mentors, and maintaining their cultural identity. This is an opportunity for students and faculty to get honest feedback and discuss solutions.

Migration, Labor, and Letters in PLOTUS Juan Felipe Herrera's Literary Contributions and Life (miguel morales, Michael Wasson, Allison HedgeCoke, cassandra carter, Michael Torres)

The son of migrant farm workers, Juan Felipe Herrera, our most recent PLOTUS, has been on the forefront of poetry, poetics, and social change for the past 40 years. A champion of migrant and indigenous peoples and at-risk communities, this PLOTUS has championed what it means to be American in the 21st Century through his melding of poetry, storytelling, advocacy, and ethnic identity. This panel pays tribute to his important work.

Monster Cultures (Sofia Samatar, Theodora Goss, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Jeff VanderMeer)

From cyborgs to serial killers, monsters work the territory where explosive opposites meet: fear and desire, criminality and victimhood. On this panel, five writers of the fantastic discuss the roles of monsters in their work and areas of interest. How do monsters function in contemporary literature, in environmental writing, in Afrofuturism? What concerns and breakthroughs come with using the monstrous to express marginalized racial and sexual identities? How do we write the ultimate Other?

More and Different: Literary Nonfiction and the University Press (Jeremy Jones, David Lazar, John Griswold, Elena Passarello)

Series editors from three new book series from university presses will explore the expanding publishing world of literary nonfiction. All launched within the previous three years, their series--Crux, In Place, and 21st Century Essays--signal a growing audience for and interest in the genre. Panelists will discuss why they started their series, what role they see the series—and university presses—serving in the wider publishing industry, and what they’re looking for in new manuscripts.

More than Just a Magazine: Literary Community Building in the Digital Age (Dinty W. Moore, Marisa Siegel, J. Robert Lennon, Mensah Demary, Hillary Brenhouse)

In recent years, online “magazines” have become much more than just literary repositories, thanks to subscriber engagement at multiple levels and the flexibility and immediacy of social media. Editors from The Rumpus, Electric Lit's Okey-Panky, Guernica, Catapult, and Brevity will discuss how blogs, book clubs, live events, anthologies, classes, Facebook events, member-only content, and other creative innovations increase readership and expand literary community.

More than Numbers: The Roots of Inclusion (Maria Brandt, Magin LaSov Gregg, Minerva Laveaga, Samantha Mabry, Marianne Taylor)

Efforts towards inclusion in creative writing programs sometimes neglect the systemic roots of exclusion. Five community-college professors who work with immigrants, working-class communities, border-crossers, people with disabilities, veterans, rural populations, Latinx, and African-diasporics offer strategies for fostering more radical pedagogical/program inclusivity through intentional engagement with systems/communities outside the classroom.

“my particular truth as I have seen it”: Black Women Writers Taking Back Their Narratives (Kateema Lee , Destiny Birdsong, Nicole Higgins, Maya Marshall, April Gibson)

Two separate but related phenomena--the presumed suicides of women like Sheila Abdus-Salaam, and the appropriation of black women’s art (including the unauthorized use of Gelila Mesfin’s digital portrait of Michelle Obama)--illustrate how, in nearly every aspect of their lives, black women are erased by others. In response, multi-genre writers discuss the nuances of creating art in a culture that misattributes their work while they are living, and reframes their narratives when they are dead.

Narrating the Intersections: Crafting Black LGBTQ Lives in Fiction (Marci Blackman, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, LaMonda Horton-Stallings)

How do race, gender, and sexuality shape the structures of contemporary fictional craft? How do they inflect our characters’ voices and the strategies we use to narrate their lives? In a historical moment when #BlackLivesMatter, trans visibility, and LGBTQ activism offer new possibilities for writers and readers interested in marginalized lives, this panel considers how voice, fictional form, and storytelling make space for important modes of critique and empathy, both on the page and beyond.

Narrative Audio and Podcasting: Crafting Stories for the Ear (Erin Anderson, Maya Goldberg-Safir, Jeff Porter, Terence Mickey)

We are in the midst of a renaissance in audio storytelling. The growth of podcasting is reenergizing nonfiction and documentary forms in ways no one imagined. What does narrative audio require of us as writers? How can we best exploit the spokenness of the medium—and the potential of sound itself? And what are the stories that keep savvy listeners tuning in? Professional writers and radio/podcast producers share techniques for crafting compelling audio stories that demand to be heard.

Native American and Latino Fiction: Intersections in Narrative as Form and Force (Erika Wurth, David Weiden, Desiree Zamorano, Natalia Sylvester)

This panel will examine the relationship between Native American and Latino fiction. Though categorized as immigrant literature, much Latino Literature has a strong indigenous background. From the Popul Vuh to traditional stories in North American Native Nations, the formal power of narrative or simply story has strongly influenced contemporary Latino and Native Literature. This panel will include Native North American and Latino writers for a fuller discussion of craft, indigenaity and story.

Navigating Uncertain Terrain: Essayists of Milkweed Editions (Dan Beachy-Quick, Alex Lemon, Joni Tevis, Chris Dombrowski, Elizabeth Rush)

How do writers use the genres of memoir, personal or lyric essay, and literary nonfiction during times of political, social, ecological, and personal uncertainty? How do they use a form’s facility to include, connect, veer, and go astray to encompass curiosity and apprehension, chaos and clarity, disaster and hope? Five vastly different writers demonstrate how uncertain terrain can lead to unexpected beauty, electric possibility, and some of the most exciting writing within the field today.

Negotiating Cultural Bias in Translation (Joshua Bernstein, Kyoko Yoshida, Huda Fakhreddine, Jayson Iwen, Piotr Florczyk)

Edward Said famously claimed that “texts are not finished objects” and that interpretation itself lends meaning. But what is the role of the translator, especially when coming from a culture entirely different from that of the work she’s translating? What kinds of cultural assumptions or prejudices might she bring to bear on the work? Can she, or should she, acknowledge these assumptions? As practicing translators, we ask what’s at stake in the translation of cultural texts, particularly poetry.

Nevertheless, She Persisted: Writing Political Feminism in the Age of Trump (Allison Wright, Anna March, Elizabeth Isadora Gold, Mischa Haider, Naomi Jackson)

Writing concerned with feminism is receiving unprecedented readership. This inclusive panel will discuss the role of political feminist writing/writers and the forms this writing takes, especially the political/personal essay, novel and memoir. Discussion topics: the inherency of revolution in women writing the body/sexuality, the call to create change, and the writers’ recent works confronting topics such as being transgender, presidential politics and parenting. Craft/Publishing handouts.

The Next Step: Teaching & Writing at a Literary Center (Carla Du Pree, Shawn Girvan, Christine Kalafus, Jess Mann, Melissa Wyse)

For MFA graduates, teaching at a literary/writers center can be an artistically and economically enriching alternative or addition to the adjunct or tenure track in the academe. Community-based centers provide MFA-quality workshops, and teaching at a center is a good option for a recent graduate or established local writer. Panelists from a variety of literary centers will explore how centers can meet the needs of professional writers and teachers as they strive to build their careers.

New (Per)mutations in Speculative Fiction (Jordy Rosenberg, Sofia Samatar, Jeff VanderMeer, Alyssa Wong, Megan/M. Henry Milks)

Bending historical fantasy to meet contemporary transgender experience... rerouting the apocalypse through trans-speciesism... biopunking the neo-noir... ghosting the postcolonial imaginary: these speculative writers are flooding the arena of fiction with a potent assemblage of narrative sources and strategies, including formal and other experimentation. Here they address their approaches to genre, structure, and form, and what new possibilities they see for storytelling.

Not an Island: The Place of Literary Citizenship in the Writer’s Life (Christopher Soto, Gregory Pardlo, Camille Rankine, Pamela Uschuk, Melissa Studdard)

How can we lift others with our words and works? Literary citizenship can be as complex as running an organization or as easy as donating a book to a student. Speaking from experience with Cave Canem, VIDA, PEN America, Lambda Literary, Undocupoets, and individual initiatives, panelists address topics such as community organizing, balancing activism and writing, choosing and implementing projects, good colleagueship and mentorship, the politics of saying "no", and writing as an agent of change.

Not Heartwarming: Beyond Military & Feminine Tropes in Veterans’ Stories (Suzanne Morrison, Dorothy Hasson, Krista Tucker, Sonya Lea)

How do we create new narratives in a culture dominated by conventional war stories? Stories of women veterans are less emphasized in our culture, and are often challenging to write and teach, due to the fragmentation resulting from military sexual trauma and PTS. Two mentors discuss working with under-represented populations alongside two of their students—a young veteran forced to alter her gender to survive a war, and a mature veteran who broke traditional female roles to survive the military.

“Nothing Can Happen Nowhere”: The Craft of Setting in LGBTQ-Themed Fiction (Paula Martinac, Amy Hoffman, Cheryl Head, Serkan Gorkemli, Carter Sickels)

“Nothing can happen nowhere,” Elizabeth Bowen famously wrote about the importance of setting in fiction. But in LGBTQ-themed fiction, “place” is complicated: While many physical settings support queer characters, others feel unwelcoming or dangerous, including familiar ones like home. This panel explores how fiction writers negotiate place for their LGBTQ characters. Is the city a natural refuge? Are rural spaces always inhospitable? Does “home” necessarily render LGBTQ characters strangers?

A “Novel” Idea: How Short Story Writers approach their First Novels (Erin Harris, Kelly Luce, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah , Allegra Hyde, Misha Rai)

Making the leap from short story to novel-writing can be tempting, but also daunting. In this panel, successful short story practitioners will discuss the joys and challenges of making this transition, as they reflect on the inherent similarities and differences of the two forms – and what we can learn from each.

Oceans Among Us: Toward a Migrant Poetics (Cynthia Dewi Oka, Patrick Rosal, Christian Campbell, Hari Alluri, Christina Olivares)

Poets hailing from and with roots in the Caribbean, the Philippines, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Canada, explore the ways in which experiences and histories of migration function as a point of origin, a means of creative perception, and a practice of gathering divergences in their craft. They investigate how the work of making poems - with its attendant losses, adaptations, discoveries - is situated within broader political struggles to interrogate and confront the root causes of displacement.

Only Connect: Building Literary Community Beyond the MFA (Julie Buntin, Saeed Jones, Ken Chen, Christine Texeira, Alison Murphy)

Community is often touted as the best reason to get an MFA. But what happens when the program ends, or if an MFA isn’t right for you? Administrators from organizations changing the literary ecosystem discuss the opportunities for connection that exist in nonacademic settings. Topics include writing, publishing, and networking on and offline; teaching and studying outside of academia; and how writers from every educational background can find and build their own sustaining, creative communities.

The Only Light We’ve Got In All This Darkness: New Fiction from Kimbilio (Lesley Arimah, Andy Johnson, Renee Sims, Kima Jones, Tope Folarin)

Fellows and Faculty from Kimblio discuss the many and diverse directions of African diasporic fiction, from comic to absurd, from speculative to dramatic realism. Panelists share excerpts from their own new and forthcoming novels and collections of stories and consider the narrow focus of the publishing world and the problem of the "received story."

On Speaking Terms: Forging Healthy Translation-Writer Communication and Boundaries (Maria Nazos, Jim Kates, Simon Wickamsmith, Aliki Barnstone)

Translation has long been considered a diversifying and generous practice. As "the person in between," we often forge long-lasting, complicated, and wonderful relationships with our authors. There is a sense of accomplishment and challenge when we bring an author's words into the correct light. But about when we are faced with trials that accompany even the best working relationships? We will also discuss the intricacies of saying no, saying yes, and bettering communication with our authors.

Open Letter's Poetry in Translation Series: A 10th Anniversary Celebration (Patrick Phillips, Rachel Galvin, Benjamin Paloff, Harris Feinsod, Jennifer Grotz)

In honor of Open Letter's tenth anniversary, this panel will discuss the importance of access to contemporary world poetry via literary translation. Four Open Letter translators from Spanish, Polish, and Danish will present their poets, how they found and delineated their projects, how they undertook the always fraught if crucial art of translating poetry, and what poetry in translation introduces to the landscape and conversations of contemporary American literature.

Opening the Door: Articulation Agreements as a Tool for Creating Diversity and Access (Glen Retief, Kathryn Kysar, Mary Rockcastle, Lisa Tucker, Alysia Sawchyn)

Articulation agreements between BA/BFA and AFA creative writing programs can bring new, diverse students to four year programs while building a bridge to success for community college students. Articulation agreements between MFAs and BA/BFAs can provide similar mutual advantages. This panel will examine how to negotiate such compacts and then use them in conjunction with other outreach techniques to expand and diversify our literary communities.

Our Brilliant Friends: Women, Friendship, and Art (Nicky Beer, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Danielle Evans, Ru Freeman, Catherine Pierce)

The popularity of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, as well as TV shows such as Broad City and Insecure, points to a new visibility of the representation of friendships between women in contemporary culture. As writers, how do friendships between women—in our lives, our careers, our reading—affect our art? What are our own cultural touchstones of friendship? This panel seeks to explore, interrogate, and celebrate friendships between women in all their passionate complexities. Bring a friend!

Out Of Our Head and Into the World: Writers on Live Performance (Megan Stielstra, Samantha Irby, C. Russell Price, Lindsay Hunter, Fatimah Asghar)

The flow of language. The urgency of subject matter. An honest response from an immediate audience. We know that reading aloud benefits our writing, but what about our lives? How does performing our work lead to the next career step? How does it build our communities? How does it help us heal? In this lively conversation, five writers working in multiple genres will examine how, as Francine Prose said, “reading your work aloud will not only improve its quality but save your life in the process.”

Passing Into Pages: A Tribute to James Salter (JT Howard, Geoffrey Becker, Cara Blue Adams, Timothy Denevi, Andrew Malan Milward)

In 2015 James Salter passed on, leaving behind traces of a life well lived and the pages of his novels, short stories, screenplays and memoirs. “Life,” he wrote, “passes into pages if it passes into anything”; with his pages he has been praised as a chronicler of jet fighters also admired for depictions of the erotic, as an unparalleled American prose stylist esteemed for the finely sculpted quality of his sentences. This panel celebrates Salter’s pages and pays tribute to the life left behind.

Past as Present: The Relevance of History in Fiction (Amy Brill, Alexander Chee, Allison Amend, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Naomi Jackson)

Historical fiction may conjure an image of a swooning Victorian lady or hardscrabble homesteader, but the contemporary meaning and urgency of novels set in the past is complex and often overlooked. This panel explores how the prism of history enables reflection that’s impossible in contemporary settings; how the subjectivity of interpreting history leads to innovation and discovery; the line between revising history and reimagining lives; and whether history may "belong" to anyone.

The Persona Poem (Justin Bigos, Vievee Francis, Tyehimba Jess, Diane Seuss, Stacey Lynn Brown)

Persona poetry offers poets a way to forge voices more distant and difficult than the casually assumed autobiographical mode. The panel will gather four poets in order to discuss subtle versus overt forms of persona, as well as the choice to write in persona. While persona can be a way to deepen explorations of self and subject, the form often recontextualizes cultural narratives not only to better understand those stories, but also to shed light on our current cultural moment and conflicts.

Pitch Wars Live (Sarah Nicolas, Kit Frick, Alexandra Alessandri, E.M. Caines, Diana Gallagher)

Join five mentors from the acclaimed Pitch Wars online contest, which has garnered over 200 successful agent matches and launched bestselling authors. The mentors will share what makes submissions truly stand out when queries are piling into our inbox with every passing minute. Find out what catches our eye and what makes us roll our eyes. Bring a query letter or elevator pitch for the chance to receive feedback from the mentors.

Pitching, Publishing, and Promoting Reviews: A How-To Conversation (Alyse Bensel, Kristina Marie Darling, Dan Beachy-Quick, Jennifer Schomburg Kanke)

Although writers are inundated with advice on how to submit their creative work, they often struggle with how to pitch, write, and publish book reviews. This panel of successful reviewers and editors will demystify the reviewing process, offering advice and strategies for pitching reviews, writing reviews in a range of formats (essay, single, PW-style), and working with journals to connect with publications, presses, and writers to expand potential contact networks.

The Pleasures and Pains of Small Press Publishing (Thais Miller, Olivia Kate Cerrone, Ronaldo V. Wilson, Lisa Soland, Randon Billings Noble)

Small presses offer unique advantages and challenges for writers. This panel seeks to help writers successfully navigate the world of indie publishing across genres, especially as additional work falls on writers’ shoulders, from hiring outside editors to generating publicity. Poets, playwrights, fiction writers, essayists, and editors discuss the practices that helped them foster high quality books and connect with readers while addressing the limitations of the small press world.

The Poem's Country: Place and Poetic Practice (Philip Metres, Shara Lessley, Bruce Snider, Joan Kane, Sandra Lim)

For all of its virtual connection America is as divided as ever. Negotiating this contradiction as it manifests on our home-screens and in our hometowns has become an essential subject for 21st century writers. Sharing essays from the newly published anthology, "The Poem's Country", a diverse group of American poets discusses how and why they write about the Middle East, displaced Native communities of Alaska, cosmopoetics, gay rural America, and even invented landscapes of their own making.

Poetry Fellowships: How, Why, and What to Do When You Get One (Lindsay Garbutt, Natalie Shapero, Marcus Wicker, Safiya Sinclair)

Fellowships can seem like a mysterious process. How do you decide which work to submit? What kind of fellowship is right for you? What are judges looking for? Is a fellowship right for what you need? And when you receive a fellowship: how do you best take advantage of it? This panel will address each of these questions as well as questions from the audience. Composed of poets who have received a range of fellowships, this panel will be helpful to both emerging and established poets.