What is AWP and how do we survive it?
Welcome to our weekend conversation!
Next week is AWP week!
The annual conference (hosted by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs) will bring together writers, lit mag editors, small press publishers, representatives from MFA programs and others for a week of panel discussions, readings, parties and a gigantic book fair. This year’s conference will take place in Seattle.
I’ve voiced my share of criticisms of the conference. (Here is an open letter I wrote to the conference organizers nearly one decade ago.)
I’ve also greatly enjoyed the threads dedicated to “Bad AWP Advice” offered by writers and editors.
All this said, I have always had a great time at this conference. I’ve attended in New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and Washington, DC. I’ve met fun people, discovered new magazines and presses, gotten to see the products of these outlets in their stunning physical form, and often come away with ideas for new projects and approaches to my work.
For anyone who is physically and financially able to attend the conference, I do recommend it. (And if you’re not able, feel free to sit back and enjoy these upcoming Lit Mag News events from the comfort of your own home! In your pajamas!)
The conference can also be overwhelming. The year I attended in Seattle, it was reported that there were 18,000 people there. That’s a lot of tweed blazers!
For that reason, I thought it would be good to offer some actual advice for anyone attending this year or who may be interested in attending in future years.
My main advice is this: Enjoy yourself.
It’s easy to get frazzled and panicky about feeling like you are not in the right place at the right time. There are multiple readings that take place at once, interesting panels simultaneously, and people you may want to talk to everywhere you look. Don’t worry about doing it all.
Also, take breaks! Explore the city. These few days may be hard-won time off from your day job and/or family responsibilities. You are entitled to use it any way that serves you.
In Washington, DC, a city I had never spent much time in, I took off part of the afternoon to visit a museum. It was splendid. I came back to the conference in the late afternoon enriched and restored.
In Minneapolis I arrived the day before the conference. I was six months pregnant and stiff and tired from the plane ride. I found a yoga studio nor far from where I was staying and inexpensive compared the east coast prices I was used to. The teacher was phenomenal. To this day it remains one of the best such classes I’ve ever taken.
In Chicago I spent over an hour in my room chatting with one of the hotel’s housekeepers. There was a hotel staff strike taking place down the street. This woman was more than eager to talk to me, and she gave me all the details of the strike and her job generally. It was an invaluable perspective to the space we were all gathering in and enjoying for the weekend.
All of this is to say, the best advice I can give anyone attending this conference is: Be okay with where you are. Don’t panic.
If you have a couple of good conversations, meet new people, get to know new magazines and/or presses, attend an interesting panel or two, then you’re doing great. If you pick up cool journals that you’ve never seen before and think you might like to submit to, then you’re just fine. If you come up with new ways to attempt to resolve a craft problem, good on ya.
Don’t worry about doing everything. Take breaks as you need to. Walk, rest, talk to people outside the literary world, stare into space.
If you feel dizzy, disoriented, self-conscious, awkward, obsessive over that last conversation where you think you may have said something ridiculously and irredeemably dumb to someone you hoped to impress, it’s okay. Know that there are thousands of people all around you who, at one time or another over the course of the week, likely feel the exact same way.
Be yourself, be sincere, have a good time, learn a thing or two, breathe, wear comfortable shoes, hydrate a lot, and if you stay in a hotel don’t forget to tip the hardworking people who clean your room.
That’s my advice. What’s yours?
Have you attended AWP? What was your experience?
Will you be going this year? What do you hope to get out of the conference?
What advice can you offer newcomers?
If you are an editor of a lit mag and you will have a table, where can people find you?
If you will be presenting a panel, what is it?
Love AWP? Don’t love AWP? Got questions about AWP?
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