Forum / 2011 AWP in D.C.

Ann Bogle
Apr 12, 08:23am

The deadline for proposing panel discussions for the 2011 AWP is May 15. The next AWP convention is in February in D.C. Does anyone have ideas for panels (especially fiction-related) they'd like to initiate or attend at AWP?

Kevin Myrick
Apr 13, 08:03pm

How about a panel on how social media fiction is constantly evolving on sites like fictionaut?

Christopher Allen
Apr 16, 05:45am

How about a panel on how the weather affects the artist? I'm sure this will be a timely issue. February in D.C.? What were they thinking? Dulles is a nightmare when it snows.

Ann Bogle
Apr 16, 01:40pm

It's also possible -- this is my bigger hope -- that there might be a smaller conference for fiction writers somewhere in the U.S. or Canada -- that covers a range of topics fictive. We would be looking for accommodations humbler than corporate hotels in major cities have to offer. AWP is large and expensive to attend. This is true for everyone, even for those whose academic departments pay the way. I am an editor/writer and pay my own tab; it's disheartening to spend over $1,500 to end up eating alone even once in a crowd of 8,000 writers, as happened twice last week. I heard others complain of it, of alienation at AWP in general, and though I'm a lover of poetry, concerns that fiction writers/writing are underrepresented there. I would not personally be interested in organizing a panel around a theme in fiction and would more likely want to see a pub'g topics panel, as Kevin Myrick suggests. To discuss print v. internet pub'g in fiction, for example, or platforms. A panel would require five or six writers who could each speak on the main topic and a moderator to file the proposal. Panels are highly competitive.

Ann Bogle
Apr 16, 02:20pm

I might attend Susan's panel on Forbidden Love if it were offered, to be clear. I attended half of "Writing Sex: Implicit Censorship in Contemporary Poetry" featuring Jan Beatty, Dorianne Laux, Sharon Doubiago and a few others. Great topic, interesting readings, explicit sex. That was 9 a.m., and the day only got duller after that. I had slipped out of (poetic) "Hybrid Aesthetics and Its Discontents" in time to hear Doubiago's amazingly frank decisions. My thought was, we need a panel on hybrid forms in fiction/non- (prose). The poets are so organized by comparison to the fiction writers.

Savannah Schroll Guz
Apr 27, 12:27pm

Hi there, Ann~ I would be very interested in a socially-conscious fiction panel (Orwellian fiction, 'prognosticating' sci-fi, or fiction that looks at social issues--there could be a wide range of sub-categories that fall under the title). I took part in one such panel at last May's Pilcrow Lit Fest in Chicago. I will definitely get to AWP in D.C. next year and am so excited it's close to home (I'm just outside Pittsburgh, where Jan Beatty lives and writes).

Julie Innis
Apr 27, 06:44pm

I'm hoping to crack this AWP nut next year - on the cheap using the Chinatown bus down from NYC and then, god only knows. But Ann, if you're there, I'd happily share my lunches with you.

Ann Bogle
Apr 30, 05:45pm

I realized that what I want to do is sit on a panel as a guest who is an independent writer. A while ago, I was invited to blog about self-printing my weblog in paper, it as a decision; the woman who suggested it has recently left her publishing post to pursue her own writing. I have ideas, as a few of us here do. I realized I'll go to the AWP in D.C. if I can take a train from NYC and stay at a little hotel off-site and attend off-site events. And continue to think about starting a fiction conference, smaller than AWP. If someone wants to organize a socially-conscious fiction panel, as Savannah suggests, I'm game.
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