2012 Annual Conference Accepted Events

Below is the tentative list of accepted panels for the AWP 2012 Conference & Bookfair in Chicago.  The list is separated between readings and panel discussions and then is in alphabetical order by title. This is a tentative schedule only, and we are currently working to receive confirmations from all event organizers and participants. We are also working to make sure all participants sit on no more than two events, and only one of those may be a reading. The event titles and descriptions below have not been edited for grammar or content. The finalized schedule will be posted to the AWP website in October. For a complete explanation of the scoring and selection process for panel proposals please visit: Proposal Guidelines: Selection & Scoring Process.

AWP has worked very hard to expand the conference so that more of our members may participate as presenters. Whereas the conference once offered 16 events and 50 presenters, the conference now offers hundreds of events and more than a thousand presenters. AWP has tentatively accepted 414 events for inclusion in the 2012 Conference & Bookfair in Chicago. These events represent 1,627 presenters comprised of 912 (56.05%) women and 715 (43.95%) men.

Please feel free to contact the AWP Conference Department at conference@awpwriter.org with any questions you may have about this schedule. 

Please click on a type below to see the accepted events:

Readings Panel Discussions

Readings

25th Anniversary Reading Celebrating the Comstock Review.
Georgia Popoff, Cornelius Eady, Keith Flynn, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Jennifer Pashley
In 1986, the Comstock Writers Group formed & soon committed to publishing. For 25 years, Comstock Review (formerly Poetpourri) has featured noted writers as well as emerging, regional, & previously unpublished poets. CR sponsors the annual Mildred Bailey Craft Prize & bi-annual Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Award. This 25th anniversary reading includes past contributors Keith Flynn, Quraysh Ali Lansana & Jennifer Pashley, former contest judge Cornelius Eady, & CR managing ed., Georgia A. Popoff.

30 Years of Award-Winning Short Fiction: The Drue Heinz Literature Prize.
Shannon Cain, Adria Bernardi, Tina May Hall, Edith Pearlman
The University of Pittsburgh Press celebrates 30 years of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for short fiction, featuring a panel of four DHLP winners. Each author will read from their work and discuss: how they discovered their literary talent; what inspires their writing; what excites them about the writing process; and how that work fits into their daily routine. The audience is invited to participate in a Q&A and the authors will sell and sign copies of their books following the event.

30th Anniversary McKnight Fellowship Reading.
Jocelyn Hale, Bernard Cooper, John Reimringer, Ping Wang
Join the Loft Literary Center in celebrating the 30th year of the McKnight Artist Fellowships for Writers. Bernard Cooper, judge for the 2009 Fellowships, will read along with two of the prose writers he selected for the award, John Reimringer and Wang Ping.

A Celebration of Tia Chucha Press: Over Twenty Years of Democracy in Verse.
Luis Rodriguez, Patricia Spears Jones, Diane Glancy, Michael Warr, Jose Antonio Rodriguez
Tia Chucha Press has been a leader in publishing artistically innovative and culturally provocative voices in poetry. The roster of poets the Press has brought to publication reflects a deep commitment to diversity and features established artists, such as Elizabeth Alexander, Virgil Suarez, and Diane Glancy, as well as first books by award-winning poets Terrance Hayes, A. Van Jordan, and Patricia Smith. Tia Chucha Press has had a powerful impact on the literary world as a very important first press for many poets and a respectable, high quality press for all.

A Poetry Congeries Reading.
Campbell McGrath, Camille Dungy, David St. John, Mihaela Moscaliuc, Keetje Kuipers
This panel offers a reading showcasing one aspect of Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, a cultural site that emerged in September, 2010 and set the bar for what an online cultural site can aspire to.  A Poetry Congeries, a monthly feature that includes an interview, is a by-solicitation-only assemblage that includes new work from  hundreds of poets, Kumin, Harper, Rios, Emerson, Dennis, Ostriker, St. John, Laux, Graber, McGuckian, Applewhite, Piercy, Troupe, and Carl Phillips among them.

A Reading & Conversation with Kelly Cherry & Christine Schutt.
Brandon Courtney, Christine Schutt, Kelly Cherry, S.H. Lohmann, Ben Walker
Kelly Cherry reads poetry and Christine Schutt reads fiction.  Afterwards, the authors engage in a conversation with current MFA students from Hollins University concerning their work and writing process. Cherry was Louis D. Rubin Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University in 2009; and Christine Schutt served as Louis D. Rubin Jr. w-i-r in 2008.

A Reading Celebrating 25 Years of Product, the Center for Writers Literary Journal.
Kent Quaney, Michael Knight, Andy Plattner, Mary Miller, Damian Dressick
The Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi has just published the 25th anniversary edition of its student literary journal, Product, and as a celebration of this landmark will present a reading to showcase some of the best writers the program has produced. Noted alumni Michael Knight and Andy Plattner, recent graduate Mary Miller, and current student Damian Dressick will represent the Center for Writers in a reading exemplifying the artistic standard of the program.

A Reading and Discussion with Luis J. Rodriguez and Dagoberto Gilb, Sponsored by Macondo Writers’ Workshop.
John Phillip Santos, Luis J. Rodriguez, Dagoberto Gilb
The event will be a reading of selected and new works by two of the most important American writers reflecting on the experiences and story tradition of the Latino community.  Both Luis J. Rodriguez and Dagoberto are also involved in innovative initiatives in creative writing education and community efforts committed to positive social change.  Question and answer with discussion will follow.

A Reading and Q&A with Alice Notley, Sponsored by Wesleyan University Press.
Stephanie Elliott, Alice Notley, Steven Evans
A reading by Alice Notley, followed by a Q&A guided by poet/scholar Steven Evans. Notley has two new books: The Songs and Stories of the Ghouls (Wesleyan UP), a work of poetry that gives voice to victims of genocide—both ancient and contemporary; and a poetical fantasy Culture of One (Penguin). Evans, who has interviewed Notley in the past, has a keen understanding of her work. The discussion will allow the audience to gain a deeper understanding of her complex poetry and writing process.

A Reading for Literary Imagination.
Christopher Ricks, Clare Cavangh, David Ferry, Greg Delanty, Sigrid Nunez
This reading will cross genres in order to present creative writing from Literary Imagination, a leading periodical which brings together the creative writing and scholarly communities. Our presenters will speak briefly about the importance of literary periodicals in a time when such publications are increasingly threatened. The presenters will answer questions about publication in periodicals, and they will read from their own works.

A Reading from City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry.
Ryan Van Cleave, Campbell McGrath, Patricia Smith, Don Share, Robyn Schiff
City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry is a poetic conversation about Chicago (and of Chicago) that includes contemporary work from some of America’s brightest poetic lights. Four award-winning contributors from this new anthology will gather to read from their anthologized work and talk about the challenges and possibilities that place-based urban poetry creates. The event will be moderated by anthology editor, Ryan G. Van Cleave.

A Reading from The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop Instructors.
David Lynn, David Baker, Nancy Zafris, Rebecca McClanahan, Geeta Kothari
Held annually in the month of June, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop is a week-long residential writing experience that focuses on the generation of new material in an intimate, creative, and productive setting.  This reading by recent faculty offers the opportunity to hear the work of returning instructors and will include an audience guided Q and A about Kenyon's process-oriented approach.

A Reading in Celebration of The Cortland Review's 15th Anniversary.
Ginger Murchison, Claudia Emerson, Thomas Lux, Jamaal May, Glenis Redmond
The Cortland Review is proof that online literary magazines can become as enduring as printed ones and, in the course of its 15 years, has made the work of established and emerging authors and poets from across the spectrum available worldwide. Through professional quality video, streaming audio and text, The Cortland Review has established itself as one of our most important archives of recent poetry, fiction, and criticism.  Four dynamic TCR voices read to celebrate with editor, Ginger Murchison.

Academy of American Poets Presents Lyn Hejinian and Edward Hirsch.
Tree Swenson, Lyn Hejinian, Edward Hirsch
The Academy of American Poets presents an event featuring two prestigious poets, Lyn Hejinian and Edward Hirsch, who will be reading their own work.

The All Collegiate Afterhours Poetry Slam.
James Warner, Phil Brady
The All Collegiate Afterhours Slam is open to all undergrad and grad students attending the conference. Participation is capped at ten slammers a night. Slam pieces must be no longer than three minutes in length. Prizes, judges, and organization of the event will be handled by Wilkes University Creative Writing Program and Etruscan Press. Limited open mic to follow the slam (time permitting).

American Poets Respond to Major Global Trauma.
Pamela Uschuk, Linda Hogan, Luis Alberto Urrea, Richard Jackson, William Pitt Root
Integrating Latino, Native American, Immigrant and Anglo perspectives, poets address human suffering resulting from racism, eco disasters, tyranny, genocide and war.  Hogan is Writer in Residence of the Chickasaw Nation. Latino poet Urrea is a human rights advocate. Uschuk explores U.S. immigrant issues. Root’s The Unbroken Diamond  explores Afghanistan’s war history. Jackson won the Order of Freedom for humanitarian & literary work in the Balkans.

Angles of Ascent  by Charles H. Rowell.
Shona Jackson, Vievee Francis, Major Jackson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dawn Lundy Martin
In this series of readings (one poem by each poet, are voices from the three generations of the eighty poets in the anthology) are a representation and a discussion of Angles of Ascent (edited by Charles Rowell), a landmark project, which will be published by W. W. Norton in February, 2012.  Vievee Francis, Major Jackson, and Yusef Komunyakaa (along with Shona Jackson, moderator) will spend about fifteen minutes discussing the nature and importance of Angles of Ascent in American poetry.  This will be followed by twenty minutes of readings, by Vievee Francis, Major Jackson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dawn Lundy Martin, and Gregory Pardlo. This will allow for a ten minute exchange with the audience.

Apocalypse Now: A Multi-Genre Reading in Apocalyptic Literature.
Brian Barker, T.R. Hummer, Pinckney Benedict, Judy Jordan, Sophie Littlefield
Earthquakes, global warming, peak oil, & giant, man-eating ants: every generation has its version of the apocalypse and an abundance of writers who write about it.  In recent years, the end of the world has become the subject for a number of literary writers and a new genre of Literature is emerging. Five award-winning poets and novelists read from their apocalyptic literature, examining how their work has been influenced by recent events and by the sense of impending doom we humans share.

AWP 2012 Keynote Address by Margaret Atwood.
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin, which won the Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, part of the Massey Lecture series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages. She currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson. 

Between Song and Story: a reading from the new Autumn House  nonfiction anthology.
Sheryl St. Germain, Debra Marquart, Michele Morano, John Price, Jane Fishman
Readings and discussion from the newly published Autumn House anthology of essays, Between Song and Story: Essays for the 21st Century. This anthology is the first of its kind to focus on the lyric and formally adventurous essay. Five contributors, including one of the editors, will read and discuss their essays, focusing on formal strategies that challenge the traditional essay form.

BOA Editions 35th Anniversary Reading.
Peter Conners, Dorianne Laux, Michael Waters, Wendy Mnookin, Craig Teicher
Now in its 35th year as a celebrated independent publisher, BOA Editions commemorates this major milestone with a reading that will feature writers who represent the significant body of work and diverse voices published by the press. The event will be moderated by Publisher Peter Conners and feature readings by Dorianne Laux, Michael Waters, Wendy Mnookin, and Craig Morgan Teicher.

The Book and the Flame: Expatriate Writers in Africa.
Andy Johnson, Adisa Vera Beatty, Janey Llewellin, Cori Thomas, Andy Johnson
The gods created people with everything needed for survival: food, tools, fire, and a book. According to a myth, Africans discarded all but the fire; Westerners discarded all but the book. After a short reading, five expat writers will discuss challenges of writing in Africa and about Africans, including issues of post-colonialism, diaspora, and dislocation. We will examine the writer as keeper of the book and the flame, located at the crossroads between memory and creativity.

Border Bodies - Womanhood In Verse.
Katherine Hoerth, Ire'ne Lara Silva, Laura Cesarco Eglin, Maria Miranda Maloney, Elisa A. Garza
Our diverse panel features women poets from the Texas/Mexico Border and other borders dedicated to broadening poetic conversations about borderland identities, womanhood and the border, and the borderland body. In any contested space—i.e., geographic, cultural, sexual, racial, or literary—women must claim their own definitions of womanhood, their physical/sexual/spiritual bodies, and their poetic languages with their own definitions of aesthetics and relation to culture and history.

Carnegie Mellon University Press Fortieth Anniversary Poetry Reading.
Rachel Richardson, Nicky Beer, Kevin Gonzalez, Anne Marie Rooney, Benjamin Paloff
Carnegie Mellon University Press has continuously published poetry by emerging and established writers for forty years. This reading features five poets whose first books have recently been published by the Press, showcasing the breadth of poetry that Carnegie Mellon cultivates and champions. In a time when small presses, independent journals, and literary culture itself often seem under siege, we invite you join us celebrating a press that is still thriving well into the 21st century!

Charting Unmarked Terrain: Fiction at the Borderland, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts.
Alison Granucci, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Linda Hogan, Pam Houston, Mat Johnson
The human mind can be as wild as the landscape it inhabits. Through probing examination of notions of race, ruminations on identity, and social and historical commentary, these acclaimed writers chart the hidden dimensions of what it means to be human. Using ecologically and socially conscious narratives, they explore our connections to the earth and to one another, reconciling loss and redemption.

Chicago Phoenix Poets:  Then and Now.
Don Bogen, Jennifer Clarvoe, Gail Mazur, Joshua Weiner
Chicago Phoenix Poets:  Then and Now.  2012 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Phoenix Poets series of the University of Chicago Press.  Four poets with recent books from the press read from their own work and discuss the impact of earlier books from the first three decades of the series.  Don Bogen, Jennifer Clarvoe, Gail Mazur and Joshua Weiner will read and look back at classic Phoenix books by Alan Shapiro, David Ferry, Jim Powell and Anne Winters.

Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights.
Melissa Kwasny, M.L. Smoker, C.K. Williams, Erika Wurth, Christopher Howell
In our media-saturated lives, we are constantly aware of, and often desensitized to, the heinous violations of human rights occurring around the world. Yet the disclosures of U.S. sanctioned torture at Abu Ghraib, at Guantanamo, and at the so-called black sites, has profoundly unsettled and disturbed many of us. Editors and contributors read from the recent anthology I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights and discuss how poetry can address the unspeakable.

Contemporary Poetry/Historical Sources.
Anthony Caleshu, Marilyn Nelson, Tony Barnstone, Alan Soldofsky
This panel proposes a reading by 4 poets whose recent work is based on historical sources. Marilyn Nelson poetry of family history, specifically the African-American experience takes in generations. Tony Barnstone's recent TONGUES OF WAR, explores World War II as subject and experience. Anthony Caleshu's recent, OF WHALES, takes Melville and his 19th century sources as the starting point for a poetry that explores contemporary father-son relations. And Alan Soldofsky's new poems exist in conversation with older poems and poets, extending influence as historical source.

Cross Genre in the Heartland:  MSU Press Authors Read.
Martha Bates, Todd Davis, Jim Daniels, Eric Gansworth, Constance Adler
Fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction read by MSU Press authors.Eric Gansworth's Smoke Dancing explores the struggle between reservation traditionalists and progressives. Todd Davis and Anita Skeen's poetry in The Least of These and Never the Whole Story celebrates connections to the natural world. In his short fiction, Jim Daniels depicts the daily struggles of Michigan's working working class, while Constance Adler's memoir investigates a similar terrain in New Orleans.

Culture Survives Scott Walker: Milwaukee Writes and Milwaukee Reads.
C.J. Hribal, Liam Callanan, Valerie Laken, Larry Watson
Four nationally known fiction writers—Liam Callanan, C.J. Hribal, Valerie Laken, and Larry Watson—demonstrate why Wisconsin has more to boast about than the Green Bay Packers.  All four write and teach in Milwaukee, but at two different universities (Marquette and UWM), collaborating to create a city-wide writing community. Among them they’ve published fifteen books of fiction, both novels and short fiction, which have garnered multiple awards. Their reading will feature their most recent work.

Eileen Myles & Monica Youn: A Reading and Conversation, Sponsored by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.
Cate Marvin, Eileen Myles, Monica  Youn, Erin Belieu
Prominent avant garde poet and literary activist Eileen Myles will present a reading of her work to be followed by a conversation on feminist poetics with VIDA co-founders and poets Erin Belieu and Cate Marvin. AWP participants are encouraged to join a brief Q & A period to be held afterwards.

Fifth Year Anniversary Reading: Ashland University MFA Creative Nonfiction Faculty.
Jill Christman, Robert Root, Steven Harvey, Sonya Huber, Kathryn Winograd
Ashland University MFA creative nonfiction faculty celebrate the 5th year anniversary of the country’s only two-genre MFA program. Nonfiction faculty members will preface a reading of their work by commenting on ways the program’s close community of poets and creative nonfiction writers has had a formative influence on their work. The quality and aesthetic range of these writers will speak to the success of this low-residency MFA Program, with a regional base in Ohio and students from 25 states.

Finding Home - Immigrant Voices in American Literature.
Reginald Gibbons, Marie Arana, Robert Stepto, Frances R. Aparicio
The session will involve readings and discussion with three leading authors who will illuminate how immigrant writings have influenced American literature and culture over the last 50 years.

Four Tongues of Poetic Resistance: Francisco X. Alarcón, Jorge Argueta, Carlos Cumpián, and Odilia Galván Rodríguez..
Francisco X. Alarcón, Jorge Tetl Argueta, Carlos Cumpián, Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Four Tongues of Poetic Resistance: Francisco X. Alarcón, Jorge Argueta, Carlos Cumpián & Odilia Galván Rodríguez.  The lives and works of these poets encompass experiences shared by many in the Americas: California, the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Chicago. Alarcón and Galván Rodríguez are moderators of Poets Responding to SB 1070; Argueta through Talleres de Poesía promotes children’s literature in El Salvador; Cumpián is an activist poet/editor of March Abrazo Press in Chicago.

From Northwestern University: A Reading of Chicago Poetry.
Reginald Gibbons, Simone Muench, Ed Roberson, Angela Jackson, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas
Poetry has been an important focus of Northwestern University, where W. H. Auden once taught, and Northwestern University Press publishes Nobel Laureates. This reading will serve as an introduction to post-Daley Chicago through poetry, without sentimentality. The readers teach at Northwestern, have contributed to TriQuarterly and TriQuarterly Online, and have published with Northwestern University Press.

From Poem to Art Song: A Reading.
Rebecca Morgan Frank, Jill McDonough, Katie Peterson, Matthew Hittinger, Randall West
From Dickinson and Hughes to countless contemporary poets, American poets have had their work set by composers in the tradition of art song. Four poets whose poems were selected by composers and performed by Chicago’s Singers on New Ground, an organization that presents art song by established and emerging American composers, will be joined by composer Randall West for a reading and listening event that celebrates a vibrant collaborative tradition of turning poetry into song.

Gender Interrupted: Poetry of the Alternatively Gendered.
Stacey Waite, Joy Ladin, Ely Shipley, Samuel Ace
This reading features the work of alternatively gendered poets and writers, work that re-imagines and redefines the terrain of gender itself.  In this unique and first of its kind reading, the voices of transsexual, transgendered, and intersexed writers make their contribution to the rich and diverse aesthetics and politics of queer writing in the 21st century.

Graduates of The Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins University.
Jessica Anya Blau, Ellen Sussman, Padma Viswanathan, Porochista Khakpour, Vikram Chandra
For over sixty years The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University has graduated some of the most notable writers in American fiction and poetry.  Join Porochista Khakpour, Vikram Chandra, Ellen Sussman, Padma Viswanathan and Jessica Anya Blau as they read from their own work and the work of other fiction writers and poets of The Writing Seminars such as John Barth, Wes Craven,  John Gregory Brown, Ann Cummins,Greg Williamson, Elizabeth Spires, Sylvia Brownrigg,  Z.Z.Packer, Chimamanda Adichie, and Louise Erdrich.

Graywolf Press Reading.
Mary Rockcastle, Albert Goldbarth, D. A. Powell, Kevin Young, Jeffrey Yang
For nearly forty years, Graywolf Press has published some of the most exciting works of contemporary literature. Five writers will read from their recent Graywolf books of poetry (Goldbarth, Powell, Yang), nonfiction (Young), fiction (Rockcastle), and translation (Yang will also read from his translations of poetry by 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo).

Harrowing the Prairie: A Rendering of Regional Works.
Jane L. Carman, David Hamilton, Kent Johnson, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Kass Fleisher
Distorting and reforming language through the pleasure of the unexpected, these readings of the prairie gothic prompt an examination of meaning and misperceptions that question traditional perceptions and dreams of pristine prairies, farmlands, and small-town ideals. The relationship between literature, reader, and landscape are challenged as Middle America bleeds into contemporary performances of aesthetically and geologically charged prose.

The Honickman First Book Prize Celebration Reading.
Elizabeth Scanlon, Dana Levin, Gregory Pardlo, Melissa Stein, Nathaniel Perry
The American Poetry Review/ Honickman First Book Prize was established in 1997 to provide a wide readership for a deserving first book of poems. This reading will feature prize winners Nathaniel Perry, Melissa Stein, Gregory Pardlo, and Dana Levin, and will be moderated by The American Poetry Review Editor, Elizabeth Scanlon.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Reading.
Peter Mountford, Alexander Chee, Bruce Machart, Dean Bakopoulos
A reading by four writers who have had books published in 2011 by one of the most esteemed publishing houses in the United States, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The authors will read from their diverse work and discuss the challenges and benefits of publishing literary fiction with a large publishing house and the changing landscape for emerging novelists.

Interlochen Arts Academy 50th Anniversary Alumni Reading.
Karin Gottshall, Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Marya Hornbacher, Faith Shearin, Doug Stanton
As Interlochen Arts Academy marks its fiftieth anniversary, help us celebrate at a reading by some of its most noteworthy creative writing alumni. The Academy is widely recognized as the premier arts boarding school in the nation, and its writing program occupies a unique and invaluable position in the world of creative writing. Alumni frequently go on to publish award-winning and influential work in all genres. This reading showcases some of its most prominent and successful voices.

Is The Midwest Reshaping Creative Nonfiction? A Tribute to Fourth Genre.
E.J. Levy, Kyoko Mori, Maureen Stanton, Ryan Van Meter
In this Tribute reading by contributors to FOURTH GENRE: EXPLORATIONS IN NONFICTION, diverse authors celebrate the journal and its former editor-in-chief, Marcia Aldrich, who stepped down in 2011. Come hear award-winning nonfiction writers E.J. Levy, Kyoko Mori, Maureen Stanton, Ryan Van Meter, and others, as they explore—through readings from their work & in conversation—the role of FOURTH GENRE (and the Midwest) in reshaping the nonfiction form.

The Kentucky Women Writers Conference Celebrates 33 Years.
Nikky Finney, Nickole Brown, Lynnell Edwards, Crystal Wilkinson, Lisa Williams
The Kentucky Women Writers Conference is the longest running literary festival of women in the nation. Born in the early days of Women’s Studies (1979) and encompassing generations of feminism, it has featured nearly 300 writers in the decades since, from Alice Walker to Joyce Carol Oates and three U.S. poet laureates. Celebrating this longevity are recent conference alumna with Kentucky ties, whose work demonstrates the profound impact such an event can have on a region’s literary history.

Memoir Without a Net.
Dana Norris, Scott Whitehair, Shannon Cason, Kelsie Huff, Kevin Gladish
Memoir doesn’t have to stay on the page. The popularity of the The Moth demonstrates that there is a large audience for live, spoken word memoir. Chicago is home to several live storytelling events which present this increasingly popular form and this reading will showcase Chicago’s top storytellers as they transform memoir into an unscripted theatrical experience. Performing without paper, these seasoned storytellers will weave true tales which connect the history of oral storytelling with the immediacy of the modern memoir.

Michigan at 30: An Alumni Reading.
Megan Levad, Joshua Edwards, Vievee Francis, Randa Jarrar, Nami Mun
University of Michigan MFA Program alumni exemplify the plurality of perspectives and aesthetics in current literature.  Join us to hear new work by recent graduates Joshua Edwards, Vievee Francis, Randa Jarrar, and Nami Mun.

Missing Pieces:  A Collaborative Experiment.
Alexandra Chasin, Davis Schneiderman, Teresa Carmody
Missing Pieces is the product of operations on three found texts by three experimental writers.  The revised texts, animated by screened projections, re-imagine political, geographical, and textual sites of erasure: a manual of U.S. policy on assassination, a biblical tract on the unlocatability of Sodom and Gomorrah, and a historical account of Cortes’ conquest of Mexico.  This reading highlights collaborative process and the challenge of reading into and out of texts marked by erasure.

The Monti: Stories off the page.
Jeff Polish, Quinn Dalton, Andrea Selch, Lynn York
The Monti was founded by Jeff Polish in 2008 because of his love of storytelling. Monthly since then, 5 people (who are not necessarily writers) tell 12-minute stories to sold-out audiences throughout NC. The catch is the stories must be true, and they must be told without notes. Often a frightening prospect for writers, telling a story on-the-spot creates a powerful connection between the teller and the audience. For this panel, Polish and three Monti veterans will tell their stories.

National Book Critics Circle Celebrates Award Winning Authors.
Jane Ciabattari, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Jennifer Egan, Jane Smiley, Isabel Wilkerson
A reading by Bonnie Jo Campbell (AWP Prize, 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist in Fiction), Jennifer Egan (2011 National Book Critics Circle and Pulitzer Prize in Fiction), Jane Smiley (1992 National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize in Fiction), Darin Strauss (2011 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction), and Isabel Wilkerson (2011 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction and Pulitzer Prize Winner in Journalism).

New Childrens and Young Adult Voices: A Cross-genre Reading.
Penny Blubaugh, Zu Vincent, Tami Lewis Brown, Kiara Koenig, J.L. Powers
What captivates young readers today? Five authors of picture book, middle grade fiction, young adult novels and narrative non-fiction share from their newly published works in a cross-genre reading of all things honest and edgy.

New Prose from Northwestern University: A Reading.
Marya Hornbacher, Stuart Dybek, Eula Biss, Alex Kotlowitz, John Keene
Writers who teach in Northwestern University's English Department, the Medill School of Journalism, and the MA/MFA in Creative Writing program will read new work. Their writing varies widely in subject and style but they all investigate the world and themselves. Their fiction and nonfiction are based on research, reporting, reflection, remembering and imagining.
Nikki Giovanni: A Cave Canem Legacy Conversation.
Alison Meyers, Nikki Giovanni, Thomas Sayers Ellis
Called the Princess of Black Poetry in her early career, for four decades Nikki Giovanni has engaged deeply with the political and the personal. A popular poet whose versatile work inspires and challenges both adults and youth, Ms. Giovanni has received over 20 honorary degrees and numerous literary awards. Following her brief reading, Thomas Sayers Ellis will conduct a wide-ranging conversation with the distinguished poet who declares, Writing is ... what I do to justify the air I breathe.

North Winds, North Words.
Peggy Shumaker, Joan Kane, Nicole Stellon O'Donnell, Amber Flora Thomas, Daryl Farmer
Far beyond what travel brochures and postcards promise, far beyond warped notions spread by movies and television, Alaska lives. Five writers from all genres will read work that springs from lives in the far north: that of an Inupiaq Eskimo, an African-American, a Latvian-American. You'll hear the voice of a woman from gold rush days, and the words of a talented fiction writer who died young.

Not Your Bubbe's Poetry: A Reading By New Jewish Women Poets, New York.
Maya Pindyck, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Elana Bell, Rachel Simon, Hila Ratzabi
Besides having great bagels, New York City is known for its diversity and for its prominent Jewish culture.  Five Jewish women poets based in New York City read from recent collections, exploring where Judaism intersects with place, gender, sexuality, race, politics, and spirituality.  These emerging voices consider their own Jewish identities from diverse angles and backgrounds: Ashkenazi, Sephardic, white, black, queer, straight, guilt-ridden, and guilt-free.

Notre Dame Review Celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the ND MFA.
Valerie Sayers, Tony D'Souza, Justin Haynes, William O'Rourke
A cross-generational fiction reading by four distinctive prose stylists.  The work of Tony D’Souza, Justin Haynes, William O’Rourke, and Valerie Sayers spans forty years and four continents and illustrates the program’s commitment to surprising fiction in any mode imaginable, from stark realism to playful experimentalism.

The Open Light: Poets from Notre Dame.
Orlando Menes, Jenny Boully, Stacy Cartledge, John Phillip Santos
Poets Jenny Boully, Stacy Cartledge, John Phillip Santos, and Mike Smith read from their exciting work and discuss how Notre Dame has formed their craft and their vision.  Experience their vibrant and provocative poetry, which showcases the rich cultural and aesthetic diversity of this leading Catholic university.  Come celebrate the recent publication of The Open Light: Poets from Notre Dame, 1991-2008, edited by Orlando Ricardo Menes.

Orion 30th Anniversary Reading.
H. Emerson Blake, Amy Leach, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Benjamin Percy, Luis Alberto Urrea
For thirty years, Orion has used literature to bring our relationship with the natural world alive, in the belief that the arts connect people to the world, inspire action, and provide a way of thinking about a better future for people and the planet. Join Orion's Editor-in-Chief and four of the innovative and exemplary writers who have helped make Orion one of the most respected magazines dedicated to the intersection of literature and the environment.

Page Meets Stage, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts.
Taylor Mali, Roger Bonair-Agard, Mark Doty, Marilyn Nelson, Molly Peacock
Taylor Mali and The Bowery Poetry Club come to AWP with the acclaimed Page Meets Stage series. Spoken word poetry and written poetry have inched closer in recent years, but there is still a big gap between poets who write to be read and those who recite to be heard. Or is there? Join us as performance poets (Mali, Peacock & Bonair-Agard) and page poets (Doty & Nelson) are paired together and go head-to-head, poem-for-poem, revealing the playful give and take between the page and the stage.

Personal, Political, Provocative: A reading with authors from The Sun Magazine.
Krista Bremer, Frances Lefkowitz, Poe Ballantine, Heather Sellers, Sy Safransky
For thirty-seven years The Sun has published personal writing that is radically intimate and socially conscious. Join Sun contributors Frances Lefkowitz, Heather Sellers, Poe Ballantine, and the magazine’s founder and editor, Sy Safransky, for a reading that celebrates the splendor and heartache of being human.

Poetry Reading for Beauty is a Verb: New Poetry of Disability (Cinco Puntos Press, 2011)..
Jim Ferris, Cecil Giscombe, Stephen Kuusisto, Laurie Lambeth, Denise Leto
A reading by poets featured in the new anthology Beauty is a Verb: New Poetry of Disability (Cinco Puntos Press, 2011).  The book originated from a panel of the same name, Beauty is a Verb, presented at the 2010 AWP in Denver, CO.  Following the panel, presenters Jennifer Bartlett, Sheila Black, and Michael Northen came together to develop the anthology.  Poets reading will be Jim Ferris, Laurie Lambeth, Stephen Kuusisto, Denise Leto, and C.S. Giscombe.

Poetry Reading: Pitt Poetry Series.
Ed Ochester, Toi Derricotte, Ross Gay, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, David Wojahn
Series Editor Ed Ochester will introduce the poets Toi Derricotte, Ross Gay, Julia Kasdorf, and David Wojahn as they read from their new books from the Pitt Poetry Series of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Poets House Presents Bei Dao.
Stephen Motika, Bei Dao, Eliot Weinberger, Forrest Gander, C.D. Wright
In celebration of its 25th anniversary, Poets House presents a bilingual reading featuring leading contemporary Chinese poet Bei Dao, his English-language translator Eliot Weinberger, and American poets Forrest Gander and C.D. Wright. Bei Dao will read the Chinese versions of his poems, with Gander, Weinberger, and Wright reading the English-language translations. Following the reading, the four will talk about Bei Dao's life and work, as well as the art of translation and cultural exchange.

Prairie Schooner Tenth Anniversary Book Prize Series Reading.
Kwame Dawes, Shane Book, Kara Candito, James Crews, Mari L'Esperance
One of the oldest, most respected literary journals in the United States, Prairie Schooner celebrates the tenth anniversary of its distinguished Book Prizes Series competition with poetry and fiction readings by four of its most recent prize-winning authors, Shane Book, Kara Candito, James Crews, and Mari L’Esperance. They will be joined by Kwame Dawes, Prairie Schooner’s newest editor and senior editor of the Book Prize Series. Come hear writing of diverse subject matter and innovative quality.

PSA PRESENTS: A Reading and Conversation with C.K. Williams.
Alice Quinn, C.K.  Williams
This event features a reading by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet CK Williams, followed by an interview with PSA Executive Director, Alice Quinn.

PSA PRESENTS: A Reading and Conversation with Mary Jo Bang and Ed Roberson.
Alice Quinn, Mary Jo Bang, Ed Roberson
Two contemporary masters will read, followed by a discussion about craft and influences moderated by Alice Quinn, with questions from the audience.

Purdue University MFA Program 25th Anniversary Reading.
Donald Platt, Brent Goodman, Cheilo Zona Eze, Sharon Solwitz, Bich Minh Nguyen
The MFA Program in Creative Writing at Purdue University is celebrating twenty-five years as a graduate program. One faculty poet and one alumni poet, one faculty fiction writer and one alumni fiction writer and one faculty memoirist will help us mark this milestone.

Redefining Lyric: Five Poets Featured on PoemoftheWeek.org Read their Work.
Nicky Beer, Robert Wrigley, Nicole Cooley, Tim Seibles, Daniel Khalastchi
Lyricism, most commonly associated with poetry, is applied to nearly every genre of narrative writing: plays, essays, music, stories, film, non-fiction, and novels.  But what happens when it works the other way around and narrative elements of these forms are applied to lyric poetry? Join PoemoftheWeek.org for a celebration of its first five years with a reading by five of its award-winning and emerging poets whose work explores this question, redefining lyricism, and poetry itself, along the way.

Shifting Intimacies: A Reading by South Asian Diasporic Writers.
Roksana Badruddoja, Ravi Shankar, Leena Pendharkar, Vidhu Aggarwal, Annie Syed
How does the notion of identity create intimacy in forms of consciousness from poetry to stand-up comedy?  An array of South Asian writers from Paint it Brown! (Cognella Press: 2011) take up this question.  As the writers in this anthology show, what matters is not the barrage of queries about race, national identity, and form, but the vulnerability and depth that such queries expose. Together, they paint a fascinating and complicated portrait of what it is to be a diasporic South Asian today!

Short, But Not Too Sweet:  Three Emerging Writers Read from Debut Story Collections.
Megan Mayhew-Bergman, Emma Straub, Stuart Nadler
Long live the short story!  Writers are often discouraged from pursuing short story collections, but this panel will prove they are still viable.  Come hear emerging writers Emma Straub, Stuart Nadler, and Megan Mayhew Bergman read from their debut story collections.  The panelists will then engage in an honest, lively, and practical discussion about what it takes to get a short story collection published and open the floor for questions.

Sing: Poetry of the Indigenous Americas.
Travis Hedge Coke, Elise Paschen, Sara Marie Ortiz, Natalie Diaz, Gordon Henry
Sing poets & their inclusions from this groundbreaking collection of Indigenous American poetry, unprecedented in scope, gathering more than eighty poets, from Alaska to Chile, from disparate zones & parallel experience, from lands of ancient ball courts & the first great cities on these continents & cities built upon them, places of cold, places of volcanic loam, zones of erased history & ongoing armed conflict, where postcolonial is not an academic concept but a lived reality.

Story Week and Bath Spa Present—Literary Rock and Roll!.
Randall Albers, Steve May, Irvine Welsh, Audrey Niffenegger, Aleksandar Hemon
Columbia College Chicago's Story Week Festival of Writers, along with Bath Spa University’s Research Centre for Contemporary Writing, returns to AWP to present another uniquely entertaining evenings of readings and music, featuring Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife, Her Fearful Symmetry), Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting, Ecstasy), and National Book Award finalist Aleksandar Hemon (Love and Obstacles, The Lazarus Project), with Chicago blues by acclaimed guitarist Ronnie Baker Brooks.

Ten Years of the Poulin Prize: A Poetry Reading.
Peter Conners, Dan Albergotti, Janice Harrington, Keetje Kuipers, Ryan Teitman
A poetry reading celebrating the first ten years of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize sponsored by BOA Editions. Four previous winners of this prestigious first-book award will read from their work: Dan Albergotti (The Boatloads), Janice N. Harrington (Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone), Keetje Kuipers (Beautiful in the Mouth), and Ryan Teitman (Litany for the City). The poets will also read from the work of the other previous Poulin Prize winners. BOA publisher Peter Conners will moderate.

Terrain.org 15th Anniversary Reading.
Simmons Buntin, Lauret Savoy, Kathryn Miles, Elizabeth Dodd, Scott Calhoun
Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments was founded in 1997 as the world’s first online environmental journal. Today, the award-winning magazine features a rich mix of literature, articles, interviews, artwork, and ‘UnSprawl’ case studies in an elegant and interactive format. Join us for a reading by renowned contributors Lauret Savoy, Katherine Miles, Elizabeth Dodd, and Scott Calhoun, plus an introduction and Q&A facilitated by editor-in-chief Simmons B. Buntin.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Reading.
Steve Davenport, Philip Graham, Janice Harrington, Alex Shakar
This reading celebrates three new books by UIUC faculty: Alex Shakar’s Luminarium, a novel that moves from Manhattan to Orlando with forays into military listservs and disaster simulation; Janice Harrington’s In the Hands of Strangers, a poetry collection that tells stories about the effects of institutionalized aging on healthcare workers and nursing home patients; and Philip Graham’s Braided Worlds, a memoir of the unexpected braided lives that result from years of living in rural West Africa.

Untying Tongues: Poetry International's 15th Anniversary Celebratory Reading.
Jennifer Minniti-Shippey, Alicia Ostriker, Valzhyna Mort, Carolyn Forché, Fady Joudah
This event celebrates 15 years of Poetry International's commitment to increasing the presence of global literature that is translated into English.  Come hear acclaimed poets Carolyn Forché, Fady Joudah, Valzhyna Mort, Alicia Ostriker, and Ilya Kaminsky, as well as members of our editorial staff, read and discuss contemporary literature in translation.

VCCA Turns 40!: An Anniversary Reading.
Sarah Browning, Kim Addonizio, Lex Williford, Patricia Spears Jones, Paul Lisicky
Forty years ago, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts opened its doors. Since then, over 2500 writers in all disciplines have found that the time, space, and freedom of a residency at VCCA changed their creative lives. In this celebratory reading, five former Fellows read from their work and discuss the crucial role of VCCA in their own development as artists.

¡Wáchale! Chicana/Chicano Authors Celebrate Debut Novels.
Richard Yañez, Lucrecia Guerrero, Daniel A. Olivas, Melinda Ann Palacio
Critic Rigoberto González has said, Reading a Chicano novel is a commitment to a sustained exchange with a thriving culture and a proud people. Come hear four Chicano authors confirm and celebrate the continuum of a literary tradition. Through varied aesthetics and attitudes, the debut novels document the stages of a community’s growth. Their audience will experience distinct voices that teach the world not to fabricate or twist the truth of our histories because it's all written down in ink.

Wesleyan University Press Poetry Reading.
Forrest Gander, Pura López Colomé, Alice Notley, Ed Roberson, Peter Gizzi
Ed Roberson’s To See the Earth Before the End of the World celebrates and mourns a landscape on the verge of disintegration. Peter Gizzi’s Threshold Songs negotiates the unfathomable proximities of knowing and not knowing, and the uncanny relation of grief and joy.  Alice Notley’s Songs and Stories of the Ghouls is an epic poem of genocide, designed to create power for the dead. In Pura Lopez Colome’s Watchword, translated by Forrest Gander, secular mysticism illuminates life at its brink.

Why There Are Words Literary Reading Series Showcases Chicago Writers.
Peg Alford Pursell, Catherine Brady, Goldie Goldbloom, Billy Lombardo, Peter Orner
Why There Are Words Literary Reading Series showcases Chicago writers. The reading series takes place monthly in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing an important way for writers to reach audiences. Writers are emerging and established authors, selected via submissions. Readings are not tied to book releases (and thus, not marketing decisions); the series operates on the premise that good writing always needs to be heard. This event will feature four Chicago authors reading fiction.

Why Time Matters: A Discussion Across the Genres.
Fred Leebron, Andrew Levy, Brighde Mullins, Katherine Min, Alan Michael Parker
Our panel will focus on why time is the most crucial element in all genres of creative writing, beginning with how much time we choose to depict and extending beyond that to approach how we vary the treatment of time within each genre.  While others might argue that character or point of view or narrative arc is the essential ingredient that shapes our work, we will argue that time is that ingredient.

Women Launching Women: Kore Press Poets.
Lisa Bowden, Michelle Chan Brown, Laura Newbern, Heather Cousins, Sandra Lim
Kore Press presents four emerging women poets: Michelle Chan Brown, Laura Newbern, Heather Cousins, and Sandra Lim--all winners of the Kore Press First Book Award. Publishing literature by women since 1993, Kore seeks to promote and distribute excellent work by a diversity of women writers, including those traditionally underrepresented in the cultural mainstream. The reading will be followed by a Q&A with the poets and the publisher.

Works in Progress Mix Tape.
Ken Chen, Alexander Chee, Nami Mun, Porochista Khakpour
Alexander Chee, Ken Chen, Porochista Khakpour and Nami Mun read new work and the life behind their literature: private writing rituals; relationships with mentors and peers; favorite books, songs on iTunes repeat and performance-enhancing  alcoholic drinks; social media and other procrastination devices. Ask nicely and they’ll talk about writing as Asian Americans when only 5% of the authors reviewed in the New York Times are writers of color. Presented by The Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

Writing the American West.
D. Seth Horton, Antonya Nelson, Toni Jensen, K. L. Cook, Claire Vaye Watkins
Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri is an annual anthology of exceptional short fiction rooted in the western United States. Four award-winning contributors gather to read from their recently anthologized work. They will be introduced by D. Seth Horton, the series co-editor.

Writing in the Rustbelt: Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts (NEOMFA) program in Creative Writing Fiction Faculty Reading and Discussion.
Eric Wasserman, Christopher Barzak, Emily Mitchell, Varley O’Connor, Imad Rahman
A major 2012 AWP Conference sponsor, the NEOMFA fiction writing faculty give a special reading. The faculty is unique in its sensibility diversity, ranging from historical fiction to domestic realism, from ethnic exploration to Nebula-nominated genre fiction. A showcase of widely different fiction writers NEOMFA students work with followed by a discussion of the creative ways this fiction faculty work together in a new, untested program structure.

 

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Panel Discussions

15 Years Outside the Towers:  Report from the MFA in Writing at SAIC.
Janet Desaulniers, Carol Anshaw, Jesse Ball, Rosellen Brown
Fifteen years ago, with a curriculum anchored by the studio tutorial and in a porous and interdisciplinary graduate division, SAIC inaugurated an alternative to the genre-specific workshop-based writing program cultivated by English departments.  A selection of current faculty offers this progress report on that innovation and its refinement, the program’s impact on Chicago, along with promising practices and pedagogies adaptable to other educational contexts.

4 Over 40.
Daniel Libman, Zoe Zolbrod, Chris Fink, Goldie Goldbloom, Francesca Abbate
You won't see their work in any Under 40 anthologies because these diverse writers of fiction and poetry all got their first books published after their 40th birthdays. Daniel Libman, Chris Fink, Francesca Abbate, Goldie Goldbloom, and Zoe Zolbrod will discusses in a funny, frank and helpful way how writers without their first book can live in a world saturated with age bias, and also offer useful tips on how to get the first book sold even after the milestone of 40 has come and gone.

A Call to Arms, Imagining a Better World: Celebrating the Long Tradition of Chicago Activist Writers.
Gary Johnson, Bill Ayers, Kathy Kelly, Haki Madhubuti, Irene Zabytko
Activist writers from Jane Addams to Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright to Studs Terkel and Gwendolyn Brooks share the Chicago tradition of rising to national and even international prominence. Today’s Chicago activist writers continue to frame the troublesome issues of the day, sometimes risking everything with persistent questioning of the status quo. This lively panel will read work samples and discuss strategies for passing the torch of activism to the next generation of writers.

A Face to Meet the Faces: Five Poets on Persona, Empathy, and Race.
Stacey Lynn Brown, Eduardo C. Corral, Cornelius Eady, Patricia Smith, Jake Adam York
Persona, the act of writing beyond one’s own immediate perspective or experience, is arguably one of the strongest mechanisms for empathy—and understanding—that exists for a poet. Join the co-editor and four contributing poets from A Face to Meet the Faces, the first anthology of contemporary persona poetry, for a roundtable discussion on the freedoms, limitations, and possibilities inherent in using persona as a tool to excavate the complexities and constructs of race.

A Novel Problem: Moving from Story to Book in the MFA Program.
Cathy Day, David Haynes, Patricia Henley, Sheila O'Connor, Elizabeth Stuckey-French
Short stories are often our main pedagogical tools, but the book is the primary unit of literary production. When are apprentice writers ready to write novels, and how do we review them in a workshop setting? How can we create courses and curriculum that encourage students to move toward and complete book projects? This panel will explore the challenges of accommodating the novel or the novel-in-stories within the structure of an MFA program.

A Room with a Review: The Art of Literary Criticism.
Andrew Ciotola, Mindy Kronenberg, Daniel Torday, Scott Parker
Literary journal editors discuss the ethics, mechanics, and value of reviewing.

A Tribute to Carolyn Kizer.
David Rigsbee, Kevin Craft, Emily Warn, Kathleene West
This panel will discuss Carolyn Kizer’s work and significance to American poetry. Kizer has combined private lyricism with a Confucian sense of public responsibility.  At a time when it was unfashionable to proclaim oneself feminist or political, Kizer proudly proclaimed herself both.  Founding editor of Poetry Northwest and first Literary Director for the National Endowment for the Arts, legendary teacher, Kizer has produced a moving body of work that dazzles with clarity and passion.

A Tribute to David Young.
Angie Estes, Bruce Beasley, Thomas Lux, David St. John, Lee Upton
A tribute to David Young’s lifelong commitment to poetry on the occasion of his 75th birthday and publication of his selected poems. One of the founding editors of Field, editor of Oberlin’s poetry and translation series, and author of eleven poetry books and twenty books of translations and criticism, his work has shaped contemporary poetry for over forty years. Each participant will offer a personal and critical assessment of Young’s literary achievements and his profound, enduring influence.

A Tribute to Jeanne Leiby, Editor and Writer, in Memoriam.
Jan Freeman, David Huddle, Susan Lilly, Cara Blue Adams
This tribute honors Jeanne Leiby's life as a writer, teacher, and the first woman Editor of The Southern Review. David Huddle, Cara Blue Adams, Susan Lilly, and Jan Freeman pay homage to Jeanne with anecdotes, biography, and a short reading of Jeanne's fiction. Views from the vantage points of mentor, TSR editor, publisher, poet, and student present the life of this daring and visionary woman  whose dedication to American literature should inspire and awe all members of the AWP community.

A Tribute to Unsung Masters of the 20th Century: Laura Jensen, Dunstan Thompson, Nancy Hale, and Ryuichi Tamura.
Kevin Prufer, Joseph Campana, Jim Elledge, Wayne Miller, Phong Nguyen
This panel focuses on forgotten writers of the 20th Century—master craftsmen whose contributions to literature have been, for whatever reason, lost to the present generation. Celebrated in their day, their books now languish on library shelves, go out of print, and fade out of the public consciousness. This panel of writers and editors will pay tribute to unsung masters Jensen, Thompson, Hale, and Tamura, bringing to light the great writers that the literary zeitgeist forgot.

A Writing Life, After the Workshop.
Ilana Shabanov, April Newman, Daniel Prazer, James Lower, Sheree Greer
This intensive presentation covers what your MFA program might have missed: how-to organize and sustain a writing life in today’s economy. Our event showcases planning ideas, technology solutions, and tools for writers to be more in control of their career and maintain a writing lifestyle long-term. The approach is engaging to the audience, displaying the websites and tools to promote one’s work. The audience will come away knowing their own resources and an action plan for their writing life. A Q/A session follows.

A Year in the Life of Electronic Publishing.
Jason Reynolds, Guy Shahar, Eric Smith, Matthew Limpede, Matthew Dye
This panel features audio-visual presentations from four of America’s most innovative electronic journals: Carve, Cellpoems, The Cortland Review, and Escape Into Life. The editors of these journals are uniquely qualified to discuss new media and the successes and struggles that electronic journals experience over the course of a year. Topics include incorporating audio and video, distributing via text message, creating revenue streams, handling editorial processes, and maintaining an audience.

Across the Class Divide.
Metta Sáma, Veronica Golos, Scott Hightower, Gary Lenhart, Gregory Pardlo
Across the Class Divide
Gary Lenhart’s The Stamp of Class: Reflections on Poetry and Social Class is one of the few books examining poetry by working class writers in the United States. His analysis inspired this focus on the need for creative writing pedagogy that addresses an aspect of difference in our student population that is often overlooked, that of social class and the aesthetic and cultural challenges faced by working class students.  We want to generate new ideas and find best practices in the education of the next generation of poets from all kinds of backgrounds.

Agents & Editors: Partners in Publishing.
Mary Gannon, Kathy Pories, Elisabeth Schmitz, P.J. Mark, Julie Barer
Four established publishing professionals provide advice to writers about the best practices for submitting queries and proposals; an inside look at both the acquisition process, including how subsidiary rights are handled, and how publishers determine the promotional push for titles; and an update on the most recent changes in the industry and how they affect authors.

Agha Shahid Ali, the ghazal and the destruction of Kashmir.
Paul Breslin, Stephen Burt, Raza Hasan, Ravi Shankar
This panel focuses on the transnational and elegiac aspects of Agha Shahid Ali’s English-language ghazals as well as on its hybrid Indo-Persian aesthetic and Islamic poetic tradition. It also examines Ali’s anti-colonial and anti-imperialist stance and the transformation of this poetry into something more equivocal in his later poetry that deals with the destruction of his homeland. Finally, it explores the close connection of the poetry’s transnational and decolonization impulses.

Ambitious Fiction:  Tackling Big Ideas, Lots of Characters, and/or Lush Language.
Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Jane Smiley, Achy Obejas, Allen Gee, Brian Bouldrey
Everyone admires a spare, economical story or novel that moves forward with seemingly little effort.  But some stories just can’t be told simply.  They may have a large cast of characters.  They may involve big, even complicated, ideas.  They may call for a lush, rather than frugal, style.  What is involved in biting off a big storytelling mouthful?  This group of fiction writers will discuss their choices to sometimes write rich, rather than minimalist, fiction.

American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice.
William Reichard, Kristin Naca, Barrie Jean Borich, Heid E. Erdrich, Nickole Brown
Much American political writing is intended to convert readers to a specific ideology. But what of the work of mainstream poets, essayists, and fiction writers who address junctions of class, gender, sexuality, race, and place that make up the fabric of U. S. literature today? Five writers examine the intersections of creative writing, identity, and social justice, and explore how writers can use our work to participate in, critique, and shape history.

An MFA, huh?  What Are You Gonna Do with That?.
Beth Snyder, Sara Hess, Gerald Richards, Bridget Boland Foley, Shin Yu Pai
What career options exist for a newly minted MFA—besides the obvious paths of more graduate school, adjunct limbo, or literary superstardom?  Twelve years later, five alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s MFA in Writing talk about alternative career paths in education, non-profit, TV, and other spheres—and how their MFA helped them get there.

Anthologizing the Canon: Five Editors Discuss the Role of Annual Anthologies in Contemporary Literature.
D. Seth Horton, Heidi Pitlor, Laura Furman, David Lehman, Jesse Nathan
Series editors Heidi Pitlor (Best American Short Stories), Laura Furman (PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories), David Lehman (Best American Poetry), D. Seth Horton (Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri), and Martin Riker (Best European Fiction) gather to discuss the relationships between annual anthologies and the general state of contemporary literature.

Anytown, USA: Representing Place in Fiction.
Ron Hansen, Ladette Randolph, Eric Goodman, Sherrie Flick, Robert Vivian
How do we define place in fiction? Does the location matter? How do place and region shape the writing, and vise versa? This panel aims to answer the larger question of how to define place while also representing the sometimes misunderstood middle coast, featuring authors whose fiction is set in the Heartland, a place many times more clearly defined by what it is not than by what it is.  Each author will share their unique approach to representing place in their writing.

Applying for a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship.
Amy Stolls, Maryrose Flanigan
This session is geared toward individuals interested in applying for a fellowship in poetry or prose from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).  Staff members from the NEA's Literature Division will discuss and advise on all aspects of the program, from submitting an application to selecting the winners.  Plenty of time will be allotted for questions.

Approaches to Research for Fiction Writers.
Jason Brown, Marjorie Sandor, Keith Scribner, Skip Horack, Aurelie Sheehan
Approaches to Research for Fiction Writers will address the challenges of conducting research for fiction and how to incorporate research into works of fiction.  When should writers conduct research rather than invent, what elements of fiction need to be based on research, what kind of research is required for certain projects, and how to make best use of research? We will discuss these important questions and address the larger issue of balancing fact and invention in writing fiction.

Arab and Arab American Feminisms.
Nadine Naber, Youmna Chlala, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Randa Jarrar
Contributors to the cutting-edge anthology Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, and Belonging will reflect on the topics in the book and read from their works of fiction, poetry, and essays. Presenters explore the role of Arab and Arab American feminist perspectives in post-colonial and academic contexts, activist communities and as a discursive means of addressing the multiplicity of identities.
The Art of Collaboration: Writers, Artists, and Editors on Marrying Visual Art and Text.
Catherine Cortese, Jessica Pitchford, Frank Giampietro, Denise Bookwalter, Jodee Stanley
Literary journals often publish art alongside poems and prose, and hardcover books featuring famous works of art are ubiquitous on coffee tables and bookshelves worldwide. This panel, however, will address the special goals, negotiations, and unique creations born of collaborations between visual artists and writers. The authors, book artists, and journal editors on the panel will speak to the various aesthetic and intellectual benefits and challenges of pairing image and language.

The Art of the Short Story Collection.
Mary Rockcastle, Richard Bausch, Laura van den Berg, Tiphanie Yanique, J. C. Hallman
In the successful short story collection, the individual stories must move, delight, and entertain, and the collection as a whole must do so as well.  What makes a collection of short stories a satisfying whole?  How should it be put together?   What should the writer consider when deciding upon content, placement, length, title?  How easy or hard is it to sell?  Robert Bausch, acknowledged master of the short story form and author of eight collections of short stories, joins three authors of very different, all successful, debut short story collections.  Each will talk about his/her process in creating, shaping, and publishing the short story collection.

The Art of Writing a Joke.
Stephen Goodwin, Richard Bausch, Robert Bausch, Jill McCorkle, Alan Shapiro
A performance, discussion, and celebration of jokes.  We'll tell some jokes with pedigrees (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Twain) as well as some of our own, hoping to suggest just how artful and astute -- and just plain funny -- a joke can be, how this most durable of forms can sometimes rival the most inventive turns and sophisticated tropes that any language boasts.

Art School Faculty Caucus.
Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, Monica Drake, Amy Lemmon, Andrew Zornoza
Annual meeting of Art School Faculty Members to discuss pedagogy, programming, administration, and best practices particular to Art School writing classes and programs.

Art School Journals.
Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, Jordan Stempleman, Heather McShane
As writing programs have proliferated in art schools, new journals have sprung up that re-balance writing, visual art and design.  Join the editors of Botticelli (Columbus College of Art and Design), Dear Navigator (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Eleven Eleven (California College of the Arts) and Sprung Formal (Kansas City Art Institute) as they discuss writing and publishing in these unique institutions, and how the art school is reshaping the future of the literary journal.

Asian American Poetry: Past, Present, Future.
Victoria Chang, Timothy Yu, Ken Chen, Srikanth Reddy, Nick Carbo
Marilyn Chin said: ‘Our poetry is not a static enterprise but a thriving, historical progression.’  As we look at Asian American poetry today, much as changed, yet much has stayed the same.  This panel will feature a group of diverse literary critics, anthologists, and poets in a vibrant discussion to grapple with questions such as: What is Asian American poetry, Where have we been, Where are we now, and What lies ahead in the future?

Atypical Points Of View In Fiction Narration.
Elizabeth Poliner, Jean McGarry, David Huddle, Cathryn Hankla
What happens when fiction veers from the usual suspects in terms of point of view, and what can make unusual choices necessary?  This panel will examine choices in the narration of fiction that are less commonly employed, including the collective perspective, a first person narrator who is more witness than participant, a contemporary omniscient narrator, and others.

The BA in Professional Writing: The Other Undergraduate Writing Degree.
Jonathan Ritz, Stephanie Amada, Kathryn Houghton, Laura Julier, Catherine McCaffrey
The rapid growth of bachelor’s degree programs in professional writing provides new possibilities for students and new opportunities for faculty who teach writing. This panel offers an intergenerational overview of one such program, as seen from the perspective of five unique stakeholders: a current undergraduate student; a recent graduate who went on to earn an MFA; two faculty members with creative writing backgrounds who teach in the program; and an administrator who directs the program.

Back from the Crash: Michigan Authors Reflect on Crisis and Renewal.
Lolita Hernandez, Laura Thomas, Keith Taylor, Kevin Rashid
For many Michiganders, the Great Recession is the latest in a chain of extraordinary crashes.  This panel will examine how Michigan’s writers have chronicled the displaced caught in a decade-long recession.  From Detroit’s urban landscape to the state’s great wilderness, join our panel of authors for readings and discussions on rendering the voices of struggle and recovery, what work means when paying jobs vanish, and how perceptions of natural resources change in tough economic times.

Balancing Craft and Commitment in Political Fiction.
Rosellen Brown, Tracy Daugherty, Heidi Durrow, Ellen Meeropol
Four fiction writers, ranging from emerging to prolific, consider the risky challenge of balancing their commitment to social justice with the demands of good writing.  Using examples of successful stories and novels, they will address ways of framing language, developing character and structuring plot to dramatize conflicts of class, race and gender while avoiding the pitfalls of authorial intrusion and didacticism.

Barefoot, Pregnant, and at the Writer's Desk: Managing Motherhood and the Writing Life.
Kate St. Vincent Vogl, Hope Edelman, Jocelyn Hale, Kate Hopper, Katy Read
To be or not to be a working mother? This panel considers the pay offs and the problems of writing through motherhood—or in choosing not to. These writing professionals at various stages of mothering share their personal experiences and wisdom. Is it possible to do it all? We’ll explore how to make time for writing and how to know when to set it aside, how to leave the market and still renter it. How best can we make peace with life’s competing goals?

Behind the Book: Debut Authors Reveal the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Kristen-Paige Madonia, Alexander Yates, Amina Gautier, E.C. Osondu
From requesting book blurbs to receiving first reviews, authors discuss the road to publication and the speed bumps they stumbled on along the way. Panelists will address the pros and cons of publishing with large houses versus university presses and will focus on the mysterious window of time between signing contracts and launching their debuts by discussing things they wish they’d known, things they never expected, and tricks they’re glad they used to prepare for their first book publication.

Being Me (For You): First-Time Memoirists and the Agent Hunt.
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Julia Cooke, Jane Roper, Mike Scalise
Clear pathways to publication exist for novelists and writers of research-based nonfiction, but what about the first-time memoirist? Finish the full book, like novelists, or start with a proposal? Query or look for agents at a conference? Go with a new agent or one who’s been around the block? Join five first-time memoirists—- each working on a very different project with a different agent—- as they offer clear advice on how to navigate the sometimes-choppy waters ahead.

Beyond Bilingualism: Teaching Creative Writing to Monolingual and Multilingual Students.
Mia Leonin, Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés, Mariam Zafar, Nicole Hospital Medina, María Elvira Vera Tatá
In a new century of heightened trans-global awareness, America has become more linguistically fluent. What does this mean for the writing classroom? This panel of bilingual students and their professors will consider how incorporating multiple languages into the traditionally English-only classroom can unveil new ways of seeing for multi- and monolingual students. We will share cross-genre activities that utilize multiple languages to heed Pound’s dictum to make it new.

Beyond Pulp – The Futuristic and Fantastic as Literary Fiction.
Anjali Sachdeva, Victoria Blake, Kevin Brockmeier, Brian Evenson, Matthew Williamson
This panel examines the role of science fiction, horror, and fantasy writing in the world of serious literature.  Literary journals’ submission guidelines often include the phrase no genre fiction, but these genres include talented writers who wield all the tools of literary fiction.  Why are fantasy and sci-fi so often considered trivial?  How do publishers separate literary genre writing from pulp fiction?  The panel will discuss how literary genre writing is promoted, written, and published.

Beyond the Workshop.
Jenny Dunning, Siobhan Campbell, Michael Theune, Margaret Lazarus Dean, Heidi Lynn Staples
Contributors to Beyond the Workshop, an international anthology of essays on creative writing pedagogy (Kingston University Press 2011), will explore new pedagogies for creative writing, moving beyond and rethinking the workshop. Presenters from both sides of the Atlantic will focus on the need for a new paradigm for the writing process; reorienting the dominant metaphor of the writing classroom toward a community of practice; new options for evaluation; alternative methods for teaching the structures of writing; and a new look at how to manage emotion in the workshop.

Blueprints: Bringing Poetry into Communities.
Katharine Coles, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Lee Briccetti, Christopher Merrill
Contributors to Blueprints: Bringing Poetry Into Communities will talk about their experiences with such poetry programs as Poets House, the University of Arizona's Poetry Center, and the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute at the Poetry Foundation and will also give hands-on advice to those interested in doing similar work.  The discussion will provide tips on how to develop a program from its earliest conception on through to assessing needs, planning events, and preparing final reports.

The Bookstore Is Not Your Best Friend: Effective Small Press Marketing Strategies.
Colleen McKee, C.J. Kearns, Erin Wiles, Behnam Riahi, Winnie Sullivan
Many publishers and authors starting out mistakenly assume that the first (or even only) place they should market their books and journals are bookstores. While bookstores should be their friends—and often are—they are not necessarily their best friends. In this panel, publishers and PR people from young yet successful small presses discuss alternative venues for readings and book sales, from anarchist bakeries to punk bars, galleries to outdoor fairs, burlesque nights to feminist groups.

Breaking Out of the Box: Writing and Selling the Adoption Experience.
Kate St. Vincent Vogl, Meredith Hall, Jennifer Lauck, Amie Klempnauer Miller, Sun Yung Shin
This panel considers how to respond to the publishing industry’s tendency to marginalize writing on adoption. What did these award-winning authors do to break free and get their stories out there? How did that affect relationships with the surrendered or adoptive family? We will hear from an adoptee, a birth mother and an adoptive mother as to how to best approach writing, selling, publishing and marketing the stories they needed to tell — stories readers were hungry to hear.

The Bridge Story: Black Women Writers and the Evolution of the Short Story.
Rochelle Spencer, Trudier Harris, Asali Solomon, Opal Moore, Danielle Evans
The discovery of three new short stories by Zora Neale Hurston sparks a conversation about black women writers and their evolving relationship to the short story: how has the immediacy of the short story allowed these writers to discuss potent social and political issues?   Please join us as scholars and writers discuss Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker, Tiphanie Yanique as well as their own work.

Bridging the Gaps of Race, Gender and Culture in Children's and Young Adult Literature.
Kekla Magoon, René Colato Laínez, Debby Dahl Edwardson, Ann Angel, Bridget Birdsall
According to the US Census Bureau, caucasians will be a minority in the US by the year 2020. The new multiracial face of America is bridging cultural divides on many levels and embracing a brave new world where geeks, freaks and queers can likewise no longer be hidden in literary closets. As reading rates decline, children’s writers are uniquely poised to promote a literature that better acknowledges who we are becoming. This panel will help writers give voice to the other in a meaningful way.

Bruce Jay Friedman & Friends on Memoir Writing.
Derek Alger, Bruce Jay Friedman, Dani Shapiro, Kelly Cherry, Greg Herriges
Everyone has a story to tell, but the big question is what to tell and how. Bruce Jay Friedman, hailed as a comic genius in several genres of writing, leads a discussion about why write a memoir?, getting started, personal techniques and form, the craft of fiction and storytelling in memoir writing, writing about real people, and advice about how to determine which memories and aspects of one's life best prompt the personal story one feels compelled to write.

Budgeting Essentials for the Book or Lit Mag.
Melanie Moore, Martha Rhodes
Two experienced literary publishers share how to project cash flow, set up P&L statements, budget effectively, and more! 

Building and Surviving an Innovative Writing Program.
K. Lorraine Graham, John Pluecker, Anna Joy Springer, Jen Hofer, Mark Wallace
Participating in interdisciplinary writing program committed to innovative pedagogies is exhilarating and confusing, especially if it's a new program and you are a professor building the curriculum or a student in the inaugural class. A recent graduate, current student, two tenured faculty members and adjunct professor discuss their experiences with innovative writing programs: the three-year old MFA at UCSD, the established MFA at Cal Arts, and the growing undergraduate BA at CSU San Marcos.

Building Community With Non-Traditional Voices: Minnesota's Models for Developing Successful and Diverse Reading Series.
John Medeiros, Andrea Jenkins, Michael Kiesow Moore, Alison Morse, Arleta Little
Alternative and nontraditional voices often go unheard in literary reading circles. Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and even artistic experimentation are all forms of diversity that don't always have a literary platform to empower their development. Hear how curators in the Twin Cities have developed successful reading series that build community by celebrating a wide array of diverse voices, and learn how you can start your own reading series that fosters creativity and builds community.

The Business of Publishing Your Novel with an Independent Press: Author and Publisher Perspectives.
Dennis Johnson, Joe Meno, Adam Levin, Christopher Boucher, Leigh Stein
Melville House publisher and co-founder Dennis Johnson leads a practical discussion of the publishing process with four authors in various stages of their literary careers: Joe Meno has 7 books since 1999, Adam Levin’s first novel was a 2010 critical hit, and Christopher Boucher and Leigh Stein have debut novels appearing in 2011 and 2012. Topics include: acquisitions, editing, big-house vs. indies, publicity, marketing, tours, social-networking, and the changing role of the author.

Calling All Muses:  How to Launch and Run a Successful Writers Conference.
Chantel Acevedo, Jay Lamar, Kelly Walker, Emma Bolden
Join the founders and organizers of the annual Auburn Writers Conference as we talk about the ways organizations, institutions, and communities can launch and maintain a vibrant gathering of writers.  We’ll talk about how the conference began, the challenges of running a conference in a small town like Auburn, Alabama, the power of social networking, how to attract NYT bestselling authors, where to get the funding, our outreach activities, and the surprising benefits of all that hard work.

The Care & Feeding of Long Poems.
Adam Penna, Matthew Zapruder, Kathleen Graber, Adam Day, Julie Sheehan
Pound said he couldn’t make his long poem cohere, and Berryman claimed the only happy people in the world were those who didn’t have to write long poems. In this panel, five poets discuss the challenges of conceiving, beginning, completing and publishing longer poetic works.  Panelists address their influences; define what makes a long poem a long poem; consider the advantages and disadvantages of writing longer works; and discuss the future of the form.

Caribbean Literature: Fifty years since the end of colonialism.
Elizabeth Nunez, Robert Antoni, Patricia Powell, Donette Francis
In 2012, Trinidad &Tobago and Jamaica will celebrate their 50th Anniversary since independence from Britain.  Writers Elizabeth Nunez (Trinidad), Patricia Powell (Jamaica) and Robert Antoni (Trinidad) will discuss how their writings reflect and critique the colonial experience. They will be joined by literary critic Donette Francis (Jamaica) to explore the arc of post colonial Caribbean literature, including the work of two major writers from these regions, VS Naipaul and Lorna Goodison.

Celebration in Any Language: Teaching Bilingual Students [WITS Alliance].
Jack McBride, Alise Alousi, Merna Ann Hecht, Milta Ortiz, Cara Zimmer
As student populations become increasingly diverse, most writing teachers work with bilingual students. We face specific challenges in creating an inclusive classroom community but ultimately celebrate linguistic difference through powerful writing and creativity. Panelists will discuss strategies for reaching all students, the challenges in navigating multiple languages in one classroom, and successes in creating a safe place for students to tell their own individual stories.

The Chapbook Beyond Cultural Artifact: Contemporary Poetry and the Economics and Vitality of Chapbook Publishing.
Steven Karl, Sommer Browning, Mathias Svalina, Angela Veronica Wong, Farrah Field
This panel explores the production, distribution and circulation of the medium of chapbooks from the perspectives of the writer, publisher and bookseller. What does it mean to publish poetry as chapbooks rather than full-length books, and can it be a goal in its own end? What are the economics behind chapbook publication, and how has this influenced the production of poetry for our generation? If chapbooks can be fetishized as charming artifacts, what does it mean when a chapbook goes digital?

Chapbook Publishing in the 21st Century.
Genevieve Kaplan, Betsy Wheeler, Lucas Southworth, Kristy Bowen, Elizabeth Wilcox
Even as print traditions are evolving rapidly, chapbook publishers embrace and promote a somewhat antiquated literary form: the printed chapbook. Chapbook editors and publishers participating in this roundtable will offer perspectives on the business and art of the chapbook, centering their discussion around advantages of the printed chapbook format, aesthetics and innovations in chapbook publishing, and methods for success for new and established chapbook publishing ventures.

Character Matter.
Peter Turchi, C. J. Hribal, Robert Boswell, Susan Neville
Four veteran writers and teachers will discuss specific issues related to characterization: Major Minor Characters: creating bit players that (almost) upstage the main characters; The Two Commandments (of Character Development); What Keeps a Character a Human Being when surface issues (age, gender, health) change; and Beneath the Surface: Latent Character Traits.

Chicago as Literary Birthplace.
Paul Hoover, Maxine Chernoff, Bin Ramke, Srikanth Reddy, Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Consisting of poets who have lived in Chicago and influenced its writing practice, this panel will focus on the illustrious history of poetry innovation in that city, including the role of Poetry magazine in the development of Modernism, Paul Carroll’s Big Table as a showcase for the postwar avant-garde, and the influence of Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, the Body Politic and Poetry Center reading series, Chicago Review, and New American Writing on today’s vital postmodern scene.

Chicagoland Neighborhoods: the City that Motivates.
Davis Schneiderman, Cris Mazza, Gina Frangello, Zoe Zolbrod
Four Chicago authors who logged over 20,000 collective miles in book tours -- often as a group -- return gratefully to Chicago to celebrate not merely the city that works, but the city that makes their work. Interacting with the NEH-funded Virtual Burnham Initiative and Google Earth, and spotlighting areas from Wicker Park to the Western Suburbs to a futuristic Lake Michigan, these four writers address the city as guide, unreliable narrator, and creative muse.

Child's Play?: The Literary Presence of Graduate Student Run Journals.
Kathryn Nuernberger, Matthew Cooperman, Catherine Cortese, Jenny Gropp Hess, Ben Pfeiffer
Editorial turn over and maintaining a consistent literary vision can be concerns for any journal but are intensified in those run exclusively by students, as some of the nation's prominent journals are. Editors who have experienced the process of maintaining a journal's established reputation and those involved in forming and re-forming processes share their experiences and recommendations for making these journals invaluable contributors to the literary community and not just CV lines.

CLMP & SPD Publisher Meeting.
Jamie Schwartz, Steph Opitz
The staffs of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and Small Press Distribution discuss issues facing CLMP and SPD publishers, goals for the organizations and upcoming programs.

Colorblind or Color Coded?: Cross-Institutional Comparisons of Race and Creative Writing Pedagogy.
Jennifer Dobbs, Lisa Lewis, Tim Hernandez, Charles Fort, Shannon Gibney
Do we teach in a post-racial world where creative writing pedagogy can take a colorblind approach?  Writers from a range of pedagogical contexts address the question of student expectations and reading practices of literature by writers of color, along with strategies toward working through racialized assumptions, such as: writers of color are political and white writers focus on artistic quality; race exists only as political correctness; a writer’s ethnicity defines that writer’s audience.

Coloring Outside the Lines.
Sandra M. Yee, J. Michael Martinez, Jamaal May, Dina Omar, Jane Wong
Poets and scholars who identify as writers of color explore connections between racial/ethnic identity and writing.  How do we respond to the pressure to represent our cultures?  How can we create better support systems for each other?  Can (should) we initiate healthier dialogues on race, and who is obliged to take a leadership role in initiating this kind of dialogue?  And what does our own writing reveal about how we’re redefining the boundaries of racial and ethnic identity?

Connecting With Readers Via Your Website and Social Media.
Michele Wolf, Kim Addonizio, David Lehman, Leslie Pietrzyk, Matt Bell
Having a vibrant, user-friendly Web presence—via your own website (supplementing a publisher’s and/or employer’s page for you), blogging, Facebook, and other social media—has become a key asset for engaging readers and students, being part of the conversation, and expanding interest in your work. Learn how to create an appealing, fun-to-click site that best represents your books and passions, what resources and social media contact readers most appreciate, and what pitfalls to avoid.

The Constant Critic Anniversary Panel: Poetry Reviewing in the 21st Century.
Karla Kelsey, Ray McDaniel, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Vanessa Place, Jordan Davis
In 2002 Fence publisher Rebecca Wolff began the Constant Critic, an online only-poetry book review website. In the past 10 years the venues for poetry criticism have dramatically altered, but the CC has remained. This panel, staffed by the site’s 5 critics (2 of which have been with the project since the beginning) discusses what it means to have a lengthy presence in one venue along with issues surrounding the rapidly changing world of poetry publication, dissemination, and criticism.

Containing Multitudes: Shifting Voices in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction.
Sue Silverman, Connie May Fowler, Xu Xi, Robert Vivian, Philip Graham
Five teachers from Vermont College will explore how the development and expression of voice—either in our own artistically crafted personas or those of our fictional characters—is a series of shifting masks, revealing and concealing the author. We will discuss how writers express on the page a distinctive voice; how voice changes in time through a writer's continuing encounters of the world without and the world within; how the adoption of a fictive versus a non-fictive persona affect voice.

Creating and Developing a Comprehensive Creative Writing Program on a Budget.
John Brantingham, Gerald Locklin, Jo Scott-Coe, Robert Stapleton, Lloyd Aquino
This panel discusses their experiences with helping to develop creative writing programs with little or no funding available to them. They have helped to create an MFA program, community college transfer programs, a creative writing conference, university and college magazines, classes, and reading series. All of this work has been done with little money, and many of these programs have been funded in creatively though the use of new technologies and alternative income streams.

The Creative Process: Can it be Taught? Or Will Chicken Soup Do?.
Eric Olsen, Sherry Kramer, Jayne Anne Phillips, Glenn Schaeffer, Douglas Unger
Can writing be taught? You’d think the question had been asked and answered (in the affirmative) long ago. Yet on April 7 on the PBS NewsHour, the director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Lan Samantha Chang, said: ‘I sometimes feel if I just brought [students] to the room and fed them some chicken soup, they would get better anyway. The elements that go into creating a great writer are completely mysterious.’ We’ll explore the mysteries, the if and how, and whether chicken soup will do.

The Creative Writing Fulbright Fellowship Information Session.
Katherine Arnoldi, Summer Hess, Erika Martinez, Katrina Vandenberg, Jillian Weise
The Fulbright Program funds undergraduate and graduate students to study, conduct research or pursue creative activities abroad for a year. The Fulbright Fellowship Information panel is composed of past Creative Writing Fulbright Fellows who will tell of the application process, the experience and the professional, creative and personal benefits of having received this prestigious award. They spent their Fulbright year in places such as Japan, Chili, the Netherlands, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and Argentina writing poetry, plays, memoirs, non-fiction, and novels.

Creative Writing Exchanges: Building Community Outside the Writing Classroom.
Joseph Wood, Megan Kaminski, Patti White, Heidi Lynn Staples, John Vanderslice
Panelists will discuss the genesis and development of The Creative Writing Exchanges, an emerging network of universities that sponsor undergraduate writers to read and write in one another’s communities. The exchanges give students the indelible experience of representing something greater than themselves, by fostering student involvement in larger arts communities outside of a student’s own university and region. Panelists will discuss pedagogical and cultural rewards and future development.

Creative Writing in Women's Prisons: Continuity Before and After Release.
Tami Haaland, Josh Fomon, Malia Burgess, Amelia McDanel, Karin Schalm
Panelists will explore 1) anecdotal evidence as well as research about the effect of creative writing for women involved in Montana Women’s Prison creative writing classes during the past two years; 2) how outreach efforts have been coordinated among students, graduates, and independent writers affiliated with several universities to either present readings or teach in the program; and 3) the developing continuity between creative writing classes or writing groups on the inside and writing groups outside prison walls.

Creative Writing Pedagogy Courses in the MFA.
David Muschell, Wayne Thomas, Bill Torgerson, Jonathan Torres, Rebecca Hazelwood
This panel examines the importance of having creative writing pedagogy courses in the MFA program.  Since the MFA is considered a teaching degree, it makes sense to prepare students to teach both the traditional composition courses and introductory creative writing courses, yet many programs don't include courses of this nature and turn out future faculty members who are unprepared to teach.  The panel consists of professors who had pedagogy courses in their MFA programs and present graduate students who have taken or are taking a creative writing pedagogy class.

Creativity in crisis: what’s the future for the imagination in university writing programs?.
Steve May, Helena Blakemore, Craig Batty, Nigel McLoughlin
While business and self-help gurus try to colonize creativity, and many academic disciplines bolt a creative element onto their funding bids, creative writing is increasingly required to define itself in quality assurance terms and to justify its very existence in the face of budgetary cuts. This panel examines the cultural, economic and academic pressures exerted on creative writing in the academy, and looks to involve participants in a search for imaginative solutions.

Crisis Economics for Nonprofits [WITS Alliance].
Amy Swauger, Long Chu, Rebecca Hoogs, Michele Kotler, Melanie Moore
How are some nonprofits thriving in the current economy while others struggle to keep the doors open from one day to the next? The panelists in this session, who represent presenting organizations, literary publishers, and writers-in-the-schools programs, discuss their strategies for weathering the financial storm by identifying different sources of funding, collaborating with other nonprofits and for-profit partners, and finding ways to maintain programs and services while cutting costs.

Critical Divide: The Personal Essay and the Critical Essay.
Jeff Shotts, Deborah Baker, Sven Birkerts, Eula Biss, Kevin Young
New nonfiction writing often blurs the autobiographical and the critical, and at its best, that can result in something daring, collage-like, lyrical, and illuminating. The four divergent writers here will discuss their recent works of nonfiction and strategies for writing the personal and the critical.

Cross-country collaboration:  How Tin House and The Normal School make real publications in virtual offices.
Adam Braver, Rob Spillman, Cheston Knapp, Steven Church, Sophie Beck
Imagine a print magazine and it has an office. Editors and interns pore over proofs. Maybe it smells like burnt coffee. Not at Tin House or The Normal School, two literary publishers with far-flung editors. The internet facilitates virtual collaboration, but how do you make art by e-mail? How do you find creative and executive equilibrium when you almost never see the people with whom you work? If you meet someone at AWP and have a great idea together, how will you bring it to fruition?

Dancing with the Deans: Evaluating Poetry in the Tenure Process.
MIchael Paul Thomas, Kate Daniels, Stanton Green
Evaluation of the Arts in Tenure and Promotion is a longstanding issue.This panel discusses the specifics of creative writing, and in particular, poetry, from the point of view of 2 questions: 1) What is a fair way to account for the difficulty in publishing creative writing as compared to the sciences and social sciences? 2) How can one judge the various levels of journals and magazines for creative writing in terms of their rigor of peer review and prestige within the field?

Deep Impact:  Four Programs that Empower youth and Engage Community.
Mihku Paul, Victoria Akins, Susan Casey, Jeff Kass, Gibson Fay-LeBlanc
This panel presents (4) creative writing programs targeting youth which are stand-outs for their innovation, mission success and community impact.  Each panelist; a high school teacher, a community program director, a LCSW working with incarcerated youth, and a reading intervention specialist with a Native reservation school, will describe his/ her program framework, activities and outcomes.  A discussion on impact assessment  and overall mission goals will follow.

Desperate and Deliberate: Thoreau and the Nature Writer.
Tom Montgomery Fate, Elizabeth Dodd, David Gessner, Robert Root, Mary Swander
Henry Thoreau, the hermit philosopher from Concord, opined that while others lived ‘a life of quiet desperation,’ in town, he would construct a more deliberate life in the woods. Since the publication of Walden in 1854, hundreds of nature writers in vastly different contexts have drawn on his themes and style.  This panel will consider the enduring relevance and influence of Thoreau on nature writing, and on their own work.

Developing a Literary Community for Emerging Writers.
Zachary Bean, Eric Ekstrand, Tiffany Thor, Steven Simeone
This panel discusses the need for developing a vibrant literary community outside of graduate writing programs and strategies for doing so. From founding a literary conference for emerging writers to organizing community readings, the editors and staff of Glass Mountain have created a model for growing a literary community, and in the process, learned what works and what doesn’t.

Dialogues with Silence: Conversations with Poets About Faith.
Katherine Towler, Gregory Orr, Marilyn Nelson, Jericho Brown, Kazim Ali
Faith is not a word often heard in conversations about literature. It seems to have become a word American authors try to avoid, one claimed by the political right wing. The five acclaimed poets on this panel come from different faiths and backgrounds, but they all share a willingness to reclaim the word faith and to discuss its relationship to literature. Moderated by the fiction writer Katherine Towler, this panel includes Kazim Ali, Jericho Brown, Annie Finch, Marilyn Nelson and Gregory Orr.

Dispatches from the Front: Creative Work and Social Justice.
Ann Stewart, Brenda Cardenas, Roberto Harrison, Lane Hall, Timothy Yu
In this cross-genre panel, a group of Wisconsin writers, artists and scholars will hold forth on the current fight for workers’ rights and socio-economic justice in that state and across the nation. Presentations will include observations about the way in which art, poetry and other creative forms have been instrumental in documenting ongoing activism. The panel will then engage in a discussion about the role of creative writing and art, being themselves forms of labor, in political struggle.

THE DOME OF HEAVEN: Making an Independent Film.
Diane Glancy, Thirza Defoe
Independent Film making is in.  Every time I open my e-mail, I find a new festival.  In 2010, I made a film.  Several components came together: money, actors, crew and location.  Two weeks and $200,000 later, I had a film, THE DOME OF HEAVEN. Independent film-making is much like writing a book.  Harder, of course, because many were involved, but draft after draft in filming and editing, submitting the film to festivals and being accepted or rejected, reminded me of the writing process.

Don’t Tell Me What I Can’t Do: Notes on Teaching Against the Rules.
Rebecca Aronson, Emmy Pérez, Patricia Machmiller, Oody Petty
Four writers and teachers propose exercises for an erase-the-rules approach to reading and writing across creative writing genres to encourage students to forget what they know and risk instead writing that follows the whims of curiosity, bravery, and foolishness. Discussion includes use of found chained hay(na)ku to promote attentiveness to the physical world, The Paradoxical Intervention (or: Prescribing the Symptom),reading personification in Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris, and other exercises.

The Doors of My Heart: A Tribute to Deborah Digges.
Patrick Phillips, Deborah Garrison, David Baker, Susan Mitchell, Joelle Biele
Join us to celebrate the life and work of the late poet, memoirist, and teacher, Deborah Digges (1950-2009), whose startling lyricism and soulful intelligence have been deeply important to a wide range of contemporary writers.  Our panelists, who include editors, long-time friends, and former students, will read from Digges’ work, and discuss both her life and her lasting impact on American poetry.

Dreaming New Cartographies: Playwriting Across Genres and Cultures.
Lisa Schlesinger, Ruth Margraff, Sands Hall, Ezzat Goushegir, Kenneth Prestininzi
Historically, poems and stories have been performed long before they were written down. Five playwrights will explore new kinds of writing in the crosshairs of poetry, fiction and theatre emerging in global theatre and literary venues. We will discuss the use of poetry and fiction in performance and playwriting techniques to enhance prose styles. We will address the use of cross-genre writing as a means to create new possibilities for global conversation across cultural divides.

Dual Citizenship—Writing for both Children and Adults.
Sheila O'Connor, Julie Schumacher, Geoff Herbach, Margaret MacMullan
Many writers move between genres and audiences, but what are the challenges and rewards of moving between adult and children’s literature?  What publishing possibilities does a thriving children’s literature market offer?  Does the writer moving between genres jeopardize his or her reputation as a serious writer?  Panelists publishing in both genres will also discuss dual representation by agents, the place of children's literature in MFA programs, and the inclusion or exclusion of children’s literature in fellowships, grants, tenure and other areas of professional recognition.

The Dynamic Duo: Exploring the Author/Publisher Relationship.
Fiona McCrae, Marie Mockett, Sarah Gorham, Kathleen Ossip
An honest, thoughtful discussion between authors and their publishers. The good, the bad, and the ugly details of working with each other. With Fiona McCrae of Graywolf Press & Marie Mockett author of Picking Bones from Ash and Sarah Gorham from Sarabande Books & Kathleen Ossip author of The Cold War.

 

Each Other's Magnitude and Bond: On Building the Writing Life at HBCUs.
Kirsten Hemmy, Kelly Norman Ellis, DaMaris Hill, Monifa Love Asante, Tony Medina
While there is proliferation of both undergaduate and graduate-level creative writing programs at predominantly White universities, historically Black colleges and universities continue to struggle to formalize creative writing programs. There is a vital, thriving writing life at HBCUs,often informal. This panel will discuss the importance of what's happening on HBCU campuses across the country.

Ear Candy: Teaching the Pleasures of Poetic Meter.
Liz Ahl, Jeff Oaks, Annie Finch, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Tara Betts
Rooted in a diversity of aesthetic and pedagogical perspectives, this panel focuses on the teaching and learning of meter: how, when, and why might one teach meter to young poets? Is teaching meter like teaching other elements of poetic craft and technique? Is meter akin to music or language when it comes to learning and teaching?  How can we help our students sing out rather than slog through? How might activities like scansion, reading aloud, or imitation, help poets develop an ear for meter?

East and West: Creative Nonfiction and the Possibility of Post-Orientalist Travel Writing.
Joshua Schriftman, Faith Adiele, Fred D’Aguiar, Elizabeth Kadetsky, Oona Patrick
New travel writing too often builds on old notions of race. Developing cultures get reduced to romantic piquancy, and national identities become exotic foils to Western quests for identity: find prayer in one nation; food in another; love in a third. We may know Orientalism when we see it, but does this ultimately help us as writers to avoid it? How can Westerners writing on Eastern experiences use the tools of creative nonfiction to write outside of these old imperialist patterns?

The Elephant in the Room: Politics and the Creative Writing Classroom.
Michelle Burke, Katherine Zlabek, Carrie Jerrell, Merna Ann Hecht, Andrea Scarpino
Join these diverse writers as they discuss how they’ve integrated political and social concerns into their teaching practice. Panelists will share activities and assignments that they’ve successfully used to expose students to new ways of thinking about and seeing the world, from engaging immigrant and refugee high school students in storytelling to breaking down the town/gown divide through a community-based art and poetry installation.

Emerging Digital Genres: A Relational Investigation.
Steve Halle, Laura Goldstein, John Vincler, Francesco Levato, Carina Finn
This panel explores how various genres of digital literature emerge and merge, often precariously, with traditional print literary genres.  Panelists will display examples of cinépoetry and other new media genres, investigate how digital literature is read in relation to existing literary devices, explore digital archiving and the evolving materiality of media, and analyze methods for developing a transgeneric relational creative writing pedagogy that includes digital and print texts.

Eminent Debuts: Four Authors Discuss Their First Nonfiction Books.
Barrie Jean Borich, Bonnie J. Rough, Cheryl Strayed, Ira Sukrungruang, Ryan Van Meter
How do nonfiction book publishing debuts compare across mainstream, independent, and university presses? How are these books linked to work authors publish first in journals? How might media misperceptions of the genre impact authors’ careers? University of Nebraska Press author and nonfiction editor of Water~Stone Review interviews four respected writers publishing with Knopf, Counterpoint, Sarabande, and University of Missouri about their first time out with book-length literary nonfiction.

Empowering at-risk and under-served populations through creative writing.
Nancy Weber, Deborah Clearman, Melissa Tombro, Clarissa Cummings, Alex Samets
This panel of staff and experienced workshop leaders from NY Writers Coalition, one of the country's largest community based creative writing programs, explores working with a broad range of people not often thought of as writers, including the homeless, incarcerated, war vets, at-risk youth, seniors and many others. Panelists will share the NYWC model, success stories, challenges, and writing exercises useful for working with writers of all skill levels and backgrounds.

Ethos, Logos, Pathos: Or, Who's the Speaker Here?.
Kathleen Graber, Jason Schneiderman, Laura McCullough, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Kazim Ali
Aristotle identified three means of persuasion: ethos, logos, pathos; character, reason, emotion. Obviously a great poem compels us in all three ways, but we rarely hear anyone talking about these  purely rhetorical allegiances (as different from but not unrelated to the grammatical/syntactical choices and strategies) of the poetic speaker. This panel will explore all three categories in relation to voice, authority, and the trustworthiness of a poem’s speaker and how they impact the reception of a poem by the reader.

Every Day I Live, I Live Forever: The Poetry of Robert Dana.
Rick Campbell, Hilda Raz, Donald Morrill, David Hamilton, Rick Ryan
Robert Dana, who died in February of 2010, was a quintessential Midwestern poet:  graduate of Iowa Writer’s Workshop in the 1950s, editor of the North American Review in the 1960s, writer-in-residence at Cornell College for over thirty years, and recently Iowa’s Poet Laureate.  In this tribute, panelists Rick Campbell, David Hamilton, Donald Morrill, Hilda Raz, and Rick Ryan explore Dana’s considerable contributions as a poet, critic, teacher, and editor.

Everybody Stand Up: Using Performance in the Teaching of Writing.
Megan Stielstra, Sage Morgan-Hubbard, Robert Biedrzycki, Amanda Delheimer, Sara Kerastas
This panel examines how performance can be used in the teaching of writing,  both as final product and within the creative process. Pulling from cross-genre traditions including theatre, storytelling, hip-hop, and performance art, educators from Young Chicago Authors, Gallery 37, 2nd Story, About Face, and Columbia College discuss their work in getting the best writing on the page, examining literary craft in new ways, encouraging discovery—and how performance helped their students get there.

Experiments for the Future: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, & Songs for Children.
Dana Teen Lomax, Jennifer Firestone, Sarah Rosenthal, Nicole Brodsky, Jane Sprague
In the tradition of Gertrude Stein’s The World Is Round and Djuna Barnes’s Creatures in an Alphabet, the writers in this Small Press Traffic project present innovative literature for young people.

Offering an alternative to Silverstein & slam, panelists discuss experimental literature for children & show
a film of kids reading work by Douglas Kearney, Harryette Mullen, Juan Felipe Herrera, Eileen Myles, & others.

What do cutting edge writers have to say to the next generation?  Come find out!

Experiments in Individual Solace and Collective Safety: Five Days of Crafting Poetry at the Kundiman Writers’ Retreat.
Sarah Gambito, Cathy Linh Che, Myung Mi Kim, Patrick Rosal, Prageeta Sharma
Kundiman fosters Asian American poets to find their voices by probing culture and aesthetics during its retreat. Kundiman faculty and fellows will discuss innovative pedagogical approaches in workshops, mentorship sessions, readings and poetry clinics to enable poetic development and community-building. We will explore topics like: How should one teach to a cohort with different aesthetic interests and levels of workshop experience? What compact lessons work for poets just meeting each other?

Expertise, Collaboration, and Collegiality in the Smaller Program.
Sarah Perrier, Janice Tuck Lively, Karen Dwyer, Molly Sides, Ivan Rodden
The lone academic and the isolated writer are both tropes that we would do well to lose, yet many small programs reinforce these tropes in their structures and practices. Our panelists will discuss how their work in small environments informs and/or resists these familiar premises, particularly as they relate to contemporary notions of the writing teacher and the working writer. In particular, we will investigate whether faculty collaboration outside the classroom strengthens a program.

Exploding the Narrative Line: Benefits and Drawbacks of Teaching the Braided Form.
Jennifer Sinor, Andrew Berthrong, Christopher Cokinos, John C. Gilmore
In this panel, professors and graduate students will discuss their experience in teaching the braided form. Professors will describe the challenge in teaching graduate and undergraduate students to juggle multiple narrative lines, while their graduate students will explore the benefits of assigning the braided essay to first-year students. Panelists will provide practical advice and examples based on their experience, including model essays, course outlines, and jumpstarts for research.

Faith and the Creative Writing Class: Helping Students Find the Literary in the Spiritual.
Joe Miller, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Clint McCown, Elizabeth Kadetsky, Jeff Gundy
When creative writing students grapple with religion and spirituality in their work, professors are challenged not only to respect diverse backgrounds and belief systems, but to seize on an opportunity to teach high literary standards. In this panel, poetry, fiction and nonfiction professors from public and private, religious and secular universities discuss how the missions of their institutions, student expectations, and their own beliefs and values affect how they respond to religious work.

Fallout & Facts: Creative Nonfiction in the Nuclear Age.
Anna Leahy, Tom Zoellner, Kristen Iversen, M. G. Lord, Jeff Porter
Seventy years ago in Chicago, Enrico Fermi achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction. On March 11, 2011, a nuclear accident in Japan reminded us that we live and write in the nuclear age. The authors of Uranium, Full Body Burden, Astro Turf, and Oppenheimer Is Watching Me will share their work and discuss the responsibilities, range of forms, research processes, and craft issues involved in writing creative nonfiction during the nuclear age, including the Cold War and now beyond.

Fata Morgana: Literature Spread Thick as a (Re)flex(i-on) of Technology and Time.
Jane L. Carman, Debra Di Blasi, Steve Tomasula, Anna Joy Springer, Janice Lee
Examining the affects of multiple aesthetics on readers, this panel will discuss literature that reaches beyond the page into the realms of music, the Internet, fine art, science and pop culture. The sweeping interests of readers transcend the page as art and technology coincide with text or as pop culture and history are appropriated, formulated into artistic vision. Panelists will examine how the reader is thereby invited to reimagine literature’s form and function within a multimodal culture.

Feminism in the Writing Classroom: What’s the Rubric?.
Melissa Febos, Jennifer Baumgardner, Brenda Shaughnessy, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Rachel Simon
When feminist concerns are integral to a teaching writer’s work, but not on the syllabus, how do we negotiate arising issues of gender and sexism in the classroom?  Is loyalty to our identity as feminists, or teachers paramount? Need we choose? From classrooms in private liberal arts colleges, to those in women’s prisons, to those in West Africa, five feminist writing professors weigh in on if, and how, their politics inform their classroom methods.

The Fiction Chapbook -- A Sleeper Form Wakes Up.
Nicole Louise Reid, Eric Lorberer, Diane Goettel, Kevin Sampsell, Abigail Beckel
In recent years, the literary marketplace has seen an upswing in publication of fiction manuscripts as chapbooks--a format associated mainly with poetry. A chapbook is the perfect medium for a short story or a clutch of short-shorts, and is capable of bringing an intimacy and aesthetic appeal unattainable by full-length books. Editors from Black Lawrence Press, Future Tense Books, Rain Taxi, RopeWalk Press, and Rose Metal Press, will discuss a range of experiences with this exciting format.

Finding a Common Language in the Public Schools [WITS Alliance].
Long Chu, Michele Kotler, Loyal Miles, Giuseppe Taurino, Keith Yost
WITS organizations have deep artistic roots, and may approach the teaching of creative writing in ways public school administrators and teachers misunderstand or find irrelevant to their concerns. How do we make the case for WITS programs as valuable partners in meeting schools’ goals for student learning, but still remain true to our artistic identity? This panel of school administrators and WITS leaders share real world ideas to strengthen outreach to school partners.

Finding the Time—And Money!—to Write.
Angela Veronica Wong, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Kirstin Chen, Farrah Field, Kim Liao
All writers struggle with this quandary: either we have time to write and no money, or money and no time. But there are ways you can have both! Get practical advice and aesthetic inspiration from five writers under 35 who have all received grants, residencies and fellowships propelling their careers forward. Especially useful to emerging writers battling the post-MFA slump, all genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, scholarly research/writing) and many varieties of funding sources are addressed.

The First Book of Poetry: Five Poets Speak about the Path from Poem to Manuscript to Publication.
Shira Dentz, Gary Jackson, Nick Demske, Julie Sophia Paegle, John Beer
Five poets who have recently published a first book of poetry speak in depth about their paths to first book publication. Starting from the oldest poems in the manuscript, they discuss how and why a certain group of poems became a manuscript, how this manuscript was ordered, how certain contests and potential publishers were selected, how the manuscript changed over the years before winning or being accepted, and how it changed between that moment and publication.

First City in Literature: A Discussion of Chicago’s Past, Present and Future Writers.
Donald Evans, Haki Madhubuti, William Savage, Donna Seaman
Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Executive Director Donald G. Evans will lead Haki Madhubuti, William Savage and Donna Seaman in a discussion about Chicago’s great literary heritage. We’ll explore and connect significant past and current literature, and speculate on future literature in this city. We’ll attempt to define qualities that make Chicago writing distinctive and important to our culture.

First Things First: What It’s Really Like to Win a Book Contest.
Melissa Stein, Dilruba Ahmed, Keetje Kuipers, J. Michael Martinez, Iain Haley Pollock
What actually happens after winning a first-book prize? Recent winners of five top poetry awards—the Walt Whitman, APR/Honickman, Bakeless, Cave Canem, and A. Poulin, Jr.—candidly discuss surprises and challenges and how publication changed (and didn’t change) their lives and their relationships to their writing. With all the benefits of 20/20 hindsight, they’ll share experiences with—and tips on—manuscript submission, the revision process, cover design, and the mysteries of book promotion.

Flash Fiction: How and Why to Teach It.
Kona Morris, Jayne Anne Phillips, Tom Hazuka, Robert Shapard, Kim Chinquee
If we can accept that flash fiction is indeed its own distinct genre, then a discussion remains about how and why to teach it. Does it deserve its own course? What is the flash canon? How can the conventions of poetry and prose apply? What does the accessibility of its short form offer the classroom? In this panel, a variety of instructors, from MFA directors to adjuncts, as well as writers and editors specializing in the genre, will discuss the methodology and canon for teaching flash fiction.

Flash Points: Publishing Flash Fiction In An Evolving Landscape.
Glenn Shaheen, Roxane Gay, Tara Laskowski, Edward Mullany, Adam Peterson
Editors from PANK, NANO Fiction, matchbook, SmokeLong Quarterly, and The Cupboard discuss trends they see in the flash fiction submitted to their journals. What are some tropes they’re tired of? Things they wish they’d see more often? Are prose poems and flash fiction pieces scrutinized differently when submitted? Join the editors as they attempt to (briefly, of course) characterize the landscape of contemporary flash fiction, and give advice to those who are submitting their shortest work.

From Combat to College: Helping Veterans Transition from the Military to the Academic Writing Environment Through Veterans-Only Writing Courses..
Charlotte Gullick, Chris Leche, Colin D. Halloran, Kelly Dalton
This panel will discuss the difficult transition veterans face when entering the entirely new language environment of academia. Topics will include how and why veterans are a special student population, how writing teachers can use discourse awareness to increase student success and critical thinking skills, as well as offer strategies for addressing the unique challenges veterans and their Creative Writing and English instructors may face.

From Litmag to Chapbook Press: Championing the Handmade in the Digital Morass.
Martin Rock, Anna Moschovakis, Nate Pritts, Ana Bo i evi , Ben Fama
Editors of the CUNY Lost and Found project, Epiphany, H_ngm_n, Supermachine, and Ugly Duckling Presse discuss the transition from independent Literary Magazine to nationally recognized Chapbook Press. Panelists explain the editorial process of choosing who and what to publish, consider the multifarious forms of the contemporary chapbook, and discuss uses of new and old technology from the resurgence of the letterpress to the increasingly ubiquitous handheld device.

From Question to Quest: Redefining Nonfiction in the Field, in the Classroom, and on the Page.
Jeremiah Chamberlin, V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan, Donovan Hohn, Matthew Power, Jesmyn Ward
This panel examines how nonfiction is changing in a culture increasingly dominated by mash-ups, photo-shop, and cell phone cameras. Is literary journalism still relevant in this era? And how will the personal essay evolve in the hands of the Facebook generation? Writers, editors, and teachers attempt to address these questions, as well as to discuss the ethics of writing about other cultures, why questions matter, whether there’s a blurry line to truth, and how to pitch a successful feature.

From Teen to Tenure: Giving, Receiving, and Making the Most of Peer Review.
Elisabeth Lanser-Rose, Danita Berg, Erin Trauth, Kenneth Kimbrough, Samantha Schuyler
Three creative writing students from high school to graduate school join a teacher and a professor to share their best tips on using peer review at different stages of creative writing education. These intergenerational voices from different angles of learning will discuss the elements of peer review that are essential and unchanging, and those that best shape craft and writing identity.

From the Mawkish to the Remarkable: Addressing Sentimentality in Undergraduate Poetry Workshops.
Dana Bisignani, Eric Goddard-Scovel, Cody Lumpkin, Adrian Gibbons Koesters
Undergraduate poets often struggle with sentimentality, relying on an abstract language of thought and feeling to express the universal. Four instructors will discuss how to steer young poets towards more sophisticated modes of emotional expression while still fostering their individual artistic sensibilities. From working with found language to collaborative writing, panelists share tools and pedagogical strategies to help students replace the mawkish with the remarkable.

FUSE Caucus (Forum of Undergraduate Student Editors).
Catherine Zobal Dent, Michael Cocchiarale, Esme Franklin, Michael Fiorilla, Meredith Madigosky
The annual meeting of undergraduate student editors and faculty advisers will address the panel topic, “How to Build a Reputation.”  Student panelists and audience members will discuss ideas on making the undergraduate magazine desirable to create, to submit work to, and to read. Come to this annual networking meeting to learn about the organizational structure of FUSE, to vote for officers, and to gain tangible resources for all undergraduate publishing efforts.

Generation, Inheritance and Collaboration: Parent/Child Writers.
Nicole Cooley, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Jessica Fisher, Aaron Raz Link, Hilda Raz
This panel has members from three families, each containing two generations of writers.  However, our panel is focused not only on personal relationships but also on the larger questions of conflict, influence, inheritance, and collaboration that arise when writers are members of the same family.  We will explore voice, authority, and the gender and generational issues raised for fathers and daughters and mothers and sons when both parent and child write, and write together.

The Geometry of the Novel: Making ‘Shapelier’ Fiction.
Peter Grandbois, Debra Di Blasi, Michael Martone, Lance Olsen
While Jerome Stern’s classic Making Shapely Fiction focuses on alternative narrative forms, most of the shapes are actually variations of the Freytag pyramid, for example, his ‘Journey,’ ‘Visitor,’ ‘Bear at the Door,’ and ‘Aha’ shapes.  This panel seeks to expand Stern’s premise to explore not only the power alternative shapes offer in driving longer, book-length narratives but the aesthetic beauty of geometries that work with your story not against it.

Ghost-Writing the Eulogy: How to Survive and Make Your Name Beyond the Academy with a Degree in Creative Writing.
Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, Kim Addonizio, Dana Gioia, Maggie Dietz, Simone Muench
With the expansion of programs in creative writing, more and more degreed creative writers are overwhelming the Academic job market causing and many of us to seek different ways to make a buck while continuing to write.  Ghost-writing, editing, independent scholarship, running a workshop, writing for TV: you name it and the five poets and novelists on this panel have done it.  They will share with us the creative ways they’ve found to make a living and some tricks they’ve learned along the way.

Going Beyond What You Know: Research & The Personal Memoir.
Marina Budhos, Kathryn Harrison, Faith Adiele, Fenton Johnson, Bonnie Friedman
Sometimes, memoir is drawn not just from what we know, but from what we discover through research.  This panel will explore how the writer balances research with personal narrative. How does one blend the researcher’s objective findings with the idiosyncratic, personal voice? How to make use of interviews? When does research reshape the narrative? Panelists will share their strategies for balancing research with the craft of a memoir, and offer suggestions for the writing workshop.

Haitian Literature at the Crossroads.
Nadine Pinede, Danielle Legros Georges, Patrick Sylvain
This panel will consider Haitian literature being written in the 21st century—both within Haiti and in its global diaspora.  With a focus on poets and fiction writers producing in the United States and in English, panelists (creative writers and scholars/critics) will explore how contemporary Haitian literature carries on such traditions as magical realism, political engagement, nationalism, experimentalism—and where and how it veers from tradition into new and even more compelling spaces.

The Hollywood Stint: Prose Writers and Writing for the Screen.
Andrew Scott, Douglas Light, Tom Chiarella, John McNally, Owen King
Writing for Hollywood has long appealed to prose stylists such as Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and many contemporary writers. These panelists will discuss writing across genres, what's required to write for the screen, how their fiction writing skills aid or hinder their attempts to please Hollywood, their dealings with producers, studios, and television networks, and the changing perceptions about screenwriting within creative writing programs.

Homage to Édouard Glissant (1928-2011).
Ishion Hutchinson, Dante Micheaux, Christian Campbell, Kwame Dawes, Matthew Shenoda
Édouard Glissant, born in Guadelope in 1928, was one of the great originals in Francophone and world literature, particularly his contribution to postcolonial discourse, not only as a theorists but as poet, novelist and dramatist. Five writers will read from his work--in French, Creole, and in English-- and their own. A discussion of Glissant, the writer and the man, his influence on the panelists' work, will then follow.

Home and Away: The Influence of Travel on Writing.
Stephan Clark, Sabina Murray, Jeff Parker, Kyle Minor, Jensen Beach
Every writer works alone, but some go to great distances to do so. This panel brings together five writers who have traveled extensively -- to Australia, Haiti, Hungary, the Philipines, Russia, Sweden, and Ukraine -- to discuss how travel and living abroad have enriched their fiction and nonfiction, allowing them to tell stories they otherwise would not have known and, paradoxically, better write about their own culture.

Home Sweet Home: Short Story Collections and Small Presses.
Caitlin Horrocks, Amina Gautier, Shannon Cain, Adam Schuitema, Kelcey Parker
With trade publishers less willing to take a risk on story collections, and agents and editors advising writers to just finish a novel, where can the story writer turn? Five debut authors discuss their experiences with the small, independent, and university presses that are increasingly the most welcoming homes for story collections. They’ll discuss how they found their publishers, what small publishers can (and can’t) offer story authors, and how these presses are helping collections thrive.

Honoring the Heartland:  Midwestern Poets Celebrate Richness of Place.
Renny Golden, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Patricia Clark, Patricia Monaghan, Summer Wood
Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, the hardscrabble Chicago Southside, and Michigan’s deep woods are three vital – and vitally different – landscapes within America’s Midwest. Patricia Monaghan, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and Patricia Clark, three Midwestern authors for Voices from the American Land (a publisher with a unique land conservation bent), will join Voices editors Renny Golden and Summer Wood to discuss a poetics of place that honors cultural/spiritual concerns as well as the lay of the land.

How Far is Too Far? Facing Self-censors and Publishing Censors When Writing About Coming of Age for Young Adults.
Laura Otto, Ann Angel, Daniel Kraus, Penny Blubaugh, Ricki Thompson
When writers work to capture the emerging adult at the end of the young adult journey to independence, they find their characters exploring the forbidden adult world. These stories often depict experimentation with drugs, alcohol and sexuality. How do writers, compelled to tell the truth of the adolescent's journey, respond to the interior voice that warns, You can't write that?

How to Create Literary Community on a Dime (or Less).
Suzanne Roberts, Suzanne Parker, June Saraceno, Gailmarie Pahmeier, Kim Wyatt
In a climate where colleges, universities, and art centers are losing funding, how do we continue to offer readings, workshops, and other literary events? We will present practical tips (and tricks) on how to create literary community and run a writers' series even when there’s no money in your budget. Topics covered will include fundraising, grants, collaborations, publicity, finding authors, and stretching every dollar.

Hybrid Bodies:  Poets Negotiating the Fractal Geographies of Trauma and Identity.
Addie Tsai, Kelly Moore, Ronaldo Wilson, Afaa Weaver
This panel explores the confluence and difficulties regarding hybrid bodies (disabled, trauma, sexuality, gender, race) and the complexities of using the hybrid body as a metaphor in contemporary poetry. How do we approach poetry as a way of exploring the sense of the body’s betrayal, working in a public whose lack of awareness presents real dangers? In poetry, how can we inhabit hybridity without objectifying it? What impulse leads people to write about abnormal body experiences not their own?

I’d take Stephenie Meyer’s Royalty Check: What Should We Be Teaching Our Students?.
P. Andrew Miller, Bryan Dietrich, Kelly Moffett, Dan Nowak, Stephen Leigh
When authors like Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer make millions of dollars with often mediocre writing, what should we be teaching students in creative writing classes? Should we tell them not to write like these financially successful authors? This panel will look at the balance between the artistic and the pragmatic when it comes to creative writing and question the philosophical and ethical roles or creative writing professors.

I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women.
Vanessa Place, Bhanu Kapil, Mónica de la Torre, Sawako Nakayasu, Kim Rosenfield
Conceptual writing is an emerging 21st century literary movement which creates poetry and prose concerned with politics but not polemics and which foregrounds ‘thinkership’ as opposed to readership, ‘sobjectivity’ instead of individuality. Poetic techniques include: appropriation, documentation, constraint, process, performance, polyvocality,  and re-versioning of form. Participants will present on women’s contributions (historical and new) to the field.

Ideas That Always Work; Solutions That Never Fail: Best Practices for the Creative Writing Workshop.
Christopher Castellani, Ethan Gilsdorf, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Bret Anthony Johnston
Every workshop has problems: the dude who won't stop talking. The lady who keeps psychoanalyzing. The inappropriately dirty/violent/creepy story. Every workshop needs new ideas: unique exercises that always yield worthwhile pages. Rules that structure conversation without squashing spontaneity. In this panel, instructors of all genres will share case studies of how they deal with common problems and also reveal their best strategies for maximizing the effectiveness and fairness of workshops.

The Image, Written: Using Photography and Mixed Media to Teach Creative and Composition Writing.
Rachel Somerstein, Alden Jones, Lorraine Doran
Recent technological and cultural transformations have created a world in which photographic images are bound up with literacy, illiteracy, and self-expression as never before. This panel examines how photography can be used as a tool to teach writing. Three university instructors will discuss methods for integrating photography, blogs, and mixed media into creative writing and composition classes, offering specific strategies for tapping into college students' visual literacy.

The Improvisational, Inspirational Workshop.
Sarah Stone, Brian Kiteley, Karina Knowles, Joan Silber, Lois Smith
How can we develop workshops that inspire participants, build community, cure blocks instead of causing them, and help writers discover new stories and new possibilities for existing stories? This panel will discuss specific methods, including writing and reading exercises, that help students take risks, define their individual lineages as writers, and move away from consensus to embrace a diverse range of political and aesthetic approaches.

In Celebration of Eleanor Ross Taylor.
Catherine Barnett, Jean Valentine, David Wojahn, Kevin Prufer, Ed Skoog
More than fifty years ago, Randall Jarrell introduced Eleanor Ross Taylor’s first book of poems; in 2010, the Poetry Foundation awarded her the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. Yet Taylor, who turns ninety-two this year, remains very much a poet’s poet who deserves a larger audience. Panelists talk about her lasting influence and her ability to express what Jean Valentine has called ‘the wild deep intense emotions’ in poems Jarrell praised for their ‘personal force, personal truth.’

Indigenous-Aboriginal American Writers Caucus.
LeAnne Howe, Gordon Henry, Stephen Graham Jones, Susan Power, Phillip Carroll Morgan
Indigenous writers and scholars are participating fluidly in AWP, teaching in and directing affiliated programs, thus the present time is highly conducive to impart field-related celebrations and concerns as understood by Indigenous-Native writers from the Americas and surrounding island nations. 2010 & 2011 AWP Conferences allowed for initial representative caucus discussions toward an Indigenous Caucus for future formal/informal AWP representation. This is a continuance.

Individual Fundraising Essentials for Literary Publishers.
Jeffrey Lependorf
CLMP’s Executive Director presents the art of effective fundraising letters, membership campaigns, and building a base of individual contributors through board development and cultivation events.

 

In That Round Nation of Blood: Translating Contemporary Native American Poetry.
Katherine Hedeen, Diane Glancy, Janet McAdams, Victor Rodriguez-Nunez, Orlando White
This panel discusses the challenges of translating into Spanish En esa redonda nación de sangre, a groundbreaking anthology of contemporary Native American poetry published in Mexico in 2011. Katherine Hedeen and Victor Rodriguez-Nunez consider translation strategies with regard to content and form, and comment on the social and cultural implications of such an endeavor. Also featured is a bilingual reading by three poets included in the anthology; Diane Glancy, Janet McAdams and Orlando White.

In the midst of words I wanted: A Tribute to Akilah Oliver.
Danielle Vogel, Anne Waldman, Tonya Foster, Selah Saterstrom, Julie Patton
This event is a tribute to the poet, teacher, and activist, Akilah Oliver, who recently passed away. In celebration of her work and life, this panel consists of her colleagues, one of her earliest publishers and advocates, and a recent student. Oliver authored several books, and her influence as a mentor was widespread and inspiring. One of her last projects was a book-length theory on lamentation. Belladonna Collaborative, the feminist publisher of which she was a member, organized this panel.

In the Mirror of Translation: Perspectives on Creative Process.
Helene Cardona, Willis Barnstone, Dennis Maloney, James Ragan, Betty De Shong Meador
How does one capture the essence and music of a poem in translation and remain faithful to the original?
Working with Greek, Chinese, French, Spanish, Czech and Sumerian, this panel’s poets, translators and scholars discuss their role as technicians, intermediaries and magicians working between languages to create an inspired text that reflects the human psyche, giving both cultures the opportunity to see one another through a different lens.

In White: White Poets and Race.
Tess Taylor, Michelle Boisseau, Martha Collins, Kate Daniels, Jake Adam York
In his 2007 essay A Mystifying Silence, Major Jackson asks why there should be a ‘dearth of poems written by white poets that address racial issues.’ The panelists, white poets who have written about race, will address but move beyond the why question, discussing their own attempts to examine racial issues, as well as aesthetic and ethical complexities they have encountered in doing so.  We are aware that the panel may invite controversy, and invite questions and comments from the audience.

Indigenous Editing/Publishing: Journals, Anthologies, and Presses.
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, ku'ualoha ho'omanawanui, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, Janet McAdams, Brandy N lani McDougall
Indigenous publishing plays a vital role in sovereignty and decolonization movements. Queer and womanist editors of Indigenous Pacific, Native North American, and Indigenous Latin American descent will discuss the production and maintenance of Native journals, anthologies, and presses. Collaboratively producing Native texts, the panel will discuss how they negotiate economic, logistical, and institutional challenges, while keeping center issues of culture, politics, aesthetics, and diversity.

Indigenous Voices: Connecting Communities through American Indian Education.
Ana Davis, Michael Birchard, Monty Campbell, Susan Deer Cloud, Shelly Siegel
Faculty, students and staff from North Hennepin Community College, along with visiting indigenous writers, will discuss how integrating an American Indian education initiative into our college culture and curriculum has connected us with native communities, created successful partnerships, and empowered and engaged our diverse student population. The panel will also include writings inspired by the initiative and photos and video clips from our education events.

Infinite Mapping: A How-To Course for Writers and MFA Faculty Exploring the Art of Atlas Making.
Alyson Hagy, LuLing Osofsky, Katie Booms, Chavawn Kelley
In 2011, having just published Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, Rebecca Solnit launched an ambitious mapping project with University of Wyoming MFA students. Panelists discuss how others might take up Solnit’s mapping movement, including project management tactics, pitfalls and rewards. In this model, writers, scientists, artists, community members and cartographers collaborate to produce maps, essays, atlas and a museum exhibition that examines person and place.

Internationalizing the MFA.
Xu Xi, Jose Dalisay, Graeme Harper, Robin Hemley, Marcela Sulak
America created the writing MFA, and its impact on American literature is undeniable. But in an increasingly border-less 21st Century, the dominance of English as a global language transcends writing beyond national context. What role should the MFA play in training writers today? The growth of doctoral writing programs in UK/Australia offers important comparisons. What impact will internationalized MFA’s have on English language writing?  International examples provoke further thought.

iPoetry: Teaching Hybrid Poetics in the Creative Writing Workshop.
Steve Westbrook, Charlotte Pence, Brendan Constantine, James Ryan
Whether experimenting with Final Cut Pro or GarageBand, our students tend to display an increasing interest in media that enable them to transform the genre of poetry so that it finds new audiences. This panel draws from the inspiration of students to offer strategies for incorporating visual art, music, and performance in poetry workshops. Panelists also discuss the practicalities and politics of helping students find publication venues outside of traditional literary journals.

It's the End of the World as We Know It (But Some of Us Will be Fine).
Kim Wright, Crystal Patriarche, Miriam Parker, Laura Gschwandtner
It's the End of the World As We Know It (But Some of Us Will be Fine) is a panel that will explore changes in publishing and how books find their readers. We will discuss how writers are now expected to participate in their own publicity - maintaining a blog, blog tours, virtual book groups, social media - as well as the rise of indie publishing and ebooks.

Keeping a Debut Book Alive.
Justin Taylor, Heidi Durrow, Marie Mockett, Joanna Smith Rakoff, Dylan Landis
What happens once a publisher says yes? First, Champagne—then the author's hard work starts. Relying solely on an in-house publicist, especially for a novel or story collection in this economy, can hurt a new book from a little-known writer. Four emerging authors reveal how they generated their own buzz, and discuss publicists, websites, mailing lists, social networking, book festivals, blogging, the art of coaxing people to readings, the legendary book tour—and who really pays for it all.

Kids Today: Teaching and Administrating a Young Writers' Conference.
Juliana Gray, Cornelius Eady, Carrie Jerrell, Rahul Mehta, Susan Morehouse
How do you teach teens the elements of literary craft, then sing karaoke with them later the same night? Join teachers and administrators of the Alfred University Creative Writing Summer Institute, the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and the UVA Young Writers Workshop-- and a former UVAYW student--  to find out. We’ll discuss pedagogy, activities, and how young writers’ conferences can recruit promising undergraduates to your university.

Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem.
Harold Schechter, Cornelius Eady, Lynn Emanuel, Patricia Smith, Brian Turner
What are the moral implications of writing about violence? Where is the line between portraying violence and exploiting it? The danger of writing about violence is that we might wind up aestheticizing it.  If there is a difference between sensationalism and truth, when do we put down the pen, and do something to help the victims? Or is writing about violence a form of action, an effective way of addressing the problem? Panelists will address these questions, and more.

Latino Masculinities: Revisioning Male Identity in Contemporary Latino Literature..
Aaron Michael Morales, Paul Martinez-Pompa, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Luis Alberto Urrea, Daniel Chacon
Often relegated to the term machismo, Latino masculinity is, of course, a multi-faceted and complicated element of Latino existence. The recent rise of contemporary Latino writers exploring masculine identity is dramatically impacting Latino literature. This panel will discuss the ways in which these authors represent, dissect, and consider the implications and definitions of Latino masculinity, as well as how the concept and reality of masculinity and gender identity informs their work.

Leaving a paper trail: The Relevance of Print Culture in a Digital Age.
Eric Lorberer, Matvei Yankelevich, Guy Lamolinara, Harold Augenbraum
Leaders in the field of literature discuss the role of print today and what print culture means in an increasingly electronic world

Lessons in Alchemy: Remembering George Hitchcock.
Liz Hughes Wiley, Albert Goldbarth, Joseph Bednarik, Diane Wakoski, David Swanger
The influence of George Hitchcock and his iconoclastic journal Kayak on modern American poetry can hardly be overstated.  He and his journal helped launch and nurture the early careers of some of today’s leading voices, including Carver, Simic, Olds, Goldbarth and Levine. America’s eyes and ears were opened to a new kind of poetry.  Friends and colleagues fondly celebrate this legacy through stories and poetry, illuminating the timeless qualities that made George Hitchcock so unique.

Let's Work Together: Pedagogies of Rhetoric in the Creative Writing Class.
Richard Greenfield, Minal Singh, R.J. Lambert, Robert Houghton, EmmaLee Pallai
Exploring the intersection of creative writing and composition, this panel will discuss pedagogy practices where the writing of composition texts integrates creative writing pedagogy with an emphasis on rhetoric. We will also discuss the benefits of utilizing rhetorical analysis as the basis of discussing creative writing texts in workshop as well as informing composition of the creative writing text itself. Each member of the panel will provide assignments or exercises as examples.

LGBTQ Caucus.
Andrea Jenkins, Kristin Johnson, Tobey Kaplan, John Medeiros, Michael Kiesow Moore
Where does the LGBTQ writer find home within AWP and within the greater literary community? For the first time at AWP we offer a LGBTQ caucus. If you identify as lesbian, gay, bixexual, transgender, or queer, please join us to meet each other, network, discuss common issues and challenges related to identity and leading a literary life, and set goals for the group, including ideas for future panels at AWP related to our interests and concerns.

Life-in-Context for First-Year Writers: Creative Writing, Critically Thought and Taught.
Phyllis Dallas, Nancy Dessommes, Jayne Marek, Mary Marwitz, Laura Milner
When creative writing is excluded from first-year composition, an artificial divide weakens student learning and writing. While some teachers covertly encourage students to personalize their papers, these panelists bring creative writing out of the closet with a life-in-context research project that energizes academic prose. With short readings, scaffolded assignments, assessment rubrics, and student samples, they demonstrate how creative nonfiction can be critically taught in first-year comp.

The Literati: Deconstructing Publishing Myths for Writers.
Ben Pfeiffer, Danielle Evans, Brian Shawver, Joe Miller, Lori Roy
Authors address misconceptions about publishing, including how agents are found, the importance of networking, and publishing as it relates to writing. Unpublished writers often become consumed with anxiety about the world of publishing, asking questions such as: Why is no one publishing me? Do I not know the right people? The panel seeks to return the focus of publication from gimmickry to writing itself, emphasizing craft, hard work, awareness of form, and the mechanics of language.

Literary Necromancy: The Art of Writing Biography.
Evan Balkan, Miles Harvey, Molly Peacock, Robert Polito, Brenda Wineapple
This panel will discuss the craft and art of writing biography, primarily about other writers and artists. Questions addressed include: How to decide who to write about? What ethical considerations occur in reconstructing the details of someone else's life? How does one navigate the challenges of writing about public figures who might be beloved or reviled? How do questions of literary form and style shape the writing of a life?

Literature and Evil, sponsored by The Center for Fiction.
Noreen Tomassi, Marilynne Robinson, Ha Jin, Paul Harding
Acclaimed literary fiction writers who have unforgettably illuminated the nature of evil will read from their work and then engage in a discussion of their approaches to this topic well as their thoughts on other writers’ work in this subject area, followed by an audience Q&A.

Literature and the Internet in 2012.
Roxane Gay, Stephen Elliott, Blake Butler, James Yeh
The literary editors of four leading web magazines -- HTMLGiant, The Rumpus, PANK, and The Faster Times -- offer a roundtable discussion about how the Internet is changing literature and literary publishing in the 21st century.

The Long and Short of It:  Navigating the Transitions Between Writing Novels and Short Stories.
Bruce Machart, Hannah Tinti, Melanie Thon, Benjamin Percy, Erin McGraw
Because writing workshops are often geared toward the consideration of short fiction, emerging writers can find themselves unprepared for the challenges of managing the breadth and scope of a novel, but it can also be perplexing to shift gears in the other direction, to recapture the distillation of scene and character required by short stories.  Panelists will engage in a frank discussion of these challenges and offer practical suggestions for navigating transitions between narrative forms.

Lorenzo Thomas's Extraordinary Poetics.
Carla Harryman, Tyrone Williams, Aldon Nielson, Grant Jenkins
Poets and scholars Tyrone Williams, Aldon Nielson, and Grant Jenkins report on the significance of Lorenzo Thomas’s  (1944-2005) poetry, critical work on Afrocentric modernism, and scholarship of blues traditions.  The presentations focus on Thomas’s affiliations with the Black Arts Movement and New York School, philosophical implications of his work on twentieth-century innovative Afrocentric poetry, and the challenges he poses to our understanding of poetic and musical traditions.

Low Res, Full Res, No Res: The Poet and the Terminal Degree.
Christopher Salerno, Amy Gerstler, Bob Hicock, Timothy Liu, Robin Reagler
This panel will address what about the different MFA/CW program models is transcendent, what is common, and what is hindrance. We’ll discuss ways poets use, ignore, dismiss, or are damaged by aspects of each. What intersections are there amongst the MFA options? How does one take ownership of their track? Is an MFA necessary? Panelists will discuss why they did (or did not) pursue their particular terminal degree, and how those experiences inform their teaching practices in these programs now.

Low-Residency Approaches to Pedagogical Training and Preparation.
Lori A May, Danita Berg, Clark Knowles, Jim Warner
Program directors and faculty will discuss innovative approaches to providing pedagogical training for low-residency students. Discussion will include the unique challenges and opportunities presented via distance and limited on-campus study, and how low-res programs are incorporating student teacher training. Panelists will share personal experiences and speak to how programs provide pedagogical training for current students and discuss what program services are available to alumni.

Low-Residency MFA Program Directors’ Caucus.
Kathleen  Driskell, Xu Xi, Jennifer Stewart
This is a regular annual meeting of the directors of low-residency MFA Programs, providing a forum for discussions on program development and pedagogy particular to the low-residency model. All low-residency directors are welcome to attend and vote.

The Lyric Essay:  A Collapse of Forms or a Form of Collapse?.
Wendy Rawlings, Ned Stuckey French, Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Steve Church, Colin Rafferty
Of late, the lyric essay has risen in prominence, taking its place as a genre in its own right alongside fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction.  Yet the lyric essay is unique as a genre in that it’s most often defined by what it’s not.  Or what it’s not . . . exactly.  How might we think about the lyric essay as melting pot or mishmash, form or formlessness?  What might be the implications of the high level of interest in this open form, one that by its very definition resists definition?

Making Room for the Graphic Narrative.
Jim Miller, Nathan Holic, C. James Bye, Lydia Conklin, Aaron Burch
Visual art has been a focus of many literary publications, from cover artwork to photo-essays to reproductions of paintings, even while the core content is primarily text. With the rise of the graphic novel and study of literary comics in university classrooms, many publications are making room for graphic narrative. This panel will discuss the challenges editors face: finding work, layout issues, and how to work with—yet remain distinct from—other editors carving out graphic narrative sections.

Marketing the Literary, or Putting some Poetry into your PR [WITS Alliance].
Robin Reagler, Alison Granucci, Loyal Miles, Tree Swenson, Kristine Uyeda
For many writers, the business of promoting literature does not come naturally. Many literary organizations are led by writers for whom marketing is unfamiliar terrain. But some programs are finding surprising ways to connect with a larger public through low-cost campaigns to promote individual writers, literary arts education programs, memberships, and donations.

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House: Organizations Supporting Women in the Literary Arts.
Cate Marvin, Julie Wrinn, Kate Gale, Kamy Wicoff, Amy Hoffman
Female and male authors alike are encouraged to join us for a conversation between founders and directors representing a variety of women’s literary organizations: VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, A Room of One’s Own, SHE WRITES, the Kentucky Womens Writers Conference, and The Women’s Review of Books. Presenters will discuss their respective and shared missions to foster the production of women’s writing and challenge its critical reception in our current literary culture.

Material Issues: Finding Compelling Subjects for Poetry and Prose.
Jenn Gibbs, Kimiko Hahn, Harold Schechter, Cole Swensen
While some believe that finding subjects that excite readers as well as writers is a matter of luck, instinct, or talent, this panel approaches the selection of subject matter as an element of craft and explores ways to develop (and teach others to develop) a literary nose for news whether working in verse or prose, fiction or nonfiction. Successful writers and teachers Hahn, Schechter, and Swensen serve as experienced guides, sharing their secrets for resolving Material Issues.

Matriculation, Population, and Graduation: Three Advantages of Transfer Agreements.
Kris Bigalk, Jared Harel, Katrina Vandenberg, Kyle Adamson, BJ Ward
How can Bachelor’s level creative writing programs attract and maintain a core of strong student writers?  By collaborating with a local AFA or AA in Creative Writing program.  With more than 45% of US undergraduates attending community colleges, many of which have thriving creative writing programs, this model is on the cutting edge of program trends.  Faculty and student panelists from four collaborating institutions will discuss the transfer agreement process and answer audience questions.

Measuring Creativity: What Do Grades Have to Do with Artistry?.
Cass Dalglish, Heather Gibbons, Kate Green, Ellen Smith, Cary Waterman
Creative writing teachers constantly face the inadequacies of conventional grading as they work in an unconventional field that often defies prescriptive norms. Five faculty with diverse backgrounds–lecturer, instructor, assistant professor and professor from community college, private college, and public university settings–will offer meaningful assessment tools for the survival of students and teachers alike, including self evaluation, scoring machines, grade contracts, and chapbooks.

Men from Venus, Women from Mars: Writing from the Perspective of the Opposite Sex.
Alan Heathcock, Jennine Capó Crucet, Reese Okyong Kwon, Kyle Minor, Kevin Wilson
The old canard that fiction writers should write what they know would seem to prohibit writing from the point of view of characters of the opposite sex. Meanwhile, some of the most believable and compelling men in literature have been created by women, and vice versa. What is the appeal of writing from the head of an opposite-sex character, and how to do so credibly? What politics should we consider? Panelists will offer perspectives, tips, and examples of effective embodiment of the other.

MFA Students Speak Up: If We're Not Happy, You're Not Happy.
Nick Sturm, Tiffany Monroe, Abdul Ali, Michael Goroff, Panagiota Lilikaki
Beyond the dry, objective assessments of course evaluations, what are MFA students really thinking as they move through the joy and angst that is a graduate writing program? MFA students discuss candid, constructive reactions to their experiences; including curriculum requirements, teaching opportunities, program literary journals, and a sense of community. We will explore the range of ways that programs affect students, and how student expectations do or do not align with student experiences.

Michael Martone Lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Kathleen Volk Miller, Daniel Nester, Matthew Longabucco, Peter Aguero, Todd Zuniga
PBQ hosts a conversation about new ways to present traditional literary forms.   Most writers shoulder the responsibility of marketing their own creative work; in order to be heard at all we’re creating new frames and formats.  What does this pressure demand of writers, publishers, and literary organizations?  This panel, composed of writers and editors, offers practical advice on creative possibilities—and  sheds light on the curious opportunities available to creative writers, publishers, and arts organizations who take PR seriously.

Midwest Gothic: Dark Fiction of the Heartland.
Jodee Stanley, Brian Kornell, Dan Chaon, Cathy Day, Michael Czyzniejewski
From the stories of Sherwood Anderson to contemporary Midwestern fiction, authors have explored the darkness that lies beneath the placid exterior of an often-dismissed region of America. Five Midwest-based writers and editors will discuss how the prairie landscape and traditionally Midwestern character traits, including politeness, stoicism, and a wariness of the unknown, combine with traditional Gothic literary elements to create a rarely-discussed subgenre of fiction, Midwest Gothic.

Midwestern Cities: Contemporary Ecopoetics.
James Engelhardt, J.D. Schraffenberger, James Cihlar, Heid Erdrich, Alison Swan
The Midwest is often regarded as placidly homogeneous—cows, corn, Norwegian bachelor farmers—while cities and towns are ignored. Ecopoetry contests that vision by insisting on multi-faceted diversity. Family-farm foreclosure, refugee resettlement, Native American resurgence, migrant farming, massive migrations, and waves of immigration reflect the complexity of the heartland’s built environment. The Midwest fuels the imagination of regional, urban poets as they articulate their ecotone.

Migrant Voices in the Latino Heartland: The Latino Writers Collective’s Migrant Youth Writer’s Workshop.
Miguel M. Morales, Jose Faus, Gabriela N. Lemmons
Latino Writers Collective members including former migrant youth, youth advocates and students lead a learning circle on their groundbreaking Migrant Youth Writers workshop now in its fourth year. Learn how the Latino Writers Collective collaborates with local agencies, colleges and universities in the Midwest. Discover how the workshop helps youth identify and nurture their long silenced voices as migrant youth in the Heartland. Recognize simple ways you can help.

Mine is Clouds: Revisiting the Life and Work of Richard Brautigan.
Shawn Mitchell, Joe Meno, Sean Lovelace, Theresa Williams
A forefather of flash, a witty poet, and a great American surrealist, Brautigan has influenced artists ranging from Haruki Murakami to Neko Case and from Aimee Bender to Tobias Wolff. But despite having sold millions of books during his lifetime, he remains less known compared to other Beat and cult writers. At this panel contributors to the forthcoming tribute anthology, Mine Is Clouds, will consider Brautigan's importance today and celebrate his life and legacy with a reading of his work.

Modernist Nonfiction: Virginia Woolf and Her Contemporaries.
Tracy Seeley, Joy Castro, Marcia Aldrich, Jocelyn Bartkevicius
Did Virginia Woolf create the lyric essay?  What else did modernists write that we might think of as creative nonfiction?  And what can they teach us about this varied and plastic genre?  Join this panel of nonfiction writers as we explore Woolf’s essays, Louise Bogan’s fragmented memoir, Alice Meynell’s personal essays, Margery Latimer’s manifesto/ars poetica and Meridel LeSueur’s labor movement reportage.

Music writing.
Emilie Pons, Howard Mandel, James Hale, Kurt Gottschalk, Mike Chamberlain
From George Bernard Shaw on classical repertoire to Alejo Carpentier on Cuban music, music writers of the past have been descriptive biographers, historians, social and cultural analysts and storytellers. But are professional music writers' standards threatened by the advent of fan's blogs and social media postings? Does better informed music writing matter? Must music writers be musically literate? Is music writing a profession, a calling, an art form? Who should and does music writing serve?

Narrative Transitions: Teaching and Taking the Reflective Turn in Creative Nonfiction.
Bruce Ballenger, Lad Tobin, Jennifer Sinor
Teachers of creative nonfiction often urge students to imagine that there are two narrators of a story—the then-narrator and the now-narrator—which collaborate in the discovery of meaning.  Experienced writers move intuitively between describing what happened and what happens, always in search of insight, yet student writers actively resist this double perspective. Why? Drawing from their own work, panelists will explore this question and implications for teaching the reflective turn.

The Necessity of Duende:  Letting the Demon on to the Page.
Eric Pankey, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Kelli Allen, Steven Schreiner
This panel will confront the difficulty of capturing Duende and illustrate its vitality and necessity in contemporary poetry. We will explore the elusive gravity and chill, the fire and intensity associated with Duende. Every art and every country, Lorca says, is capable of duende. From the otherworldly vertical of Lorca to the variety of contemporary styles practiced by this panel of scholars and poets, we will discuss Duende in both its historical and contemporary contexts.

The Need to Speak: Writing the Political Poem.
Joe Wilkins, Matthew Zapruder, Robert Wrigley, Rachel Zucker, C.K. Williams
The politics of our age are rabid, dazzling, blinkered, ridiculous—yet they matter, deeply, in all our daily lives. We click the television over to the latest protests in Wisconsin, we open a newspaper and try to make sense of this latest war, and we feel called speak. How do we do so honestly and with conviction, nuance, complexity? Five poets take on these questions and more as they read from and discuss their own work and that of other poets who’ve successfully written political poems.

New Approaches to Teaching Novel Writing.
Christopher Castellani, Lisa Borders, Michelle Hoover, Catherine Elcik, Michael Schiavone
Boston’s Grub Street has pioneered a number of innovative approaches to teaching novel workshops. Novel in Progress classes, where excerpts are read aloud, provide coaching and feedback; Your Entire Novel allows students to workshop full manuscripts; and the Novel Incubator, a brand-new, year-long program, incorporates the best of both of these approaches. Grub Street instructors and students will discuss the theory behind these programs and report back on their strengths and weaknesses.

The New Black Imagination: Beyond stories of race and representation by African American writers.
Bridgett Davis, Eisa Ulen, Martha Southgate, Chris Jackson
Many celebrated works by African American writers posit race at their center. But seminal work of less acclaimed black writers explores a wider range of human experience. To give exposure to these lesser-known writers, ringShout, a literary support group, created a book list of 100 ambitious works. Each panelist will introduce a book from that list, read a short excerpt, and discuss how its writer has redefined and expanded the canon of contemporary African American literature.

New Media for New (and Old) Authors and Writers.
Priscilla Long, Jennifer McCord, Matt Briggs, Nick O'Connell, Rebecca Agiewich
What do writers need to know about blogging, tweeting, Facebook connecting, LibraryThing, Goodreads.com, YouTube, SheWrites, Amazon.com, etc. and author pages on these and other new media? What is essential? What is too much? What about that book trailer? What considerations and issues should we authors and writers reflect on as we negotiate these new ways of connecting and communicating? Is ignoring all this an option? What is the down side?

News that Stays News: The Best American Poetry Blog and the Future of Electronic Publishing.
Emma Trelles, David Lehman, Stacey Harwood, Laura Orem, Stephanie Brown
Edited by Stacey Harwood and David Lehman, the Best American Poetry Blog resembles a newspaper created anew each day by its editors, correspondents, and numerous guest bloggers around the world. Blog entries cover everything from poetry to jazz to literary controversies to digital publishing. Launched in February 2008, the blog affords its writers new forms, means, and opportunities to reach a steadily growing readership. Panelists are the blog's editors, correspondents, and guest bloggers.

Not with a Bang but a Whisper.
Hannah Fries, Dorianne Laux, Elizabeth Bradfield, Afaa Weaver, Joseph Spece
While some poets choose to be overtly political or to expound topically on issues of our day, many take a quieter, more artful route to literary activism. How can poems speak to issues in surprising and moving ways, even while not seeming to be about an issue per se? How do poets use the subtleties of language to engage our consciences and startle us to attention? Join four slyly subversive poets and the poetry editor of Orion magazine as we explore these questions and more.

Novel Anxiety.
Margot Singer, Martha Cooley, Laird Hunt, Wendy Rawlings, Bob Shacochis
David Shields is bored by the novel; Zadie Smith says that ‘lyrical realism’ in long fiction is played out. Millions of people Tweet, but how many read novels? Are the genre’s form and content still relevant to our experience of reality? What narrative and linguistic approaches bring the novel to life today? The panel will discuss these issues and their own challenges as writers of literary novels.

Now That's a Novel Idea: Marketability (Gasp!) and Creative Writing Programs.
Jessica Pitchford, Brock Clarke, Leah Stewart, Mark Winegardner, Susan Finch
In most writing programs, the emphasis is on the art, not the market’s demands. So what happens when students graduate without a publishing contract or literary agent? Best-selling authors team up with emerging writers to discuss a more professionalized approach to creative curriculum. Join Brock Clarke, Susan Finch, Jessica Pitchford, Leah Stewart, and Mark Winegardner as they discuss the oft-taboo subject of marketability and provide tips for aspiring authors to achieve publishing success.

NPRU Kidding Me? It Can Totally Happen.
Pat Walters, Lulu Miller, Alex Kotlowitz, Starlee Kine, Johanna  Zorn
Have words you'd like to get into people's ears? Public radio offers an exciting and largely untapped platform for writers to get their stories to the masses. This panel gathers top narrative radio producers (from This American Life, Radiolab and the Third Coast Festival) to explain what narrative radio is, discuss which types of prose work best on the radio, and give tips on how to get started. We'll also dim the lights and listen to a few standout examples of creative writing on the radio!

Of, By, and For the People: Indie Lit in The Second City.
S. Whitney Holmes, Jacob S. Knabb, James Tadd Adcox, Amanda Marbais, Jonathan Fullmer
Editors from a range of Chicago publications—online and print, established and upstart—discuss why independent literature thrives in Chicago, how their organizations contribute to a dynamic local literary community, and how their publications contextualize the city's contemporary literary landscape for readers outside of Chicago. Panelists invite questions about how to get involved in the literary and publishing community in Chicago and offer advice for fostering such a community in any city.

On Being a Jewish Poet: Writing and Identity.
Patty Seyburn, Jacqueline Osherow, Richard Chess, Emily Warn, Yehoshua November
In the 21st century, what does it mean to be a Jewish poet? What is a Jewish poem? Some Jewish poets resist a fixed Jewish identity. Jewishness for C. Bernstein is ‘a practice of dialogue . . . an openness to the unfolding performance of the everyday.’ Others write poetry rooted in Jewish tradition.  M.L. Rosenthal writes, ‘A Jewish poem is a poem written by a Jew.’  Marina Tsvetaeva goes so far as to say, ‘Every poet is a Jew.’  Five Jewish poets discuss how poetry relates to identity.

On Reinvigorating the Creative Writing Workshop: Four Bold New Approaches.
Steve Fellner, Anne Panning, Michael Martone, Robin Hemley, Valerie Miner
This panel of creative writing professors will present new ways to reinvigorate the traditional creative writing workshop.  Alternate pedagogical models will be presented, such as a hybrid online model, a workshop with a unifying theme, a workshop heavy on production and light on feedback, and one that uses blogs in place of regular workshop submissions. Participants will discuss how and why these approaches can improve the creative writing workshop experience.

On the Move: Contemporary African American Women’s Literary Fiction.
Terrion Williamson, Dana Johnson, Rae Paris, Renee Simms, Martha Southgate
Calling all sistas (and other interested parties): Living in a post-racial world, really? Tired of hearing one or two of us called the next [insert one or two famous Black women writers here]? We know we are many. Come hear Dana Johnson, Rae Paris, Renee Simms, and Martha Southgate read their fiction and comment on their craft as they answer the question, What is African American women’s literary fiction? Terrion Williamson, badass scholar, will help break it all down. Discussion will follow.

One Story Magazine Celebrates 10 Years.
Hannah Tinti, Maribeth Batcha
For the past 10 years, One Story has discovered new voices, grown to over 10,000 subsribers and consistently published award-winning short fiction. They are now one of the most important literary magazines in the country. How did they do it? Co-Founders Maribeth Batcha (Publisher) and Hannah Tinti (Editor-in-Chief) will reveal how they built this successful magazine, from both the business and creative side, with special guests and video presentation.

Only Connect—How to Create New Opportunities Through Networking.
Jill Pollack, Danielle Chapman, Becca Keaty, Regin Igloria
In this brave new world of social media, making connections should be easy. Yet many of us have trouble not only asking for what we need, but finding the right person or organization to help. Members of the Chicago Literary Alliance discuss building a city-wide networking organization and how these connections spawn new programs and partnerships. Panelists will share best practices for teaching writers and organizers how to make and broaden connections with other artists and administrators.

Opening the Circle: Connecting Workshop Pedagogy and Public Audiences.
Sarah Harris, Crystal Fodrey, Tim Mayers, Dale Rigby, Drew Krewer
The CW workshop has been often critiqued, but seldom clearly defined. We argue that the workshop is a valuable space for openness, collaboration, and creativity, and these pedagogical aims can be achieved when the circle of the workshop is opened to include real-world audiences. Presenters will describe current methods of instruction used in the workshop, and present attendees with a variety of workshop methods that allow students working in various genres to connect their work with audiences.

Other Lives, Other Worlds: Writing Outside Ourselves..
Josh Weil, Lily Tuck, Peter Mountford, Skip Horack, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Empathy for others: never are its rewards greater than when a writer tackles a story through a character ethnically different from herself or set in a culture other than her own.  It gave Styron a Pulitzer and gave us Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day.  Yet it carries great risks and responsibilities, too.  We’ll explore them, focusing not on politics but on the practicalities of craft, the dangers, delights, and ways that writers can ensure they give their subject matters the respect they deserve.

The Other Option: Teaching & Writing at a Literary Center.
Michael Khandelwal, Lisa Hartz, Christopher Castellani, Jill Pollack, Gregg Wilhelm
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. Can community-based centers provide an MFA-quality workshop? Should they? Is teaching at a center a good option for a recent graduate or established local writer? How can centers meet the needs of these professionals? Panelists from a variety of literary centers will explore this outlet for writers and writing teachers.

Out of the Melting Pot, Into the Fire - Building and Sustaining a Culturally-Specific Reading Series.
Mary Hawley, Paul Martinez-Pompa, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Johanny Vázquez Paz, Yolanda Nieves
Eavesdrop as administrators, curators and featured artists discuss the dynamic, sometimes conflicted history of Chicago’s longest-running Latino reading series: the Guild Literary Complex’s Palabra Pura. In its 7th year, PP juggles a long-standing mission of culture-specific work with the need for regular re-invention. This discussion touches on issues of race and authenticity, cultural production and ownership, community outreach and institutional integrity. In other words, it can get heated.

Out of the Stacks and onto the Market: The MFA Poetry Thesis Gets Serious, and Faculty Members React.
Erika Meitner, Beth Ann Fennelly, Carmen Giménez Smith, Mary Biddinger, Alan Michael Parker
Autobiographical treatises, project books, greatest hits of the workshop--MFA faculty (who moonlight as press editors and book-contest judges) discuss pedagogical issues on advising MFA poets at the culmination of the degree. What makes for ideal thesis advising? Is an MFA thesis meant to be a book? We will explore the range of ways to shape a first collection, transcend conventions and clichés, and best advise students on balancing their development as poets with their professional goals.

Out There and In Here: Creative Writing in the Real World.
Abby Bardi, Rick Kemp, Janice Meer, Adeena Reitberger
Exploring the question posed by Stiehl and Lewchuk (2005), What do students need to be able to do out there that we're responsible for in here?, this panel examines the relevance of the creative writing class to the workplace. We evaluate applications of creative writing to creative thinking, demonstrate the applicability of practices of creative writing to academic and workplace writing across disciplines, and recommend creative writing as a practical field of study and professional tool.

Pat Mora: Eloquence and Bookjoy, Presented by Con Tinta and Pilgrimage Magazine.
Diana Garcia, Pat Mora, Beatriz Terrazas, John Drury, Xánath Caraza
Pat Mora reads published and new poetry, exploring the interrelatedness of writing for adults, teens, and children. As a trailblazing Latina writer and a founder of Dia de Libros/Dia de Niños, Mora models integration of literary work with literacy advocacy.  A tribute and conversation follows the reading, featuring poets, scholars and reviewers elevating Mora’s inspiring legacy.

Pedagogical Strategies of Digital Literary Journals: E-publishing Experimentation & Exploration of Craft.
Lisa Calderone, Matt O'Donnell, Holly Wendt, Noah Saterstrom
Dialogue focuses on how online-only literary journals use the Internet as part of their compositional and hence pedagogical strategy. Panelists on staff at Drunken Boat, Trickhouse, From the Fishouse, and Mason’s Road discuss how their journals are designed not only to propel literary art forward, but to educate students by using the progressive and evolving medium of the web. Join the conversation that has started online off-line and tap into the pedagogical possibilities of e-pubs.

Periodical Wisdom: Advising Student-run Lit Mags.
Jay Baron Nicorvo, Jennifer Acker, Don Lee
Current faculty advisors and publishers of literary magazines discuss the ins and outs of directing a student run publication.

The Persona in Personal Narrative: Crafting the Made-Up Self.
Michael Steinberg, Thomas Larson, Mimi Schwartz, Phillip Lopate
Carl Klaus writes in The Made-Up Self that the narrator in a personal essay or memoir ‘is a written construct, a fabricated thing, a character of sorts.’ Four essayist/critics will discuss/show how such selves are constructed. Each examines his/her writing and that of published writers; and together they speculate on whether such selves were made-up, when or if the writer was conscious of such invention, and how we judge one fabricated ‘I’ as more or less authentic/ truthful than another.

Phoning It In: Publishing through an iPhone ap.
Ron Hogan, Tyler Meier, Sunyoung Lee, Daniel Pritchard, Chad Post
A presentation of case studies by participants in CLMP’s iPhone ap beta test program with Electric Literature.

The Place at the Heart of Story.
Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Jason Brown, Lori Ostlund, BK Loren, Raphael Kadushin
People are animals, and like all animals, our characters and behaviors are deeply affected, sometimes even determined, by our environment.  This panel addresses writing stories in which setting plays an important role, sometimes becoming a character in itself.  These writers will discuss why they emphasize place in their stories and how they choose which details to include to create the most effective settings, whether Antarctica, New York City, or an urban backyard.

Playing Short: Approaches and Expansions of the Ten-Minute Play.
Andrew Pederson, Jayme McGhan, Randall Colburn
Playing Short: Approaches and Expansions of the Ten-Minute Play is a panel that focuses on two aspects of the ten-minute play; its creation and its potential to expand into a full length play.  Led by three working and produced playwrights, this session takes participants through techniques to begin and revise effective Ten-minute plays and how to use its potential to expand into a full length play.  The focus will be on structure, story and process.

Pleasures and Perils of Drawing Fiction from Life.
Jessica Blau, Danielle Evans, Joanna Smith Rakoff, Dylan Landis
Where does fiction come from if not partly from the past, the subconscious, what you know and what you've seen—in addition, yes, to what you imagine and make up? How do you write when parents, friends, lovers, children, and members of your race or religion are crowded into your study, reading critically over your shoulder? Authors of novels and short-story collections talk about their inspirations, inhibitions, revisions, and any personal consequences they've had to face.

Poet and Polis: Four State Laureates Speak about their Public Roles.
Kate Gale, Peggy Shumaker, Kevin Stein, David Mason, Katharine Coles
Though it is among the oldest art forms in the world, poetry has become increasingly marginalized in contemporary society. While many entities exist to fight this trend, perhaps none embody this mission so well as the Poet Laureate, at once a distinguished leader and a cultural oddity. This panel will explore the challenges, joys, and surprises encountered by the Laureates of Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, and Utah in their pursuit of a wider audience for poetry and literature.

Poetic Possibilities of Deep Travel.
Janée J. Baugher, Gerard Wozek, Sandra Meek, David Roderick, Carolyne Wright
Join this panel of globe-trotting poets to discuss the bedazzling and bedeviling byproducts of deep travel.  While immersed in other cultures, we submit to an altered perception of time and space, which informs our language and develops imagination.  Whether we view travel as a panacea or hallucinogen, each panelist has discovered that writing deeply can come from having traveled deeply.  Translocating can usher us closer to home, but ultimately travel grants us a renewed sense of connectedness.

The Poetics of the Essay.
Jeff Porter, Patricia Foster, Gayle Pemberton, Sara Levine
Rarely can writing flourish apart from reading. In this panel, four distinguished essayists will discuss the aesthetic and pedagogical value of a close-reading of four canonical essays, outlining how a sophisticated literary analysis of the essay can (and perhaps should) become a part of our creative activity.

Poetry Video in the Shadow of Music Video — Performance, Document, and Film.
Tim Kahl, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Kwame Dawes, Dave Bonta, Jordan Stempleman
Poetry’s relationship to multimedia continues to encroach on the poem as page-bound. Explore how footage depicting the performance of poems, the documentation of social upheaval through poems that provide social commentary, and the carving out of aesthetic space escort the poem into occupying the position of the music video. Where does one draw the distinction between entertainment and art?

Poetry’s First Webseries: Verse, a poetry murder mystery.
Ram Devineni, Bob Holman, Lamont Steptoe, Jon Sands, Susan Brennan
Poetry meets webisode in Verse, a poetry murder mystery by Rattapallax Films.  Come watch the first episode and hear poets from the project discuss the technical and creative process of uniting cinematic and poetic devices.  Shot in New York City and Berlin with an all-poet cast and crew, encompassing poetry landmarks and legends, award-winning Verse utilizes a new web media to invent an original story while inviting a wider poetry audience.

Points of View/Angles of Approach.
Peter Turchi, Robert Boswell, C. J. Hribal, Susan Neville
Point of view is one of the most complex of the basic elements of fiction, with far more variables and possibilities than general discussions typically acknowledge. The writers and teachers on this panel will discuss Deep Point of View: what we don't talk about when we talk about point of view; The Reliably Unreliable Consciousness; First Person: From I to IIIIII; and Don't Be So Sure: Interrogating the First Person Narrator.

POL as PLO, Poetry Out Loud as a Poetry Liberation Organization.
Phyllis Meshulam, Tobey Kaplan, Iris Dunkle, Gwynn O'Gara
(Poetry Out Loud is an NEA and Poetry Foundation recitation program serving 325,000 high school students nationwide in 2010.) Our panelists have all been teaching-poets in the schools. They continue to help students write poems, but want those poems to live in the airwaves, and for students to say memorably what they need to say in this world. These poets have found their own and their students’ voices liberated in this recitation practice. They will share techniques and insights with you.

Political Poetry: America and Abroad.
Jeff Shotts, Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, Tom Sleigh, Jeffrey Yang
In a year of national election and in another year of war and human rights violations, we turn to poetry for...what, exactly? Four poets offer their own responses to the role of the poet in confronting national and international political situations--from the so-called war on terror to government-sanctioned uses of torture, from resistance movements to the political imprisonment of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

Politically Incorrect and Scary as Hell: Sex, Violence and Bigotry in the Workshop.
Marion Winik, Ava Chin, Beverly Lowry, Jane Delury, Christine Lincoln
Whether you teach fiction, nonfiction or poetry, you've doubtless run into this situation -- a student brings in a manuscript that contains elements of pornography, hate speech or threats of violence. Perhaps it's something milder, but still troubling; for example, a character description that reflects bigoted stereotypes. How will you handle this student and this work? Professors and grad students share insights and techniques, including ways to pre-empt the problem. War stories welcome.

Politics, Identity and the Creative Writing Classroom.
Asali Solomon, Tiphanie Yanique, Lucy Ferriss, Deborah A. Miranda, Vasugi Ganeshananthan
Many writing classrooms shun political discussions, yet student work is marked by representations of gender, race, class, sexuality and power. Panelists will discuss approaches to the relationship between aesthetic and political concerns as creative writing professors with an eye to best practices. Potential discussion topics will include: responding to work we find personally offensive and addressing a common workshop dynamic where racially diverse students creative identical characters.

Post-Communist Literature and Exile.
Domnica Radulescu, Olga Grushin, Josip Novakovich, Bogdan Suceava, Alta Ifland
Join a Russian-American, a Croatian-American and three Romanian-American writers who emigrated to the United States before or after the fall of communism.  They will discuss the challenges of writing about life under communism for an American audience, the linguistic, social and political implications of exile in the context of a post-communist world, and the complexities involved in writing in one’s second or third language.

Preparing Short-Story Manuscripts for Contests and Publication.
Christine Sneed, Lori Ostlund, Anthony Varallo, Jessica Treadway
Four fiction writers who have recently won short story contests including the Drue Heinz, Flannery O’Connor, University of Iowa and Grace Paley prizes, discuss how they chose and organized the stories in their winning collections.  They will also discuss the marketing and promotion of these collections.

Present at the Creation: The Chicago Poetry Revolution of the 1980s and 90s.
Tim Brown, Luis Rodriguez, Sharon Mesmer, Kurt Heintz, Paul McComas
Poets, writers, and performers who came of age in the Chicago poetry scene of the 1980s and 90s discuss the explosion of spoken-word poetry and performance in the city during these decades and its national and international impact on the presentation of poetry to popular audiences. Topics include the legacy of the poetry slam and efforts to capture and document a notoriously ephemeral art form via publications and video, audio, and online media.

Prettying Up the Baby: Publishing Creative Nonfiction in a Challenging Market.
Ava Chin, Ava Chin, Dawn Raffel, Marion Winik, Bridgett Davis
Journalists, editors, and memoirists address crafting relevant nonfiction for a changing market — one that increasingly requires writers to have a wide skill-set. We will discuss the intricacies of writing for traditional magazines, newspapers, and NPR outlets, as well as navigating the lines between print and online; writing columns for niche markets, including food, travel, and parenting; crafting a book from an article or a blog; tweeting, blogging, and creating online platforms.

Project and Event Work for Undergraduate Creative Writing Student Development.
Mimi Thebo, Stephanie Vanderslice, Patty McNair, Carrie Etter, Lucy English
Event, performance and project work can help undergraduate students identify and build their creative skills. It helps them become more articulate, more organized and more confident creative practitioners and helps them to acquire habits of time-management, accountability and teamwork. In this session, teachers of poetry, fiction and performance poetry (from rural and urban campuses, both here and in the UK) discuss ways of supporting student project work within the Creative Writing curriculum.

Prose and Cons: Teaching Writing in Prison.
Chris Belden, Susan Casey, Mark Powell, Christopher Hazlett
Teaching prison inmates can be a powerful and rewarding experience for a writing teacher, one that goes far beyond the satisfaction of helping students learn how to write better. This panel will offer practical strategies for working in this nontraditional setting and examine the struggle to determine our goals as prison teachers: Are we simply there to teach good writing, or to help inmates discover how writing promotes self-understanding—or both?

Protecting Literary Work from Pen to Press.
Marci Rolnik
This lecture will outline the key deal terms in traditional and self-publishing contracts.  Emphasis will be placed  on copyright law and the acquisition of underlying rights, including releases and permissions, and proper copyright registration.  Lawyers for the Creative Arts will explain how to evaluate the muddy waters of fair use, joint authorship, convey and acquire copyright interests, and navigate how to best protect literary works in an online age.

Publishing as Pedagogy: How the process of running an independent press and developing, editing and book-designing manuscripts can enhance both the individual and communal growth of young writers.
Jeff Kass, Karen Smyte, Kevin Coval, Fiona Chamness, Carlina Duan
This panel will bring together two advisors of youth publishing projects, one from Chicago and one from Ann Arbor, along with a youth editor/book-designer, and an emerging author published by Ann Arbor’s Red Beard Press to talk about the benefits and challenges of immersing young writers in all facets of the publishing process including business-planning, acquiring funding, soliciting and gathering submissions, editing, book-designing, marketing, events promotion and distribution.

Purloining the Letter: Using the Correspondence of Others in Our Prose and Fiction.
Diane Simmons, Rachel Hall, Louise Steinman, Tyrone Williams, Douglas Dechow
The Manhattan Project, The French Resistance and War in the Pacific, Masculinity in Midwest and Bigamy on the West Coast: fiction writers, memoirists and poets discuss their engagement with topics both momentous and intimate through the medium of personal correspondence.  To be explored: the letter as window on history; as revealing physical artifact; as intimate source of character, voice and plot; as extension of professional communication; as site of ethically dubious snooping.  And more.

Putting the Story in History II.
Ron Hansen, Speer Morgan, Philip Gerard, Debra Brenegan
Delving further into issues raised at last year’s popular panel, panelists discuss the resurgence of historical fiction and offer practical research and writing advice. How do facts and truth work in fiction? How much research is enough? How can language authenticate an era?  Four novelists discuss their historical novels – the constraints, joys, challenges, maligned perspectives and ethical dilemmas – and how their experiences enlarged their capacities as writers and inspire their teaching.

Queer for You: Building an Enduring Readership for LGBT Authors.
David Groff, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Nickole Brown, Tony Valenzuela, Don Weise
Now that LGBT people have more media than ever to choose from, how can we reach the new queer reader of the 21st century? This panel of authors and publishing professionals explores practical and challenging proposals for garnering more readers for our books--through renewed and inventive publishers' efforts, better and more committed coverage from mainstream and queer media, author entrepreneurship, and a fresh summons to reading as a means to identity, community, art, and pleasure.

Queer Poets of Color on Craft: The Art of Decolonization.
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Samiya Bashir, Deborah A. Miranda, Ching-In Chen, Tamiko Beyer
There is power in craft. Poets use craft to create possibility, ways of seeing, hearing, and moving the world, re-envisioning it. Queer poets of color use multiple techniques to shape language on the page and stage, the way words flicker across glowing screens and beat against the drums of our ears. From the generation and arrangement of text, to shifts in narrativity and delivery, and the use of multiple registers and media, this panel explores the decolonial power of skillful wor(l)d-weaving.

Queer Voices in Young Adult Literature.
M. Molly Backes, Meagan Brothers, Alexandra Diaz, James Klise, Steve Kluger
Do queer and questioning teen readers recognize themselves in young adult literature? How does our culture of book banning affect the queer stories we tell? What counts as queer, anyway – does the term include gender identity as well as sexuality? This panel brings together five YA authors whose books feature LGBT, questioning, and cross-dressing characters for a lively discussion of inclusion, visibility, censorship, what we owe today’s youth… and what we can deliver.

Quo Anima: Women, Spirit, & Poetic Innovation.
Elizabeth Robinson, Laynie Browne, Andrew Schelling, Dan Beachy-Quick, Rusty Morrison
This panel will consider questions that arise from the interaction of poetic craft and mystical imagination.  Focusing on well known contemporary women poets, panelists will discuss current trends, giving examples of poetry that demonstrates resonance with and resistance to the varied resources of both western and nonwestern traditions.  Focus authors include Susan Howe, Hoa Nguyen, Claudia Rankine, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, and Cecilia Vicuna.

The Rankings Game: MFA Programs Respond to the Poets & Writers Creative Writing Program Rankings.
Elise Blackwell, Allison Joseph, Brighde Mullins, Frederick Reiken, Josh Russell
MFA applicants increasingly turn to the Poets & Writers rankings to evaluate programs, while related online applicant communities have altered the admissions process. Program directors have responded in varied ways, from criticizing the rankings’ methodology to using the transparency of that methodology to enact changes to their websites, notification procedures, and even program structures. This panel brings together five MFA directors to discuss their reactions and responses.

Re-Inventing Realism: The Craft of Alice Munro.
Catherine Brady, Rachel Hall, Kim Aubrey, Michael Byers, Alice LaPlante
Alice Munro has much to teach about the elegant execution of craft fundamentals.  She also deserves her due as a daring innovator who’s inexhaustibly curious about the possibilities of form and the conventions of fiction writing.  Panel participants will discuss Munro’s use of time in narrative; consider her methods of characterization, including her depiction of thought; and discuss her manipulation of point of view in the service of dynamic plotting.

Readers and Me: Connecting Teen Readers Through Narrative in Nonfiction.
Laura Otto, Ann Angel, Zu Vincent
Connecting teens to character is most readily accomplished through story and through character voice. Nonfiction writers face the additional challenge of developing a narrative voice when writing about characters in history. In creating a distinctive and focused narrative voice, writers turn that challenge into another layer of connection by giving readers the sensory experience of time and place and even the writers' own connections and relationship to their subject.

Reading for Writers: Emily Dickinson at Home.
David Baker, Carl Phillips, Stanley Plumly, Ann Townsend
She wrote more than 1800 poems, powerful, diverse, and strange, yet Emily Dickinson rarely ventured away from home.  Her work provides a rich case study as we consider her obsessive subjects and her methods of composition and invention.  How does she use the familiar and available things of her house and life—the birds and flowers, the people and books—to write some of the most far-ranging, evocative poetry in American literary history?

Reconsidering/Recreating the Workshop in an Online Environment.
Abby Bardi, Erin Beaver, Brianna Pike, Marianne Taylor
This panel reconsiders traditional creative writing pedagogies in the context of online teaching.  Panelists discuss how to draw from what works best in the traditional creative writing class and adapt it to online teaching, while exploring new pedagogical territory. Offering a variety of methods for effective online instruction, the panel attempts to conserve face-to-face teaching’s best practices while seeking a new, effective toolset for the online environment.

Recovery/Discovery: The Art of Bringing Queer Literary Heroes Back into Print.
Christopher Hennessy, Mark Doty, Kevin Killian, Stephen Motika, David Trinidad
Legendary and cult status poets (Jack Spicer, Tim Dlugos, James L.White, Thomas James, Leland Hickman) come to life as this panel of poet-editors mine the complex desire to recover literary heroes of enduring importance. When we recover the past, do we discover ourselves? Mark Doty, Kevin Killian, Stephen Motika and David Trinidad discuss bringing these poets’ work back into print in the very recent collections each edited. With this all gay panel, a queer tradition of recovery is also explored.

The Renaissance of Midwestern Literature.
Jason Lee Brown, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Dan Chaon, Mark Wisniewski, Rebecca Makkai
There is no doubt that Midwestern Literature exists, but how do we define and support its eccentricities and its coexisting relationship with other regional literature? Contributors to the new anthology New Stories from the Midwest read excerpts of their work and comment on the burgeoning renaissance of midwestern literature.

Renegade Pedagogy: Teaching Outside the Box.
John Drury, Michelle Burke, Thomas Pruiksma, Pauls Toutonghi, Lisa Ampleman
Award-winning teachers will share trade secrets in this panel. Come hear how writers use art, magic, and technology to inspire a love of language in students. Explore drawing techniques that encourage students to see the world with new eyes, experience how magic can be used as poetic metaphor, and learn how guerrilla poetry takes writing into exciting and unexpected spaces. Then engage in a discussion of how one’s passions, hobbies, and research interests can be brought into the classroom.

Reports from the Trenches: Teaching Novel and Novella Workshops.
Richard Sonnenmoser, Sabina Murray, Katy Karlin, Cynthia Reeves
Workshops focused on long-form narratives are difficult for many creative writing teachers to imagine. This panel focuses on issues related to the effective teaching of novel and novella workshops for graduates and undergraduates. Course design, suggested readings and advice on the problems specific to workshops focused on longer forms will be discussed by panelists who’ve been in the trenches of longer-form workshops.

Representing Class & Labor in Poetry.
Rosa Alcala, Susan Briante, Farid Matuk, Eileen Myles, Rodrigo Toscano
So much of today's poetry speaks of class, even unwittingly, yet we overlook this particular identity marker, in a tendency to see poems as either universal or as consciously engaged in questions of race, gender, or sexual orientation. Similarly, poets may make reference in their bios to a myriad of jobs, yet labor, as fundamental to identity and to the U.S. economy often remains unexplored in contemporary poetry. The poets included in this panel, in contrast, highlight questions of class and labor in their work, and will discuss the strategies they employ.

Revising Advising:  Working with Students on Literary Journals.
Tom Bligh, Amina Gautier, Tom C. Hunley, Ashley Nicole Montjoy, Leona Sevick
Managing literary publications may be the most Quixotic endeavor writers commit themselves to.  Dwindling budgets and indifferent audiences present unique challenges to 21st century publishers.  This panel assembles advisors of undergraduate print and online journals, a dean from a liberal arts university, and the founder of an independent press that enlists undergraduates as editorial assistants.   How can we work best with students to produce quality publications while training the next generation of editors?

Rewriting the Foreign: Toward a New Definition of American Fiction.
Peter Grandbois, Richard Burgin, Daniel Grandbois, Irene Vilar
Despite the fact that translations make up only 2.5% of all books published in the U.S., writers find a way to read across borders.  The goal of this panel will be to discuss the very idea of foreignness. As editors of the forthcoming TTUP Americas Anthology of Contemporary Prose, we’ll discuss the need for a Pan-American anthology that uses language to forge a consciousness outside predetermined political, geographical, social, or literary boundaries.

Rhyme: Past, Present, Future.
Stephen Burt, Laura Kasischke, Chad Sweeney, David Caplan, Khaled Mattawa
Naive or sophisticated, linked to tradition yet made strange by current practice, long disparaged and defended, rhyme remains a resource today. Kasischke's widely admired free verse incorporates dense rhyme and rhyme-like effects. Poet and critic Caplan is an authority on new formal verse and on hip-hop. Sweeney, who translates from Persian and Spanish, and Mattawa, who draws on Arabic, examine rhyme across languages and continents. Poet and critic Stephen Burt moderates.

Rivering: A reading contemplation..
Allison Hedge Coke, Wang Ping, Jan Beatty, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Natalie Diaz
Rivering: A Reading Contemplation. This panel reads works investigating witness impression cultivated from rivering beneath migratory flyways in blinds, in canoes, and in the field. Specific attention language, linguistics, and lingual histories shared within ecologic conservation, preservation, and migration mindfulness. From Neuse, Oconoluftee, Yangtze, Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, Laramie, & Colorado Rivers to the Platte, Minnesota, Missouri, & Mississippi, women writers bring rivering home.

Robert Gover: A Life of Radical Realism.
Christopher Klim, Robert Gover, Thomas Kennedy, Duff Brenna, Matt Ryan
In the early 1960s, Robert Gover’s first novel, the best-selling satire One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, changed the literary world by introducing caricatures of white and black stereotypes, helping to crash barriers and launch race relations into the public discourse. Gover’s work has continued to lambaste public perceptions up until present day. The panel will discuss Gover’s groundbreaking career as a writer and mentor; the author will give selected readings.

The Rooted Narrator:  Negotiating Time and Narrative Distance in Nonfiction.
Jill Christman, Debra Gwartney, Sonya Huber, Dan Raeburn, Bonnie J. Rough
To discover the trigger for an excavation of the past, nonfiction writers confront two urgent questions:  Why here? Why now?  Our panel of journalists, memoirists, and essayists will discuss this search for the sweet spot—the specific time and place in which a narrator is rooted—in work we admire and will elaborate on techniques used to find that platform from which to ask essential questions and launch the journey.

The Science of Stories: What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Making Narratives.
Jack Wang, Andrew Elfenbein, Tim Horvath, Austin Bennett, Livia Blackburne
How are human beings evolutionarily adapted to producing and consuming stories? What can brain science tell us about reading and writing narratives, and what do narratives tell us about how the brain works? These are among the questions our panel will consider as we take a cognitive approach to the art and craft of writing. Through an exploration of neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and other fields, our panel will attempt to answer fundamental questions about why we read and write.

The Scions of Studs Terkel: Creative Writers as Oral Historians.
Miles Harvey, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Peter Orner, Audrey Petty, Kelli Simpkins
This panel pays tribute to Studs Terkel by studying the ways in which nonfiction writers, novelists, poets and playwrights can make use of oral history. Panelists, all of whom are involved in oral-history projects, will explore the logistical, ethical and narrative challenges creative writers face in collecting the testimonies of others. We will also discuss how hybrid oral-history forms can bridge the gap between old models of literature and new kinds of reality-based art and entertainment.

Selling Out Everyone You Love: The Ethics of Writing Nonfiction.
Krista Bremer, Lee Martin, Cheryl Strayed, Stephen Elliott, Brian Doyle
Joan Didion said that writers are always selling somebody out. How do the authors of memoirs walk the thin line between truthful disclosure and betrayal of trust, and what responsibility do they have to loved ones who appear in their work? How has their writing affected their intimate relationships? Four authors will talk about how they’ve grappled with these questions, the consequences of their choices, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

Setting Limits: Balancing Paid Writing and Creative Writing.
Valerie Due, Matt Tullis, Jason Tucker, Ashley Bethard, Marilyn Bousquin
Many writers make a living as freelancers or staff writers, switching between creative work and paid work daily. But juggling the time and creative energy needed for both can be a challenge, even if your day job bears no resemblance to your creative writing. Writers who've learned how to balance both writing worlds share tips, techniques, and ideas for keeping one writing realm from overwhelming the other.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll II: Handling Tough Subjects in the Workshop.
Wendy Barker, Ralph Black, Fleda Brown, Catherine Bowman, Jacqueline Kolosov
An expansion of the 2011 panel’s lively discussion on difficult social issues in workshops. We’ll offer examples of typical legal institutional guidelines and then consider our own moral compasses as creative writing teachers. Looking back to Virgina Tech and Tucson, we wonder, where do we draw the line in our classrooms when the law, or university regulations are silent? What are our own personal limits? Do they have to do with taste? Tact? What is decency to us? Why does it matter?

Sharing Our Common Wealth: How Kentucky Became a Literary Arts Capital of Mid-America.
Julie Kuzneski Wrinn, Neil Chethik, Lynnell Edwards, Bianca Spriggs, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The writing life in Kentucky is rich with opportunity, thanks not only to its academic programs but also to its myriad writing communities. Learn how two institutions—the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, founded in 1979, and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, founded in 1992—work together to build audiences, share resources, and support newer literary groups such as the Affrilachian Poets, InKy Reading Series, Gypsy Poetry Slam, Holler Poets Series, and Accents Publishing.

So Many Submissions, So Little Time: Editors’ Strategies for Equitable and Efficient Submissions Management.
Carolyn Kuebler, Rebecca Wolff, Andrea Drygas, Don Share, Thom Didato
Lit mag editors live for finding a great new voice among the unsolicited submissions, but there’s no way one editor—or even a small group of them—can read every manuscript that comes in. What are some magazines' strategies for keeping up with the volume without sacrificing editorial vision? Editors from a range of journals share insights into what works and what doesn’t as they navigate new submissions technologies, manage staff, and strive to balance thoughtful reading with efficiency.

Sophomore Year: The Maturation of the Slam Poetry Movement.
Robbie Q. Telfer, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Derrick Brown, Mahogany L. Browne, Susan B.A. Somers-Willett
In 1986, the Poetry Slam Movement was created in Chicago by poet Marc Smith. And now, with two and half decades of poetry and audience engagement under its belt, the movement is growing in new, innovative ways. With its diverse collection of poets, organizers and publishers from across the U.S., this panel will shine a spotlight on these new developments, showcasing what poetry slam has learned from traditional poetry and what traditional poets might learn from the poetry slam.

The Sound of Meaning, the Meaning of Sound: What Poets and Children's Book Writers Can Learn from Each Other.
Mary Rockcstle, Jacqueline Briggs Martin, Phyllis Root, Franny Billingsley, Christine Heppermann
Picture book texts and poetry share a number of literary devices: brevity, reliance on sound and syntax, use of simile and metaphor to convey understanding and emotion, and more.  Panel participants will explore the lessons that writers of picture books can learn from a close examination of poetry and ways in which poets can integrate narrative with their own skills to create successful picture books for children.

The South Midland Dialect: the American Heartland’s Might Could Magnum Opus.
Joanna Beth Tweedy, Robert Hellenga, Allan Metcalf, Edgar Allen Imhoff
Two novelists and two non-fiction authors discuss the use of dialect, exploring the roots of language and place relative to the Midwest’s illustrative South Midland Dialect, among the most vivid, resourceful, metaphoric, lasting, and rapidly spreading American dialects. The authors examine the idea that how regional writing is bound and where it is bound share an exquisite kinship, dwelling deep in the folds of craft—ultimately, and appropriately, tangling diction, character, setting, and voice.

Speaking in Tongues.
Sandra M. Yee, Tarfia Faizullah, francine J. harris, Henry W. Leung, Milta Ortiz
In this panel of rising young artists, each writing inside two or more languages and/or cultures, we examine how we see ourselves pushing against literary and cultural traditions. How do we challenge our assimilation into the English language? To whom do we owe our allegiance as writers? Who is our audience? Whether code-switching or speaking in ancestral tongues, how do we act as representatives of our cultures, and in an increasingly globalized society, how do we embrace or shun these roles?

Starting a Young Writers' Conference.
Scot Slaby, Allison Joseph, Sean Nevin
Are you looking to start a young writers’ program or conference but don’t know how? Learn what others did to start their own and grow them in their respective communities (Southern Illinois University’s Annual Young Writers Workshop, Arizona State University’s Young Writers’ Program and 22 Across, and The Hood College Young Writers’ Conference), how their leaders sustain them, and what such conferences can offer local academic and artistic communities.

Storytelling in Poetry: Crafting the Narrative Poem.
Lori Desrosiers, Pamela Uschuk, Terry Lucas, Susan Deer Cloud, Christina Lovin
Narrative poetry is at the root of poetic history: stories handed down through generations, memorized through the use of rhyme and meter, repeated around campfires or blazing hearths. In the midst of today’s myriad poetic styles, the tradition of narrative poetry continues to provide many readers with that for which they long, a story told well and, in the case of poetry, told with attention to all that makes a poem. The story’s the thing; the trick is to tell it beautifully.

Surprise Me.
Edward Porter, Robin Black, Tracy Winn, Shannon Cain
We've come a long way from the days when you could end a story by revealing that the diamonds were fake. Yet the best short fiction still pleasures us with the unexpected, and when stories fail, it's often exactly because they don't surprise. This panel of award-winning short story writers, who are also fiction editors and teachers, will investigate the kinds of surprises that give the reader that sense of the floor dropping away, while maintaining the organic integrity of the fictional dream.

Taking Up Residence: Writers in Unexpected Places.
Wendy Call, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Henry Reese, Anastacia Tolbert, Ellen Placey Wadey
Five writers will share their experiences as writers-in-residence at K-12 schools, visual arts centers, libraries, county hospitals, battered women’s shelters, national parks and urban community centers nationwide. Each will reflect on what it means to be a writer in a community of non-professional writers – and how that community changes both what is written and the writer. Panelists will discuss the practicalities of finding, creating, and making the most of writer-in-residence opportunities.

Talking the Talk: Writing Fiction for Today's Latino Teens.
Sarah Cortez, Sergio Troncoso, Carlos Hernandez, Diana Lopez, Daniel A.  Olivas
Engaging young Latinos/as in the act of reading is one of the American educational system’s great quandaries.  This panel of Latino writers discusses the creation of edgy, contemporary literature for a wide range of Latino teens—from the college-bound to the reluctant reader.  Authors frame their discussion around the creation of their own stories in You Don’t Have a Clue: Latino Mysteries for Teens, the first anthology of Latino crime/suspense fiction created for young adults.

Teaching Social Action Writing and Service Learning.
Diana Garcia, Debra Busman, Annie Finch, Emmy Perez, Aimee Suzara
How do you develop, implement and teach a creative writing and service learning class? How do collaborations between community partners and university creative writing students empower both groups?  Diana Garcia, Frances Payne Adler, Debra Busman, Annie Finch and Emmy Perez describe how this reciprocal process challenges instructors and creative writing students to provide service and create works that live in the community beyond the classroom setting.

Teaching the Literary Magazine in the Two-Year College.
Jill Stukenberg, Ryan Davis, Joel Friederich, Casey Thayer
Literary magazine production invites the participatory, process-based, and student-centered learning that are the hallmark of pedagogy in two-year colleges. Two editors/professors of the Clackamas Literary Review and Red Cedar discuss pedagogical and practical aspects of the literary magazine at the two-year college with two instructors who recently implemented courses in literary magazine study and production at their small two-year campuses.

The Tech-Empowered Writer: Embrace New Media, Experiment & Earn.
Christina Katz, Jane Friedman, Seth Harwood, Robert Lee Brewer
What can a professor, a journalist, a novelist, and a poet teach you about new media? Using real-life examples from our own experience and that of other tech-savvy writers, we’ll construct a composite of how working writers use technology to invest in their careers, experiment and launch new works, and grow their income opportunities. Whether you need a day job, a part-time job, or just enough gigs to pay a few bills, there have never been as many ways for tech-savvy writers to earn.

Telling It Slant: Measures, Meaning and Music in Translating Poetry.
Alexis Levitin, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Ilya Kaminsky, Yvette Neisser Moreno, Kirk Nesset
Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher, considered all translation ‘utopian,’ which is to say impossible. Still, because the world’s greatest literature originates from a multitude of languages, translation remains necessary. This panel of poets, translating from such languages as Altaic, Creole, French, Polish, Russian and Spanish, discusses alternative approaches to finding one’s way into a text to be translated, as well as different strategies for rendering the impossible more possible.

Ten Years of Literary Politics: Is there still room and interest in the new marketplace?.
Dennis Johnson, Valerie Merians, Jessa Crispin
Jessa Crispin, founder of the seminal lit-blog Bookslut, leads a discussion with Melville House founders Valerie Merians and Dennis Johnson on the challenges and importance of publishing political literature in a changing industry. Topics explored include: books of longform cultural and political rhetoric in the age of the internet, the specific demands of political publishing, and the dedication to activism in the arts.

Theory and the Creative Process.
Devon Wootten, Dan Beachy-Quick, Joanie Mackowski, Jennifer Moxley, Srikanth Reddy
This panel re-imagines literary theory’s relation to creative texts – asking how literary theory might function productively in the creative process. As it stands, literary theory is often maligned as reductive – post-hoc explanations that have little to do with the genesis of a creative text. This panel presents a different view – poets providing specific examples of the way in which literary theory plays an important part in their respective creative processes.

There Really Is a Kalamazoo: Making the Third Coast Home.
Richard Katrovas, Thisbe Nissen, Nancy Eimers, William Olsen, Jaimy Gordon
One salient features of academe is choosing, and being chosen by, a community and making it home. For many writers, this entails writing, eventually, about that place.  Featuring 2010 NBA-winning novelist Jaimy Gordon, WMU writers will share work grounded in southwest Michigan and in the idea of home, then participate in Q&A about how communities enter our creative lives, and the ethical dimensions of writing about one's adopted home.

There Will Be Blood: Writing Violence in Fiction.
Alexi Zentner, Antonya Nelson, Ben Percy, Alan Heathcock
Writers are often told to kill their darlings, and to leave blood on the page, but sometimes you really mean it. Four writers talk about when, why, and how to introduce violence into fiction, how to choreograph a moment of physical savagery, and walking the line between too little and too much when it comes to bloodshed.

Things I Didn't Know I Loved: Staged Reading of a Play about Nazim Hikmet.
Zack Rogow, Cornelius Eady, Jen Shook, Meghan Beals McCarthy
This staged reading is presented by a unique Chicago cultural institution, Caffeine Theatre, focusing on drama by and about poets. Things I Didn’t Know I Loved is a play by Zack Rogow about the great modern Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. The play follows the writer through his youth as an activist in the early days of the Russian Revolution, his years spent in prison in Turkey for his political views, and his release after a hunger strike. The story is interwoven with Nazim Hikmet’s greatest poems.

Thinking with Your Own Apparatus: Fiction Writers and History.
Joyce Hinnefeld, Olga Grushin, Porochista Khakpour, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Tiphanie Yanique
Henry James wrote of the difficulty of thinking with your own apparatus a man, a woman, whose own thinking [is] intensely-otherwise conditioned in the writing of historical fiction. How does a writer step outside the conditioning of his or her own era to write about a historical moment, situation, person, or place? This panel features several fiction writers who have faced this and related questions about the writer’s use of history in recently published work.

Trading Stories with the Enemy: Navigating the Cuban/American Literary Landscape.
Patricia Ann McNair, Achy Obejas, Ruth Behar, Kristin Dykstra
The relationship between the US and Cuba is complex and ever-evolving, and this evolution is reflected in the stories and publications of Cubans and Cuban-Americans. While the two governments grapple with politics and policies, writers and editors continue to cross borders and boundaries in order to collect and share these stories. Our panelists have been actively engaged in this process for years, and will speak about the challenges and rewards of this work.

Translation as the actualization of poetry and the blurring of literary histories, nations, borders..
Pedro Serrano, Paul Bélanger, Mariela Dreyfus, Martín Espada, Hugh Hazelton
Poets, translators and editors discuss the translation of poetry as a means to escape the constraints of time, language and origin, allowing the poem, either in translation or in the original, to be part of a common heritage, rather than a personal, a linguistic or a national property.

Travels in the Office:  Editing Short Fiction.
Audrey Colombe, Patrick Ryan, Cheston Knapp, Hannah Tinti, Jordan Bass
Fiction editors from One Story, Granta, Tin House, Tampa Review, and McSweeney’s discuss editing short fiction: the highs and lows, the fine lines of choice, the kinds of outrage that appear on the desk, what’s coming in this year, where fit meets preference, how electronic submissions have (or have not) changed the game, the width of the publishing gender gap, and how the novel sneaks in.  A panel for editors as well as writers, including a Q & A.

Troubling the Label: When Does a Text Become Feminist?.
Arielle Greenberg, Cate Marvin, Amal Amireh, Eloise Healy, Ru Freeman
From conception to critique, what is the significance of when the label is applied? Does it matter who applies it? How do we interpret works of literature through a contemporary feminist context? So to Speak: a Feminist Journal of Language and Art brings together writers, publishers and academics to discuss the stage at which a work is labeled feminist and the issues implicated with labeling, writing, and publishing socially conscious work.

Twin Muses: The Shared Literary Histories Between Poems and Songs.
Charlotte Pence, Kevin Young, David Kirby, Claudia Emerson, Wyn Cooper
This discussion between Kevin Young, Charlotte Pence, David Kirby, Claudia Emerson, and Wyn Cooper seeks to untangle the highly connective web between songs and poems. They will examine how poems and songs share a literary history by addressing topics as varied as modernism, sonnet structures, oral variability, and radio hits. The panelists are part of a newly released landmark book, The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, which locates points of separation and synthesis between poetry and songs.

Two Year College Caucus.
Pamela Achenbach Novak, Vickie Hunt, Ryan Stone, Sharon Coleman, 
Do you teach at a two-year college?  Interested in job opportunities at two-year colleges?  Join us for our annual networking meeting.  With almost half of all students beginning college careers at two-year colleges, and increasing numbers of MFA’s landing two-year college teaching jobs, the future of creative writing courses and programs at our campuses looks bright.  We will discuss teaching creative writing at the two-year college, hold a short business meeting, and provide tangible resources for faculty.

Under New Management: The Literary Journal in a Changing World.
Glenna Luschei, Kwame Dawes, Wayne Miller, Jennifer Key, Paula Lowe
Recently hired editors talk about stepping into the editor in chief role at distinguished, long-running journals (Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, Pembroke, Café Solo). Their challenges, issues, and opportunities reflect the state of literary journal publishing, from fund-raising, subscription management, and production to digital distribution, social media, and questions surrounding gate-keeping. Their wide-ranging conversation will help writers understand the issues facing publishers.

The Unfolding Legacy of Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop.
Elizabeth Robinson, Cole Swensen, Sasha Steensen, Forrest Gander, James Belflower
This panel will celebrate the many ways that Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop have enriched contemporary writing and art in the United States and abroad through their own poetry, fiction, memoir, criticism, and translation.  In addition,the panel will consider and commend their multi-decade work as the publishers of Burning Deck Press. Through papers, reminiscences, and film, this panel will discuss the major influence these two of authors have had on contemporary literature.

Unrequited Love: renewing your vows to the troublesome novel.
Elizabeth Brundage, Stewart O'Nan, Jenna Blum, Alice Elliot Dark, Richard Bausch
Unpublished novels are like unrequited love affairs, they linger in the hearts and minds of writers for years to come; many of us have one stashed in a drawer.  And yet often within the existing work a new novel can be rescued.  This panel will explore strategies of revision, encouraging a fresh perspective, a renewed faith in the text.  Other topics will include structural elements such as characterization, pacing, thematic possibilities and our enduring commitment to the sentences we make.

Using ‘Fraudulent Artifcact’ to Teach Fiction Writing.
Matthew Vollmer, David Shields, Arda Collins, Joseph Salvatore
Panelists will present strategies for teaching and writing fraudulent artifacts—i.e., stories that masquerade as other  texts. Special attention will be given to how the study and creation of stories as letters, instructions, glossaries, and personal ads—as well as a host of other genres—can inspire student experimentation and thus energize classrooms, as close examinations of these artifacts will produce—as a matter of course—vigorous discussions about structure, form, and voice.

Vampire by Vampire: Genre Writing and the Creative Writing Workshop.
Jeffrey Condran, Aubrey Hirsch, Alissa Nutting, Salvatore Pane
At a time when many students’ visual literacy is as highly developed as their traditional literary skills, when genre fictions dominate publisher and bestseller lists, and when many writers of literary fiction are open to narratives that reach beyond realism, instructors are often under pressure to include genre traditions in the fiction workshop. Four fiction writers teaching at colleges with diverse missions share stories and discuss strategies for including genre conventions in the workshop.

The Vampire Poets: Collaborating with the Dead.
Hadara Bar-Nadav, Camille Dungy, Heid Erdich, Dean Rader, Simone Muench
We are vampire poets who celebrate, seek guidance, and cull inspiration from the dead. Through our writing, we commune with dead artists, writers, ancestors, and the relics and remains housed in museums. In centos, persona poems, and erasures, we recycle, reconfigure, and pay homage to diverse traditions, resulting in new textual conversations. We will discuss our various projects, including methods for and challenges to collaborating with the dead, and read brief excerpts from our work.

Villains and Killers and Criminals, Oh, My: Representing Evildoers in Literary Fiction.
Reese Okyong Kwon, Matt Bell, Eugene Cross, Brian Evenson, Lauren Groff
Iago, the Misfit, Milton’s Satan, Judge Holden—some of the most memorable characters in literature have been the evil ones. The death of Satan was a tragedy / For the imagination, said Wallace Stevens. If this is true, how can fiction writers profit from the inclusion of villainy, and what might be lost? Join writers as they discuss their experiences incorporating elements of evil into their fiction, providing examples from their own and others’ work.

Wading the Raging Waters - Navigating the Current Funding Landscape.
Ryan Stone, Lex Williford, Mary Troy, Michael Kardos, Kris Bigalk
Funding for education is currently in a state of great flux. With this comes uncertainty and, at times, anxiety. Creative writing programs across the country, at all levels of higher education, face challenges in both expected and unexpected areas. Four program directors from different types of programs discuss the fiscal and emotional health of their respective programs and invite contributions and discussion from the audience.

The Vital Writing of Loss: Personal, Societal, Ecological.
Rusty Morrison, Gillian Conoley, Melissa Kwasny, Elizabeth Robinson, Brian Teare
Our minds can imagine infinity—symbolic constructs are endless—yet our bodies and our planet are fragile, finite.  Perhaps the root of all anxiety is the intolerability of living with the potential annihilation of what we know and love. This panel will discuss the value and challenge of writing the enormity of loss, whether from death, cultural alienation, and/or ecological devastation. Beyond recording suffering, how can poems lead us into the deep channels where our humanity can be found?

War is Not Lost in Translation.
Lytton Smith, Carolyn Forché, Susan Harris, Idra Novey, Ravi Shankar
Translators and editors discuss translation in wartime: how can we bring literature across borders as we translate narratives and poems from conflict zones? Is war lost in translation? Panelists read and talk about poems, novels, and anthologies, including late 1800s France, present-day Kashmir, Spanish-speakers in an Icelandic novel, Paraguayan troops in a Brazilian town, and an online magazine’s responsibility to shifting political landscapes in the Middle East and other conflict zones.

The Way The Wind Blows: Trends in Contemporary Short Fiction.
Todd James Pierce, Steve Yarbrough, Kevin Moffett, M.M.M. Hayes, Darlin' Neal
In this panel, five noted short story authors identify trends in contemporary short fiction.  From the researched-based stories of Andrea Barrett and Jim Shepherd to the sardonic explorations of Stacey Richter and George Saunders, this panel will discuss how the form of the short story has evolved over the past ten years, with an eye toward understanding where the form is headed.

What about Blog?: How Blogging Can Propel Your Career and Polish Your Craft.
Sarah Klenakis, Turi Fesler, Claire Bidwell Smith, Rachel Vogel, Caitlin Leffel
Sure, lots of writers blog, but what can you do to actually capitalize from your daily posts? A writer, editor, literary agent, and blog sponsor come together to discuss what appeals to them when reading online, how you can better attract followers, make money from your blogging, and possibly even find a job. From sharing success stories to blogging 'don'ts', this panel will clarify the murky waters that surround online writing.

What I Wish I'd Known.
Kim Wright, Jeffrey Stepakoff, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Rebecca Rasmussen
What I Wish I'd Known: A panel with four novelists discussing what caught them by surprise in the publishing process - information about what agents can and cannot do, working with editors, the importance of publicity, launching books, being a small book in a big house, dealing with reviews and feedback, the emotional ups and downs of the debut experience.

What is Home: The Poetics of Negotiating the Old, Re-imagined and the New,  Adopted Homeland.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, John Guzlowski, Raza Ali Hasan, Malena Morling, Ilya Kaminsky
Political conflicts and wars often inspire immigrant poets to produce works rooted in two worlds: the old and the new, adopted homeland. The displaced poet arrives in America from Europe, Africa and elsewhere, stuck in their old world, often with nostalgic, painful memories, looking for home on the new landscape. Is the new literature really American, European, African or just world literature? Our diverse panel will explore the poetics of negotiating the delicate spaces of home in our poetry.

What to Know Before Starting Your PhD.
Dara Barnat, Gerald Maa, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Christian Gerard
Jobs in academia by and large require a PhD in today’s market. Yet there are many challenging decisions to make before starting a PhD, such as whether to pursue the academic or creative track. In this panel a group of writers will discuss their intellectual and professional experiences of working towards and completing academic or creative doctorates. The panelists will be available to give advice and answer queries about the PhD process with potential candidates.

What You Need to Know Before You “Stand and Deliver”: K-12 Teaching 101 (WITS Alliance).
Rebecca Hoogs, Cassie Sparkman, Valerie Wayson, David Hassler, Cecily Sailer
Standing in front of a classroom and delivering inspiring and effective lessons doesn’t just happen. And just because you’re a great writer doesn’t mean you’re ready to be a great teaching artist in a K-12 classroom. But this panel will help you understand the path to becoming the teacher you want to be, that your teachers expect you to be, and that your students deserve. We’ll share tips and tricks of the trade and offer concrete advice for how to get the experience you need to succeed.

What's Wrong With The Whole Truth?.
Susan Resnick, Philip Gerard, Peter Trachtenberg, Paige Williams, Rebecca Skloot
Many writers feel comfortable molding the truth to create a more satisfying story yet still calling the piece nonfiction as long as the emotional core and the basic frame of the work remain true. Not the writers on this panel. These authors, journalists and nonfiction professors will explore the philosophy of factual vs. emotional honesty, and discuss how to achieve both: beautiful and moving nonfiction writing that is 100% true

When Change is the Only Constant: How Grad Student-Run Journals Can Thrive Despite the Constant Turnover.
Conor Broughan, Jessica Jacobs, Laura Donnelly, Deborah Kim, Farren Stanley
For student-run publications, inherent editorial turnover creates both aesthetic and logistical changes each academic year. This panel will discuss how journals can work toward more seamless editorial transitions through tactics like creating and maintaining a consistent online presence, using technology to streamline administrative tasks, and digitizing archives and databases to document a journal’s history while simultaneously spurring its growth.

Who Can Say Who Are Citizens? Poets?.
Lytton Smith, Brian Teare, Eileen Myles, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Sarah Gambito
Charles Olson wondered whether anyone should ‘say who are citizens.’ At a time when U.S. citizenship places conditions on sexual, religious, and political behavior, this panel explores how poetry and poetic prose can transform citizenship definitions through techniques including found materials, drama, and lyric autobiography. Five contemporary poets working in various poetic modes discuss their own work and the work of important, neglected poetic forebears in terms of U.S. citizenship.

Who Doesn’t Want to Be Popular?: Adventures in Teaching With, For, Around, and Through Commercial Fiction.
Lori Rader Day, Scott Blackwood, Kat Falls, Tod Goldberg, Mary Anne Mohanraj
The writing is what matters—or is it? The longstanding argument between literary and genre writers proves that, sometimes, it’s about more than the words on the page. Writers and teachers of both commercial and literary fiction discuss how that battle plays out in the creative writing classroom. Should students be allowed to write whatever they want? How do we teach students who write in genres we don’t read? What lessons might come from genre-bending? What resources do we turn to?

Why Independent Publishers Matter / Independent Publishers and the changing industry.
Michael Miller, Tom Roberge, Jeff Shotts, Laura Howard, Eric Obenouf
Bookforum editor Michael Miller, along with selected editors and publishers from various independent presses, will discuss the changing landscape of the publishing industry and the ongoing rise of independent publishers: why they are leading the way and what this means for the future of the industry as a whole.

Why We Need a WPA for the 21st Century.
S.L. (Sandi) Wisenberg, Miles Harvey, Ned Stuckey-French, Kimberly Dixon
Saul Bellow, Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel, Margaret Walker,  John Cheever, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston--these were just a few of the writers employed by the Federal Writers' Project (1935-43), part of the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal. They composed state guidebooks, interview former slaves, wrote radio plays, collected folklore--while boosting the U.S. economy and soul. Can we bring it all back? We'll discuss WPA history with emphasis on Chicago, and suggest action.

Wilderness Writing: Theory and Practice.
John Bennion, Catherine Curtis, Scott Hatch, Bentley Snow
This panel will discuss benefits, theory, and practice of combining field experience and creative writing.  Getting outdoors with students on field trips and extended programs gives students concrete material to use in personal and natural history essays and helps them take risks in their writing. The panel will discuss specific outdoor writing activities, mentoring of inexperienced students by experienced writers, the use of university field stations as field trip resource, managing trip logistics, and developing and teaching curricula for a course on Writing Natural History.

Will Write for Food:  Writers Working Outside Academia.
Chloe Miller, Alison Hicks, Patricia Lewis, Valerie Martinez, August Tarrier
During the past two years, openings in English departments declined more than 40%.  Creative writing tenure-track openings declined more than 30%. At the same time, the demand for writing opportunities is widening, encompassing community-based, travel and virtual writing communities. Panelists will discuss writing lives outside academia, including entrepreneurial ventures in online teaching and mentoring, editing and coaching services, workshops and retreats, and community engagement projects.

The Wired Writing Classroom: The Marriage of Technology and Teaching  (WITS Alliance).
Cecily Sailer, Jeanine Walker, Janet Hurley, Jim Walker, Bertha Rogers
With an endless supply of evolving technology, how can educators capitalize on innovative web platforms and social media to augment classroom teaching, inspire students, and showcase their work? In this panel, several administrators from writers-in-the-schools organizations share multi-media projects that marry technology and traditional teaching methods. These stories of “teachnology” touch upon best practices while considering questions of safety and authenticity.

Women in Jeopardy: Crime Fiction.
Jane Cleland, Danielle Egan-Miller, Jamie Freveletti, Julie Hyzy, Joanna MacKenzie
Three bestselling and award-winning crime fiction writers and two top literary agents will discuss the role gender plays in their trade. Are tough gal detectives taken as seriously as tough guy detectives? What does the popularity of female-oriented sub-genres like chick lit and cozies and cross-over categories like YA paranormal say about the market? With e-publishing sweeping across the genre, are women authors in more or less jeopardy than before? How can new writers break into the field?

Women Writers of a Certain Age -- Part 3.
Janet Burroway, Carolyn Forche, Patricia Henley, Marilyn Krysl, Honor Moore
Carolyn Forche, Patricia Henley, Marilyn Krysl, and Honor Moore join the ongoing AWP conversation with women writers over sixty. They will look back over their careers to share the long perspective.  What are the changes that come with the years, the persistent problems, the recurring joys?  What it is about the writing life that still seems to matter?

Women's Caucus.
Lois Roma-Deeley, Patricia Smith, Rebecca Olson, Kathleen Aguero, Lisa Bowden
Where is the place for the women writer within AWP and within the greater literary community? The women's caucus discusses this as well as continuing inequities in creative writing publication and literature. In addition, issues centering on cultural obstacles in the form of active oppression, stereotypes, lack of access to literary power structures, historical marginalization of  women's writing, issues and perspectives and the diverse voices of women will explored. Networking opportunities.

Words Without Borders: International Writing in the Workshop.
Susan Harris, Malena Morling, Jason Grunebaum, Douglas Unger, Becka Mara McKay
Words Without Borders (wordswithoutborders.org), the online magazine for world literature in translation, presents poets Malena Morling and Becka Mara McKay, and fiction writers Jason Grunebaum and Douglas Unger.  Each offers examples of how contemporary international writing finds a new forum in workshops, and how active study of translation promotes the discovery of original language and new models for poetic and narrative inspiration.  Moderated by Susan Harris, Chicago-based editorial director of Words Without Borders.

Working Process: Editor and Writer.
Brigid Hughes, Elisabeth Schmitz, Tom Drury, Michael Thomas, Mary-Beth Hughes
This panel gathers fiction writers and editors (from a literary magazine and publishing house) to discuss the relationship between author and editor. What makes for a successful working process? Through discussion of early drafts, editorial queries, and final edits, this panel gives a behind-the-scenes perspective on the editorial process.

Writer’s World Series.
Barbara Ras, Edward Hirsch, Norman Manea, Peter Cole, Arthur Sze
The session features a robust discussion about the Writer’s World series of books about the lives of writers in different cultures and geographies. Featuring editors for specific volumes and series in whole, the lively discussion will range from conditions in different cultures to the process of writing and publishing such work, much of it in translation. Recent books in the series Romanian, Chinese, Nineteenth Century, Polish, Mexican, Hebrew, and Irish writers.

Writers and the Moving Image: Off the Page.
Annie Guthrie, Claudia Rankine, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Dan Waber
The University of Arizona Poetry Center presents a juried screening of writers working in film/video, featuring short works by Claudia Rankine, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Kate Greenstreet, John Gallaher, G.C. Waldrep, Sawako Nakayasu, Forrest Gander, Eula Biss, John Bresland, Brandon Downing, and others. Panelists Claudia Rankine, Josh Wilkinson, and Dan Waber discuss the text/image relationship, inter-genre writing, filmic vocabulary, new directions in Vispo, and the digital lyric essay.

Writers on Reading Like An Editor.
Dawn Raffel, Robley Wilson, James Yeh, Kristen Iversen
Editors who are also critically acclaimed fiction writers will discuss what makes a story leap out from the submissions pile. What is the x factor that’s often apparent in the first few sentences? And what can you learn as a writer by reading this way? The discussion will include examples and will be followed by q&a.

The Writer in the World: A Look at Immersion Writing.
Robin Hemley, David Shields, Melissa Pritchard, Joe Mackall, Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Immersion Journalism, Travel Writing, and Immersion Memoir all engage writers in projects that involve the Self but don’t solely rely on the writer’s memory and imagination.  In Immersion Journalism, the writer uses the Self to write about the world.  In Immersion Memoir, the writer uses the world to write about the Self.  And in Travel Writing, there’s a bit of both.  Several accomplished writers of these forms discuss the writer’s relationship and responsibility to the world at large.

Writing About Race in the Age of Obama.
Jack Wang, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Eleanor Henderson
Since the election of President Obama, the term post-racial has come into popular usage. Does this term have any currency in the world of literature, and if so, what might a post-racial literature look like? Are writers still obliged to protest when writing about race, or are we obliged to find new ways of writing about racial identity? And how does one write about the increasingly common experiences of being bi- or multi-racial in America? Our panel considers these questions across genres.

Writing About Social Issues in Children’s & Young Adult Books.
Renee Watson, Coe Booth, Shadra Strickland
Though the language of children’s literature might be simplified for its audience, the content and craft does not have to compromise its substance and complexity. In this session panelists talk about the importance of presenting social issues in children’s literature. They will speak about preaching vs. storytelling, and share how books about sensitive topics provide a starting place for conversations with children. Authors will read excerpts of their works, followed by a discussion.

Writing and Community: The Rise of the Literary Center.
Gloria Vando, Lee Briccetti, Mary Bunten, Jocelyn Hale, Sherman Pearl
The closing of many independent bookstores has led literary centers to assume an even more significant role in the literary community. Come and explore with us the many ways in which wemight collaborate so as to best serve writers, readers, publishers, and others. The panel also will discuss the realities of establishing and maintaining these centers: community and civic support, fundraising, marketing, audience development, achieving diversity, and board responsibilities.

Writing Class: Representing Socio-Economic Realities in Your Work.
Courtney Tenz, Josh Weil, Ru Freeman, Sabra Wineteer, Sterling Holywhitemountain
As economic realities devolve the broader American Dream, writers are shaping a new U.S. life narrative. Writing Class collects contemporary authors' responses to this socio-economic shift by asking: will class-focused writing replace the American race and ethnicity paradigm? Can such a shift illuminate the differences in income and status and lead to greater understanding? Or will the money gap cut out most socio-economic classes and usher in a new era of class appropriation in literature?

Writing for Young Adults.
April Lindner, Marilyn Nelson, Helen Frost, Curtis Crisler
Young Adult literature is as diverse and ambitious as any literature.  What is the appeal of writing for a younger audience, and what are the practical concerns of the author who writes literary YA poetry or fiction?  A panel of poets and novelists will explore the vibrant world of Young Adult literature and examine the many ways in which YA literature can be relevant, experimental, traditional, necessary.

Writing From the Inside:  Pedagogical Concerns for Teaching Creative Writing in Prisons.
Martha Webber, Audrey Petty, Baron Haber, Amy Sayre-Roberts, Cory Holding
How can teaching creative writing to incarcerated individuals promote social justice? How is our pedagogy informed by teaching in prison classrooms? What ethical considerations should we keep in mind when publishing works written or inspired by this vulnerable population? In this panel, instructors for the Education Justice Project, a program that primarily serves men from the Chicago area, will discuss their experiences working with students on their stories, poems, and memoirs.

Writing Games: Gaming, Digitality, and Creative Writing Pedagogy.
Stuart Moulthrop, Lane Hall, Anne Wysocki, W. Trent Hergenrader, Matthew Trease
This panel discusses relationships among writing, digitality, games, and the creative writing classroom. Addressing Surrealist parlour games, Oulipian constrained writing techniques, Candyland, Uno, animation, and videogames, panelists consider the possibilities of games and digitality for developing generative writing exercises and helping students understand how textual experimentation fits within the craft of writing.

Writing in the City that Works: Chicago’s Literary Values for the 21st Century.
Stephanie Friedman, Kevin Davis, Dina Elenbogen, Bayo Ojikutu, Matthias Regan
Chicago, Sandburg’s hog butcher to the world, or, as the municipal trucks would have it, The City That Works, has long been associated with urban grit, realism, and industrial labor. Does this image still capture the truths about living, working, and writing in Chicago today? What can Chicago writing past and present teach us about writing as work and the nature of literary value? How should we as writers and teachers of writing interact with the urban environment and its people?

Writing Outside of Higher Education.
Margaret Luongo, John Morogiello, David Roby, Don Waters, Susi Wyss
Four writers discuss the paths they’ve taken—away from higher education. From careers in international health and freelance nonfiction writing, to acting, directing, and teaching as an artist-in-residence, these writers discuss how they’ve created lives that support and nurture (or not) their writing without full-time university employment.

Writing the Middle East, Crossing Genre, Crossing Borders.
LeAnne Howe, Matthew Shenoda, Jim Wilson, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Hayan Charara
Crossing West to East into landscapes of olives and almonds, Arabian deserts and mountains, love affairs and war zones, green lines, religions, and concrete walls that divide. This panel explores how translation and transliteration play a role in writing the Middle East. Five writers with different experiences in the region give insights on how their particular genre: poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction, shape their narratives of Egypt, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

Writing the Ten-Minute Play.
Richard Schotter, Kate Snodgrass, Gary Garrison, Lydia Diamond
The art and craft of writing a successful ten-minute play will be discussed by four produced playwrights who are also artistic directors, arts administrators and experienced teachers. Panelists will discuss the skills required and challenges encountered in writing a complete play with a beginning, middle and end which runs for just ten minutes. We will end with a reading of a ten-minute play.

Writing Visually: Using Comics in the Writing Classroom.
Anne Panning, Matt Madden, Hillary Chute, Jarod Roselló, Jessica Abel
Many incorporate reading comics in their classes these days. But how can you use comics to teach writing? On this panel two teaching cartoonists, and three literature and writing professors, will discuss ways to introduce the practice of comics into the creative writing classroom, and how that can benefit students’ writing—of prose as well as of comics. Approaches include the Bechdel method of writing comics without drawing, and using panels to visually activate prose (or poetic) writing.

You + Me= We: Collaborative Authorship as Pedagogical Practice.
Lily Hoang, Sequoia Nagamatsu, EmmaLee Pallai, Adam Crittenden, Kelsie Hahn
Authors often work together to create scholarly articles, novels, short stories, screenplays, poetry and beyond. Collaboration allows all parties to parlay their strength to the page, be it research, sentence structure, concept, or more. It also provides a rich learning experience improving not just writing skills, but also interpersonal skills. This panel will discuss ways of incorporating the collaborative model of authorship in the composition and creative classrooms.

You Wrote It, Now Promote It: DIY Publicity for the Busy Writer.
Brendan Constantine, Kim Dower, Janice Eidus, Elise Paschen, Douglas Kearney
At a time when publishing is in a profound state of flux, there is no one right way to promote a book. Whether you do fifty events in fifty days or six in six months, there are ways to find and connect with an audience. Each panelist in this diverse group has stories to share of the modern marketing tactics they’ve used to promote their work. Join them for a wide-ranging discussion on the hazards and unexpected pleasures of juggling a new book with a new baby, family, jobs, and sanity.

Your Family Stories: Research, Writing, and Representation.
Lee Martin, Ellen Cassedy, Nancy K. Miller, Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, Tracy Seeley
Five authors, both seasoned and first-time writers representing a cross-section of American cultures and experiences, discuss the limitations, challenges, and triumphs they faced when blending family stories and history into their memoirs. Where do you begin? How do you excavate your family past, despite missing connections, secrets, and silences? How do you write in honor of or in spite of family?

Youth-Speak: Running a Creative Writing Workshop  for Young Writers Who (Mostly) Want to be There.
Michael Henry, Megan Nix, Sonya Larsen, Margot Kahn, Kait Steele
Anyone who’s led a workshop for teens can attest to the talent, ambition, and creativity of their young flock, but that doesn’t always mean it’s the same as teaching adults, grad students, or even undergraduates. Working with this age group—at in-house programs, at outreach programs in schools—requires a multi-varied, flexible, and quick-thinking approach. In this panel, we’ll discuss and outline what works, what doesn’t, and what to always keep in mind.