R100. Conference Registration
Hilton Chicago
Attendees who have registered in advance may pick up their registration materials throughout the day at AWP’s Pre-Registered Check-In desk, sponsored by Northwestern University and located in the Northeast Exhibit Hall on the lower level of the Hilton Chicago.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R101. AWP Bookfair. Sponsored by the Ashland University MFA Program and Hollins University: Jackson Center for Creative Writing
Exhibit Halls, Hilton Chicago, Lower Level
With more than 550 exhibitors, the AWP bookfair is one of the largest of its kind. A great way to meet authors, critics, and peers, the bookfair also provides excellent opportunities to find information about many literary magazines, presses, and organizations.

Breakfast, Lunch, & Coffee Concessions: Breakfast, lunch, and coffee concessions will be available throughout the day from Thursday through Saturday in the Mobley Room on the Lower Level of the Hilton Chicago. Concessions will open at 8:30 a.m.

Shuttle Service from the Hilton Chicago & Palmer House Hilton: Courtesy shuttles will run throughout the day from Thursday through Saturday to facilitate conference events taking place at both the Hilton Chicago and the Palmer House Hilton. Shuttles will run every 10 to 15 minutes between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. Shuttles will arrive and depart from the 8th Street entrance of the Hilton Chicago, and the Wabash Street Entrance of the Palmer House Hilton.

Lactation Room: Please visit the AWP Help Desk at the Pre-Registered Check-In area in the Northeast Exhibit Hall for access to the lactation room. For reasons of privacy and security, access to the lactation room is granted with permission by AWP only.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R102. On Being a Jewish Poet: Writing and Identity
(Patty Seyburn, Jacqueline Osherow, Richard Chess, Emily Warn, Yehoshua November)
Astoria, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R103. A Writing Life, After the Workshop
(Ilana Shabanov, April Newman, Daniel Prazer, James Lower, Sheree Greer)
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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 writers can use to take control of their career and maintain a writing lifestyle long-term. The approach is engaging to the audience, displaying websites and tools available to writers to promote their work. The audience members will come away with resources and an action plan for their writing life. A Q&A session follows.

R104. The Constant Critic Anniversary Panel: Poetry Reviewing in the 21st Century
(Karla Kelsey, Ray McDaniel, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Vanessa Place, Jordan Davis)
Continental A, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
In 2002, Fence publisher Rebecca Wolff began the Constant Critic, an online-only poetry book review website. The venues for poetry criticism have dramatically altered in the past ten years, but the ,CC, has remained. This panel, staffed by the site’s five critics (two of whom 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.

R105. Ten Years of the Poulin Prize: A Poetry Reading
(Peter Conners, Dan Albergotti, Janice Harrington, Keetje Kuipers, Ryan Teitman)
Continental B, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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.

R106. The Long and Short of It: Navigating the Transitions between Writing Novels and Short Stories
(Bruce Machart, Hannah Tinti, Melanie Thon, Erin McGraw, Kevin Wilson)
Continental C, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
Because writing workshops are often geared toward the consideration of short fiction, emerging writers may 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.

R107. Wilderness Writing: Theory and Practice
(John Bennion, Catherine Curtis, Scott Hatch, Bentley Snow)
Joliet, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
This panel will discuss the benefits, theory, and practice of combining field experience with 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 to take risks in their writing. The panel will discuss specific outdoor writing activities, the mentoring of inexperienced students by experienced writers, the use of university field stations as field trip resources, managing trip logistics, and developing and teaching curricula for a course on writing natural history.

R108. Reports from the Trenches: Teaching Novel and Novella Workshops
(Richard Sonnenmoser, Sabina Murray, Katherine Karlin, Cynthia Reeves)
Lake Erie, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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. Panelists who have been in the trenches of long-form workshops will discuss course design and suggested readings and give advice about the problems specific to workshops focused on longer forms.

R109. From the Mawkish to the Remarkable: Addressing Sentimentality in Undergraduate Poetry Workshops
(Dana Bisignani, Eric Goddard-Scovel, Cody Lumpkin, Adrian Gibbons Koesters)
Lake Huron, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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.

R110. Emerging Digital Genres: A Relational Investigation
(Steve Halle, Laura Goldstein, John Vincler, Francesco Levato, Carina Finn)
Lake Michigan, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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.

R111. 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)
Lake Ontario, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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.

R112. AWP Program Directors’ Plenary Assembly
Marquette, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
All AWP program directors should attend and represent their programs. The Executive Director of AWP will report on AWP’s new projects and on important statistics and academic trends that pertain to creative writing programs and to writers who teach. A discussion with the AWP board’s Regional Representative will follow. The plenary assembly will be followed by regional breakout sessions.

R113. New Media for New (and Old) Authors and Writers
(Priscilla Long, Matt Briggs, Waverly Fitzgerald, Rebecca Agiewich, Cynthia Hartwig)
Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
What do writers need to know about blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LibraryThing, Goodreads, YouTube, SheWrites, Amazon.com, and author pages on these sites 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 of this an option? What is the downside?

R114. A Reading from City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry
(Ryan Van Cleave, Campbell McGrath, Don Share, Robyn Schiff, Beth Ann Fennelly)
Waldorf, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R115. A Room with a Review: The Art of Literary Criticism
(Andrew Ciotola, Mindy Kronenberg, Daniel Torday, Scott Parker, Christina Thompson)
Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Literary journal editors discuss the ethics, mechanics, and value of reviewing.

R116. 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)
Wiliford B, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
This panel 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 e-books.

R117. The Business of Publishing Your Novel with an Independent Press: Author and Publisher Perspectives
(Dennis Johnson, Joe Meno, Adam Levin, Christopher Boucher, Leigh Stein)
Wiliford C, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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 had seven books published 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 versus indie publishing, publicity, marketing, tours, social networking, and the changing role of the author.

R118. Dual Citizenship—Writing for Both Children and Adults
(Sheila O’Connor, Julie Schumacher, Geoff Herbach, Margaret MacMullan)
Crystal Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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.

R119. Flash Points: Publishing Flash Fiction in an Evolving Landscape
(Glenn Shaheen, Roxane Gay, Nancy Stebbins, Edward Mullany, Adam Peterson)
Empire Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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.

R120. Celebration in Any Language: Teaching Bilingual Students [WITS Alliance]
(Jack McBride, Alise Alousi, Merna Ann Hecht, Milta Ortiz, Cara Zimmer))
Grand Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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 individual stories.

R121. Atypical Points of View in Fiction Narration
(Elizabeth Poliner, Jean McGarry, David Huddle, Cathryn Hankla)
Honoré Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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.

R123. Who Can Say Who Are Citizens? Poets?
(Lytton Smith, Brian Teare, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Sarah Gambito, Melissa Castillo-Garsow)
State Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R124. Starting a Young Writers’ Conference
(Sean Nevin, Allison Joseph, David Hassler)
Wabash Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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 to local academic and artistic communities.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R125. West Region: AWP Program Directors’ Breakout Session
Astoria, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in the following states, you should attend this session: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. This regional breakout session will begin immediately upon the conclusion of the Program Directors’ Plenary Meeting, so we recommend that you attend the Plenary Meeting first. Your regional representative on the AWP Board of Directors, Cynthia Hogue, will conduct this meeting.

R126. Poetry Video in the Shadow of Music Video—Performance, Document, and Film
(Tim Kahl, Kwame Dawes, Dave Bonta, Jordan Stempleman, Todd Boss)
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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?

R127. Ideas That Always Work; Solutions That Never Fail: Best Practices for the Creative Writing Workshop
(Christopher Castellani, Ethan Gilsdorf, Lisa Borders, Jill McDonough)
Continental A, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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.

R128. Thinking with Your Own Apparatus: Fiction Writers and History
(Joyce Hinnefeld, Eugenia Kim, Porochista Khakpour, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Nalini Jones)
Continental B, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
Henry James wrote of the difficulty of thinking with your own apparatus 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.

R129. Troubling the Label: When Does a Text Become Feminist?
(Arielle Greenberg, Cate Marvin, Amal Amireh, Eloise Healy, Ru Freeman)
Continental C, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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.

R130. Angles of Ascent
(Toi Derricotte, Major Jackson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dawn Lundy Martin, Vievee Francis)
International Ballroom South, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
In this reading, representative voices of eighty poets spanning three generations discuss and read from the anthology Angles of Ascent (edited by Charles Rowell). This landmark project was published by W. W. Norton in February 2012. Toi Derricotte, Major Jackson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dawn Lundy Martin, and Vievee Francis will discuss the nature and importance of Angles of Ascent in American poetry. This will be followed by twenty minutes of readings and a ten-minute exchange with the audience.

R131. Southeast Region: AWP Program Directors’ Breakout Session
Joliet, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in the following states, you should attend this session: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. This regional breakout session will begin immediately upon the conclusion of the Program Directors’ Plenary Meeting, so we recommend that you attend the Plenary Meeting first. Your regional representative on the AWP Board of Directors, Natasha Trethewey, will conduct this meeting.

R132. Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll II: Handling Tough Subjects in the Workshop
(Wendy Barker, Fleda Brown, Catherine Bowman, Jacqueline Kolosov)
Lake Erie, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
This is 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 Virginia 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?

R133. Readers and Me: Connecting Teen Readers through Narrative in Nonfiction
(Laura Otto, Ann Angel, Zu Vincent)
Lake Huron, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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 can turn that challenge into another layer of connection by giving readers the sensory experience of time and place and even the writers’ own relationship to their subjects.

R134. Phoning It In: Publishing through an iPhone App
(Maribeth Batcha, Tyler Meier, Sunyoung Lee, Daniel Pritchard, Chad Post)
Lake Michigan, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
Representatives from five leading publishers—Boston Review, Kaya Press, Kenyon Review, One Story, Open Letter—discuss their experiences: the pitfalls, successes, and strategies of publishing digitally.

R135. Purloining the Letter: Using the Correspondence of Others in Our Prose and Fiction
(Diane Simmons, Rachel Hall, Louise Steinman, Tyrone Williams, Douglas Dechow)
Lake Ontario, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
The Manhattan Project, the French Resistance and the War of the Pacific, masculinity in the 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.

R136. Midwest Region: AWP Program Directors’ Breakout Session
Marquette, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in the following states you should attend this session: Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. This regional breakout session will begin immediately upon the conclusion of the Program Directors’ Plenary Meeting, so we recommend that you attend the Plenary Meeting first. Your regional representative on the AWP Board of Directors, Richard Robbins, will conduct this meeting.

R137. Pacific West Region: AWP Program Directors’ Breakout Session
Private Dining Room 1, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in the following states, you should attend this session: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. This regional breakout session will begin immediately upon the conclusion of the Program Directors’ Plenary Meeting, so we recommend that you attend the Plenary Meeting first. Your regional representative on the AWP Board of Directors, Steve Heller, will conduct this meeting.

R138. Northeast Region: AWP Program Directors’ Breakout Session
Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in the following states, you should attend this session: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. This regional breakout session will begin immediately upon the conclusion of the Program Directors’ Plenary Meeting, so we recommend that you attend the Plenary Meeting first. Your regional representative on the AWP Board of Directors, Judith Baumel, will conduct this meeting.

R139. Wesleyan University Press Poetry Reading
(Pura López Colomé, Peter Gizzi, Heather Chrisle, C.D. Wright)
Waldorf, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Peter Gizzi’s Threshold Songs negotiates the unfathomable proximities of knowing and not knowing and the uncanny relation of grief and joy. Heather Christle’s What Is Amazing draws upon the wisdom of foolishness and the logic of glee, while simultaneously exploring the suffering inherent to embodied consciousness. In Pura López Colomé’s Watchword, translated by Forrest Gander, secular mysticism illuminates life at its brink. Forrest Gander’s most recent book, Core Samples of the World, is a wide-ranging volume of poetry and essays, paired with work by three acclaimed photographers.

R140. Chicago as Literary Birthplace
(Srikanth Reddy, Bin Ramke, Srikanth Reddy, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Ed Roberson, Lisa Fishman)
Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R141. Women in Jeopardy: Crime Fiction
(Jane Cleland, Danielle Egan-Miller, Jamie Freveletti, Julie Hyzy, Joanna MacKenzie)
Wiliford B, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Three best-selling 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 subgenres like chick lit and cozies and crossover 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?

R142. Ten Years of Literary Politics: Is There Still Room and Interest in the New Marketplace?
(Dennis Johnson, Valerie Merians, Jessa Crispin)
Wiliford C, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R143. From Litmag to Chapbook Press: Championing the Handmade in the Digital Morass
(Martin Rock, Anna Moschovakis, Nate Pritts, Ana Bozicevic, Ben Fama)
Crystal Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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.

R144. Creative Writing Exchanges: Building Community Outside the Writing Classroom
(Joseph Wood, Megan Kaminski, Patti White, Heidi Lynn Staples, John Vanderslice)
Empire Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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.

R145. Reconsidering/Recreating the Workshop in an Online Environment
(Abby Bardi, Erin Beaver, Brianna Pike, Marianne Taylor)
Grand Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R146. Cross Genre in the Heartland: MSU Press Authors Read
(Martha Bates, Todd Davis, Jim Daniels, Eric Gansworth, Constance Adler)
Honoré Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
Fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction 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< /i> celebrates connections to the natural world. In his short fiction, Jim Daniels depicts the daily struggles of Michigan’s working class, while Constance Adler’s memoir investigates a similar terrain in New Orleans.

R147. A Celebration of Tia Chucha Press: Over Twenty Years of Democracy in Verse
(Luis J. Rodriguez, Michael Warr, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Luivette Resto)
Red Lacquer Room, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R148. Selling Out Everyone You Love: The Ethics of Writing Nonfiction
(Krista Bremer, Lee Martin, Cheryl Strayed, Stephen Elliott, Brian Doyle)
State Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R149. Being Me (For You): First-Time Memoirists and the Agent Hunt
(Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Julia Cooke, Jane Roper, Mike Scalise)
Wabash Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R150. 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)
Astoria, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R151. Rhyme: Past, Present, Future
(Stephen Burt, Laura Kasischke, Chad Sweeney, David Caplan, Khaled Mattawa)
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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 from Arabic, examine rhyme across languages and continents. Poet and critic Stephen Burt moderates.

R152. Internationalizing the MFA
(Xu Xi, Jose Dalisay, Graeme Harper, Marcela Sulak, Andrew Cowan)
Continental A, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
America created the writing MFA, and its impact on American literature is undeniable. But in an increasingly borderless 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 the U.K. and Australia offers important comparisons. What impact will internationalized MFAs have on English language writing? International examples provoke further thought.

R153. Writing the American West
(D. Seth Horton, Antonya Nelson, Toni Jensen, K. L. Cook, Claire Vaye Watkins)
Continental B, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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.

R154. In the Mirror of Translation: Perspectives on Creative Process
(Helene Cardona, Willis Barnstone, Dennis Maloney, James Ragan, Betty De Shong Meador)
Continental C, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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 inspired texts that reflect the human psyche, giving both cultures the opportunity to see one another through a different lens.

R155. The Art of Writing a Joke
(Stephen Goodwin, Richard Bausch, Robert Bausch, Jill McCorkle, Alan Shapiro)
International Ballroom South, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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, and how this most durable of forms can sometimes rival the most inventive turns and sophisticated tropes that any language boasts.

R156. In That Round Nation of Blood: Translating Contemporary Native American Poetry
(Katherine Hedeen, Diane Glancy, Janet McAdams, Victor Rodriguez-Nunez, Orlando White)
Joliet, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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. Hedeen and 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.

R157. Writing Outside of Higher Education
(Margaret Luongo, John Morogiello, David Roby, Don Waters, Susi Wyss)
Lake Erie, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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.

R158. Eminent Debuts: Four Authors Discuss Their First Nonfiction Books
(Barrie Jean Borich, Bonnie J. Rough, Cheryl Strayed, Ira Sukrungruang, Ryan Van Meter)
Lake Huron, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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.

R159. A Novel Problem: Moving from Story to Book in the MFA Program
(Cathy Day, David Haynes, Patricia Henley, Sheila O’Connor, Elizabeth Stuckey-French)
Lake Michigan, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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 curricula 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.

R160. Taking Up Residence: Writers in Unexpected Places
(Wendy Call, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Henry Reese, Anastacia Tolbert, Ellen Placey Wadey)
Lake Ontario, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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 nonprofessional 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.

R161. Behind the Scenes of Implementing a Successful iPad and Tablet Publishing System
(Rajesh Padinjaremadam, Paul Joseph)
Marquette, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
iPad and other tablets are evolving as an important channel for publishers. However, publishing to these tablets presents multiple challenges for business models, technology roadmaps, content creation, and reformatting workflows. This session speaks about the best practices in publishing content to tablets for newspapers and magazines, based on our experience working with a number of publishers.

R162. Beyond the Workshop
(Jenny Dunning, Siobhan Campbell, Michael Theune, Margaret Lazarus Dean, Heidi Lynn Staples)
Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R163. 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)
Waldorf, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R164. A Reading from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop Instructors
(David Lynn, David Baker, Nancy Zafris, Rebecca McClanahan, Geeta Kothari)
Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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&A about Kenyon’s process-oriented approach.

R165. Pat Mora: Eloquence and Bookjoy. Presented by Con Tinta and Pilgrimage Magazine
(Diana Garcia, Pat Mora, Beatriz Terrazas, John Drury, Xánath Caraza)
Wiliford B, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R166. Writing the Middle East, Crossing Genre, Crossing Borders
(LeAnne Howe, Matthew Shenoda, Jim Wilson, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Hayan Charara)
Wiliford C, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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 nonfiction, shapes their narratives of Egypt, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.

R167. Writing in the City That Works: Chicago’s Literary Values for the 21st Century
(Stephanie Friedman, Kevin Davis, Dina Elenbogen, Bayo Ojikutu, Matthias Regan)
Crystal Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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's 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?

R168. Graduates of the Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins University
(Jessica Anya Blau, Ann Cummins, Padma Viswanathan, Porochista Khakpour, Sylvia Brownrigg)
Empire Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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 five writers 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, Ellen Sussman, Greg Williamson, Elizabeth Spires, Vikram Chandra, Z.Z. Packer, Chimamanda Adichie, and Louise Erdrich.

R169. Carnegie Mellon University Press 40th Anniversary Poetry Reading
(Rachel Richardson, Nicky Beer, Kevin Gonzalez, Anne Marie Rooney, Benjamin Paloff)
Grand Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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 in celebrating a press that is still thriving well into the 21st century!

R170. Villains and Killers and Criminals, Oh My: Representing Evildoers in Literary Fiction
(Reese Okyong Kwon, Matt Bell, Eugene Cross, Brian Evenson, Lauren Groff)
Honoré Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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.

R171. Prettying Up the Baby: Publishing Creative Nonfiction in a Challenging Market
(Ava Chin, Dawn Raffel, Marion Winik, Bridgett Davis)
Red Lacquer Room, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R172. The Scions of Studs Terkel: Creative Writers as Oral Historians
(Miles Harvey, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Peter Orner, Audrey Petty, Kelli Simpkins)
State Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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. The 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. They 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.

R173. No Layoffs from This Condensery: Class and Labor in Poetry
(Rosa Alcala, Susan Briante, Farid Matuk, Eileen Myles, Rodrigo Toscano)
Wabash Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R174. Everybody Stand Up: Using Performance in the Teaching of Writing
(Megan Stielstra, Sage Morgan-Hubbard, Robert Biedrzycki, Amanda Delheimer Dimond, Sara Kerastas)
Astoria, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R175. The Tech-Empowered Writer: Embrace New Media, Experiment, and Earn
(Christina Katz, Jane Friedman, Seth Harwood, Robert Lee Brewer)
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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 so many ways for tech-savvy writers to earn.

R176. What I Wish I’d Known
(Kim Wright, Jeffrey Stepakoff, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Rebecca Rasmussen)
Continental A, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
A panel with four novelists discussing what caught them by surprise in the publishing process: 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, and the emotional ups and downs of the debut experience.

R177. Interlochen Arts Academy 50th Anniversary Alumni Reading
(Karin Gottshall, Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Marya Hornbacher, Faith Shearin, Doug Stanton)
Continental B, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
As Interlochen Arts Academy marks its 50th anniversary, help us celebrate at a reading by some of the academy’s 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.

R178. Travels in the Office: Editing Short Fiction
(Audrey Colombe, Cheston Knapp, Jordan Bass, Pei-Ling Lue, Brigid Hughes)
Continental C, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
Fiction editors from One Story, A Public Space, Tin House, Tampa Review, and McSweeney’s discuss editing short fiction for literary magazines: 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 and platforms 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.

R179. Nikki Giovanni: A Cave Canem Legacy Conversation
(Alison Meyers, Nikki Giovanni, Thomas Sayers Ellis)
Grand Ballroom, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
Called the Princess of Black Poetry in her early career, Nikki Giovanni has for four decades engaged deeply with the political and the personal. A popular poet whose versatile work inspires and challenges both adults and youth, she has received over twenty honorary degrees and numerous literary awards. Following Ms. Giovanni’s 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.”

R180. East and West: Creative Nonfiction and the Possibility of Post-Orientalist Travel Writing
(Joshua Schriftman, Faith Adiele, Fred D’Aguiar, Elizabeth Kadetsky, Oona Patrick)
Joliet, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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?

R181. Latino Masculinities: Revisioning Male Identity in Contemporary Latino Literature
(Aaron Michael Morales, Paul Martinez-Pompa, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Daniel Chacon)
Lake Erie, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
Often relegated to the term machismo, Latino masculinity is a multifaceted 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.

R182. Fifteen Years Outside the Towers: Report from the MFA in Writing at SAIC
(Janet Desaulniers, Carol Anshaw, Jesse Ball, Rosellen Brown)
Lake Huron, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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 and the program’s impact on Chicago, along with promising practices and pedagogies adaptable to other educational contexts.

R183. 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)
Lake Michigan, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
Examining the effects 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.

R184. Low-Residency Approaches to Pedagogical Training and Preparation
(Lori A. May, Danita Berg, Clark Knowles, Jim Warner)
Lake Ontario, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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-residency programs are incorporating student-teacher training. Panelists will share personal experiences, speak to how programs provide pedagogical training for current students, and discuss what program services are available to alumni.

R185. 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)
Marquette, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R186. Renegade Pedagogy: Teaching Outside the Box
(John Drury, Michelle Burke, Thomas Pruiksma, Pauls Toutonghi, Lisa Ampleman)
Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R187. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Reading
(Peter Mountford, Alexander Chee, Bruce Machart, Dean Bakopoulos)
Waldorf, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R188. Four Over Forty
(Daniel Libman, Zoe Zolbrod, Chris Fink, Goldie Goldbloom, Francesca Abbate)
Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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. Panelists will discuss in a funny, frank, and helpful way how writers without their first book can live in a world saturated with age bias, and they will also offer useful tips on how to get the first book sold even after the milestone of forty has come and gone.

R189. Telling It Slant: Measures, Meaning, and Music in Translating Poetry
(Alexis Levitin, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Ilya Kaminsky, Yvette Neisser Moreno, Kirk Nesset)
Wiliford B, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R190. Leaving a Paper Trail: The Relevance of Print Culture in a Digital Age
(Eric Lorberer, Matvei Yankelevich, Guy Lamolinara, Harold Augenbraum)
Wiliford C, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Leaders in the field of literature discuss the role of print today and what print culture means in an increasingly electronic world

R191. Keeping a Debut Book Alive
(Justin Taylor, Heidi Durrow, Marie Mockett, Joanna Smith Rakoff, Dylan Landis)
Crystal Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
What happens once a publisher says yes? First, champagne—then the author’s hard work starts. In this economy, relying solely on an in-house publicist, especially for a novel or story collection, can hurt a new book from a little-known writer. Four emerging authors reveal how they generated their own buzz. They 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.

R192. Feminism in the Writing Classroom: What’s the Rubric?
(Melissa Febos, Jennifer Baumgardner, Brenda Shaughnessy, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Rachel Simon)
Empire Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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.

R193. The Bookstore Is Not Your Best Friend: Effective Small Press Marketing Strategies
(Colleen McKee, C.J. Kearns, Erin Wiles, Behnam Riahi, Winnie Sullivan)
Grand Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
Many publishers and authors starting out mistakenly assume that the first (or even only) places they should market their books and journals to 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.

R194. Revising Advising: Working with Students on Literary Journals
(Tom Bligh, Tom C. Hunley, Ashley Nicole Montjoy, Leona Sevick, Steve Kistulentz)
Honoré Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
Managing literary publications might be the most quixotic endeavor to which writers commit themselves. 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?

R195. Beyond Pulp—The Futuristic and Fantastic as Literary Fiction
(Anjali Sachdeva, Kevin Brockmeier, Brian Evenson, Matthew Williamson, Kate Bernheimer)
Red Lacquer Room, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R196. 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, Norah Hardin Lind)
State Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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 great writers that the literary zeitgeist forgot.

R197. Modernist Nonfiction: Virginia Woolf and Her Contemporaries
(Tracy Seeley, Joy Castro, Marcia Aldrich, Jocelyn Bartkevicius)
Wabash Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R198. Writing the Ten-Minute Play
(Richard Schotter, Kate Snodgrass, Gary Garrison, Lydia Diamond)
Astoria, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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 that runs for just ten minutes. We will end with a reading of a ten-minute play.

R199. NPRU Kidding Me? It Can Totally Happen
(Pat Walters, Lulu Miller, Alex Kotlowitz, Starlee Kine, Johanna Zorn, Sean Cole)
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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!

R200. A Tribute to David Young
(Angie Estes, Bruce Beasley, Thomas Lux, David St. John, Lee Upton)
Continental A, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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, Young’s work has shaped contemporary poetry for over forty years. Each participant will offer a personal and critical assessment of his literary achievements and his profound, enduring influence.

R201. A Reading and Conversation with Kelly Cherry and Christine Schutt
(Brandon Courtney, Christine Schutt, Kelly Cherry, S.H. Lohmann, Benjamin Walker)
Continental B, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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. Writer-in-Residence in 2008. Hollins’s current Writer-in-Residence, Natasha Trethewey, will introduce the event.

R202. From Northwestern University: A Reading of Chicago Poetry
(Reginald Gibbons, Angela Jackson, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Michael Anania, Mary Kinzie)
Continental C, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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.

R203. Page Meets Stage. Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts
(Taylor Mali, Roger Bonair-Agard, Mark Doty, Marilyn Nelson, Molly Peacock)
Grand Ballroom, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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, and Bonair-Agard) and page poets (Doty and Nelson) are paired together and go head-to-head, poem-for-poem, revealing the playful give-and-take between the page and the stage.

R204. Political Poetry: America and Abroad
(Jeff Shotts, Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, Tom Sleigh, Jeffrey Yang)
International Ballroom South, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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.

R205. The Image, Written: Using Photography and Mixed Media to Teach Creative and Composition Writing
(Rachel Somerstein, Alden Jones, Lorraine Doran)
Joliet, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R206. Prose and Cons: Teaching Writing in Prison
(Chris Belden, Mark Powell, Christopher Hazlett, Dave Winfield)
Lake Erie, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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?

R207. Experiments for the Future: Avant-Garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children
(Dana Teen Lomax, Jennifer Firestone, Sarah Rosenthal, Jane Sprague, giovanni singleton)
Lake Huron, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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 and slam, panelists discuss experimental literature for children and show a film of kids reading work by Douglas Kearney, Harryette Mullen, Juan Felipe Herrera, Eileen Myles, and others. What do cutting edge writers have to say to the next generation? Come find out!

R208. Periodical Wisdom: Advising Student-Run Lit Mags
(Jay Baron Nicorvo, Jennifer Acker, Don Lee)
Lake Michigan, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
Current faculty advisors and publishers of literary magazines discuss the ins and outs of directing a student-run publication.

R209. 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)
Lake Ontario, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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 also to seize the opportunity to teach high literary standards. In this panel, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction professors from public and private as well as 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.

R210. Missing Pieces: A Collaborative Experiment
(Alexandra Chasin, Davis Schneiderman, Teresa Carmody)
Marquette, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Missing Pieces is the product of operations on three found texts by three experimental writers. The revised texts, animated by screened projections, reimagine 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’s conquest of Mexico. This reading highlights collaborative process and the challenge of reading into and out of texts marked by erasure.

R211. Queer for You: Building an Enduring Readership for LGBT Authors
(David Groff, Nickole Brown, Tony Valenzuela, Don Weise, Samiya Bashir)
Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R212. There Will Be Blood: Writing Violence in Fiction
(Alexi Zentner, Antonya Nelson, Benjamin Percy, Alan Heathcock)
Waldorf, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
As writers, we are often told to kill our darlings and to leave blood on the page. But what if we 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 bloodshed.

R213. Out of the Melting Pot, Into the Fire—Building and Sustaining a Culturally-Specific Reading Series
(Mary Hawley, Paul Martinez-Pompa, Johanny Vázquez Paz, Yolanda Nieves)
Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Eavesdrop on administrators, curators, and featured artists discussing the dynamic, sometimes conflicted history of Chicago’s longest-running Latino reading series: the Guild Literary Complex’s Palabra Pura. In its seventh year, PP juggles a long-standing mission of culture-specific work with the need for regular reinvention. This discussion touches on issues of race and authenticity, cultural production and ownership, as well as community outreach and institutional integrity. In other words, it can get heated.

R214. Writing Class: Representing Socioeconomic Realities in Your Work
(Courtney Tenz, Josh Weil, Ru Freeman, Sabra Wineteer, Sterling Holywhitemountain)
Wiliford B, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
As economic realities devolve the broader American Dream, writers are shaping a new U.S. life narrative. This panel collects contemporary authors’ responses to this socioeconomic 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 socioeconomic classes and usher in a new era of class appropriation in literature?

R215. Points of View/Angles of Approach
(Peter Turchi, Robert Boswell, C.J. Hribal, Susan Neville)
Wiliford C, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.”

R216. Postcommunist Literature and Exile
(Domnica Radulescu, Miroslav Penkov, Josip Novakovich, Bogdan Suceava, Alta Ifland)
Crystal Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
Join a Bulgarian-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 postcommunist world, and the complexities involved in writing in one’s second or third language.

R217. 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)
Empire Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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.

R218. The Geometry of the Novel: Making “Shapelier” Fiction
(Peter Grandbois, Debra Di Blasi, Michael Martone, Lance Olsen)
Grand Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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 in order to explore not only the power alternative shapes offer in driving longer, book-length narratives, but also the aesthetic beauty of geometries that work with a story, not against it.

R219. The Kentucky Women Writers Conference Celebrates Thirty-Three Years
(Nikky Finney, Lynnell Edwards, Crystal Wilkinson, Lisa Williams, Holly Goddard Jones)
Honoré Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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.

R220. Indigenous Editing/Publishing: Journals, Anthologies, and Presses
(Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, ku‘ualoha ho‘omanawanui, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nālani McDougall)
Red Lacquer Room, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R221. What about Blog?: How Blogging Can Propel Your Career and Polish Your Craft
(Sarah Klenakis, Turi Fesler, Claire Bidwell Smith, Rachel Vogel, Caitlin Leffel)
State Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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.

R222. The Creative Writing Fulbright Fellowship Information Session
(Erika Martinez, Summer Hess, Katrina Vandenberg, Jillian Weise)
Wabash Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
The Fulbright Program funds undergraduate and graduate students to study, conduct research, or pursue creative activities abroad for a year. This 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, nonfiction, and novels.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R223. Empowering At-Risk and Underserved Populations through Creative Writing
(Nancy Weber, Deborah Clearman, Melissa Tombro, Clarissa Cummings, Alex Samets)
Astoria, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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 people, 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.

R224. From Poem to Art Song: A Reading
(Rebecca Morgan Frank, Jill McDonough, Katie Peterson, Matthew Hittinger, Randall West)
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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 and set by composers and performed by Chicago’s Singers on New Ground, an organization promoting contemporary art song, will be joined by the composers for a reading and listening event that celebrates a vibrant collaborative tradition of turning poetry into song.

R225. Agha Shahid Ali, the Ghazal, and the Destruction of Kashmir
(Paul Breslin, Stephen Burt, Raza Hasan, Ravi Shankar)
Continental A, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
This panel focuses on the transnational and elegiac aspects of Agha Shahid Ali’s English-language ghazals, as well as the hybrid Indo-Persian aesthetic and Islamic poetic tradition. It also examines Ali’s anticolonial and anti-imperialist stance, and the transformation from this into something more equivocal in his later poetry, which deals with the destruction of his homeland. Finally, the panel explores the close connection between the poetry’s transnational and decolonization impulses.

R226. How to Create Literary Community on a Dime (or Less)
(Suzanne Roberts, Suzanne Parker, June Saraceno, Gailmarie Pahmeier, Kim Wyatt)
Continental B, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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.

R227. Across the Class Divide
(Metta Sáma, Veronica Golos, Scott Hightower, Gary Lenhart, Roger Bonair-Agard)
Continental C, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
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 panel’s focus on the need for creative writing pedagogy that addresses an aspect 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 for the education of the next generation of poets from all kinds of backgrounds.

R228. A Reading and Conversation with Alice Notley. Sponsored by Wesleyan University Press
(Stephanie Elliott, Alice Notley, Steven Evans)
International Ballroom South, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
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, a work of poetry that gives voice to victims of genocide—both ancient and contemporary; and a poetical fantasy, Culture of One. 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.

R229. Haitian Literature at the Crossroads
(Nadine Pinede, Danielle Legros Georges, Patrick Sylvain)
Joliet, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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 cosmopolitanism, magical realism, political engagement, nationalism, experimentalism—and where and how it veers from tradition into new and compelling spaces.

R230. A Tribute to Jeanne Leiby, Editor and Writer, in Memoriam
(Jan Freeman, David Huddle, Susan Lilly)
Lake Erie, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
This tribute honors Jeanne Leiby’s life as a writer, teacher, and the first woman editor of the Southern Review. The panelists pay homage to Jeanne with anecdotes, biography, and a short reading of her 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.

R231. The Bridge Story: Black Women Writers and the Evolution of the Short Story
(Rochelle Spencer, Trudier Harris, Asali Solomon, Opal Moore, Hermine D. Pinson)
Lake Huron, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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, and Tiphanie Yanique, as well as their own work.

R232. Writers and the Moving Image: Off the Page
(Annie Guthrie, Sawako Nakayasu, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Dan Waber)
Lake Michigan, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
The University of Arizona Poetry Center presents panelists who will discuss the text/image relationship, inter-genre writing, filmic vocabulary, new directions in Vispo, and the digital lyric essay. Panelists will show clips from writers working in film/video/digital arts, including Claudia Rankine, Kate Greenstreet, John Gallaher, Forrest Gander, Eula Biss, John Bresland, Brandon Downing, and others.

R233. The Renaissance of Midwestern Literature
(Jason Lee Brown, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Dan Chaon, Mark Wisniewski, Rebecca Makkai)
Lake Ontario, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
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.

R234. Only Connect—How to Create New Opportunities through Networking
(Jill Pollack, Danielle Chapman, Becca Keaty, Regin Igloria)
Marquette, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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 also finding the right person or organization to help. Members of the Chicago Literary Alliance discuss building a citywide 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.

R235. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Reading
(Steve Davenport, Philip Graham, Alex Shakar, John Warner)
Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
This reading celebrates new books by two UIUC faculty writers and one alum: Alex Shakar’s Luminarium, a novel that moves from Manhattan to Orlando with forays into military listservs and disaster simulation; Philip Graham’s Braided Worlds, a memoir of the unexpected braided lives that result from years of living in rural West Africa; and alum John Warner’s The Funny Man, a novel about the rise and fall of a famous comedian in 21st-century America.

R236. What’s Wrong with the Whole Truth?
(Susan Resnick, Philip Gerard, Peter Trachtenberg, Paige Williams, Rebecca Skloot)
Waldorf, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Many writers feel comfortable molding the truth to create a more satisfying story, yet still calling their piece nonfiction as long as the emotional core and 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 versus emotional honesty and discuss how to achieve both—beautiful and moving nonfiction writing that is 100% true.

R237. Prairie Schooner 10th Anniversary Book Prize Series Reading
(Shane Book, Kara Candito, James Crews, Mari L’Esperance, Greg Hrbek)
Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
One of the oldest, most respected literary journals in the United States,Prairie Schooner celebrates the 10th anniversary of its distinguished Book Prizes Series competition with poetry and fiction readings by five of its most recent prize-winning authors: Shane Book, Kara Candito, James Crews, Mari L’Esperance, and Greg Hrbek. Come hear writing of diverse subject matter and innovative quality.

R238. Opening the Circle: Connecting Workshop Pedagogy and Public Audiences
(Sarah Harris, Tim Mayers, Dale Rigby, Drew Krewer)
Wiliford B, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
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.

R239. Poetry Reading for Beauty is a Verb: New Poetry of Disability
(Jim Ferris, Cecil Giscombe, Stephen Kuusisto, Laurie Clements Lambeth, Ellen McGrath Smith)
Wiliford C, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
A reading by poets featured in the new anthology Beauty is a Verb: New Poetry of Disability. The book originated from a panel of the same name presented at the 2010 AWP conference in Denver. Following the panel, presenters Jennifer Bartlett, Sheila Black, and Michael Northen came together to develop the anthology.

R240. Dreaming New Cartographies: Playwriting across Genres and Cultures
(Lisa Schlesinger, Ruth Margraff, Sands Hall, Ezzat Goushegir, Kenneth Prestininzi)
Crystal Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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 as well as playwriting techniques that 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.

R241. You Wrote It, Now Promote It: DIY Publicity for the Busy Writer
(Brendan Constantine, Kim Dower, Janice Eidus, Elise Paschen, Douglas Kearney)
Empire Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
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.

R242. Approaches to Research for Fiction Writers
(Jason Brown, Marjorie Sandor, Keith Scribner, Skip Horack, Aurelie Sheehan)
Grand Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
This panel 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 do they make the best use of research? We will discuss these important questions and address the larger issue of balancing fact and invention in writing fiction.

R243. American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice
(William Reichard, Kristin Naca, Barrie Jean Borich, Heid E. Erdrich, Nickole Brown)
Honoré Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
Much of 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 their work to participate in, critique, and shape history.

R244. The Way the Wind Blows: Trends in Contemporary Short Fiction
(Todd James Pierce, Steve Yarbrough, Kevin Moffett, M.M.M. Hayes, Darlin’ Neal)
Red Lacquer Room, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
In this panel, five noted short-story authors identify trends in contemporary short fiction. From the research-based stories of Andrea Barrett and Jim Shepherd to the sardonic explorations of Stacey Richter and George Saunders, this discussion will focus on how the form of the short story has evolved over the past ten years, with an eye toward understanding where the form is headed.

R245. What is Home: The Poetics of Negotiating the Old, Reimagined and the New, Adopted Homeland
(Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, John Guzlowski, Raza Ali Hasan, Malena Morling, Ilya Kaminsky)
State Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
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, or elsewhere, stuck in their old world, often with nostalgic, painful memories, looking for home on the new landscape. Is the new literature American, European, African, or just world literature? Our diverse panel will explore the poetics of negotiating the delicate spaces of home in our poetry.

R246. 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)
Wabash Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
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?

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

A Reception Hosted by Writers in the Schools (WITS)
Astoria, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Come celebrate with Writers in the Schools (WITS) for a reception.

A Reception Hosted by the University of Missouri - St. Louis MFA Program
Joliet, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Join students and faculty from the University of Missouri—St. Louis MFA Program for a reception.

A Reception Hosted by the University of Michigan MFA Program in Creative Writing
Marquette, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Come celebrate with students and faculty from the University of Michigan MFA Program in Creative Writing for a soiree.

A Reception Sponsored byRiver Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, with the Ashland University MFA Program and Ashland Poetry Press
Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Join Ashland University, Ashland Poetry Press, and River Teeth for a reception.

A Reception Hosted by the University of Illinois Creative Writing Program & Ninth Letter
Wiliford B, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Join faculty and students from the University of Illinois’s Creative Writing Program & Ninth Letter for a soiree.

A Reception Hosted by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Writing Program
Private Dining Room 1, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Join students and faculty from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Writing Program for a reception.

A Reception Hosted by Red Hen Press
Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Join the editors and staff of Red Hen Press for a reception.

A Reception Hosted by Chatham University
Private Dining Room 4, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor
Join students and faculty from Chatham University for a reception.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R249. AWP 2012 Keynote Address by Margaret Atwood. Sponsored by Roosevelt University MFA in Creative Writing
(Margaret Atwood)
Auditorium Theatre, Roosevelt University, 50 East Congress Parkway, Chicago, IL 60605
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and nonfiction 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 prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Her most recent works include Oryx and Crake, The Tent, Moral Disorder, and The Door. Her nonfiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, was part of the Massey Lecture series, and her most recent novel is The Year of the Flood. Her work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic, and Estonian.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity:

R250. AWP Public Reception and Dance Party. Sponsored by the University of Tampa Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing
Continental A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, Lobby Level
A dance party with music by DJ Neza. Free beer and wine from 10:00 p.m. to midnight.

R251. The All Collegiate Afterhours Poetry Slam
(James Warner, Phil Brady)
Marquette, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
The All Collegiate Afterhours Slam is open to all undergrad and grad students attending the conference. Participation is capped at ten slammers each 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). Please sign up at the Wilkes University booth at the bookfair.

Other Activity
Examples: socializing, attending book signing, attending off-site event, eating
Planned activity: