2011 Schedule
Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday
| Thursday- February 3, 2011 | |
|---|---|
8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. | |
Exhibit Hall C | R100. Conference Registration. Attendees who have registered in advance may pick up their registration materials throughout the day at AWP’s Pre-Registered Check-In desk located in Exhibit Hall C of the Bookfair on the exhibition level of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Unpaid Registrant Check-In badges are available for purchase on the lobby level of the Marriott Wardman Park. |
8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. | |
Marriott Wardman Park, Exhibition Level | R101. AWP Bookfair. With more than 500 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. |
9:00 a.m.-5:45 a.m. | |
McKinley Room |
R102. Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children's Paintings Exhibit. This exhibit features original poems written by American children, veterans, and established poets in response to Vietnamese children’s paintings on peace and war collected over the last 10 years by the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. A collaborative, international project between Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center and School of Art Galleries, and Soldier’s Heart, a veterans’ return and healing organization, Speak Peace offers a timely testament to the emotional truth of war and peace. |
9:00 a.m.-10:15 p.m. | |
Coolidge Room |
R103. Tearing Down the Town/Gown Divide: Taking Writing Off Campus and into the Community. (Tim W. Brown, M.L. Liebler, April Naoko Heck, Gary Glazner, John Domini) This panel presents a diverse lineup of writers who have in varying ways traversed the town/gown divide by taking their literary and organizational expertise into the community. Each speaker will share insights into the process and offer realistic, achievable strategies for faculty and students alike to gain exposure for their writing, grow their audiences, and obtain real-world experience, while expanding appreciation for writing in ways that are both entertaining and enlightening. |
Delaware Suite Room |
R104. AWP Program Directors' Plenary Assembly. 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. |
Harding Room |
R105. Faith and the Writer: Inspiration and Practice. (Dinah Lenney, Askold Melnyczuk, Brenda Miller, Dani Shapiro, David Biespiel) Panelists will discuss the link between faith and creativity in both secular and nonsecular work. There is no question that writers and readers are looking for larger meanings and resonances: but can art be accomplished without mysterious influences? Are we hard-wired to seek divine inspiration, or is writing a spiritual practice in and of itself? And is doubt a necessary component to the art? To faith? To faith in art? Must we be absolute believers to carry on? |
Hoover Room |
R106. Teaching in the New Landscape: Integrating Multimedia Expression into the Writing Classroom. (Sarah Pollock, Faith Adiele, Jessica Langlois, Lisen Stromberg) Even as books and print media struggle for survival, we are also witnessing the birth of new narrative possibilities. Can new dynamic, democratic e-forms (video narratives, podcasts, book trailers, review tweets, graphic-digital-interactive creations) deliver new audiences and engender complex interactions between writers and readers? We’ll discuss how and why we embrace multimedia approaches in our writing courses and will describe strategies for offering support with limited tech expertise. |
Nathan Hale Room |
R107. Presses with a Mission. (Hanna Andrews, Becca Klaver, Johannes Göransson, Lisa C. Moore, Anna Moschovakis) This panel gathers editors of literary presses varied in aesthetic, geography, and genre that share one thing in common: they are presses created to fulfill a mission. Through manifestos, statements of philosophy, or politically-charged jacket copy, these editors have defined an editorial goal and built a catalog to match. Editors discuss the implications of missions rooted in identity or aesthetics, how missions both clarify and complicate, and how publishing itself alters their original aspirations. |
Thurgood Marshall East Room |
R108. Mongrels, Monsters, and Mutants: New Identities in Contemporary Poetry. (Joshua Kryah, Cathy Park Hong, Bhanu Kapil, Myung Mi Kim, Prageeta Sharma) This panel will consider poetry that crosses genetic and identity borders in order to create new mixed forms. Through an exploration of each poet’s work, we will examine a variety of ideological assumptions, subject positions, and social concepts concerning ethnicity, gender, and nationality in contemporary poetry. Our conversation will revolve around poetry open to acquiring and dispensing identity in relation to its ever-changing internal, social, and linguistic contexts. |
Thurgood Marshall North Room |
R109. Short Story to Novel. (Alan Heathcock, Heidi Durrow, Alexi Zentner, Téa Obreht, Marie Mockett, Eugenia Kim) Debut novelists often publish excerpts of their finished works as short stories before tackling a full manuscript. Yet the way from short story to published novel is not always smooth. Four debut novelists, who did publish parts of their books as short stories, will discuss the journey from short story to novel, with an eye toward helping other emerging writers. |
Thurgood Marshall South Room |
R110. Hired!: Landing the Elusive Tenure-Track Job. (Caitlin Horrocks, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Darrin Doyle, Nick Kowalczyk, Forrest Anderson, Kelcey Parker) Six recent tenure-track hires in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction discuss their diverse experiences and offer advice and guidance on the search for a teaching position. They’ll discuss every stage of the job search, from researching positions to writing cover letters, to the interview and the campus visit, providing insight into what you can control, what you can’t, and what you should do to prepare. Ample time will be provided for questions. |
Thurgood Marshall West Room |
R111. Courting Risk: A Multicultural/Multi-Genre Reading. (Khadijah Queen, Natalie Diaz, Naomi Benaron, L. Lamar Wilson, Susan Southard, Ariel Robello) Courting Risk is an annual reading series which promotes the work of emerging writers, particularly those who are women, LGBT, and/or of color. Focus is given also to writers who address difficult political or social issues in multiple genres and art forms. A brief introduction of the series will be followed by a reading from six powerful emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and cross-genre work, with time allotted at the end for Q&A. |
Virginia A Room |
R112. CLMP Panel—So You’ve Made an eBook… Now What? (Ira Silverberg, Gloria Jacobs, Julie Schaper, Andy Hunter) A marketing-focused symposium for publishers about how small presses and literary magazines can make the most out of paperless publishing. |
Virginia B Room |
R113. Hands On: A Conversation about DIY and Craft Culture in a Digital World. (Liz Ahl, Jennifer S. Flescher, Timothy Schaffert, Kathryn Bursick, Betsy Wheeler, Mathias Svalina) Given the efficiency-driven digital world, why does handcraft survive? Why are there still books? What does lead type offer us in 2010 that differs from what it offered Whitman when he set Leaves of Grass? What does the cut and paste 'zine have to say to the hand-set broadside? How are the digital and the handmade cooperative or symbiotic? What can handcraft offer us about learning, reading, and writing? Session participants’ experiences as writers, publishers, and teachers inform their answers. |
Virginia C Room |
R114. Tearing Your Heart Off Your Sleeve: The Problem of Pathos in Creative Nonfiction. (B.J. Hollars, Re’Lynn Hansen, Marcia Aldrich, Marion Wrenn, Katie Jean Shinkle) How can nonfiction writers avoid the pitfalls of sentimentality and nostalgia while directly addressing them in the work? Join editors from Black Warrior Review, Fourth Genre, South Loop, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Versal as they discuss the problem of pathos in nonfiction while offering concrete strategies for how best to approach emotionally driven topics. Panelists will also explore how traditional and experimental forms lend themselves to packing an emotive punch within the genre. |
Wilson A, B, & C Room |
R115. Devised Playwriting: Experiments in New Play Collaboration. (Austin Bunn, Steve Feffer, Lania Knight) This panel examines the advantages and challenges of the devised play process, in which a single dramatic work is conceived and developed by a group of people. Some devised plays use interviews for their scripts, while others employ community members as writers. What are the best practices for collaboration? What are strategies for working with transcripts? What does excellence look like? |
Ambassador Ballroom |
R116. We(a)ve: Inter-Indigenous Sovereign Poetics. (Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, James Thomas Stevens, Lisa Suhair Majaj, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, Elaine Chukan Brown, ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui) Sovereignty is both inherent, internally asserted by Native Nations, and internationally recognized and affirmed by other Indigenous peoples. It is not only a political process, but also a continual act of Indigenous re-creation. A collective of womanist and queer Indigenous poets have been writing to each other, sharing writing prompts and assignments, engaging in experiments. The collective will share the poems that emerged and discuss the collaborative process that wove them together. |
Diplomat Ballroom |
R117. Strategic Thievery. (Katy Didden, Victoria Anderson, Joanne Diaz, Leslie Harrison, Shara Lessley, Katie Peterson) True to Eliot’s adage that great writers steal, poets read the work of other writers to acquire new rhythms, forms, and subject matter; occasionally, they stumble across less expected techniques. The poets on this panel will talk about the quirky writing tricks they’ve lifted from writers they love. Come hear writers discuss erasing Montaigne and decomposing and recomposing Petrarch, and learn about Marianne Moore’s interscoper, Annie Dillard’s sticky fingers, and the Larry Levis swerve. |
Empire Ballroom |
R118. A Convenient Truth: Writing and Teaching Ecofiction.(Valerie Miner, Liza Wieland, Paul Griner, Lu Vickers) Ecofiction—literary practice connected to nature and environment—has implications for all fiction writers and teachers. Four award-winning teachers/writers of fiction discuss those implications and present techniques for incorporating ecofiction in literary work. Environmental ethics can inform fiction without making it didactic or dull. Considering writing as a social process driven by relationships of identity and place helps us create complex characters and reach diverse audiences. |
Executive Room |
R119. Realities of the Classroom—Personalities and Boundaries [WITS Alliance]. (Michele Kotler, Giuseppe Taurino, Eli Hastings, Sherina Sharpe, Renée Watson) The classroom in the movies is not the classroom we walk into. How do we shape who we are as teaching artists? How do we create constructive boundaries with our students? How do we navigate gender, race, class, and age with the students we teach? How do we prepare ourselves for this work? How can we respect classroom legalities and our students’ rights? This panel will address the above in an active discussion about the sensitivity and toughness needed to be a successful writer in the school. |
Hampton Ballroom |
R120. The Essayist in the 21st Century. (Randon Noble, Robert Atwan, Eula Biss, EJ Levy, Kyoko Mori) What is the future of the essay? How can essayists make this 16th-century form relevant to a new millennium? This panel of writers and editors will discuss how the personal essay is being challenged by more experimental forms, how this traditional genre might transform itself to meet the demands of a new publishing environment, and how new technologies pose logistical, aesthetic, and ethical problems for the essay. |
Palladian Ballroom |
R121. Taking It to the Streets: Service Learning through Collaborative Outreach. (Alexis Pride, Meade Palidofsky, Margaret-Ann Ritchie, Stephen Tartaglione) A panel of tenured faculty, community arts administrators, teaching artists, and student teachers discusses an outreach collaboration that promotes service learning and civic engagement for college students. The panel presents demonstrated strategies that blend pedagogical approaches for teaching writing and theatrical performance for underserved youth populations. |
10:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m. | |
Coolidge Room |
R122. West Region: AWP Program Directors' Breakout Session. If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in one of 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, Luci Tapahonso, will conduct this meeting. |
Delaware Suite Room |
R123. Northeast Region: AWP Program Directors' Breakout Session. If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in one of 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. |
Harding Room |
R124. Writing Human Rights: A Reading by Writers of the Iranian Diaspora. (Jasmin Darznik, Persis Karim, Anita Amirrezvani, Sharon May) These readings will explore the connections between Iranian women’s lives, cultural and political systems, and international human rights struggles in the literature of the Iranian diaspora. Award-winning poets, novelists, and memoirists share work on the themes of freedom of expression, political persecution, torture, and exile, reflecting on how their writing has been shaped by both recent events in Iran and the politics of Middle Eastern identity in post-9/11 America. |
Hoover Room |
R125. Traveling Stanzas: Promoting Poetry and Design in the Community. (David Hassler, Nicole Robinson, Essence Cain, Scott Parsons, Valora Renicker, Natasha Rodriguez) From multiple perspectives, a university design instructor, a high school teacher, a middle school student, and Wick Poetry Center outreach poets discuss Kent State’s Traveling Stanzas project, which places visually appealing poetry from the community in transit systems, businesses, libraries, and schools. Panelists examine the impact the project has on the community as well as on the web, through the development of Traveling Stanzas animated e-greetings, and offer strategies for replicating the project elsewhere. |
Marriott Ballroom |
R126. WAMfest and Fairleigh Dickinson University Present: Musicians Who Write More Than Songs. (Rosanne Cash, John Wesley Harding/Wesley Stace, Kristin Hersh, Josh Ritter, David Daniel) A conversation, reading, and performance exploring the relationship between the artists' music and their writing lives. A book signing will follow. WAMFEST (The Words and Music Festival of Fairleigh Dickinson's Creative Writing Programs) is an ongoing celebration of the literary and popular arts designed t break down barriers between the art of the people and the art of the academy in order to provide models for arts education at all levels. For more information about WAMFEST's mission and our past and upcoming event, please see wamfest.wordpress.com. |
Maryland Suite Room |
R127. We Wanted to be Writers: Lessons from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. (Eric Olsen, Glenn Schaeffer, Sandra Cisneros) A reading from We Wanted to be Writers, edited by Olsen and Schaeffer. This is a collection of interviews with 27 of the editors’ classmates and teachers from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the mid-'70s. The interviews are arranged into conversations on topics including the creative process, our years in the Workshop, and survival strategies after. Those interviewed include TC Boyle, Jane Smiley, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sandra Cisneros, Allan Gurganus, John Irving, Marvin Bell, and Jack Leggett. |
Nathan Hale Room |
R128. American Creative Writing in the Balkans. (Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Vladimir Levchev, Filitsa Sofianou-Mullen, Michael Cohen) This panel explores how creative writing is taught in another language or to people for whom English is a second language. Panelists will share their experiences teaching students who take creative writing classes in English in the Balkans and discuss similarities and differences between creative writing programs in America and in other countries including Bulgaria and Greece. Additionally, attendees will hear perspectives on conducting classes and workshops in more than one language. |
Taft Room |
R129. Pacific West Region: AWP Program Directors' Breakout Session. If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in one of 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. |
Thurgood Marshall East Room |
R130. Memoir and Latinidad. (Joy Castro, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Luis Rodriguez, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Rigoberto González) U.S. Latina/o memoir has developed a rich contemporary tradition that spans the political and stylistic spectrum from Richard Rodriguez to Gloria Anzaldúa. But what makes a memoir Latina/o? Does latinidad influence aesthetics and craft as well as content? Do Latina/o memoirists see themselves as inheriting the life-writing techniques and traditions of the U.S., Latin America, or both? How do writers navigate mainstream expectations that their memoirs will represent whole cultures and nations? |
Thurgood Marshall North Room |
R131. What They Didn’t Tell Us, We Will Tell You: Four First-Time Authors Discuss the Nitty Gritty of Publishing. (Michael David Lukas, Siobhan Fallon, Nomi Stone, Kevin Haworth, Rebecca Rasmussen, Alan Heathcock) This panel will feature four first-time authors discussing the publishing process, from submission to publication and beyond. Drawing from a wide range of personal experience—working with large houses and university presses on poetry collections, novels, and collections of short stories—the panelists will address and attempt to demystify the publishing process, from phoners to author questionnaires, book jackets to blurbs, and the elusive book tour. |
Thurgood Marshall South Room |
R132. Things That Go Bump When You Write: Monsters, Myths, and the Supernatural in Literary Fiction. (B.J. Hollars, Bryan Furuness, Hannah Tinti, Laura van den Berg, Scott Francis) What do Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and ghosts all have in common? For one, over the past year, they’ve all managed to stomp, swim, and haunt their way onto the literary scene. Join writers as they discuss their experiences implementing supernatural elements into their fiction. Panelists will offer tips on how to add credibility to the incredible and humanity to the inhuman. They will also explore the evolving definitions of gothic and grotesque in the 21st century. |
Thurgood Marshall West Room |
R133. Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Reading. (Jehanne Dubrow, Holly Karapetkova, Brandel France de Bravo, Carly Sachs, Bruce MacKinnon, Piotr Gwiazda) Celebrating a nearly forty year history, the Washington Writers’ Publishing House is a collective press run entirely by volunteers. Since 1973, WWPH has published over 50 volumes of poetry. Come hear six poets read from their prize-winning collections and discover the diversity of the DC-area literary scene. |
Truman |
R134. Midwest Region: AWP Program Directors' Breakout Session. If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in one of 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. |
Virginia A Room |
R135. A Tribute to Morton Marcus. (Peter Johnson, Nin Andrews, Ray Gonzalez, Dennis Maloney, Gary Young, Gian Lombardo) This event will be a tribute to the prose poet Morton Marcus, who died last year. Four nationally known prose poets and Marcus’s most recent publisher will present on Marcus and celebrate his legacy. |
Virginia B Room |
R136. CLMP Panel—Nice Help When You Can Get It: Making Effective Use of Interns and Volunteers. (Jamie Schwartz, Rose Carlson, Andrew Ciotola, Stephanie G’Schwind)Staff members from Tupelo Press, West Branch, and Colorado Review share strategies for creating mutually beneficial working relationships with volunteer labor. |
Virginia C Room |
R137. Southeast Region: AWP Program Directors' Breakout Session. If you are a program director of an AWP member creative writing program in one of 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, Martin Lammon, will conduct this meeting. |
Wilson A, B, & C Room |
R138. Creative Writing Fulbright Fellowship Reading. (Katherine Arnoldi, Katrina Vandenberg, Erika M. Martinez, Gail M. Dottin, M. Thomas Gammarino, Josh Weil) The Fulbright Program funds undergraduate and graduate students to study, conduct research, or pursue creative activities abroad for a year. The Creative Writing Fulbright Fellowship Reading is composed of past Creative Writing Fulbright Fellows who will not only tell of the application process, the experience, and the professional, creative, and personal benefits of having received this prestigious award, but also read some of the work that they created while in such places such as Japan, Panama, the Netherlands, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Argentina. |
Ambassador Ballroom |
R139. Trends in Contemporary Flash Fiction: What Are Editors Looking For? (Tom Hazuka, Todd James Pierce, Leah Rogin-Roper, Robert Shapard, Ryan G. Van Cleave) Flash fiction may be elusive to define (stories of 500 words? 750? 1,000?), but there is no denying its widespread appeal to both writers and readers. What do editors want in the flash fiction stories they publish? Five editors of both recent and classic short short story anthologies (Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Forward, You Have Time for This, etc.), who are also widely published writers, discuss trends in contemporary flash fiction and what they look for in stories for their anthologies. |
Diplomat Ballroom |
R140. Strangers on a Train: What Poets Can Learn from Hitchcock. (Michelle Mitchell-Foust, Ralph Angel, Stephanie Brown, David St. John, Suzanne Lummis) Over the course of eleven days, Alfred Hitchcock used 80 camera angles and nine actors to create 1 minute and 48 seconds of film—his shower scene for Psycho. This attention to detail is also the poet’s work. Hitchcock reveals a psychological density in his films that many contemporary poems aspire to. The panelists examine his narrative structures, scenes, interview material, and Hitchcock-inspired poems, in a discussion of what Hitchcock’s vision provides to today’s poets. |
Empire Ballroom |
R141. From the Home Front: Civilian Poets Writing on War. (Juan J. Morales, Raza Ali Hasan, Laren McClung, Maria Melendez, Faisal Siddiqui, Solmaz Sharif) Six poets from different walks of life will read and discuss how warfare enters their daily lives and how they navigate their roles as writers, witnesses, the relatives of veterans, and civilians. They will discuss the complications of taking a stance, the daily life of combat zones, the plight of the refugee, PTSD, and the longing for peace, all while reflecting on how poems depicting recent and past wars help them better scrutinize present representations of warfare composed on the home front. |
Executive Room |
R142. If I Can’t Dance You Can Keep Your Revolution: A Reading by Six Writers of Political Engagement. (Sean Thomas Dougherty, Crystal Williams, Silvana Straw, Roger Bonair-Agard, Dora McQuaid) These six artists create work steeped in the political and social realities of life in America and lean toward issues of cultural exploration and collaboration. At a time of political turmoil and disenchantment by too many, these writers use poetry to point out inequities of justice and the solidarity of people who struggle with less. But to do this they use language that is musical in its construction. Because as Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance you can keep your revolution.” |
Hampton Ballroom |
R143. A Sense of Where We Were: Nonfiction Writers on Setting. (William Bradley, Robert Root, Bob Cowser, Steven Church, Kristen Iversen) Setting is vital across nonfiction, in essays, memoirs, and literary reportage, and often the main character in travel and nature writing. Giving a reader a sense of where the writer was is key to the reader’s immersion in nonfiction writing. Writers whose works span the range of nonfiction will discuss how they create settings from communities they live in and landscapes they encountered—how to enter place in prose, how to recognize and overcome obstacles, what they’ve learned in the process. |
Palladian Ballroom |
R144. Beyond Print: Digital Directions in Literary Publishing. (H. Emerson Blake, Michael Archer, Jeffrey Thomson, Ram Devineni, Steven Lagerfeld) Digital media is often presented as a challenge for literary magazines and journals—an obstacle to be overcome. But digital media also presents dynamic opportunities for the world of good writing. This panel features the editors of five print, digital, or online-only publications—Guernica, Orion, From the Fishouse, Wilson Quarterly, and Rattapallax—that are using digital media to find new methods of expressing their missions and new ways of connecting with their audiences. |
Noon.-1:15 p.m | |
Coolidge Room |
R145. Pedagogy Forum Session: Fiction & Drama. This session is designed to give contributors to the 2011 Pedagogy Forum an opportunity to discuss their work, though all are welcome. The papers themselves will provide a framework to begin in-depth discussion in creative writing, pedagogy, and theory. A pedagogy speaker will contextualize the discussion with some brief remarks before attendees break out into small discussion groups. These groups will be facilitated by trained pedagogy paper contributors. |
Delaware Suite Room |
R146. The Poem as Ghost / Haunted Americas. (Camille Norton, Marilyn Nelson, Matthew Zapruder, Ramon Garcia, Samiya Bashir) What speaks through us when we speak of America? To what extent are certain poems ghosted or possessed by the past? This panel offers a poetic inquiry into a nation haunted by the wounds, silences, and the psychic return of history. We consider the ghosts of, among others, Emmett Till, Edgar Allan Poe, the war dead, the bodies of those displaced through migration, and the ghostly landscape of an America repressed by the strip-malls and freeways of our postmodern experience. |
Harding Room |
R147. Pedagogy Forum Session: Multi-Genre. This session is designed to give contributors to the 2011 Pedagogy Forum an opportunity to discuss their work, though all are welcome. The papers themselves will provide a framework to begin in-depth discussion in creative writing, pedagogy, and theory. A pedagogy speaker will contextualize the discussion with some brief remarks before attendees break out into small discussion groups. These groups will be facilitated by trained pedagogy paper contributors. |
Hoover Room |
R148. Virtual Mentoring Made Real: The Evolving Tech of a Low-Residency Program. (Jim Warner, Matt Koch, Jean Klein, Nancy McKinley, Joseph Nalbone, Starr Troup) Over the last five years, Wilkes University’s Low-Residency MA/MFA program has developed an online mentoring experience that marries the best practices of teaching with cutting edge Learning Module Systems. From simple e-mail attachments, to working with social networking websites, to experimenting with real-time video chat, our panel of students and faculty discuss the challenges and successes facing creative writing programs in an ever-changing technology age. |
Maryland Suite Room |
R149. Red & Black: Cross-Genre Issues. (Chezia Thompson-Cager-Strand, Ishmael Reed, Margaret Noori, C.Leigh McInnis) The theoretical overlap of the categories of genre in Native American and African-African Literatures is a distinctive feature of the use of the poetic to illuminate narration in storytelling and fiction. Encouraging writers to bridge genre differences or providing students with models that bypass genre restrictions contributes to creating reading and cultural literacy. The panel will present examples of this strategy as it sculpts a view of ethnicity in the past and in the present. |
Nathan Hale Room |
R150. The Rosary Effect: The Challenges of Writing from a Catholic Perspective. (Haley Lasche, Luisa Igloria, Linda Norton, Ruben Quesada, John Reimringer) Five writers of poetry and prose discuss how practicing Catholicism has influenced their writing. Coming from diverse geographies, sexualities, racial perspectives, and spiritual awakenings, these writers delve into the ways their works are influenced by the current Catholic paradigm. The panelists discuss how they negotiate what parts of the Catholic religion and ritual they consciously and subconsciously include in their writings regardless of their approval of papal comments and doctrines. |
Thurgood Marshall East Room |
R151. American Poets Respond to Major Global Trauma. (Pamela Uschuk, LeAnne Howe, William Pitt Root, Joseph Ross, Carmen Calatayud, Richard Jackson) How do American poets respond to traumatic events of significant suffering (i.e. the Haiti earthquake, torture, repression of women in Afghanistan, Arizona’s controversial Immigration law, SB 1070, genocide of Indigenous peoples, the BP oil spill devastating the Gulf of Mexico)? Award-winning writers, Cornelius Eady; LeAnne Howe; William Pitt Root; Pamela Uschuk; and DC poets, Joseph Ross and Carmen Calatayud, will read their work as well as selections from the work of diverse American poets. |
Thurgood Marshall North Room |
R152. Narrative Structure: The Episodic and the Epiphanic. (Jack Harrell, Erin McGraw, Josh Allen, Nicole Mazzarella) In Best American Short Stories 2000, E.L. Doctorow noted a shift more disposed to the episodic than the epiphanic, moving the modern story toward the earlier form of the tale. Does this trend in fiction continue? Should it? Since anti-story musings of the 60s, the epiphany has been cast as a naïve insistence on meaning. Will globalism and cultural ecumenism further the shift to the episodic, bringing about the climax and the denouement of the literary epiphany itself? |
Thurgood Marshall South Room |
R153. Examining the PhD in Creative Writing. (Jeri Kroll, Maggie Butt, Jenn Webb, Donna Lee Brien) The PhD is the exit award for Creative Writing in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and increasingly in the U.S. This international panel debates key issues around its examination, such as standards, rigour, ethics, and research methodology. It also considers the challenge of interdisciplinary and hybrid theses, mediocre creative work accompanied by excellent critical work, and the lack of standard examination policies and procedures. |
Thurgood Marshall West Room |
R154. To Wave or Not to Wave: Writing the Female Body Across Generations. (Kathleen Rooney, Janice Eidus, Patricia Foster, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Kate Zambreno) First, second, or third wave? Post or no wave? The six feminist writers in this roundtable don’t get hung up on labels, but they do suggest there’s insight to be gained by looking at how the work of women writing about sex and the body has evolved over the past 40 years. Join them for a multi-genre, multi-generational conversation on how feminism has influenced literary explorations of gender, useful for anyone interested in how writing the body can situate individuals of any age in the world. |
Virginia A Room |
R155. Curating Literature: Five Editors of Literary Anthologies Discuss their Process. (Ravi Shankar, Cole Swensen, Pireeni Sundaralingam, Jeffrey Thomson, Jen Hofer) Anthologizing, derived from the Greek word for flower-gathering, has become a verb of great import in literary communities. Whether in an attempt to create a canon, to shape a pedagogical tool, or to form a compendium that preserves something essential while opening new space for critical inquiry, the reasons behind anthologizing are manifold. Join five editors of important anthologies, from the international in scope to ones that include audio and translation, as they discuss their processes. |
Virginia B Room |
R156. Imagining Ourselves: The Narrative Stance in Memoir. (Judith Barrington, Dustin Beall Smith, Nancy Lord, Allison Hedge Coke, Valerie Miner, Sherry Simpson) A diverse group of memoirists, who also write and teach in other genres, will discuss how they create personas for themselves and how these identities are freshly created and shaped to the work in hand. Exploring what Vivian Gornick calls “the glory of an achieved persona,” they will share examples of versions of themselves they have used in memoir, consider how persona functions in other genres, and assess how each identity is central to the authenticity and depth of the writing. |
Virginia C Room |
R157. Filling the Void: Growing & Sustaining Literary Communities. (Jill Pollack, Christopher Castellani, Alix Wilber, Kyle Semmel) What is the beating heart of a city’s literary community? Writing centers across the country are doing more than filling a void: they are building vital links and opportunities to serve writers at all stages of their careers. Panelists from some of the largest centers in the country will share the successes and challenges of helping writers to study the craft, creating training grounds for MFA graduates to teach, developing reading audiences, and participating fully in a city’s cultural life. |
Wilson A, B, & C Room |
R158. Copyright and Fair Use: a legal review and clinic for poets. (Katharine Coles, Peter Jaszi, Jennifer Urban) The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute/The Poetry Foundation offers a copyright/fair use panel followed by a 3-hour clinic for poets, who may sign up for brief consultations. Moderator Katharine Coles and panelists Peter Jaszi, Jennifer Urban, and law students from UC Berkeley and the American University will clarify copyright and fair use issues of concern to poets and help the audience distinguish between rights and limits arising from copyright law and those connected with business practices. |
Ambassador Ballroom |
R159. Fiction and the American Scholar. (Sudip Bose, Bret Anthony Johnston, Alix Ohlin, Ann Beattie) For more than 70 years, the American Scholar has published essays and poetry by some of the most luminous names in world literature: Thomas Mann, Aldous Huxley, Philip Larkin, Ralph Ellison, Randall Jarrell, and John Updike, to name just a few. In 2006, the magazine published its first short story, and it is now committed to printing the finest fiction, both in print and online. Come hear readings by three acclaimed, award-winning writers, whose stories have appeared in the American Scholar. |
Diplomat Ballroom |
R160. The Future of the Book Review: How to Break In. (Salvatore Pane, Roxane Gay, Irina Reyn, Emily Testa, Paul Morris) The rise of the book blogger has forever altered the traditional book review. But what is the state of the book review moving forward in a digital culture, and how do interested parties actually go about becoming reviewers? Panelists including the editor of PANK, the book review editors of BOMB and Hot Metal Bridge, and published writers currently working in the field will answer these questions and more. |
Empire Ballroom |
R161. Scripting Curriculum: Integrating Playwriting and Screenwriting into the MFA in Writing Program. (Kathleen Driskell, Steven Cramer, Tod Goldberg, Charlie Schulman, Charlene Donaghy) MFA programs—particularly those that are low-residency—have begun teaching playwriting and screenwriting next to the more commonly taught genres of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Directors and faculty members from Lesley, Spalding, and UC Riverside will discuss the challenges of teaching writing that has been traditionally housed in film schools or theater departments, and the enrichment gained from adding scriptwriting to their programs. |
Executive Room |
R162A. Playwriting and Screenwriting: Their Business in the Academy. (Bonnie Culver, Ken Vose, Ross Klavan, Jean Klein, Juanita Rockwell) This presentation discusses the difficulties and successes of including playwriting and screenwriting in writing programs. Both genres demand a different approach in writing and business acumen than poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. What are those challenges? How has one program decided to embrace the potential conflicts and make a place for these “less academic” writers. Wilkes faculty discuss how screenwriting and playwriting techniques are integral parts of the program curriculum, from poetry to nonfiction. |
Hampton Ballroom |
R162B. Nation and Neighborhoods: The District of Columbia as a Venue for Local and National Poetic Voices. (Shyree Mezick, Myra Sklarew, Patricia Gray, Dolores Kendrick, Kenneth Carroll) A panel exploring the historical challenges of reconciling Washington, DC’s many neighborhoods, local poets, and literary history with the city’s position as the nation’s capital and the various writers from around the country who have and continue to filter through the city. This panel is composed to illuminate the effect local and visiting writers have had on shaping the image of DC’s poetry community, as well as how the relationship between those two groups has evolved over time. |
Palladian Ballroom |
R163. Trading Stories with the Enemy: Navigating the Cuban/American Literary Landscape. (Patricia Ann McNair, Ruth Behar, Kristin Dykstra, Achy Obejas) The relationship between the U.S. and Cuba is complex and ever-evolving, and this evolution is reflected in the stories and publications of Cubans and Cuban-Americans. While the two governments grapple with politics and policies, writers and editors continue to cross borders and boundaries in order to collect and share these stories. Our panelists have been actively engaged in this process for years, and will speak about the challenges and rewards of this work. |
Regency Ballroom |
R164. The PSA Presents: A Reading and Interview with Stephen Dunn. (Robert N. Casper, Stephen Dunn) Pulitzer Prize-winner Stephen Dunn will read his poetry, followed by an interview with Poetry Society of America Programs Director Robert N. Casper. |
1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m. | |
Coolidge Room |
R165. What Do Writers Do All Day?: Articulating Our Work in the Profession. (James Engelhardt, Stephanie Vanderslice, Kathryn Miles, Christine Stewart-Nunez, J.D. Schraffenberger) As creative writing becomes more professionalized—witness the growth of MFA and PhD programs as well as AWP itself—it becomes crucial to demystify our process and to describe for our colleagues the work we do. These descriptions are central to grant proposals, career advancement, and tenure review. The descriptions this panel develops will allow writers to name similarities to and differences from the other work of English departments as we lay the groundwork for a successful career. |
Delaware Suite Room |
R166. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Writings of Leonard Peltier. (Ana Davis, Harvey Arden, Peter Matthiessen, Cassondra Vizenor, Sonny Vizenor) In observance of Native American writer and activist Leonard Peltier’s 35th year of incarceration, writers, friends, and supporters of Leonard’s, along with English students and members of the Native American Nations Association student group from North Hennepin Community College, will read extracts from his book Prison Writings: My Life is My Sundance. |
Harding Room |
R167. Broadening the Poet’s Vision Through the Peace Corps Experience. (Virginia Gilbert, Sandra Meek, John Isles, Ann Neelon, Derick Burleson) How does a stint in the Peace Corps influence a writing life? This panel investigates the question of how living in a developing country as a volunteer contributes to the growth of a poetic voice. Five award-winning poets who served in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe discuss and illustrate through their writing how representing America abroad contributed to their understanding of what it means to be a poet in the world. |
Hoover Room |
R168. Marketing Your Literary Community: How to Make Sure Your Organization is Heard. (Kyle Semmel, Art Taylor, Jill Pollack, Chip Cheek, Gregg Wilhelm) So you’ve started a literary center or festival in your community. Now what do you do? How do you market it? In this panel, marketing directors from six diverse literary communities—ranging from recently founded to long-established centers—discuss how they spread the word in their communities. Which strategies work? Which don’t? How do you get the best return on investment on a limited advertising budget? From this panel you’ll walk away with tips on how to ensure that your community thrives. |
Marriott Ballroom |
R169. Prize Winners Choose Prize Winners: A Reading with Cave Canem Poetry Prize Winners and Judges, 1999 and 2009. (Alison Meyers, Rita Dove, Gary Jackson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Natasha Trethewey) This reading celebrates the significance of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a catalyst for over a decade for the careers of deserving African American poets. Natasha Trethewey, inaugural winner in 1999, is book-ended with Gary Jackson, the most recently published winner. They are joined by Rita Dove and Yusef Komunyakaa, the distinguished judges who chose their manuscripts. |
Maryland Suite Room |
R170. Vermont College of Fine Arts 30th Anniversary Reading. (Robin Oliveira, Wally Lamb, Sydney Lea, Nin Andrews, Earl Braggs) A centerpiece celebration of the 30-year history as one of the first low-residency MFA in Writing Programs in the U.S. An innovator in the field, VCFA celebrates this milestone with an introduction by Mark Doty, a reading by a former VCFA faculty member Sydney Lea—and four alumni—Nin Andrews, Earl Braggs, Wally Lamb, and Robin Oliveira. |
Nathan Hale Room |
R171. Rebuilding Babel: Writers Teaching Translation. (Carrie Messenger, James Shea, Monica Mody, Johannes Göransson)This panel will examine how writers teach translation: both the art of translation and texts in translation. What is the translator’s responsibility to the original text? To what extent should the study of a translated text focus on the fact of its translation? What might such engagements with foreign languages and literature teach us? This panel will explore these questions and the mechanics of teaching translation and texts in translation, including the use of trots for poetry and prose, working with multiple languages in the classroom, and the evaluation of student work. |
Thurgood Marshall East Room |
R172. Writing: What To Teach, How To Teach It, and Why. (Meg McGuire, Marie Ponsot, Rosemary Deen, Jackson Taylor, Catherine Yeager, Ruth Nathan) In the almost 30 years since its publication Beat Not The Poor Desk by Rosemary Deen and Marie Ponsot has never been out of print and its pedagogical principles have influenced the creative writing classrooms of hundreds of teachers. In its opening line the book asserts, “Writing is one of the great human pleasures and is done in the energy of that pleasure. There is great professional pleasure in teaching it.” Deen and Ponsot lead us to recognize that the use of writing is thinking and that while each piece of writing is unique—all writers use the same five elements in composing. Here we revisit and celebrate this classic text with its authors, Rosemary Deen and Marie Ponsot, and with teachers who’ve practiced its pedagogy: Catherine Yeager and Jackson Taylor. Moderated by Meg McGuire. |
Thurgood Marshall North Room |
R173. Beyond Psychobabble: Finding Effective Language for Workshop Critiques. (Susan Hubbard, John Hales, Liza Wieland, Anna Leahy, Darlin’ Neal) What constitutes effective feedback in a creative writing workshop? Why do students often speak like psychological counselors? Four teachers/writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry discuss strategies for shaping discussions that are provocative, not overly emotive or unduly self-reflexive. Borrowing criteria and terminology from other art forms, and avoiding psychobabble, can be useful first steps in fostering students’ fluency in making critical statements in and out of the classroom. |
Thurgood Marshall South Room |
R174. Representing the Erotic in Literary Fiction. (Varley O’Connor, Phillip Lopate, Michelle Latiolais, Carol Moldaw, Paul Lisicky) How do writers approach and render sex believably and inventively in a society of sexual saturation? Our panel of fiction writers will analyze sexuality in their work across cultures, generations, and in relation to disability. They will discuss the impact of sexual orientation on characterization and point of view; examine how desire may drive narrative and influence image and voice; and consider sex as a lens to evoke fresh perspectives on gender. |
Thurgood Marshall West Room |
R175. Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri. (Seth Horton, Kent Meyers, Aurelie Sheehan, Kent Nelson, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Mitch Wieland) 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. Five award-winning contributors gather to read from their anthologized work. They are to be introduced by D. Seth Horton, the series co-editor. |
Virginia A Room |
R176. Why Creative Writing Research Matters: Creative Writing and Today’s Academy. (Graeme Harper, Helena Blakemore, Nigel McLoughlin) What is creative writing research, and why is it important? This international panel, involving program directors who have developed creative writing research programs in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, will discuss creative writing research today. They’ll outline ways in which this research is developing, and discuss how this relates to current MFA and PhD programs. They’ll explore key possibilities for creative writers who want to engage in research, as well as avenues for employment and funding. |
Virginia B Room |
R177. A Different Kind of Hybrid: Race, Lyric, and Innovation. (Ruth Ellen Kocher, Sarah Gambito, Dawn Lundy Martin, Wendy S. Walters, Soham Patel) Norton’s Hybrid Anthology reveals the intersection of lyric and innovative poetry, but only slimly represents many writers of color. Are writers of color less often “claimed” as innovative writers, or traditionally lyric writers, regardless of form because they often utilize a privileged “I” or an emerging “freedom narrative” in the midst of experiment? This reading by innovative writers of color means to begin a dialogue about different approaches to lyric, hybridity, and innovation. |
Virginia C Room |
R178. Playing for Keeps: Intensity and Creativity in the Lyric Essay. (Steven Harvey, Kathryn Winograd, Robert Root, Rebecca McClanahan) The lyric essay gives writers the license to experiment—to play with language in fresh and surprising ways—but if this playfulness lacks intensity the lyric essay can become a game, or worse, an idle exercise. What do writers do to animate the form so that it not only enjoys the freedom to explore but achieves the level of passion and intelligence we expect from all great writing? A panel of writers will consider the question and offer concrete suggestions. |
Wilson A, B, & C Room |
R179. CLMP Keynote—Size Matters: Big Houses, Small Presses, and the Literary Ecology of American Publishing. (Gerald Howard) The board co-chair of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and the Maxwell E. Perkins Award-winning Doubleday executive editor and vice-president, talks about the coexistence and cross-pollination of independent and commercial publishing in the US. |
Ambassador Ballroom |
R181. A Tribute to Marilyn Hacker. (David Groff, Annie Finch, Suzanne Gardinier, Marilyn Hacker, Khaled Mattawa, Alicia Ostriker) As poet, translator, activist, editor, teacher, and mentor, Marilyn Hacker has proved herself a profound and enduring presence in contemporary poetry, letters, and public life in America and internationally. In this celebration of her poems, her translations, her activism, her advocacy for global literature, and her efforts to foster the verse and values of several generations of writers, her colleagues explore the power and influence of her work—after which the poet herself will read. |
Diplomat Ballroom |
R182. Agents & Editors: Best Practices for Securing Your Publishing Partners. (Mary Gannon, Julie Barer, Robert Lasner, Corrina Barsan, Greg Michalson) Agents and editors will give an overview of the literary market and their places within it, as well as providing a behind-the-scenes perspective on how they acquire clients or books and offering specific guidance to authors on the best practices for each step involved in partnering with publishing professionals. |
Empire Ballroom |
R183. George Mason University Prose Faculty Reading. (Alan Cheuse, Courtney Brkic, Susan Shreve, Stephen Goodwin, Kyoko Mori) Come hear George Mason University’s top prose writers. Four faculty members from the Mason MFA program will share excerpts from their fiction and nonfiction work. |
Executive Room |
R184. A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line. (Emily Rosko, Raza Ali Hasan, Evie Shockley, John Gallaher, Emmy Perez, Robyn Schiff) So much in poetry depends upon the line—one of the most contested and central topics in 20th century poetics. This panel extends the discussion of this poetic fixture into the 21st-century. The concept of the line so often emerges as a kind of poetic and critical blank check—an aesthetic, sociopolitical, and metaphysical variable. Embracing this variability, the panelists will discuss how the line remains a crucial and generative force in their poetic work and thought. |
Hampton Ballroom |
R185. Barely South: Writers from the MFA Program at Old Dominion University. (Luisa Igloria, Janet Peery, Sheri Reynolds, John McManus, Michael Pearson, Blake Bailey) Core faculty in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in the MFA Creative Writing at Old Dominion University read from their recent work and share perspectives on how place and region influence or intersect with their work and with their pedagogical practices. |
Palladian Ballroom |
R187. Recovery as Discovery: Rethinking Nature Writing. (Tom Montgomery-Fate, David Gessner, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Gretchen Legler, John Price, Kathleen Dean Moore) Since Thoreau’s invention of the nature memoir 160 years ago, much of the natural environment itself has been damaged or destroyed. Thus, today’s nature writer must attend to both the natural world and her/his own role in its slow destruction. Their task now is less to discover and record the rare, than to recover and nurture the ravaged. This panel of nature writers will explore how they’ve addressed this paradox in their work. |
1:30 p.m.-4:15 p.m. | |
Taft Room, Taylor, Truman |
R180. Copyright and Fair Use: a legal review and clinic for poets.(Katharine Coles, Peter Jaszi, Jennifer Urban) Following the 12:00 panel on copyright and fair use, The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute/The Poetry Foundation offer a 3-hour clinic for poets, who may sign up for brief consultations. Moderator Katharine Coles and panelists Peter Jaszi, Jennifer Urban, and law students from UC Berkeley and the American University will clarify copyright and fair use issues of concern to poets and help the audience distinguish between rights and limits arising from copyright law and those connected with business practices. |
3:00 p.m.-4:15 p.m. | |
Coolidge Room |
R188. Smashing the Box: Fresh Faces and First Books by Asian American Poets. (Esther Lee, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Joseph O. Legaspi, Neil Aitken, Purvi Shah) Representing an array of diverse voices and aesthetics, these poets will share work from their recently-published first books, as well as how organizations like Kundiman, a retreat for Asian American poets, and its community has affected their artistic lives. Along with sharing the joys and challenges of publishing their first poetry collections, they will also discuss how their work pushes against the boxed-in stereotypes that exist about writers of color and their experiences in America. |
Delaware Suite Room |
R189. The Art and Authenticity of Social Media: Using Online Tools to Grow a Community. (Jane Friedman, Tanya Egan Gibson, Guy Gonzalez, Bethanne Patrick, Christina Katz) Social media is easy to disparage as meaningless socializing, undignified shilling, or time better spent writing. Yet sharing information online and having conversations with readers is critical to spreading the word about what you (or your organization) does. Online community building can help develop a long-term readership, plus open up new opportunities. This panel discusses meaningful online social interaction, and how the panelists have seen it advance their careers or their organizations. |
Harding Room |
R190. Autism and Siblings: Stories Spanning Generations and Cultures. (Debra Cumberland, Bruce Mills, Anne Barnhill) Our panel will feature readings from our anthology of essays and will also discuss the process of publishing an international and multi-generational perspective on growing up/aging with a sibling who has autism. While capturing the diversity and the unique vision of the authors, our readings from the book will also represent shared experiences: the emotional terrain of accommodating resentment, love, and helplessness, and the yearning to connect across neurological differences. Through deepening an understanding of the autism story, these essays are fundamentally about family and the compelling ways people sustain the ties that bind. |
Hoover Room |
R191. Bright Lights of Brookland: Reading the Legacy of DC’s Northeast Neighborhood. (Christy Zink, Tricia Elam, Marcia Davis, Dan Vera, Michael Gushue) Washington, DC’s Brookland neighborhood holds a storied history of artistry. Actress Pearl Bailey lived here, and writing luminaries such as poet Sterling Brown, playwright Jean Kerr, and novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings all called the neighborhood home. This panel illuminates that legacy, as contemporary poets, novelists, nonfiction writers, and editors who live and work in these city blocks read writing by their predecessors and discuss the import of this literary community past and present. |
Marriott Ballroom |
R192. This Human Longing, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts. (Alison Granucci, Bob Hicok, Marie Howe, Gregory Orr, Kevin Young) The poetic lines of these acclaimed poets reside in the space between the spiritual and the earthly. Their poems speak to our soul’s longing for union, while recording how we stumble through our unwieldy, ordinary, everyday life—full of human folly and injustice. Poetry, they seem to say, is the mixing of dirt and air, of pork chops and heartache, of the body’s losses and the way we praise the Beloved. The colorful and poignant poems of Hicok, Howe, Orr, and Young nourish us on all levels. |
Maryland Suite Room |
R193. What’s Normal in Nonfiction? (Steven Church, Debra Marquart, Ander Monson, Bonnie J. Rough, Bob Shacochis) Moderated by editors of the Normal School, the panel will feature a discussion of the polarizing questions concerning the ethics and aesthetics of nonfiction writing today. Is the nonfiction writer’s obligation to the art or to the subject? The audience? Can you conflate time, use composite or fictionalized characters, or borrow material from other sources without citing it? Panelists will consider what the role of the nonfiction writer is today and how that role is defined by ethical concerns for subject and audience, and/or aesthetic concerns for art, genre, form, and technique. |
Nathan Hale Room |
R194. Does School Kill Poetry? Can It Be Poetry’s BFF? (James Armstrong, Kevin Prufer, Michael McLaughlin, Susan B.A. Somers-Willett, Brandon Cesmat, Laura Armstrong) Is the marginalization of poetry in American culture the result of the way it is taught? This panel considers how poetry pedagogy both at the K-12 and the beginning college level affects the public perception of poetry. What do high school teachers actually say about poetry? Do programs that bring poets into schools help? Does the slam poetry scene have an effect? Does college English win students back, or does it increase the indifference? How should educators at all levels teach poetry? |
Thurgood Marshall East Room |
R195. Beyond Bagels and Lox: Jewish-American Fiction in the 21st Century. (Erika Dreifus, Andrew Furman, Kevin Haworth, Margot Singer, Anna Solomon) Jewish-American fiction has long been seen as a literature of emigration from the shtetl, assimilationist angst, and overprotective parents. But what’s nu? How do Americans born decades after the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel deal with those complex subjects in fiction? Who are the new Jewish immigrant characters? How does American Jewry’s more than 350-year history inspire plot/setting? And how are writers today influenced by Judaism’s rich multilingual and spiritual legacy? |
Thurgood Marshall North Room |
R196. 30th Anniversary of the Washington Prize—a Retrospective Reading. (Fred Marchant, Nathalie Anderson, Jay Rogoff, Enid Shomer, John Surowiecki, Brad Richard) Winners of the Word Works Washington Prize for poetry will demonstrate the artistic diversity of one of America’s oldest book publication contests. From Enid Shomer, whose Stalking the Florida Panther became the first full-length book to win the prize, to Frannie Lindsay, whose third book, Mayweed, won in 2009, six fine poets will read from Washington Prize books launched from DC. Brief discussion of how the prize process shaped their careers will follow. |
Thurgood Marshall South Room |
R197. A 45th-Anniversary Fiction Reading by the Faculty of the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. (Jim Clark, Michael Parker, Fred Chappell, Craig Nova, Holly Goddard Jones, Lee Zacharias) One of the oldest such programs in the country, the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro celebrates its 45th-anniversary with a fiction reading by our award-winning faculty. |
Thurgood Marshall West Room |
R198. Honoring Robert Coover. (Maya Sonenberg, Robert Coover, Kate Bernheimer, Mary Caponegro, Brian Evenson, Matthew Derby) Through fiction and nonfiction, panelists will celebrate their continuing fascination with the ever changing and always challenging work of Robert Coover, metafictional master, myth-breaker and myth-maker, and one of the founders of hypertext. Coover, author of over 20 books, including The Origin of the Brunists, The Public Burning, Pricksongs and Descants, Ghost Town, and Noir, will close the panel with a reading. |
Virginia A Room |
R199. [WITS Alliance] A Classroom as Big as the World. (Georgia A. Popoff, Paul Shaffer, Loyal Miles, Jim Walker, Nicole Robinson) The New York City sidewalks of Frank O’Hara. The Idaho wilderness. A soul food restaurant in Indianapolis. Forget four walls; the most exciting writing in K-12 education is happening beyond the chalkboard. Writers and administrators from programs that teach writing to young people will talk about their experiences getting kids out of the box of the classroom to get out of the box with their writing. |
Virginia B Room |
R200. The Urban MFA: Why it Makes a Difference. (Michelle Y. Valladares, Linsey Abrams, Joseph Lease, Jan Heller Levi, Richard Schotter) There are a few MFA programs in the US located in the heart of cities and urban neighborhoods, where students and faculty commute, attend part time and at night. How do these programs represent a difference to the “more traditionally collegiate” programs on suburban or rural campuses? What are the benefits to attending an urban MFA program? Why would students choose such programs? How can urban environments benefit new writers and American writing? |
Virginia C Room |
R201. America’s Next Top (Literary Center) Model. (Charles Jensen, Gail Browne, David Biespiel, Jordan Hartt, Andrea Dupree) Whether for-profit, nonprofit, or in the academy, literary centers can take many forms, approaches, and business models. While writers have a good sense of developing strong content, business approaches can sometimes be confounding to us. These panelists, who represent various center business models, will discuss the strengths and limitations of each design based on their own perspectives and experiences. |
Wilson A, B, & C Room |
R202. CLMP Panel—The Art of Nonprofit Publishing. (Jeffrey Lependorf, Allan Kornblum, Fiona McCrae, Martha Rhodes, Erika Goldman, Brigid Hughes) Executives from Bellevue Literary Press (BLP), A Public Space, Coffee House Press, Graywolf Press and Four Way Books discuss how mission-driven literary publishers acquire grants and donors in addition to manuscripts. |
Ambassador Ballroom |
R203. UVA MFA Faculty Reading. (Jeb Livingood, Christopher Tilghman, John Casey, Lisa Russ Spaar, Debra Nystrom) Members of the University of Virginia MFA faculty read from their recent work. Readers include John Casey, Lisa Russ Spaar, Chris Tilghman, and Debra Nystrom. |
Diplomat Ballroom |
R204. Moby Dick’s Descendants: A Cross-Genre Reading of Works Inspired by the Great American Novel. (Marci Johnson, Alan Michael Parker, Dan Beachy-Quick, Sena Jeter Naslund) Melville’s Moby-Dick or, The Whale, considered by many to be the Great American Novel, has inspired numerous writers over the last 160 years. The three distinguished writers on this panel have each written works in conversation with Melville’s: Dan Beachy-Quick’s A Whaler’s Dictionary, Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel, and Alan Michael Parker’s A Tale of a Whale. These novelists and poets will read and then discuss her/his relationship to the 19th century classic. |
Empire Ballroom |
R205. Two Jews, a Catholic, a Buddhist, a Mennonite Sufi Shaman, and a ________ walk into an AWP Panel: Geography’s Influence on Writers Writing Religion and Culture. (Eric Wasserman, Ira Sukrungruang, Heather Derr-Smith, Bich Minh Nguyen, Mary Biddinger) Geography has emerged as a vital component for writers exploring the culture of religion in the post 9/11 literary landscape. The place the writer hails from is now just as important to depicting the culture of religion as the faith the writer is steeped in. A cross-genre cross-country panel of not-so-nice Jewish boys, Catholic schoolgirl transgressors, superhero emulating Buddhists, and more, take a special look at how place fuels how writers approach the culture of religion in their work. |
Executive Room |
R206. Adaptation: The Thrown Gauntlet. (Brighde Mullins, Erin Cressida Wilson, Karen Zacarias, Prince Gomolvilas, Blake Robison, Anne Garcia-Romero) An adaptation is more than the sum of its parts. The greatest merit of working on an adaptation is also its greatest challenge. When adapting for the stage or screen, you already have structure and form. That’s a great place to start. The challenge is to find a way to honor the emotional core of the source material while making it dramatic, suitable for the stage or screen, and very much your own. |
Hampton Ballroom |
R207. The New South, the New Regionalism: Editing an Aesthetic. (Haines Eason, Gregory Donovan, Nathaniel Perry, Mike Ingram) From the Fugitives onward, Southern literature has attempted to reconcile with and reject the national literary scene. But today, “New South” has come to mean progressive or adaptive, and arguably the Upper South leads the charge to change. Virginia Editors Gregory Donovan of Blackbird, Nathaniel Perry of Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and R. T. Smith of Shenandoah discuss progressivism in Southern letters and how they balance the regional and national in selecting work for their pages. |
Palladian Ballroom |
R208. What Women DON’T Write About When We Write About Sex. (Xu Xi, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Honor Moore, Victoria Redel, Ellen Bass, Sue William Silverman) In a post-feminist age, the memoir has blown the lid off sexual secrets, and in all genres, women have written increasingly frankly about sexuality over the last fifty years. It almost seems that nothing is off limits. But what’s the art and craft of this sexual “anything goes”? Six women discuss the treatment of sex in their writing and ask: do we write Passion? Do we write Lust? Do we write Love? And what don’t we write about when we write about sex? |
Regency Ballroom |
R209. A Reading by John Phillip Santos & Lorraine Lopez, Sponsored by the Macondo Writers’ Workshop. (John Phillip Santos, Lorraine Lopez) National Book Award finalist John Phillip Santos and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Lorraine Lopez read from their work. Both are members of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop in San Antonio, TX. |
4:30 p.m.-5:45 p.m. | |
Coolidge Room |
R210. How to Create a Moveable Feast: Studying Writing Abroad. (Jennifer Stewart, Sonja Livingston, Shelley Puhak, Jesse Loren, Bill Lavender, Peter Thompson) This panel will explore the nature of the graduate creative writing program abroad and its benefits for both the low-residency and traditional MFA models. It will include perspectives from faculty, organizers, students, and alumni and will also focus on how to create such a program and the possibilities of partnerships across programs, and, indeed, borders. We will also address the possibilities for Post-MFA writing abroad opportunities. |
Delaware Suite Room |
R211. Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children’s Paintings Dramatic Reading. (David Hassler, Ellen Bass, Dorianne Laux, Long Chu, Bruce Weigl, Alberto Ríos)Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children’s Paintings features original poems written by American children, veterans, and established poets in response to Vietnamese children’s paintings on peace and war collected by the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. Created by Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center & School of Art Galleries, with Soldier’s Heart, this exhibit and dramatic reading offers a timely testament to the emotional truth of war and peace. Readers range from award-winning poets to elementary-age children, presenting a readers’ theatre-style performance. To learn more about this project, visit www.speakpeace.net. |
Harding Room |
R212. Delinquents, Desperados and Drama Queens: Managing Unusual Personalities and Unexpected Situations in the Creative Nonfiction Classroom. (Amy Friedman, Hope Edelman, Michele Morano, Deborah A. Lott, Amy Wallen) Writing workshops can be delicate—things of beauty when students work as a community and challenging if someone demands too much, dismisses others, provokes, or acts out. Subject matter also can challenge ethically and psychologically—abuse, mental illness, sexuality. How can instructors manage these situations and serve all students? Panelists discuss ways to address and diffuse potentially explosive dynamics while maintaining focus on the work. |
Hoover Room |
R213. Understanding Comics as Creative Writing. (John Woods, Matt Madden, Gary Sullivan, Luca DiPierro, Joseph Young) While the critical study of comics has been fully embraced by English Literature departments, creative writing programs have been slower to create a place for the practice of comics in their own curricula. Similarly, independent literary presses rarely publish comics, leaving that work to comics-specific houses. This panel features teachers and practitioners of the medium who will discuss ways to open up the creative writing field to the practice of comics (and other image-text literature). |
Marriott Ballroom |
R214. Ploughshares 40th-Anniversary Celebration. (Ladette Randolph, Eleanor Wilner, Kathryn Harrison, Colm Toibin, Elizabeth Strout, Terrance Hayes) This roundtable features six recent guest editors of Ploughshares magazine and celebrates 40 years of the journal’s founding commitment to showcasing diverse literary voices with each issue. Former guest editors read and discuss how they made choices for their issues. |
Maryland Suite Room |
R215. Fifteen Years of Louisiana State University’s Southern Messenger Poets. Claudia Emerson, Mike Carson, Kate Daniels, Dave Smith, Sidney Wade, Steve Scafidi) 2011 is the fifteenth year of Louisiana State University Press’s signature series Southern Messenger Poets, edited by Dave Smith. This panel includes poets who have one or more books with the series, as well as its founder and editor. The panelists will speak about the Southern Messenger series, and read from their volumes as well as from the volumes of fellow poets in the series. |
Nathan Hale Room |
R216. Beyond Times New Roman: The Literary Journal as Object. (Travis Kurowski, Jodee Stanley, Sandra Doller, Matvei Yankelevich, Jen Woods, Shayna Schapp) From curatorial art teams to the hand-bound letterpress, to pages upon which art and words are nearly indistinguishable, the literary journal is so much more than paper and font choice. Attention to design will turn a journal into an art object that sets it apart from the masses. Editors from five innovative journals share concrete strategies for incorporating art and design: getting submissions, working with an art editor, and how to redesign the literary journal from scratch. |
Thurgood Marshall East Room Marriott Wardman Park, Mezzanine Level |
R217. Status Update: The Personal Essay in the Age of Facebook. (Jen McClanaghan, Phillip Lopate, Bob Shacochis, Debra Monroe, Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Susan McCallum-Smith) Between the ever-popular tell-all memoir and ubiquitous status updates on websites such as Facebook and Twitter, the confession has never been so popular or so utterly mundane. We know more about each other than ever before and yet little that’s truly intimate or insightful. This panel will discuss the tradition of the personal essay and what it might offer the contemporary reader and writer, namely the opportunity for real insight and reflection. |
Thurgood Marshall North Room |
R218. A Reading and Discussion with the American University Prose-Writing Faculty. (Richard McCann, Danielle Evans, Stephanie Grant, Rachel Louise Snyder) This panel, celebrating the 20th anniversary of American University’s MFA program, features the prose faculty of American University reading their recent work and discussing how the District of Columbia has affected the way in which each panelist thinks about the aims of their writing. |
Thurgood Marshall South Room |
R219. At The Doorstep of the Capitol: 42 Seasons of Folger Poetry. (Teri Cross Davis, Gigi Bradford, Libbie Rifkin, Jean Nordhaus, Aurelie Sheehan) For 42 seasons, the Folger Shakespeare Library has provided a stage for contemporary poetry’s most eloquent voices. Past Folger Poetry coordinators Gigi Bradford, Jean Nordhaus, and Libbie Rifkin talk about their role in keeping the series current, balancing the administrative and the creative, how the Folger Poetry Board was created and their role in sustaining the series, and what it takes for a poetry series to maintain and thrive in the hustle and bustle of the nation’s capital. |
Thurgood Marshall West Room |
R220. Spanish American Poetry in Translation: from Post-Avant-garde to Postmodernism. (Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, Forrest Gander, Katherine Hedeen, Gary Racz, Michelle Gil-Montero) In Spanish America, the terms Avant-garde and Modernism connote approaches to poetry remarkably distinct from what those terms generally mean to North Americans. And yet these approaches define the major literary works of a continent. This panel highlights the shift from Post-Avant-garde to Postmodernism, celebrating the last 60 years of Spanish American poetry and introducing some of the region’s best poets, read and commented on by their translators. |
Virginia A Room |
R221. Fiction’s Future. (Tom Williams, Lance Olsen, M. Evelina Galang, Roy Kesey, Debra DiBlasi, Steve Tomasula) This panel invites five aesthetically diverse authors brave or foolish enough to respond to think aloud about fiction’s future. What might in fiction look like, read like, and why? What forms are we apt to see in the next five or fifteen years? What changes in publishing, distribution, media, and the sociohistorical landscape might impact what we mean when we say “fiction,” “journal,” “book,” “conventional,” and “innovative?” Should writers even concern themselves with such questions? |
Virginia B Room |
R222. Building LGBT Literary Traditions. (Julie R. Enszer, Eloise Klein Healy, Jason Schneiderman, Tony Valenzuela, Reginald Harris, Duriel E. Harris) What are LGBT literary traditions? What institutions, publications, practices, and ideas nurture and develop new writing from emerging and established LGBT writers? What strengths exist in the landscape of LGBT literature and what opportunities are there for more growth and development? From the sexy and sensuous to the mundane and sublime, this panel explores these questions and more with perspectives on LGBT literature from publishers, writers, critics, arts administrators, and activists. |
Virginia C Room |
R223. Changing Chords: The African American Poet as Critic. (Herman Beavers, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Tim Seibles, Anthony Walton, Carolyn Beard Whitlow)This panel features four African American poets discussing the role aesthetics, music, and political struggle have played in the history of African American poetic criticism. This panel imagines a central role for the poet/critic in the 21st Century, as editors and as the authors of critical perspectives which clarify how attention to craft and emotional content yields unique insights into how poetry means as it also explores the complexity of lived experience in the African Diaspora. |
Wilson A, B, & C Room |
R224. A Screening and Discussion for The Times Were Never So Bad: The Life of Andre Dubus. (Edward Delaney) A screening of The Times Were Never So Bad: The Life of Andre Dubus with the filmmaker Edward Delaney, and others who participated In the fim. The documentary features interviews with Andre Dubus III, Tobias Wolff, Richard Russo, Christopher Tilghman and others, and has been an official selection the Rhode Island International Film Festival, the New England Film & Video Festival, among others, and has toured the country at many colleges and universities. The screening will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with the filmmaker and others who participated in the film. The film is 86 minutes long. |
Ambassador Ballroom |
R225. The Great Indoors: Gender, Writing, and Re-envisioning Literary Merit. (Randall Mann, Cate Marvin, Susan Steinberg, Patti Horvath, Mary Cappello) By circumstance and design, the work of many women writers is concerned with issues of interiority (physical, emotional). This micro way of viewing the human experience is frequently overshadowed by a literary aesthetic that privileges a more macro, and stereotypically masculine, approach. This panel examines how this inadequate model for evaluating literature has perpetuated a gendered division between writers and writings. |
Diplomat Ballroom |
R226. Creative Writing and the University: A Conversation with Mark McGurl. (Mary Stewart Atwell, Mark McGurl, Eileen Pollack, Tracy Daugherty, Dean Bakopoulos, Nathaniel Minton) This panel will analyze the effects of the institutionalization of creative writing on American literature through a conversation with Mark McGurl, author of The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. Other participants, well-published fiction writers and teachers of writing, will join McGurl in assessing the particular ways in which MFA programs have influenced the content, structure, and style of postwar American novels and short stories. |
Empire Ballroom |
R227. Why Don’t They List Agents on Match.com? Demystifying the Author/Agent Relationship. (Britta Coleman, Matt Bondurant, Alex Glass, Marcy Posner, Jenny Bent, Ann Cummins) Finding the perfect agent takes more than a pithy profile or even a well-written query. Join literary agents Marcy Posner, Alex Glass, and Jenny Bent, with authors Britta Coleman, Matt Bondurant, and Ann Cummins, for a lively discussion about finding the right agent, snagging the right agent, and living happily ever after. Topics will include when to approach an agent, how to pitch your work, common pitfalls to avoid, the contract process, and where you can find agents in their natural habitat. |
Executive Room |
R228. Writing the Young Adult Novel. (Tami Lewis Brown, Zu Vincent, Carrie Jones, Stephanie Greene, Helen Hemphill, Sarah Aronson) The young adult novel has exploded in recent years, and many adult writers are crossing over. What does it take to write for this burgeoning field? Six novelists publishing literary, historical, mainstream, and fantasy fiction for the young, discuss the similarities and differences in adult and young adult fiction that can help writers transition to this fresh—and often edgy—new genre. |
Hampton Ballroom |
R229. The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World. (Lauret Savoy, Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Fred Arroyo, Debra Kang Dean, Nikky Finney) A segregation of ideas continues in this country such that both the environmental movement and nature writing do not yet recognize the many voices of people not of Anglo-American descent. Join contributors to the unique new anthology The Colors of Nature—African-, Asian-, and Arab-American, Latino/a, Native, and multi-racial writers—who redefine nature and nature writing, enlarge our understanding of the human place on Earth, and offer fresh ways of considering multicultural literature. |
Palladian Ballroom |
R230. PEN/Faulkner’s Writers in Schools: Building the Next Generation of Readers. (Richard Ford) Acclaimed author Richard Ford will lead a panel of teachers and students from DC public schools in a discussion of the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program, which brings contemporary literature and notable authors into public high school classrooms. Participants will highlight the ways direct author-student conversations make reading vibrant and relevant. The program is a wonderful resource for educators who seek to ensure that the next generation of readers connect to the written word. The success of the DC initiative can serve as a model for other literary communities that wish to provide these transformative experiences within their local schools. |
Regency Ballroom |
R231. A Reading and Conversation with Rae Armantrout, Sponsored by Wesleyan University Press. (Rae Armantrout, Craig Morgan Teicher) Ron Silliman said, “trying to read a book by Rae Armantrout in a single sitting is like trying to drink a bowl of diamonds. What’s inside is all so shiny & clear & even tiny that it appears perfectly do-able. But the stones are so hard & their edges so chiseled that the instant you begin they’ll start to rip your insides apart.” Join us as Rae reads from Money Shot, her follow up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Versed, also recipient of the NBCC Award, followed by a conversation with poet and critic, Craig Teicher. |
7:00 p.m.-8:15 p.m. | |
Maryland A |
A Reception Hosted by the George Mason University MFA Creative Writing Program. Join students and faculty from the George Mason University MFA Creative Writing Program for a reception. |
Maryland B |
A Reception Hosted by The Poetry Foundation. Join The Poetry Foundation for a Reception. |
Maryland C |
A Reception Hosted by Writers in the Schools (WITS). Join Writers in the Schools (WITS) for a Reception. |
8:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. | |
Marriott Ballroom |
R232. Keynote Address by Jhumpa Lahiri, Sponsored by George Mason University. (Jhumpa Lahiri) Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, her debut story collection that explores issues of love and identity among immigrants and cultural transplants. Published to great acclaim in 2003, Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, expands on the perplexities of the immigrant experience and the search for identity. Lahiri’s most recent book of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, received the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Vallombrosa Von Rezzori Prize, and the Asian American Literary Award. Lahiri is also the recipient of the PEN/Hemingway Award, an O. Henry Prize, and the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has received grants from the Guggenheim Fellowship and The National Endowment for the Arts. |
10:00 p.m.-Midnight | |
Thurgood Marshall |
R233. AWP Public Reception & Dance Party. A Dance Party with music by DJ Neza. Free beer and wine from 10:00 to midnight. |
Virginia B Room |
R234. The All Collegiate Afterhours Slam. (Jim Warner, Philip Brady) The All Collegiate Afterhours Slam is open to all undergrad and grad students attending the conference. Participation is capped at ten slammers a night. Slam pieces must be no longer than three minutes in length. Prizes, judges, and organization of the event will be handled by Wilkes University Creative Writing Program and Etruscan Press. Limited open mic to follow the slam (time permitting). Come visit the Wilkes University /Etruscan Press booth to register. |
