8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Exhibit Hall C, Level 2

F100. Conference Registration. Attendees who have registered in advance may pick up their registration materials in the preregistered check-in area, located in Exhibit Hall C on Level 2 of the Hynes Convention Center. If you have not yet registered for the conference, visit the unpaid registration area, also in Exhibit Hall C. Please consult the bookfair map in the conference planner for location details. Students must present a valid student ID to check in or register at our student rate. Seniors must present a valid ID to register at our senior rate, and should do so only at unpaid registration. A $50 fee will be charged for all replacement badges.

8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Exhibit Hall B, Plaza Level

F102. Bookfair Concessions, Bar, & Lounge. Breakfast, lunch, and coffee concessions are available from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Bookfair Lounge area of Exhibit Hall B on the Plaza Level, and from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Exhibit Hall D Café on Level 2. The lounge will host a bar from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Please consult the bookfair map in the conference planner for location details.

8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Exhibit Halls A, B, & D, Plaza & Level 2

F101. AWP Bookfair, Sponsored by Hollins University: Jackson Center for Creative Writing. With more than 600 literary exhibitors, the AWP bookfair is the largest of its kind. A great place to meet authors, critics, and peers, the bookfair also provides an excellent opportunity to find information about literary magazines, presses, and organizations. Please consult the bookfair map in the conference planner for location details.

F103. Lactation Room. To gain access to our shared lactation room, visit the AWP Help Desk in the preregistered check-in area of Exhibit Hall C. For reasons of privacy and security, access to the lactation room is granted by permission of AWP only.

9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.

Room 101, Plaza Level

F104. Young Writers in Publishing: How Passion Fuels Professionalism. (Wesley Rothman, Abby Travis, Curtis Perdue, Kelly Forsythe, Jen Lagedrost) Writers discuss seizing editorial opportunities as part of the MFA experience, propelling their editing and writing. They have held internships and paid positions for publishers and journals including Copper Canyon Press, Ploughshares, Poetry International, Narrative, Wave Books, Inter|rupture, and others. The panel will examine strategies of career development, building relationships with publishing professionals, and cultivating craft while pursuing publication.

Room 102, Plaza Level

F105. A Hedgerow Reading. (Steve Strimer, Annie Boutelle, DM Gordon, Patricia Lee Lewis, Maya Janson) After the Dust Bowl, hedgerows were grown to mitigate damage done by big agriculture. Now, in our era of big publishing, Hedgerow Books at Levellers Press is nurturing local talents. From a place with a long literary history and wide national pool, new additions include Annie Boutelle, founder of the Smith Poetry Center; Patricia Lee Lewis, beloved mentor to many; DM Gordon, leader of a decade long public forum on contemporary poetry; and Maya Janson, an emerging artist of reach and intuition.

Room 103, Plaza Level

F106. Post-Genre Lit: Form in the 21st Century. (Lacy M. Johnson, Nick Flynn, Kelle Groom, Kazim Ali, Stephen Elliott) An increasing body of literature not only blurs the boundaries between creative and critical, prose and verse, observation and invention, but also transcends and transgresses our most basic convictions about genre. Postgenre lit can alter our conversations about perception, experience, and reality; or it can kindle deep-seated animosities about the rules and limits of form. These divergent writers will discuss how they read, teach, write, and publish work that defies classification.

Room 104, Plaza Level

F107. Why Creative Writing Programs Should Teach Ethics. (Christine Beck, Natasha Saje, James Hoch, Micah Lott) When is the use of another person’s story or identity ethically wrong? Does the writer of fiction, poetry, or film owe the reader a duty to be balanced in the treatment of politically or culturally sensitive topics? Does the law of defamation offer a useful test? Panelists will discuss how to teach the ethical and legal standards that relate to fiction, film, and poetry.

Room 105, Plaza Level

F108. A Reading and Conversation with Former Creative Fellows at the American Antiquarian Society. (Kathryn Nuernberger, Cornelia Nixon, Nicole Cooley, David Roderick) Often considered staid sites for scholarly work, research libraries can also serve as springboards to evocative, lyrical, and wildly experimental writing. The American Antiquarian Society is an independent research library located near Boston that offers three fellowships annually to creative writers and other artists for a month-long residence at the library along with a generous stipend. This panel of former fellows will discuss how their writing has been influenced by their time in the archives, and share some of the writing the fellowship engendered.

Room 107, Plaza Level

F109. It Could Always Be Verse: Books in Verse for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers. (Lesléa Newman, Kwame Alexander, Helen Frost, Meg Kearney, Marilyn Nelson) Books written in verse for young adult and middle-grade readers have become increasingly popular in recent years. Book-length collections such as novel-in-verse, heroic crown of sonnets, themed cycle of poems, and formal poetry enhance story while exposing young readers to finely crafted literature. Panelists will read brief excerpts of their work and discuss the particular joys and challenges of writing in these forms.

Room 108, Plaza Level

F110. Purpose and the Practical in Historical Writing. (Anna Keesey, Peter Ho Davies, Zachary Lazar, Emily Barton) Fiction writers go to historical sources for many purposes: to recover the past, to speculate upon its lacunae, to revise it, and so on. These purposes create practical questions the writer must answer, such as how time, consciousness, and character should be represented; how dialogue should sound; and whether the action should cleave to verifiable events. In this discussion, these writers elaborate on their own purposes and on the practical choices demanded by historically-sourced writing.

Room 109, Plaza Level

F111. Poetry of Resistance: Poets Responding to Xenophobia and Injustice. (Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Carmen Calatayud, Elena Díaz Björkquist, Andrea Hernandez Holm) In response to AZ SB 1070, in 2010 a Facebook page titled Poets Responding to SB 1070 was born. It has become a lively forum of poetics and politics involving a response of over two thousand poems. Panelists will discuss the success of the project, an upcoming anthology, and how social movements can incorporate poetry and writing into their organizing in order to bring about political awareness and empowerment. Presenters will read from poetry submissions and from their own work.

Room 110, Plaza Level

F112. Progression by Digression: Multiple Narrative Lines in Creative Nonfiction. (Deborah Lott, Paul Lisicky, Hope Edelman) Laurence Sterne’s iconoclastic 1760 novel Tristram Shandy can be seen as a forebear to contemporary works of creative nonfiction. In this panel, three creative nonfiction writers look at other works that progress via digression, with their main narrative arcs illuminated, enhanced, commented on, and deepened by other threads. The panelists will examine how seemingly digressive narrative lines can open up a work’s temporal frame, enlarge its perspective, provide metaphoric resonance, and add to its intellectual complexity.

Room 111, Plaza Level

F113. 1913 10th Anniversary Reading. (Sandra Doller, Ben Doller, Srikanth Reddy, Charles Bernstein, Ronaldo Wilson) Celebrate ten years of innovative cross-genre publishing with 1913, a journal of forms and 1913 Press! Indebted in name and notion to the radical early modernist spirit, 1913 publishes emerging international writers and artists alongside some of our most renowned. 1913’s 10th anniversary is the 100th anniversary of the year 1913—the year Rosa Parks is born and Harriet Tubman dies; Malevich’s Black Square and Stein’s Tender Buttons; and the movies move to Hollywood and Russian Futurist books proliferate.

Room 201, Level 2

F114. Keeping It Simple, Making It Real: 24PearlStreet and the Online Creative Writing Workshop. (Jill McDonough, Mark Wunderlich, Charles McLeod, Ann Hood, A.J. Verdelle) Asynchronous classes have a lot going for them. You participate wherever you are, whenever you like. But what about building community? The frustrations of technology? Keeping everyone organized and engaged? Our panel of nationally-recognized writers taught in the inaugural year of 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center Online, honoring FAWC’s ethic of community and accomplishment. We’ll discuss our classes, leaving plenty of time for problem-solving Q&A with the audience.

Room 202, Level 2

F115. Shaking the Burning Birch Tree: Celebrating Amy Lowell’s Poetry of Influence on Modern Lyric Poetry. (Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Honor Moore, Lesley Wheeler, Terry Ehret, Katherine Hastings) Join us for a celebration of the Boston-born poet Amy Lowell. As a woman and as a lesbian, she inherited a fragmented tradition that called upon her to reclaim what had not yet been publically spoken. Lesbian eroticism, the depiction of female desire, and a gynocentric approach to literary history and form lay at the heart of this act of reclamation. Each panelist will offer a close reading of a Lowell poem and then share a poem of their own that has been influenced by Lowell’s poetry.

Room 203, Level 2

F116. In Sickness and In Health: Literature at the Intersection of Medicine, Science, and the Arts. (Danielle Ofri, Erika Goldman , Rafael Campo, Jonathan Moreno , Cortney Davis) This panel will examine the varying definitions of “literature and medicine,” reasons for the surge of public interest, and practical issues of writing and publishing in this field. The speakers will explore how writing deepens our understanding of health, science, healing, and illness, and how art shapes our perceptions of life and mortality. This panel is relevant for the writer, editor, medical professional, patient, humanities student, and professor.

Room 204, Level 2

F117. Get a Hold of Your Writing: Book Arts in the Classroom. (Meryl DePasquale, Emily Brandt, Genevieve Kaplan, Richard Mathews, Carol Ann Johnston) While much has been made of hands-on learning, the possibilities that book arts can bring into the creative writing classroom deserve deeper exploration. When students have a chance to study page layout, printing, and binding, does it change how they think about language and form? How can tactile experiences with book arts inform/influence the act of writing? Four writers and educators involved in the production of limited edition chapbooks, journals, and broadsides share their impressions on the interplay between writing and making a physical object.

Room 206, Level 2

F118. The Colloquial Baroque: Productively Deploying the Arcane. (Lisa Russ Spaar, Brenda Hillman, Joanna Klink, Gregory Pardlo, Brian Teare) How do damasked registers of diction and syntax contribute more than dazzling surface texture to poems of erotic, religious, aesthetic, and psychological complexity? What are the risks and pleasures of working in mixed modes of difficulty? Five aesthetically diverse poets discuss their use of Keatsian fine excess and their relationship to Hopkins’s statement that “Obscurity I do and will try to avoid so far as” is consistent with excellences higher than clearness at a first reading.

Room 207, Level 2

F119. The Art of the Nonfiction Idea. (Lisa Dierbeck, Pagan Kennedy, Alissa Quart, Katie Orenstein) In this panel, we discuss the anatomy of a successful nonfiction idea. Perfect Storm, Freakonomics, Seabiscuit—each of these books began with a powerful premise. How does an author identify a winning concept? And which ideas are most likely to attract the attention of editors? The session includes an Idea Hospital: audience members will have a chance to pitch their projects to the panelists.

Room 208, Level 2

F120. Women and The Anxiety of Influence. (Ralph Wilson, Jacqueline Osherow, Gail Wronsky, Kimberly Johnson, Alice Friman) The focus of this panel is an examination of Harold Bloom’s famous text, The Anxiety of Influence, and its thesis that contemporary poets bear the burden of influence from predecessor poets resulting in a sterilizing anxiety they must struggle to overcome. The panel consists of four accomplished female poets who will discuss the veracity of Bloom’s text in regard to their own creative processes, and especially how gender functions in regard to their perspectives of the text and its thesis.

Room 209, Level 2

F121. A Blueprint of Something Never Finished: Larry Levis in the Classroom. (Joshua Robbins, Kathy Fagan, Michael White, Alexander Long, Jeffrey Schultz) As a poet and teacher, Larry Levis influenced an entire generation of poets and, since his death in 1996, the spell of Levis’s legacy has continued to widen. Today, a new generation of writers are discovering Levis’s poems, stories, and essays. This panel, comprised of former Levis students and poets who have learned from his work, will discuss Levis’s legacy as a teacher as well as specific, innovative ways to approach the challenge of incorporating his work into the creative writing classroom.

Room 210, Level 2

F122. Here Far Away: Translation and Distance. (Anna Deeny, Valerie Mejer, Raúl Zurita, Daniel Borzutzky) This panel joins Raúl Zurita, Valerie Mejer, Daniel Borzutzy and Anna Deeny, poets and translators from Chile, Mexico and the US. Through bilingual readings of poetry and short essays, we will explore translation as a practice that seeks to presence distance, maintaining it as an open and primal force, rather than engaging it as a circumstance to be lessened or overcome.

Room 302/304, Level 3

F123. The Novel as Weapon: PEN Members on Book Banning and Censorship. (Larry Siems, Rob Spillman, Brigid Hughes, Alex Gilvarry, Luis Alberto Urrea) Novels inspire us, but they can also provoke fear and hatred—even before being read. Words may be viewed as weapons; books can and do come under fire. This panel will deal with free expression as the core of any creative practice. Using several recent examples as a lens, panelists will examine the lived experience of banning and censorship, raising issues of authenticity and advocacy.

Room 303, Level 3

F124. New England Review Celebrates Vermont Writers. (Kellam Ayres, Castle Freeman Jr., Sydney Lea, Cleopatra Mathis, Robert Cohen) Vermont is home to more writers per capita than any other state in the nation, and Vermont authors work in a wide variety of aesthetics and styles—some with no particular ties to place and others decidedly rooted. Founded in 1978, New England Review publishes authors from all over the world, but in this reading, we’re proud to present five outstanding writers who live and work in our home state, and whose writing has recently appeared in our pages.

Room 305, Level 3

F125. Gathered, We Gather: Editors on Their Anthologies. (Tony Leuzzi, Steve Fellner, Phil E. Young, Michael Waters) Editing an anthology can be quite seductive. It can also be a nightmare. In this session, four panelists will discuss their respective anthologies, and the joys and pains that awaited them at every stage of the process. Under consideration are three projects of varying scope and scale, including a collection of New Narrative writing, a compilation of social justice poetry, and twenty interviews with leading American poets. Such topics will address selection, shaping, and copyright permissions.

Room 306, Level 3

F126. Publishers: Big vs. Indie. (Ethan Bassoff, Tim O’Connell, Tom Mayer, Kris D’Agostino) Today’s market provides more publishers than ever, and if you’re lucky, you might have the choice between a major publisher and an independent one. In this panel, editors from both corporate and independent publishers share their experiences alongside a literary agent and novelist, Kris D’Agostino, to provide a lively discussion on the pros and cons of going big or going indie, helping you understand their strengths and weaknesses, how to target your submissions, query agents, and get your book published.

Room 308, Level 3

F127. Launch Labs, Inside Our Experiment. (Eve Bridburg, Katrin Schumann, Lynne Griffin, Taryn Roeder) It is now crucial for writers to embrace the business and marketing side of their writing lives. They must honestly assess their skills, aspirations, networks, comfort in promoting, and resources. Grub Street’s innovative Launch Lab brings together published writers and marketing/publicity professionals. Together, they explore best practices for writers facing these new responsibilities and challenges. Members of our Launch Lab team will bring you inside the Lab to share what we learned.

Room 309, Level 3

F128. What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About War. (Catherine Parnell, George Kovach, Siobhan Fallon, Laura Harrington, Bob Shacochis) When writers address the subject of war, they face tough choices about what material to include and how to give voice to the unspeakable. The writer’s job, then, is to examine what drives nations into war and terrorism, and to focus on atrocities that are ignored or under-reported. This panel will discuss the roles that research, experience, and reportage play. It will ask how the choice of genre impacts the topic of war and what literature can achieve that journalism cannot.

Room 310, Level 3

F129. Knowing Nothing: What Novelists Figure Out Before Page One. (Sheri Joseph, Tom Perrotta, Lauren Groff, Alix Ohlin, Michael Lowenthal) A novel creates the illusion of a broad, complicated, history-laden world by showing only a portion of it (famously: the top 1/8 of the iceberg) and implying the rest. But how does the writer locate the rest? How much iceberg construction must precede the confident omniscience of page one? Five accomplished novelists share some of the research, drafting, or dreaming tactics that go into gathering the novel’s material, used and unused, before it begins.

Room 312, Level 3

F130. AWP Town Meeting of Individual Members. AWP encourages all members of AWP to attend. The AWP Board of Directors will discuss new projects and services. You will have the opportunity to elect new board members and to vote on amendments to AWP’s bylaws and articles of incorporation. 

Room 313, Level 3

F131. Home is Where Your Hero Is: What Do Writers’ Houses Offer to the Next Generation of Writers? (Julia Pistell, Patricia Hohl, Kelsey Mullen, Christine Hensel Triantos, Steve Courtney) Once known simply as historic homages to the writers who lived and worked within their rooms, writers’ houses have become beacons of inspiration for scribblers today. Join administrators of writing programs at The Mark Twain House, Edith Wharton’s The Mount, and Thoreau Farm as they discuss the role of author’s homes in the literary landscape. What have these homes done to foster the teaching of writing? How does the legacy of each American icon relate to the programs within each house’s walls?

Alice Hoffman Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall D, Level 2

BF20. From Poems on the Wisdom of Trees to a Poem for Nancy Pelosi: WordTech Communications Author Reading. (Shelby Allen, Susan Cohen, Joey Nicoletti, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, J.D. Smith) Susan Cohen, Joey Nicoletti, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, and J.D. Smith, published by WordTech Communications, express the range of American poetry: lyrical, narrative, traditional, boundary-pushing. They write of trees, throat singing, “Saint Sinatra,” Glenn Gould, and a time when Italian American grandmothers ruled the world. Moderated by Shelby Allen.

Patricia Olson Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall A, Plaza Level

BF21. Celebration of the Poetry Book. (B.K. Fischer, George Looney, Dean Rader, John M. Ridland, Michael Sowder) Why bother with books of poetry? Why bother with poetry? At this reading, Truman State University Press celebrates poetry books as well as some of its newest poetry authors, including T.S. Eliot prizewinners. Authors B.K. Fischer, George Looney, Dean Rader, John Ridland, and Michael Sowder will read from their work and sign books.

10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.

Room 101, Plaza Level

F132. Beyond the Bookstore: Publicity in the Young Adult and Mid-Grade Market. (Leah Cypess, Janet Fox, Alexandra Diaz, Michele Corriel, Swati Avasthi) What avenues of publicity are open to young adult and mid-grade writers, beyond the classic bookstore reading? Social media is the new watchword, but the web is also a place where a single misstep has a long echo. Five young adult and mid-grade authors will talk about how they use their internet presence to promote their works and connect with their audiences. We will also discuss tapping the educational market, school visits, and how to find or create unique venues to promote.

Room 102, Plaza Level

F133. Founder’s Toolkit: How to Start a Nonprofit in Your Own Backyard [WITS Alliance]. (Bao-Long Chu, Allen Gee, Janet Hurley, Lisa Murphy-Lamb, Jerome Vielman) If every organization is the lengthened shadow of one person, and if the MFA is the new MBA, then poets and novelists are already equipped with the imaginative drive and divergent thinking necessary to start and operate a successful nonprofit. This panel of founding directors and arts administrators will provide useful information on how to start a literary nonprofit. We will guide participants through the process of incorporating one’s passion into a viable project, working for public good.

Room 103, Plaza Level

F134. Courage, Craft, and Cunning: From MFA Thesis to Published Book. (Jayne Anne Phillips, Will Schutt, Christa Parravani, Ryan McIlvain, Akhil Sharma) This panel features poets and fiction writers whose manuscripts began in their MFA thesis and progressed through revision and invention to first books published by respected presses. Each will read for four minutes, discuss mentorship in their MFA programs, and compare notes on structuring first books, publishers, and the cunning (as in artful, resourceful) required of writers whose lives embrace far more than writing. Audience Q&A will follow.

Room 104, Plaza Level

F135. This Is Not a Cigar: The Uses of Therapy in a Writing Workshop. (Diana Joseph, Geoff Herbach, Sue William Silverman, Sam Ligon) Writing teachers often dismiss therapy’s place in workshop, equating it with navel-gazing, at odds with critical thinking. The writers on this panel think the word “therapy,” while highly charged, is widely misunderstood. We will discuss how we successfully appropriate selective practices of therapy, exploring theories borrowed from existential psychology, as well as ethical concerns faced when working with vulnerable students. Which elements work while maintaining the focus on creating art?

Room 105, Plaza Level

F136. Conversation Pieces: From Creative Reading to Creative Writing. (Joyce Peseroff, Teresa Cader, Sam Cha, Lisa Pegram, Harold Schechter) How can a creative writing assignment enhance students’ understanding of literature and its techniques by prompting the creation of new texts from old? The panel presents various ways for instructors to develop written conversations that further understanding of craft issues in canonical and noncanonical texts by using creative writing as a tool to teach literary texts. Projects at levels from undergrad intro courses to MFA workshops are addressed.

Room 107, Plaza Level

F137. A Tribute To Gail Mazur. (Gail Mazur, Robin Becker, Peter Campion, David Rivard, Maggie Dietz) A tribute to Massachusetts native Gail Mazur. The panelists will discuss the significance of Mazur’s masterful career, which will be followed by the poet reading her work. The founding director of the legendary Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge Massachusetts and Distinguished Writer in Residence in at Emerson College, Gail Mazur has for decades inspired the entire community of poets with her wise, eloquent, and elegant work. The event will be moderated by Lloyd Schwartz.

Room 108, Plaza Level

F138. Role and Impact of International Anthologies. (Kaveh Bassiri, Kevin Prufer, Nathalie Handal, Geoffrey Brock, Pierre Joris) Anthology editors are confronted with common concerns, including chronological or thematic organization, the securing of copyrights, and the payment of royalties. For international anthologies, these issues are further complicated by such considerations as introducing a foreign culture and the role of translation. The editors on this panel will share their aesthetically diverse approaches and address a range of topics from legal matters to such cultural concerns as the role of canonization.

Room 109, Plaza Level

F139. The Geek in Me: Writing from the Cultural Fringe. (Ethan Gilsdorf, Lizzie Stark, Peter Bebergal) Geek and fringe subcultures such as Dungeons & Dragons, Larping, psychedelia, punk rock, and comic books can be ideal portals through which to examine the self, construct narratives, and comment on the culture at large. In this session, three panelists whose books mix memoir, pop culture, and ethnography discuss best practices for breaking into subcultures conducting fringe culture reportage and using that research to tell powerful and poignant stories about the human condition.

Room 110, Plaza Level

F140. Blurring Boundaries: Motherhood and Writing From Home. (Kathryn Kysar, Susannah Schouweiler, Leslie Miller, Keli Stewart, Patricia Smith) PB&Js and proposals; memoirs and math homework; poems and papers. With 24-hour broadband, online teaching, and project-based work, mothers are opting to work at home. What’s the cost, personally and professionally, of the public/private blur, and who’s paying it? The truth will be interrogated in this writer-to-writer discussion with a culturally diverse, multi-generational panel of editors, full-time writers, freelance curators, and college professors who work at their dining room tables.

Room 111, Plaza Level

F141. This is Your Brain on Fiction. (Susan Hubbard, Brock Adams, Hillary Casavant, John Henry Fleming, John King) Neuroscientific studies (cited in the New York Times and elsewhere) assert that reading fiction can actually change human behavior. Words stimulate brains much as real experience does, and influences readers’ empathy and actions. Fiction measurably affects readers’ moods and opinions. Four fiction-writers/editors/teachers consider the implications of this research for their work. To what extent should we consider these special effects when we write, teach, and analyze fiction?

Room 200, Level 2

F142. Essaying the Essay. (David Lazar, Phillip Lopate, David Shields, Lia Purpura, Reda Bensmaïa) This panel will speak to the essentially self-reflective nature of the essay: the ways essays have, historically, insistently talked about themselves. All the panelists have work in the newly released anthology Essaying the Essay, from Welcome Table Press, which presents essays on the essay from Montaigne to the present; they will read portions of their work and reflect/revise ways their views of the essay have modified over time.

Room 201, Level 2

F143. Books in the Age of Reader-centric Publishing. (Buzz Poole, Lisa Pearson, Richard Nash, Matvei Yankelevich, Elizabeth Koch) The concept and production of the “book” has finally begun to keep apace with the multimedia capabilities of contemporary technology and culture at large. These panelists challenge the traditional models of books and publishing by embracing contemporary technological capabilities while also honoring traditions that remain central to the notion of a book, whether fiction, nonfiction, or illustrated. In doing so, they prioritize authors and readers.

Room 202, Level 2

F144. Massholes: Writer Rage, the Pike, and the Beauty of a Rotary. (Julie Kane, Jonathan Crimmins, Andrew C. Gottlieb, Susan Rich) Five Bay State exiles will muse upon the pleasures and perils of growing up Massholes, and how that youth—whether spent in Boston or the boondocks—influenced their poetry and prose. The driving metaphor for the panel will be driving—and panelists will wax irreverent (and entertainingly) on the rage, u-turns, rotaries, and other poetic devices. Some thick accents to be heard while others will have been Eliza Doolittled away through years at the other end of I-90.

Room 203, Level 2

F145. Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry, Past Winners Reading. (January Gill O’Neil, Henri Cole, Daniel Tobin, James R. Whitley) Sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, this reading will feature three winners of the prestigious Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry—Henri Cole, Daniel Tobin, and James R. Whitley. Each poet will read from recent work. The panel will be moderated by January Gill O’Neill, poet and Executive Director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

Room 204, Level 2

F146. Whose Literary Traditions? The Workshop and Ethnocentrism. (Kristiana Kahakauwila, Alex Espinoza, Nami Mun, Susan Shultz, R.A. Villanueva) Most university creative writing workshops presume that the western canon is the central source for exemplary literature. However, for a student whose work is not born from this tradition, the assumptions of realism and originality that pervade most workshops can be foreign to, or even at odds with, the student’s vision. In this session, panelists discuss curriculum that allows student work to be criticized and strengthened on its own terms, whether or not it’s part of a mainstream aesthetic.

Room 206, Level 2

F147. The Business of Writing. (Jennifer Lyons, Liza Monroy, Jesmyn Ward, Kathy Belden, Leslie T. Sharpe) Top literary agent Jennifer Lyons brings together contributors to The Business of Writing. Conversational in tone, and with a preface by Oscar Hijuelos, the book is aimed at both novice and published authors who want to know the specifics. Our panel brings its pages alive as we explore its topics—from contract negotiation to staying the course in a changing industry. We examine the collaborative process that resulted in this unique book, compiling advice from diverse publishing professionals.

Room 207, Level 2

F148. The Right First Book: Agents & Editors Discuss the Opportunities & Challenges of Debut Fiction. (Philip Gerard, Sarah Bowlin, Laura Tisdel, Michelle Brower, Jeff Kleinman) Writing and publishing a first book can be an amazing and rewarding endeavor, but it can often seem frustrating. What leads certain debuts to achieve literary success while others never get past the slush pile? This panel discusses the planning that goes into publishing a first book, which elements agents and editors most look for when they are deciding to take on a first-time author, and what makes any debut stand out from the crowd.

Room 208, Level 2

F149. Art of the Ending. (Miles Harvey , Amy Hempel, Michele Morano, William Lychack, Scott Blackwood ) All writers struggle with endings—those heady, cumulative moments in which events, characters, and readers are ushered out the door, forever changed. This panel—which includes three fiction writers, an essayist, and a journalist—will look at pitfalls and possibilities of bringing a narrative to a successful conclusion. It will also explore the clash between the writer’s vision and the audience’s expectations about endings, and examine how ideas about narrative closure are continuing to change.

Room 209, Level 2

F150. Intersecting Lineages: Poets of Color on Cross-Community Collaboration. (Ching-In Chen, Sherwin Bitsui, Celeste Guzman Mendoza, Hayan Charara, Kevin Simmonds) Inspired by collaboration between organizations mentoring poets of color (Cave Canem, Kundiman, and Canto Mundo), poets from indigenous, African American, Arab American, Asian American, and Latina/o communities will discuss creative exchange and solidarity amongst writers of color and their communities. They will read work by ancestor poets considered outside of their self-identified communities and talk about how their work benefits from this productive hybrid fertilization.

Room 210, Level 2

F151. Illness as Muse: Ten Years of the Bellevue Literary Review. (Rafael Campo, Hal Sirowitz, David Oshinsky, Jacob Freedman, Amanda Auchter) The Bellevue Literary Review is the first literary journal to be published from a medical center. Based in the oldest public hospital in the country, and perhaps the most legendary, the BLR has ushered in an entire field of literary medical writing. Now at the ten-year mark, the BLR illuminates the human condition through the prism of health and healing, illness and disease, and relationships to the body and mind. Come hear BLR writers explore these themes via fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Room 302/304, Level 3

F152. Why There Are Words Literary Reading Series Showcases Boston Writers. (Peg Alford Pursell, Christopher Castellani, Tracy Winn, Pablo Medina, Joan Wickersham) The reading series takes place monthly in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing an important way for writers to reach audiences. Writers are established and emerging authors selected via submissions. Readings are not tied to book releases (and thus, not marketing decisions); the series operates on the premise that good writing always needs to be heard. This panel features four Boston area authors reading fiction.

Room 303, Level 3

F153. Sea Change: Writing Remade Off the New England Coast. (Robin Beth Schaer, Amber Dermont, Elyssa East, Anna Solomon, Amy Brill) Writers from Herman Melville to Charles Olson have gazed from the New England shore and set out to sea, under both real and imagined sails. Their stories follow a coast stippled with wrecks, shipyards, and salty ports, pursuing the ships of slaves, pilgrims, pirates, and whalers. This panel will explore the sea’s tidal pull on imagination: the myths of its vast expanse, the reflection of the human psyche in its surface, and the history of politics, culture, commerce, and exploration it carries.

Room 305, Level 3

F154. Things We Know We Love: The Poems and Influence of Nâzim Hikmet. (Randy Blasing, Mutlu Konuk Blasing, David Wojahn, Dorianne Laux, Sidney Wade) Nâzim Hikmet (1902–1963), Turkey’s foremost modern poet, is almost as beloved a figure abroad as he is in his homeland, where he was imprisoned for many years for political dissent before being exiled. Hikmet is revered for his compassion, his lyricism, and his ability to write poems both intimate and panoramic. Among his many enthusiasts in the United States are this panel’s participants, who will discuss his life, his most essential poems, and his impact on their own work.

Room 306, Level 3

F155. Page Meets Stage. (Taylor Mali, Martín Espada, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Reginald Gibson) Taylor Mali returns to AWP with another sample of the popular series from the Bowery Poetry Club. Reading back and forth, poem for poem, page-oriented poets share the stage with more performative spoken word artists in an effort to discover how poetry thrives between the two surfaces of page and stage. An ongoing sonic conversation rather than a literary or bardic competition, Page Meets Stage has built a vital bridge between two camps that keep forgetting they live under the same tent.

Room 308, Level 3

F156. Stalking the Golem: The Prague Summer Program’s 20th Anniversay. (Richard Katrovas, Jaimy Gordon, Melinda Moustakis, T. Geronimo Johnson, Robert Eversz) Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Prague Summer Program, faculty and former students discuss the relation of the study-abroad experience to the pedagogy of creative writing. The panel discusses the evolution of the structure of the PSP, as well as the institutional interface, over time, between American institutions and the foreign entities with whom they partner. We explore how such programs as the PSP serve as points of confluence for American and host literary cultures.

Room 309, Level 3

F157. Post Black? Culture, Craft, and Race in Verse. (Mitchell L H Douglas, Douglas Kearney, Evie Shockley, Khadijah Queen, Randall Horton) At AWP 2012, a panel of white identified poets examined race in poetry. But what do black poets, often accused of limiting the scope of their poems to race, have to say? Five award-winning writers offer their take on race in verse, and why they do or don’t incorporate the nonmonolithic tendencies of blackness from their book titles: Pitch Dark Anarchy, the new black, Black Peculiar, and \blak\ \al-f bet\, to the genesis of their poems and their rearranging of the narrative of “Blackness.”

Room 310, Level 3

F158. The Person Behind You: A Reading of Essays in the Second Person. (Kim Dana Kupperman, Michelle Auerbach, Brian Hoover, Dustin Beall Smith, Rachel Yoder) The second-person point of view can be alluring and tricky, confrontational and seductive, confessional and evasive. What impulses compel us to write in second person, and what challenges does it present to the writer and/or reader? This reading, presented by Welcome Table Press, will feature essays that use the second-person point of view as distancing reflection of a past self, instructional voice, invitation to the reader, and epistolary address. An author Q&A will follow the reading.

Room 312, Level 3

F159. Show and Tell: Audio and Video Production 101. (Jeffrey Lependorf) CLMP’s Executive Director demonstrates simple techniques and best practices for creating audio and video recordings for use on websites, in digital marketing materials, and for embedding in enhanced ebooks.

Room 313, Level 3

F160. Yoga and the Life of the Writer. (Krista Katrovas, Melissa Pritchard, Pam Uschuk, Suzanne Roberts, Andrea England) We’ll give brief testimonials regarding our Yoga practices and discuss how meditation as well as physical aspects of Yoga enhance writing/reading lives. The session concludes with demonstrations of chanting and chair Yoga, the latter offering practical, safe techniques, for counteracting the effects of sitting still for long periods. The audience is encouraged to participate. Career status is irrelevant to this panel, which will consist of writers/Yoginis at different stages of their careers.

Alice Hoffman Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall D, Level 2

BF22. New Poetry from Omnidawn. (Rusty Morrison, Brian Teare, Lynn Xu, Michelle Taransky, Sarah Gridley) Please join Omnidawn for a reading to celebrate our Spring 2013 poetry titles! The readers will be Sarah Gridley, author of Loom; Michele Taransky, author of Sorry Was In the Woods; Brian Teare, author of Companion Grasses; and Lynn Xu, author of Debts & Lessons. The readers will be introduced by Rusty Morrison, a co-publisher of Omnidawn, who will say a few words about the press. Q&A will follow the readings.

Patricia Olson Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall A, Plaza Level

BF23. A Reading by Four Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Authors. (Jon Tribble, Cynthia Huntington, Moira Linehan, Tyler Mills, Wally Swist) Two Open Competition winners, Moira Linehan and Wally Swist, one First Book Award winner, Tyler Mills, and one Editor’s Selection author, Cynthia Huntington, will read from their works published in the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry from Southern Illinois University Press. The reading will be moderated by series editor Jon Tribble.

12:00 noon to 1:15 p.m.

Room 101, Plaza Level

F161. Experimental Fiction Today. (John Parras, Daniel Green, Alissa Nutting, Ted Pelton, M. Bartley Seigel) Editors, writers, critics, and teachers discuss recent trends in experimental fiction and how such work enriches the publishing landscape, the creative writing workshop, and the direction and function of literature itself. What are some of the more exciting trends in innovative fiction? What are the special challenges and rewards for writers testing fiction’s limits? How does fabulist work work? If all literature is innovative, what distinguishes the experimental from other types of fiction?

Room 102, Plaza Level

F162. The New Workshop: Literary Community through Pedagogical Innovation, Sponsored by Kundiman. (Sarah Gambito, Regie Cabico, Paisley Rekdal, Myung Mi Kim) Four acclaimed Asian American poets read new work and discuss how literary community and innovation in pedagogy are mutually reinforcing. How does one write toward a realizing of a literary community? These three poets, all whom have served as Kundiman faculty members, offer multiple strategies on how to disrupt traditional paradigms of workshop and invite questions of identity and social community into a writer’s practice and life.

Room 103, Plaza Level

F163. Crossing Boundaries: Landscapes of Childhood and Adolescence. (Julia Green, Lucy Christopher, Steve Voake, Gayle Brandeis, Kerry Madden) The setting for a novel can be so much more than the place where events happen. This panel of award-winning novelists for young people from the UK, USA, and Australia explores different ways place is used in fiction for and about adolescents, looking at the literal and metaphorical use of liminal landscapes such as the Australian desert, urban wasteland, wilderness, coasts, and islands from three continents.

Room 104, Plaza Level

F164. The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide to the Composition Classroom. (Michelle Burke, Erica Dawson, Heather Kirn Lanier, Donald Dunbar, S. Whitney Holmes) Can creative writers enjoy teaching composition? In this panel, writers from a wide range of pedagogical contexts will discuss how they’ve successfully brought creative writing into the composition classroom. Panelists will present strategies such as using the lyric essay to inspire aesthetic engagement with prose or the Oulipo poem to cultivate linguistic playfulness. This panel will conclude with a discussion of the symbiotic relationship between creative writing and composition.

Room 105, Plaza Level

F165. Group 18: 25 Years of Poetry, Workshop, and Community. (Margaret Lloyd, Doug Anderson, Richard Michelson, Anne Woodhull, Bill O’Connell) Group 18, a poetry group based in Northampton, Massachusetts, founded originally by Jack Gilbert, Linda Gregg, and Jim Finnegan began meeting weekly over twenty-five years ago. Many of its early members are still active. This past year, to celebrate the group’s 25th anniversary, Open Field Press published an anthology of its members, past and present. This event will include a reading of poets in the anthology, a discussion of Group 18’s methodology, and the group’s contribution to the Northampton area.

Room 107, Plaza Level

F166. 2012/2013 Writers’ Conferences & Centers Meeting. An opportunity for members of Writers’ Conferences & Centers to meet one another and the staff of AWP to discuss issues pertinent to building a strong community of WC&C programs.

Room 108, Plaza Level

F167. WHIM Old School Indian Reading. (Monty Campbell, Jr., Barbara Mann, Paul Hapenny, Stephanie Elliott, Larry S Mann) Meet the new Indian Movement: W.H.I.M. (Woodlands Horizon Indian Movement for the politically correct and Woodlands Hotties Indian Movement for those who can still laugh). This multi-genre reading panel is comprised of Old School Woodlands Indians who will read work rooted in their unique history and reflective of place and spirit of place, displacement, complexity of identity, and remaining free. This event will be moderated by Susan Deer Cloud.

Room 109, Plaza Level

F168. The Poet Magician: Writing Out of Single Motherhood. (Marcela Sulak, Mairéad Byrne, Khadijah Queen, Dairena Ní Chinnéide, Leah Souffrant) Independent parenting is a culturally marginal activity with great influence on what we imagine and give life to in our poetry. Our international panel discusses how our hybrid situation resonates with hybrid poetic genres, compelling us to draw from different genres of writing and visual art. We will juxtapose the idea of aloneness and the lyric with the inherently communal situation of parenting and talk about the influences of our single-mother heroes Derricotte, Rukeyser, Oliver, and DiPrima.

Room 110, Plaza Level

F169. Living it Up to Write it Down. (Michael Pearson, Philip Gerard, Joanna Eleftheriou, Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno) For Thoreau, living in his cabin in the woods for two years was an experiment in living. Such experiments are not uncommon for nonfiction writers—who engage in an experience to make a story. James Boswell, E. B. White, Hunter S. Thompson, George Plimpton, William Least Heat-Moon, Sue Hubbell, Joan Didion, Bill Bryson, David Foster Wallace, Ted Conover, and many others could be part of a long list of writers who at one time or another made an experience in the hopes of shaping a narrative. The writers on this panel—through examples from their own writing—will discuss or dramatize how such experimentations can lead to story.

Room 111, Plaza Level

F170. 1963: 50 Years Later. (Jeffrey McDaniel, Rachel Zucker, Thomas Lux, Amy Gerstler) 1963 was a year of crossroads and convergences in American poetry, a year that not only confirms American poetry’s lineage, but also highlights the various directions American poetry would go in the coming decades. Five contemporary poets discuss vital books published or written in ’63, including The Moving Target (Merwin), Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law (Rich), The Branch Will Not Break (James Wright), Ariel (Plath), and books by Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Creeley, Anne Sexton, WC Williams, and others.

Room 200, Level 2

F171. Does the World Need Another Literary Magazine? (Tom Bligh, Catherine Dent, Dave Essinger, Karolina Gajdeczka, E. Ethelbert Miller) Undergraduate literary journals encourage students to take responsibility for the shape and form of their work and to learn about publishing through firsthand exposure to the process. Panelists share unconventional wisdom on ways to help print and online journals survive and thrive while sustaining enthusiasm and maintaining high standards. Editors discuss the advantages to joining the Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors (FUSE) and explain how to start your own FUSE chapter.

Room 201, Level 2

F172. Applying for a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. (Amy Stolls, Ira Silverberg, Eleanor Steele) This session is geared toward individuals interested in applying for an NEA fellowship in poetry or prose. Staff members from the NEA’s Literature Division will discuss and advise on all aspects of the program, from submitting an application to selecting the winners. Plenty of time will be allotted for questions.

Room 202, Level 2

F173. How to Build a Successful Kickstarter Campaign for Your Publishing Project. (Meaghan O’Connell, Benjamin Samuel, Mat Honan, Joshua Mandelbaum, Laurie Ochoa) Kickstarter moderates a panel of editors from Electric Literature, Words Without Borders, Slake, Longshot, and Tomorrow Magazine for an instructional and informational session on developing a successful Kickstarter campaign for your periodical or publishing project. We’ll walk you through the process step by step and discuss how to best represent your brand, set a fundraising goal, shoot a video, create rewards, engage backers, and promote your campaign.

Room 203, Level 2

F174. Finding Money, Time, and a Place to Create: Upbeat News in a Down Economy. (Mira Bartók , Dan Blask, Mary Sherman, Joshua Glenn, Jung H. Yun) Every writer—from emerging and mid-career to established—needs three basic things: money, time, and a place to work. In this lively, informative session, panelists discuss what kinds of grants, fellowships, and international residencies exist, how to find them, and practical tips on the application process. We also offer innovative ways to fund non-mainstream writing projects and interdisciplinary collaborations. Plenty of time allotted for questions afterwards.

Room 204, Plaza Level

F175. Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry. (Dorothea Lasky, Michael Cirelli, Martin Farawell, Terry Blackhawk, Eileen Myles) Contributors to a new book focused on exciting young people about poetry will talk about their experiences with such poetry programs as InsideOut Literary Arts Project and the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and Poetry Program. The discussion will provide hands-on advice to those interested in creating poetry programming for kids both in classrooms and in nontraditional settings, and will cover topics such as what to expect, how to plan, and where to find poetry resources.

Room 206, Level 2

F176. No Way Out, Or Is There?: Innovations in Endings. (Elizabeth Poliner, David Huddle, Jean McGarry, Marjorie Sandor) The end of the story is often a problem for fiction writers. In our quest for the inevitable ending, for example, we don’t want to be predictable. By examining works of contemporary fiction, this panel will explore a variety of ways that writers such as Nabokov, Munro, and Taylor have avoided the problem of predictability by introducing innovative resolutions, including double endings and submersions and subversions of resolution.

Room 207, Level 3

F177. Poets Look Back to Their First Books: Friends Celebrate 20th Anniversary of Tipping Point. (Fred Marchant, David Rivard, Joan Houlihan, Laura McCullough) Five seasoned poets will read from their first books, discussing how they broke into print, what they learned, and how that book shaped the career that followed. What makes a book’s appeal last? What would they do differently? How can a poet keep momentum after that first book publication? What is the role of community in the poet’s survival? These and other questions will be answered! This event will be moderated by Nick Flynn.

Room 208, Level 2

F178. A Congeries of Voices: Vernacular and Diction in Contemporary Poetry. (Carmen Gimenez Smith, Joanna Fuhrman, Samuel Amadon, Lara Glenum, Rodrigo Toscano) Many contemporary poets appropriate the lexicon and syntax of foreign or marginal languages, often adopting the slang of a particular historical moment. These linguistic choices may be charged with political or cultural resistance, or they may be purely aesthetic. This panel will discuss the various possibilities and implications of appropriating and subverting foreign or marginal dictions in poems and what these explorations mean to the future of poetry.

Room 209, Level 2

F179. Bay City Rollers: A Reading by Bay Area MFA Faculty. (Andrew Altschul, Cornelia Nixon, Tom Barbash, Lysley Tenorio, Peter Orner) The San Francisco Bay Area is home to one of the country’s most dynamic literary communities, with a concentration of writers, publishers, and bookstores second only to New York. The New York Times calls San Francisco a city of readers who seem to view books not only as a pleasure, but as a cause, and the region’s MFA programs reflect this active, diverse community. Come hear readings by the innovative, award-winning fiction writers who teach in these programs.

Room 210, Level 2

F180. The Urge Toward Memoir. (Elisabeth Schmitz, Jill Kneerim, Michael Thomas, Jeanette Winterson, Lily King) Novelists Jeanette Winterson, Emily Raboteau, Michael Thomas, agent Jill Kneerim, and editor Elisabeth Schmitz discuss the writer’s urge toward memoir. What defines memoir and is it any more “true” or less creative a process than fiction? Panelists will talk about a favorite memoir and the forms they invented for their own.

Room 302/304, Level 3

F181. A Tribute to Seamus Heaney. (Elise Paschen, Frank Bidart, Askold Melnyczuk, Tom Sleigh, Tracy K. Smith) This tribute celebrates the work of Seamus Heaney, one of the major poets of our time. Heaney, the author of more than twenty volumes of poetry, essays, and translations, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His most recent books include Human Chain and District and Circle, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize. This panel of colleagues, friends, and former students, who knew Heaney during his “Boston” years, will share anecdotes, offer critical analyses, and read from his poetry and prose.

Room 303, Level 3

F182. How to Catch a Pair of Flying Hands: A Reading by Deaf Writers. (Raymond Luczak, Kristen Harmon, Allison Polk, Kristen Ringman) How many deaf writers do you know? One, two? No? How about four? These deaf published writers welcome you with their poems, stories, and memoir excerpts on being treated differently. Despite recent bestsellers featuring deaf characters by hearing writers, the media rarely listens to deaf writers themselves. These writers provide a needed corrective to the stereotyping of deafness and the clichéd symbolism of silence.

Room 305, Level 3

F183. High Treason: Translating Contemporary Cuban Poetry. (Katherine Hedeen, Kristin Dykstra, Víctor Rodríguez Núnez, Mark Weiss, Christopher Winks) Translating contemporary Cuban poetry is a challenging yet rewarding task. Challenging because the longstanding political strife between Cuba and the US has polarized authors and critics, limited scholarly objectivity, reduced bibliographical sources, and restricted travel. Rewarding because it’s some of the best poetry in the Spanish language. In addition to discussing these topics, the panel includes a bilingual reading of representative poets from the island.

Room 306, Level 3

F184. Willow Books Showcase. (Antoinette Brim, Gary Lilley, Arisa White, Reginald Flood, Quraysh Ali Lansana) Willow Books will showcase its 2012-2013 roster with poets Frank X Walker (Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers), Arisa White (A Penny Saved), Reginald Flood (Coffle) and Quraysh Ali Lansana (mystic turfs). These poets will share their work and engage in a question and answer period about the significance and emergence of Willow Books in the literary world. The mission of Willow Books is to develop, publish, and promote authors typically underrepresented in the literary market.

Room 308, Level 3

F185. The Misunderstood Genre: Where Do Screenplays Fit in the Literary World? (Lesley Tye, Kevin Boon, Diane Lake, Elisabeth Nonas) Like the stage play, the screenplay is a blueprint for a production, yet unlike a play, it is rarely studied through a literary lens. This panel will discuss the merits of the screenplay as literature, both from an academic and craft standpoint. How is language used to infer cinematic tools, while still creating a piece that is as enthralling to read as any other genre? Can screenwriters use literary devices? How do they handle point of view? These questions and more will be explored.

Room 309, Level 3

F186. A Tribute to Edith Pearlman. (Alice Mattison, Rosellen Brown, C. Michael Curtis, Robert Fogarty, Roxana Robinson) With her fourth book, Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories, Edith Pearlman at last received the recognition that her masterly short stories have long deserved. She was awarded the 2011 PEN/Malamud for excellence in the art of short fiction, and Binocular Vision, which showcases more than thirty years’ worth of her fiction, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and the Story Prize. This panel brings together editors from the Atlantic and the Antioch Review, along with fellow writers, to honor one of our greatest living story writers, who has been called an absolute master of the form by T. C. Boyle, and whose stories, according to Ann Patchett, belong beside those of John Updike and Alice Munro.

Room 310, Level 3

F187. Pitt Poetry Series Reading. (Ed Ochester, Richard Blanco, Martha Collins, Chard deNiord) Four New England poets with recent books in the Pitt Poetry Series present readings of their work.

Room 312, Level 3

F188. Authors Who Rock Social Media to Sell Books. (Cynthia Hartwig, Seth Harwood, Debbie Ridpath Ohi) Seth Harwood explains how garnering one million online downloads spread his Jack Palm crime series worldwide. Debbie Ohi, founder of Inkspot, the first website for writers, talks about selling two Scribner contracts. Fiction writer Cynthia Hartwig of Two Pens, who teaches writers how to attract a following online, moderates.

Room 313, Level 3

F189. A Rising Tide Floats All Boats: Best Practices for Teaching Multilevel Workshops. (Jane Lin, Rebecca Seiferle, Daryl Farmer, Jason Schneiderman, Carrie Jerrell) A creative writing workshop assumes that students can and should learn from each other, but what happens when the students arrive with unequal backgrounds and skill levels? How can a teacher foster growth in all students, rather than teaching to the lowest common denominator? Panelists share methods and practical advice for creating a classroom in which advanced students can make significant progress while beginning students build a foundation and are taught to offer substantive critiques.

Alice Hoffman Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall D, Level 2

BF24. Antioch Comes to Boston: A Celebration of the MFA in Creative Writing Program of Antioch University Los Angeles. (Bernadette Murphy, Elaina M. Ellis, Seth Fischer, Peter Nichols, Daniel Jose Older) Two alumni and two current MFA students will read new work in celebration of the achievements of the students and graduates of AULA’s low-residency MFA in creative writing program. Moderated by MFA core faculty Bernadette Murphy.

Patricia Olson Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall A, Plaza Level

BF25. A Poetry Reading by Four of Ireland’s Most Dynamic Younger Poets. (Jessie Lendennie, Colm Keegan, Anne Fitzgerald, Kevin Higgins) Salmon Poetry hosts a poetry reading by four of Ireland’s most dynamic young poets.

1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Room 101, Plaza Level

F190. Options of the I: The Post-Memoir Memoir. (Alex Lemon, Lia Purpura, Brian Christian, Nin Andrews) AGNI marks its 40th birthday with an exploration of personal writing in the age of the complexified I. Panelists will consider issues of obliquity, fragmentation, collage, and counterpoint, truth-telling, personae, tonal ventriloquism, and other approaches that conduce to projecting new configurations of the contemplative and narrative self. Moderated by Sven Birkerts.

Room 102, Plaza Level

F191. Getting a Read on Things: Assessing Literary Engagement. (Jeffrey Lependorf, Jocelyn Hale, Harold Augenbraum, Ken Chen) At the same time that foundation funding for literary organizations has been shrinking, other art fields have been developing new and exciting methods of assessing engagement. Members of the Working Group on Assessing Lit Engagement share what they’ve been doing to ensure that literature has its place at the funding table.

Room 103, Plaza Level

F192. How to Break into Book Reviewing. (Stephen Burt, Dan Kois, Karen Long, Eric Lorberer, Parul Sehgal) Who gets to write book reviews, and where, and why? This panel of reviewers who are also editors will explain and demystify the ways that book reviews come into being. They’ll describe how established writers, new writers, editors, periodicals, and book publishers interact; how assignments get made; and who (if anyone) gets paid. They’ll consider what makes a review—and a reviewer—stand out, and how writers new to this kind of work might discover in it a vocation or even a profession.

Room 104, Plaza Level

F193. Novel Approaches: Book-length Fiction in the Classroom. (Tyler McMahon, Peter Mountford, Kristiana Kahakauwila, David Bajo , Joshua Mohr) This panel will start with the assumption—as borne out through recent surveys, articles, and AWP panels—that the traditional fiction workshop is designed with short stories in mind. Several novelists will discuss their experiences—as both teachers and students—working with novels in writing courses. They will discuss alternative practices and approaches that have worked for them. The conversation will address not only graduate programs, but also courses for undergraduates and communities.

Room 105, Plaza Level

F194. Creative Nonfiction Pedagogy: New Findings from the Field. (Suzanne Cope, Christin Geall, Jan Donley, Stuart Horwitz) This panel features a recent study of approaches to teaching CNF in undergraduate, graduate, and community-based classes. Moderated by Dr. Suzanne Cope, lead researcher in the first participant-based study of CNF instruction for adults, panelists will reflect upon their pedagogy and influences. The conversation will revolve around the findings from the study, including the benefit of mentors and communities of practice, and the adaptation of instruction for various groups.

Room 107, Plaza Level

F195. A Reading by the 2011 AWP Award Series Winners. (Marcia Aldrich, Kirstin Scott, Laura Read, Corinna Vallanatos) A reading featuring AWP’s 2011 Award Series winners Marcia Aldrich, Laura Read, Kirstin Scott, and Corinna Vallianatos.

Room 108, Plaza Level

F196. The Low-Residency MFA Experience: An Alumni Perspective. (Erin Underwood, Ann E. Michael, Ian Williams, Janet Pocorobba, Sandra McDonald) Low-residency MFA programs are on the rise. This panel features an alumni perspective on the educational and post MFA low-residency experience. We will examine how well the low-res model fits our needs as well as our programs’ resources for alumni, the development of alumni communities, and the reality of establishing a publishing or academic career. We will also look at the overall value of the experience on a personal, artistic, and professional level. A Q&A session will follow.

Room 109, Plaza Level

F197. Poetry & Librarianship: Collection Challenges. (Jessica Smith, Judah Rubin, Dan Coffey, Elise Ficarra, Melissa Eleftherion Carr) Poet-Librarians will discuss the challenges of collecting, archiving, and digitizing literary texts and recordings, including the barriers to collecting small press materials, and propose solutions that will allow libraries to continue to collect literary objects regardless of medium. Of particular interest to small press publishers, book artists, archivists, and librarians.

Room 110, Plaza Level

F198. Keeping the Difficult Balance: The Poetry of Richard Wilbur. (Jason Gray, Andrew Hudgins, Joshua Mehigan, Natalie Shapero, Catherine Tufariello) Richard Wilbur has been America’s premiere metrical stylist since the mid-20th century. A master poet and gifted translator, especially the drama of Molière, his work balances light and dark, form and content, like no other poet writing today. This panel will discuss, analyze, and celebrate the poetry of Richard Wilbur, twice-winner of the Pulitzer Prize, whose first book, The Beautiful Changes, marks its 65th anniversary in 2012.

Room 111, Plaza Level

F199. Turning in Their Graves: Researching, Imagining, and Shaping Our Ancestors’ Stories. (Rebecca McClanahan, Lee Martin, Mary Clearman Blew, Suzanne Berne, Sharon DeBartolo Carmack) Five authors, including a Certified Genealogist, share their varied experiences of writing about family and ancestral roots, offering suggestions for every stage of the journey: accessing archival sources; sifting through the facts to discover meaning, theme, and universal truths; deciding if and when to invent or fictionalize; shaping the material into an artful text; and dealing with the consequences of the published work.

Room 200, Level 2

F200. Making the Case for Community Outreach / Service as a Part of the MFA Experience. (Eric Heald-Webb, Jessica Kinnison, Dora Malech, Nina Buckless, Amana C. Katora) As the role of graduate writing programs has expanded beyond the teaching of writing, service programs have become one way to offer graduate students experience in both teaching and community outreach. In this session, panelists who are closely involved with such community outreach organizations will reflect on the benefits to themselves, their graduate program, and their community, in order to make a case for formalizing Community Outreach/Service Programs as a part of the MFA experience.

Room 201, Level 2

F201. A Lotus Blossom in the Emerald Necklace. (Afaa M. Weaver, Mindy Zhang, Yibing Huang (Mai Mang), Eleanor Goodman, Ao Wang) This panel will consist of presentations by poets and translators discussing influences of the Simmons International Chinese Poetry Conference on their own work and the larger world of contemporary Chinese and American poetry. This conference held at Simmons College on the Fenway is the only one of its organizational type ever held in the United States.

Room 202, Level 2

F202. Where Marketing Meets Development: Who Said Fundraising’s Not Fun? (Whitney Scharer, Stewart Moss, Daniel Johnson, Andrea Dupree) Representatives of renowned nonprofit literary organizations—The Writer’s Center, Lighthouse Writers, 826Boston and Grub Street—speak about the intersection of marketing and fundraising for literary organizations, and how development efforts can create community, promote an organization’s programming and services, and be innovative and fun rather than daunting.

Room 203, Level 2

F203. The Debut Voices of UNCW’s Lookout Books. (Emily Louise Smith, Edith Pearlman, John Rybicki, Ben Miller) In two short years, UNCW’s Lookout Books has grown from debut to award-winning literary imprint. Join publisher Emily Louise Smith and acclaimed Lookout alumni Edith Pearlman and Steve Almond as they introduce the newest voices on Lookout’s list: poet John Rybicki (When All the World Is Old) and memoirist Ben Miller (River Bend Chronicle). Authors will read from their books and discuss how signing with an upstart press committed to literary discovery can yield big dividends.

Room 204, Level 2

F204. What Poets Learn When They Translate. (Zack Rogow, Idra Novey, Chana Bloch, Bill Zavatsky) Poets discuss what they learn from the writers they translate and from the process of translation. Chana Bloch’s translations include The Song of Songs and books by Yehuda Amichai and Dahlia Ravikovitch. 2011 National Poetry Series winner Idra Novey has translated Clarice Lispector and Paulo Henriques Britto. Zack Rogow’s translations include Breton, Colette, and George Sand; and collaborations from Urdu and Romanian. Bill Zavatsky has translated Breton, Desnos, Larbaud, and Gomez de la Serna.

Room 206, Level 2

F205. A Point of View on A Point of View. (Daniel Menaker, Amy Hempel, Bret Anthony Johnston) Point of view is the lens through which a writer conveys the vision of a story. But what is it about point of view that makes an editor pick an unknown writer out of a pile of unsolicited submissions? And what is it about point of view that makes a series of short stories cohere into an original and memorable collection? In A Point of View on A Point of View, distinguished editor Daniel Menaker and much-anthologized writers Amy Hempel and Bret Anthony Johnston turn a lens on the lens itself.

Room 207, Level 2

F206. CYA Publishing Today, Sponsored by the Loft Literary Center. (Brian Malloy, Arthur A. Levine, Justin Chanda) Two leading publishers of children’s, middle-grade, and young adult literature engage in a conversation about the state of children’s publishing today. Arthur A. Levine, editor and publisher at Scholastic Press and Arthur A. Levine Books, and Justin Chanda, publisher of Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, will be featured in a dialogue moderated by award-winning young adult novelist Brian Malloy.

Room 208, Level 2

F207. Keeping Secrets: What Editors Don’t Tell Writers / What Writers Won’t Tell Their Editors. (Colin Harrison, Deb Futter, Christopher Coake, Scott Raab, Barry Harbaugh ) From the acceptance of a book manuscript to its publication date (and, with any luck, well beyond), a book’s editor is its writer’s partner, as invested in the outcome as the writer him/herself—and only slightly more objective. This complex relationship is a kind of marriage, which begins with a courtship (How much do you like me? Are you the right one for me?) and ultimately becomes, at its best, a true meeting of minds—and hearts. Here, we look closely at the relationship and its limitations.

Room 209, Level 2

F208. Editors as Readers as Writers. (Laura Julier, Leonora Smith, Brenda Miller, Richard Hackler, Kimberly Tweedale) As manuscript reviewers for Fourth Genre, we find some essays particularly appealing because they strike a writerly cord, inviting us to read as writers, and to enter into conversations by writing our own creative nonfiction for which these manuscripts are touchstones. Two essayists whose work will appear in Fourth Genre will read; members of Fourth Genre’s editorial board—a faculty member and an undergraduate—will make this conversation visible by reading the pieces that were thus inspired.

Room 210, Level 2

F209. The Weathergirl Reading. (Iris Gomez, Jenna Blum, Joy Castro) How do the metaphors of natural catastrophe illuminate the dangers of loving someone with a mental illness—or of loving oneself in struggle with such illness? Novelists Iris Gomez, Jenna Blum, and Joy Castro take on the forces of nature in Try to Remember, where a Latina tries to save her schizophrenic father while navigating an unfamiliar culture, The Stormchasers, where a twin sister chases Midwestern tornadoes to save her bipolar brother from dangerous manic impulses, and in the post-Katrina thriller Hell or High Water, which explores the detritus of sexual assault through a victim’s PTSD.

Room 302/304, Level 3

F210. A Centenary Celebration of Muriel Rukeyser, Sponsored by Paris Press. (Jan Freeman, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, Olga Broumas, Michael S. Harper) This tribute celebrates the life and work of Muriel Rukeyser. Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, Michael Harper, and Olga Broumas speak about Rukeyser’s groundbreaking writing and her influence on their own work and the literature of diverse and influential writers of our time. Each poet reads one of his or her own poems inspired by Muriel Rukeyser; and each reads their favorite Rukeyser poem and passages from her book of essays, The Life of Poetry. Jan Freeman introduces and moderates the tribute.

Room 303, Level 3

F211. Finding the Right Word: Publishing Translations. (CJ Evans, M Mark, Sidney Wade) For editors, there are a number of considerations that go into evaluating poetry in translation that are distinct from evaluating poetry originally written in English. Editors from four leading poetry venues discuss both the nuts and bolts of preparing a translation submission and the aesthetic and craft considerations that go into deciding whether a translation makes it into their pages. This panel guides translators on the best practices of choosing, translating, and submitting their work.

Room 305, Level 3

F212. Home/Land: Inner Landscapes and Outer Geographies in the Work of Native Northeast Poets. (Mihku Paul, Michael LeBlanc, Cheryl Savageau, Lisa Brooks) This event will examine and discuss the origin and persistence of internal topographies connected to cultural landscapes expressed in the poetry of Native writers from Eastern Woodland tribes. The panel will consider possible explanations for these persistent elements, including the concept that, for Native writers, the inner landscape has strenthened and expanded in correlation with the loss of tribal homelands. Both scholarly and creative perspectives will be shared.

Room 306, Level 3

F213. 40 Years of Poetry from Alice James Books: A Poetry Reading. (Carey Salerno, Brian Turner, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, Shara McCallum) A poetry reading celebrating forty years of poetry published by Alice James Books. Three best-selling AJB authors will read from their work: Brian Turner (Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise), Reginald Dwayne Betts (Shahid Reads His Own Palm),and Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno (Slamming Open the Door). AJB executive director Carey Salerno will moderate.

Room 308, Level 3

F214. Faithful Niche or Faithful Kitsch? The Necessity of Christian Literary Publishing. (Sarah Wells, Marci Rae Johnson, Thom Caraway, Jeff Gundy, Gregory Wolfe) Why are Christian literary publishers necessary? Editors from Image, Rock & Sling, WordFarm, and Cascadia discuss the role Christian literary publishers play in contemporary literature, answering questions such as: What is the range of Christian literary writing? How do editors balance their literary and spiritual/theological concerns? What literary qualities set this work apart from what’s typically thought of as Christian writing? and Who is the audience for Christian literary writing?

Room 309, Level 3

F215. Micro Macro: Public and Private Poetic Histories. (Tess Taylor, Garrett Hongo, David Mason, Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, Hilda Raz) Before there was history, there was poetry, which has played a crucial role in our attempts at civilizational record keeping. In an era that draws a sharp division between poetry and the scholarly realm of history, what does it mean for history to be poetic, or for poetry to be historical? How does poetry navigate the divide between the personal and the collective? This panel will explore how poets use history (or history uses poets) to explore the intersection of public and private life.

Room 310, Level 3

F216. Reading the Radical: Spoken Word In & From Communities of Color. (Bao Phi, Giles Li, Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Lorena Duarte, Tara Betts) Combining a commitment to social justice with artistic excellence, The Loft’s innovative Equilibrium series has built and connected local and national communities of color through the art of spoken word. Over ten years, EQ has served thousands of artists and audience members, and was one of the few arts organizations to ever be awarded an MCN Anti-Racism Initiative Award. This performance will feature past poets who have featured at Equilibrium from all over the country.

Room 312, Level 3

F217. Not Just a Blog: How Publishers and Writers Can—and Should—Use Tumblr to Create and Promote. (Fernanda Diaz, Rachel Fershleiser, Michele Legro, Ryan Chapman, Miles Klee) This panel aims to demystify Tumblr for the first-time user and outline good Tumblr practices for more seasoned members. Panelists will talk about the rewards—and the challenges—of running a successful Tumblr that helps publishers and writers promote their work, interact with readers, and contribute to the growing literary community on the site.

Room 313, Level 3

F218. Avoiding Crises From the Get-Go: How to Create a Nourishing Workshop Climate. (Wendy Barker, Catherine Bowman, Kevin Clark, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Barbara Hamby) As a follow-up to the 2012 panel’s intense discussion on handling “tough subjects” in the workshop, we’ll offer practical, hands-on ways of beginning a creative writing workshop so that crises, emotional melt-downs, and disturbing behaviors don’t erupt as the semester progresses. Experienced teachers will offer examples of a variety of successful techniques and will invite questions and discussion from the audience.

Alice Hoffman Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall D, Level 2

BF26. Saturnalia Books Poetry Reading. (Henry Israeli, Hadara Bar-Nadav, Sarah Vap, Catherine Pierce, Tanya Larkin) Join independent poetry publisher Saturnalia Books for a reading with award-winning authors Hadara Bar-Nadav, Sarah Vap, Catherine Pierce, and Tanya Larkin.

Patricia Olson Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall A, Plaza Level

BF27. Sarah Lawrence College Reading. (Marie Howe, Stephen O'Connor, Melissa Febos, Dennis Nurkse) Sarah Lawrence College faculty and alumni reading. Moderated by Patricia Dunn.

3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.

Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Level 2

F219. Don DeLillo & Dana Spiotta: A Reading and Conversation, Sponsored by The Center for Fiction. (Noreen Tomassi, Don DeLillo, Dana Spiotta) Celebrated novelists Don DeLillo, author of Underworld, Libra, and White Noise, and Dana Spiotta, author of Stone Arabia, present readings, to be followed by a discussion moderated by Noreen Tomassi, Executive Director of the Center for Fiction.

Hynes Ballroom, Level 3

F220. Cave Canem Prize Winners, Then and Now. (Alison Meyers, Major Jackson, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Tracy K. Smith, Iain Haley Pollock) This reading celebrates four winners of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, since 1999 a first-book award for exceptional manuscripts by African American poets and a catalyst for the careers of emerging poetic voices. Winners from the early years, 2000-2002, who have since achieved literary prominence—Major Jackson (2000), Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (2001), and Tracy K. Smith (2002)—are showcased alongside Iain H. Pollock, recipient of the 2010 Prize for Spit Back a Boy, selected by Elizabeth Alexander.

Room 101, Plaza Level

F221. Would Harmonium Have Made it Past the Screeners? Alternative Paths to a First Book. (Sarah Harwell, Bridget Lowe, Jules Gibbs, Christopher Kennedy, Johnathon Williams) Poets discuss the dilemmas of getting a first book published in today’s contest-driven marketplace. Are there viable alternatives to contests? What does it mean if you never win or place as a finalist? Is poetry now a horse race in which only the wealthy can play? Each poet on the panel has taken a noncontest path to first book publication, and has advice and warnings to share. Two have served as screeners for contests and one has gone on to publish four books, two with a national press.

Room 102, Plaza Level

F222. Fundraising with Individuals—Crafting the Story [WITS Alliance]. (Jack McBride, Kate Brennan, Lee Briccetti, Michele Kotler, Giuseppe Taurino) Nonprofits start brainstorm sessions with this phrase: “if money were no object.” But, money is an object, and not having it is an obstacle. In an economy where revenues and contributions are down, nonprofits rely on individual donors. While 70% of all giving comes from individuals, just 5% of donations go to the arts. How do we shape a passion for our work into a message that encourages increased giving? This panel explores ways we craft our stories to win the hearts of individual donors.

Room 103, Plaza Level

F223. Writing Past the End. (Kim Stafford, Gregory Orr, Jill Bialosky, Nan Cuba) When kinfolk die by violence, others may dither at the end of the road, but the writer keeps walking. The writer reaches back through the terrible end to grasp the beautiful beginning, like pulling a venomous serpent inside out. In this panel we look squarely at paralyzing stories that must be told. The writer tilts the mirror to see inside a hidden life and embrace the dark. These are writers helpless in pursuit of forgiveness, seeking grace through story in spite of all.

Room 104, Plaza Level

F224. Raised Stakes: Teaching the 30-Student Workshop. (J.W. Wang, Vallie Lynn Watson, Erin Elizabeth Smith, Meagan Cass, Michael Garriga) Due to budget cuts, it is not uncommon to see undergraduate creative writing workshops balloon to enrollments of twenty-five to thirty students, far stretching the ideal of fifteen students in a traditional workshop setting. How does one run a workshop with thirty voices exchanging ideas? Or squeeze in enough work shared by every student in a given term? This panel explores the challenges of a less-than-ideal setting and the necessary changes and adaptations in pedagogical approach to make it yet an effective one.

Room 105, Plaza Level

F225. Off the Radar: Teaching Creative Writing in New Zealand. (Thom Conroy, Bryan Walpert, David Fleming) In a tight job market, MFAs and PhDs in Creative Writing are increasingly looking abroad. This panel of American writers teaching in New Zealand shares stories and advice about teaching, studying, and writing down under. In an academic milieu where students are more familiar with Patricia Grace than Grace Paley, common ground is a remote location. The panel focuses on the evolutions in cultural understanding, aesthetics and pedagogy provoked by pursuing their passions to the end of the earth.

Room 107, Plaza Level

F226. A Tribute To Remy Charlip, 1929-2012. (Joshua Kryah, Erika Bradfield, Brian Selznick, Dan Hurlin) A celebration of the beloved author and illustrator whose books include Arm in Arm, A Perfect Day, and Fortunately. Writer, dancer, choreographer, director, and teacher, Remy Charlip was designated a Library of Congress National Treasure. A founding member of Merce Cunningham Dance, The PaperBag Players, the Living Theater, and the National Theater for the Deaf, Remy was the model for his friend Brian Selznick’s portrait of Georges Méliès in The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Friends and colleagues will remember Remy and discuss his groundbreaking and enduring legacy to so many art forms.

Room 108, Plaza Level

F227. Write Short, Think Long: Exploring the Craft of Writing Flash Nonfiction. (Kathleen Rooney, Sue William Silverman, Peggy Shumaker, Judith Kitchen, Ira Sukrungruang) In celebration of this popular emerging genre, as well as the publication of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers, edited by Dinty W. Moore, five of the book’s twenty-six diverse contributors gather to discuss what makes good flash nonfiction memorable and unique, and to offer up ideas and techniques for writing, publishing, and reading the brief essay form well.

Room 109, Plaza Level

F228. The Arcadia Project: Writing the Postmodern Pastoral. (Joshua Corey, Brenda Iijima, Dan Beachy-Quick, Jennifer Moxley, Jonathan Skinner) The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral is a groundbreaking new anthology from Ahsahta Press of contemporary poems that interrogate, refurbish, and upend the American pastoral tradition of Emerson and Thoreau. Four poets represented in the book discuss their work and explore the relevance of the ancient genre of idealized nature poetry to a world increasingly dominated by the discourse of disaster and environmental crisis

Room 110, Plaza Level

F229. First Person Plural Reading. (Amy Benson, Keya Mitra, Margo Jefferson, Justin Torres)Amy Benson, Margo Jefferson, Justin Torres, and Keya Mitra read prose written in the first person plural point of view. Their fiction and essays explore the limits and rewards of this seldom used voice. Their work prompts questions about collective identity, shared experience, and zeitgeist—what can ‘we’ say best, when does ‘we’ turn into ‘I’ or ‘they’? Opportunities for questions and discussion follow readings by the panelists.

Room 111, Plaza Level

F230. Poetry with Personality: Persona and Character in Contemporary Poetry. (Benjamin Landry, Catie Rosemurgy, Darcie Dennigan, Monica Youn, Raymond McDaniel) What are the challenges and opportunities of writing poetry from the perspective of a strong persona or a character? What are the origins of these voices, and how are these voices sustained for long stretches? Is such a poetry more or less authentic than standard lyric poetry? What are the implications for selfhood in these poems? Panelists of diverse interests and approaches will discuss these issues and more in a moderated conversation, then field questions from the audience.

Room 200, Level 2

F231. Books in Action at Coffee House Press: From Printing Books to Designing Literary Experiences. (Chris Fischbach, Dylan Hicks, Laird Hunt , Lightsey Darst, Sarah Fox) Coffee House actively encourages, instigates, and in some cases funds the work of our authors to be used as source material for art making in other mediums. Whether using their books to inspire films; engaging a composer or playwright to create new work; writing, performing, and recording an album of songs; or choreographing a performance, all of these authors are working either on their own, with other artists, or with us to design different literary experiences around their words.

Room 201, Level 2

F232. Stranger in a Strange Land? The Poet in the Composition Classroom. (Jessie Carty, D.S. Apfelbaum, Athena Dixon-DeMary, Tawnysha Greene, Stephanie Kartalopoulos) This panel consists of poets involved with the teaching of composition from poet/instructors to a poet/librarian who works closely with composition instructors as well as teacher/writers who bring the discussion of poetry into the study of composition. Each panelist has a unique take on how poets and poetry can challenge and enhance the study of writing across the genres. Each participant has a unique story to share and is looking forward to starting a cross-genre/discipline discussion.

Room 202, Level 2

F233. Women on the Road: Exploration, Inspiration, and Imagination in Fiction. (Tara L. Masih, Mary Akers, Jessica Anthony, Midge Raymond, Laura van den Berg) An exploration of crafting stories and novels that place characters in distant regions and countries, and how travel abroad helped shape the countries of the panelists’ imaginations. Panelists will share travel experiences and photos, inspirations, readings, and the process of creative observation. Tips will be offered on using research to fill in travel gaps, both in contemporary and historical contexts, and on negotiating the complexities of writing about cultures different from one’s own.

Room 203, Level 2

F234. Stonecoast MFA Faculty Reading: A 10th Anniversary Celebration. (Tim Seibles, David Mura, Barbara Hurd, David Anthony Durham, Robin Talbot) Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program in Creative Writing, this reading presents Stonecoast faculty from five genres: Barbara Hurd in creative nonfiction, David Mura in fiction and scriptwriting, David Durham in popular fiction, and Tim Seibles in poetry. The event showcases the power of aesthetic and cultural variety in the curriculum, the strength of Stonecoast’s community, and the energy and diversity of an acclaimed writing faculty. Moderated by Annie Finch.

Room 204, Level 2

F235. Story Autopsy: How I Wrote a Novel in Three Days and Then Adapted It into a Movie Starring Billy Crystal. (Shawn Kerivan, Chris Millis) Millis adapted his prize-winning novel Small Apartments into an independent dark-comedy feature directed by Jonas Akerlund starring Billy Crystal, Johnny Knoxville, Matt Lucas, Rosie Perez, and many more. It premiered at SXSW 2012. Millis will demonstrate how to engage students in the methodology of story structure by anatomizing his book, screenplay, and film, act-by-act, beat-by-beat, illuminating key screenwriting and book-to-film adaptation elements. A craft and filmmaking Q&A will follow.

Room 206, Level 2

F236. The Post MFA Hustle: Surviving (Literally and Creatively) in the Current Climate. (Christine Utz, Bradley Warshauer, Angela Voras-Hills, Jon L Peacock, Robert Walker) Emerging writers write; they also work as adjunct professors, editors, high school teachers, arts administrators, performers, librarians, and volunteers. Many have multiple income streams. On this panel, MFA graduates from diverse programs will provide practical information on career paths and employment options; offer reassurance that the MFA remains a viable pathway to a life of letters; and discuss ways to clear space for meaningful, creative work amidst the demands of the hustle.

Room 207, Level 2

F237. International Women’s Day Reading from Becoming: What Makes a Woman. (Jill McCabe Johnson, Dinah Lenney, Nancy McKinley, Bibi Wein, Nadine Pinede) Authors read from what Dinty W. Moore describes as an astonishing array of gifted writers who explore intimacy, doubt, love, joy, and sorrow to form this exhilarating anthology. Edited by Jill McCabe Johnson, Becoming: What Makes a Woman (University of Nebraska Gender Programs, 2012) features essays of pivotal life experience.

Room 208, Level 2

F238. New Writing from Orion. (Jennifer Sahn, Pam Houston, Chris Dombrowski, Joe Wilkins, Tania James) The Orion editors believe that people are a part of nature and that the environment is everything that is—which translates into a broad mandate for a literary magazine, allowing Orion to publish the best writing at the intersection of ecology and culture. Join us as four recent contributors read and discuss their essays and short stories from Orion.

Room 209, Plaza Level

F239. Translation as the Ultimate Act of Sympathy: International Perspectives on Creative Process. (Hélène Cardona, Nathalie Handal, Willis Barnstone, Martha Collins, James Ragan) How do you capture the essence and music of a poem in translation and remain faithful to the original? Working with Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese, this panel’s poets, translators, and scholars discuss their roles as technicians, interpreters, and alchemists working between languages to create inspired texts that reach across cultures, maps, and eras, and reflect the human psyche, giving both cultures the opportunity to see one another through a different lens.

Room 210, Level 2

F240. Breaking Digital Ground: E-Books and Independent Literary Publishing. (Craig Morgan Teicher, Fiona McCrae, John Oakes, Amelia Robertson, Dennis Loy Johnson) E-books are here to stay; by now they have penetrated every segment of the book market. Some indie literary presses were on the e-book vanguard, while others waited for the big guys to test the waters before jumping in. By now, though, everyone is working on, or executing a digital publishing plan. In this panel, sponsored by Publishers Weekly, indie press editors will discuss and debate what has and hasn’t worked in terms of e-book strategy and how digital changes the indie publishing world.

Room 302/304, Level 3

F241. From Poems Online to Poets in Person: a Reading By Four Cortland Review Poets. (Ginger Murchison, Stephen Dunn, Dorianne Laux, Aracelis Girmay, David Kirby) Pursuing a wider community for poetry and to bring poets closer to their readers, the Cortland Review makes the work of established and new authors and poets available worldwide—free and without ever going out of print. Through its professional quality video series, streaming audio and, now, poets performing to original music, the Cortland Review has become one of the most important archives of recent poetry, fiction, and criticism. Editor Ginger Murchison presents four of TCR’s most dynamic voices.

Room 303, Level 3

F242. Making Emerson Matter. (Lowell White, John Domini, Lindsay Illich, Amber Foster) The writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson have been profoundly influential in American literature. But do his words still matter? What does it now mean to be self-reliant? How do we participate in Nature? Is it possible today to transcend anything? On this panel, four writers will discuss Emerson’s 21st-century legacy, and the ways in which his ideas can be used as a springboard for new writing and thinking.

Room 305, Level 3

F243. More Than Playing in the Slush Pile. (Kathleen Volk Miller, Mark Drew, Christopher Chambers, Frankie Santoni, Amy Butcher) Editors and student staff/interns will discuss the benefits and detriments of working with students on literary magazines. How do editors involve students in the editorial, production, and marketing processes? How do they make the experience pedagogically sound and professionally relevant without sacrificing too much of their time? This panel will discuss the various strategies the editors have employed for making the relationship between student staff and editorial staff mutually beneficial.

Room 306, Level 3

F244. The Godzilla of Nonfiction: Has Memoir Swallowed the Essay? (Debra Monroe, Emily Fox Gordon, Meghan Daum, David McGlynn, Madeleine Blais) While creative nonfiction is a growing, vibrant component of most literary journals, most agents and trade presses shy away from essay collections. There is thus a publishing tension between the shorter, not-necessarily chronological, not-necessarily confessional essay and the longer, largely chronological, often confessional memoir. This panel discusses the tension between the short and long forms and offers pragmatic advice for writers working on book-length nonfiction works.

Room 308, Level 3

F245. Creating a Literary Center. (Michael Khandelwal, Lisa Hartz, Jill Pollack, Gregg Wilhelm, Linda Ketchum) Founders of established literary centers demystify the process of creating a center. How to define your mission, recruit talented teachers, create a curriculum, find students, and build a vital and dynamic writing community wil be explored in an interactive panel discussion. Panelists are all founding directors of literary centers who were involved in their centers’ inception from the ground up. Both for- and not-for-profit organizations will be represented.

Room 309, Level 3

F246. The Freedom to Write: Writers, Politics, and Propaganda. (Pireeni Sundaralingam, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman , Yibing Huang [Mai Mang], Idra Novey) As censorship and human rights violations escalate around the world, we bring together poets, novelists, essayists, and journalists to discuss how writers face harrowing obstacles to free expression, and how they continue to be instrumental to regime change around the world. Featured speakers will draw on their personal experience of writing in various places, including China, Sri Lanka, Chile, and the prison systems of the US, among others.

Room 310, Level 3

F247. Origins of Contemporary Fabulist Fiction. (Alta Ifland, Brian Evenson, Josip Novakovich, Peter Grandbois, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum) Five writers will discuss the diverse origins of fabulist fiction: from oral traditions (fairytales, folktales, mythology) to modern fables in the tradition of Kafka, Borges, or Calvino to unconventional representations of reality itself. If fiction is a reinvention of the real, the way we look at fiction is determined by the way we take in the world. Could fabulist fiction be just another, less familiar way, of taking in the world, as Steven Millhauser has said?

Room 312, Level 3

F248. Music In—and On—the Air. (Askold Melnyczuk, Lloyd Schwartz, Terry Gross) NPR talk show host Terry Gross turns her interviewing skills on poet Lloyd Schwartz, Fresh Air’s Pulitzer-winning music critic, as together they probe the connection between music, language, and audiences. Why do some poems invite musical settings while others resist them? What’s next? Their conversation is preceded by Schwartz playing recordings of poetry set to music, juxtaposed against popular songs from the same period, followed by comments about the different aims and ambitions of each.

Room 313, Level 3

F249. The Pen and the Mirror: Self-Assessment as the Invisible Teacher. (Daniel Schall, Elizabeth Arnold, Stephen Mazzeo, Michelle Tooker, Michael Pogach) Successful writers know their own process. But how can we impart this crucial lesson to our students without imposing our own processes on them? In this panel, five writing teachers of various qualifications and backgrounds will offer several perspectives on how students and teachers assessing their own writing processes can be a powerful and often invisible component of teaching writing itself.

Patricia Olson Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall A, Plaza Level

BF29. Cross-Cultural Communications Reading. (Stanley H. Barkan, Kristine Doll, Beverly Matherne, Robin Metz, Bill Wolak) In addition to the participants presenting their poetry and translations, this event focuses on “The Prism Effect”: Stanley Kunitz’s signature poem “The Layers” in fifty-three languages, a DVD of Kunitz, age 90, reading the English, and an exhibit of his poetry in bilingual-format books, including lithographs by Bulgarian artist Tchouki and Matherne’s French translations, “The Artist/L’Artiste.”

4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.

Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Level 2

F250. Alison Bechdel & Jeanette Winterson: A Reading and Conversation, Sponsored by Emerson College MFA. (Alison Bechdel, Jeanette Winterson, Elisabeth Schmitz) Alison Bechdel, author of the graphic memoir Fun Home and the ground-breaking comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, and Jeannette Winterson, author of Written on the Body and the memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, present readings from their work followed by a discussion moderated by Elisabeth Schmitz, Executive Editor at Grove/Atlantic, Inc. The events will be introduced by Emerson College's Steve Yarbrough, author of the novels Safe from the Neighbors and The End of California.

Room 101, Plaza Level

F251. The Divided Heart: Writing Far From Home. (Sandra Yee, Eduardo C. Corral, Ishion Hutchinson, Valzhyna Mort, Jane Wong) Emerging poets, as children of immigrants or as transnationals themselves, examine the personal and professional complexities of writing in a system that takes them further from their roots, even as they write of their roots. Sharing their works and experiences, these writers interrogate their own upward mobility and conflicts in writing about their cultures, including the politics of representation/translation, personal displacement, and inability to bring their work home.

Room 209, Level 2

F252. Bringing Home the Best: A Celebration of the Georgia Poetry Circuit. (Sandra Meek, Marianne Boruch, Allison Joseph, Alice Friman, Scott Cairns) Since its 1985 founding, The Georgia Poetry Circuit, a coalition of nine colleges and universities, has brought nearly one hundred poets of national renown to Georgia campuses and communities. In this session, four Georgia Poetry Circuit participants will read their work and discuss benefits of circuit participation—despite modest stipends. The GPC director will discuss and take questions regarding the logistics of creating consortiums to establish affordable and successful reading series.

Room 103, Plaza Level

F253. Yes/No/Maybe: Social Media in the Creative Writing Classroom. (Elliott Freeman, Gabriel Brownstein, Dhipinder Walia, Sarah Kain Gutowski, Alex Mindt) In a workshop culture that stresses sharing our writing, why aren’t more teachers capitalizing on social media? Our students utilize Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and more on a daily basis, but can these become platforms for teaching? In this session, panelists will offer up strategies for how social media can be implemented into the creative writing classroom, as well as examine potential pitfalls.

Room 104, Plaza Level

F254. Collaborative Projects to Kick Start Writers. (Luke Rolfes, Sue Standing, Christine Hume, Geoff Herbach, Ande Davis) How does creative writing function as a social act? How will beginning writers respond if asked to create a work of art together? Panelists will discuss the use of collaborative projects in higher education classrooms to spur invention, foster creativity, encourage risks, and challenge writers to achieve a greater understanding of one’s own and others’ work. Panelists will share their findings and experiences, provide tips, and discuss pros and cons of implementing collaboration into curricula.

Room 105, Plaza Level

F255. A Reading by the 2012 AWP Intro Journals Award Winners in Fiction. (Edward Porter, Katherine Zlabek, Joe Aguilar, Marvin I. Guymon, LeVan D. Hawkins) AWP describes its Intro Journals Project as a literary competition for the discovery and publication of the best new works by students currently enrolled in AWP’s member programs. We invite you to come hear the 2012 winners for fiction read excerpts from their award-winning stories.

Room 107, Plaza Level

F256. Finding Your Voice. (Kim Wright, Dawn Tripp, Rachel Kadish, Kathy Crowley, Laura Harrington) Saul Bellow describes the writer’s voice as the characteristic signature of a person, of a soul. Virginia Woolf, Jennifer Egan, and Susan Orlean contend that voice is the elusive, essential element that breathes life into a story. Four established fiction writers discuss the concept of voice in their own work and in the work of others. They explore: What do we mean when we talk about voice? How does voice differ from style? Can it be analyzed, tweaked, or taught? If not, how can it be freed?

Room 108, Plaza Level

F257. Friends, Mentors, and Frenemies. (Kathy Fagan, Daniel Halpern, Henri Cole, Natalie Shapero, Pablo Tanguay) Friendships, mentorships, and rivalries in the poetry world. This panel explores some types of poetic relationships that have influenced the work and life of poets both on the panel and beyond. The panel not concerned with anxiety of influence issues, but rather how particular relationships affect aesthetics, careers, poetic output, and literary trends. Panelists will discuss historical examples, draw on personal anecdotes, and prompt audience participation.

Room 109, Plaza Level

F258. World Building When Writing for Children and Young Adults. (Clay Carmichael, Debby Dahl Edwardson , Zu Vincent, Kelly Bennett) Books for children and young adults are written on a smaller canvas than books for adults. How do you paint a vivid story world on this canvas? Four writers publishing for young readers today and living in Jakarta, Alaska, California, and North Carolina share their insights on the influence of place in fashioning fictional worlds. We’ll discuss language and metaphor in world building, and how to create characters shaped by the landscapes in which they live.

Room 110, Plaza Level

F259. What’s That Book About, Anyway? or, The Stealth Memoir in All Its Guises. (Michelle Herman, Scott Raab, Steven Church, Deb Olin Unferth , Joe Mackall) Get out of your own head. Call it a stealth memoir, or memoir-plus—or, as Scott Raab says of his own recent book, The Whore of Akron (about basketball player LeBron James’s defection from Cleveland to Miami), call it a Swiss Army knife of a book: nonfiction with subject matter other than the author’s life that reveals as much as outright memoir can. Five writers who practice the art of the slantwise, roundabout, research-driven, or journalistic approach to memoir talk about how and why.

Room 111, Plaza Level

F260. Engaging with Science: Poetry & Fiction. (Pireeni Sundaralingam, Alan Lightman, C. Dale Young, Sandra Alcosser) What is Time? How do our brains interpret light? How does poetry intersect with ecology? Join us for this reading featuring novelists, poets, and essayists, whose scientific training has helped them re-imagine a range of scientific fields—from physics and botany to neuroscience and medicine—through their creative writing. Following the reading, there will be a discussion as to why and how each writer uses poetry versus fiction to explore the world of science.

Room 200, Level 3

F261. Against the Hawking of Books: Reflections on Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.(Amy Hassinger, Fred Arroyo, Gale Walden, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Michael Martone) The message blares: promote yourself or perish. Develop a platform, master social media, blog, sell, sell, sell. Many of us would rather traipse through our neighborhoods in nothing but stilettos and a dangly purse. Lewis Hyde’s classic The Gift provides a refreshing counter-point; art, he argues, is not a commercial enterprise but a commerce of gifts. We will consider the question of how we engage in the business of the literary arts while simultaneously remaining true to its nature as gift.

Room 201, Level 2

F262. Teaching (and Learning!) with First Books of Poetry. (Jami Macarty, Kate Greenstreet, Joshua Grant, Taryn Hubbard) Panelists discuss rationales for and results from teaching first books of poetry. Our emphasis is on how to create reading—and writing—intensive undergraduate creative writing courses based on first books. The discussion is grounded in experiments using ~forty first books by American and Canadian poets published in the last decade and how the aesthetic, linguistic, and sociopolitical trends embedded in these works provide means for engaging students in communities of learning and creativity.

Room 202, Level 2

F263. Blue-collar College Students and the Creative Writing Degree. (Jerry Wemple, Lawrence Coates, Claire Lawrence) Faculty from creative writing programs in rust belt regions that traditionally serve students from blue-collar backgrounds ponder what, exactly, they are preparing their students for, since most undergraduates will not become “professional” writers. The panelists discuss what they are trying to accomplish in their programs, what their graduates feel they’ve learned and how they are using that knowledge, and potential revisions to a program after re-assessment at the ten-year mark.

Room 203, Level 2

F264. You Publish, Become Famous, Then Live As a Writer—Or Not: Lifelong Strategies for the Rest of Us. (Ethan Gilsdorf, William Orem, Becky Tuch, Henriette Power, Ted Weesner, Jr.) You plan on becoming a writer as a teen or undergraduate. You have a vision of your inevitable future. Now, you’re in your thirties, forties, or fifties. Some hits. Some misses and disappointments. And yet you go on. In this session, panelists examine the mercurial writerly self-image, then offer practical strategies and advice for recharging batteries, diversifying your work, cobbling together a career, dealing with rejection and envy, and staying active and hopeful in your lifelong commitment to the craft.

Room 204, Level 2

F265. Naming Power and Crossing Borders: Translingual Writing. (Mary Kovaleski, Tamera Marko, Eric Sepenoski, Angelika Romero, TuBao Nguyen Phan) We explore translingual, transgenre, transborder writing in four class projects at Emerson College in Boston: an immigration installation for young emerging artists to cross the U.S.—Colombian border; high school and international college students whose writing includes their home languages; and human rights articles by immigrants from Latin America who work as janitors at the College. This panel precedes an offsite translingual reading in Boston, headlined by Pablo Medina, author of eleven books.

Room 206, Level 2

F266. Bring Out Your Dead: Writing Ghosts (and Zombies) in Literary Fiction. (Rebecca Makkai, Tea Obreht, Lauren Groff, Tim Horvath, Alexi Zentner) The ghost story thrives in literary fiction as well as the oral tradition, defying genre. How do we keep these compelling tales fresh? How do we frighten without resorting to cheap tricks? How do we navigate the borders between spirituality, science, doubt, and a reliable narrative voice? And why are we drawn to these themes again and again? Five writers introduce you to their ghosts and tell you how they summoned them.

Room 207, Level 2

F267. What We Write About When We Write About Music. (Laurie Lindeen, Rick Moody, Will Hermes, Jen Trynin, Jacob Slichter) All art aspires to music because it touches our hearts, souls, senses, and imaginations This panel of writers, musicians, and writing instructors loves, appreciates, knows, and plays music. They have written passionately about music in memoirs, essays, novels, songs, poetry, and blogs. Each individual on this panel would like to share his or her unique path with prose and music, and share their collective beliefs in the emotional, rhythmic importance of musicality when writing and when teaching writing.

Room 208, Level 2

F268. The Bible, Women, and American Literature. (Virginia Gilbert, Sena Jeter Naslund, Kelly Cherry, Alicia Ostriker, Grace Bauer) From the Pilgrim Fathers through Dickinson, Melville, Hemingway, and beyond, the Bible has been a major source for American writers. It is also constantly referred to in the national debates on women’s roles in society. How do women today contribute to this tradition which is both literary and political? Five women writers who use Bible-based themes transformatively in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction will discuss their own and others’ work and invite audience discussion.

Room 102, Plaza Level

F269. The Literary Legacy of Andre Dubus. (Matthew Batt, Andre Dubus III, Melanie Rae Thon, Nancy Zafris, Bruce Machart) Andre Dubus (1936-1999), author of nine volumes of fiction and two collections of essays, including Meditations from a Moveable Chair and Dancing After Hours, was a long-time resident of Haverhill, Massachussets, and is widely recognized as one of the greatest practitioners and teachers of the contemporary short story. Panelists, including Dubus’s son, a former student, a close friend, and a lifelong fan, will discuss their relationship with Dubus and what they learned from his work and life.

Room 210, Level 2

F270. A Tribute to Adrienne Rich. (Michael Klein, Jill Bialosky, Saeed Jones, Honor Moore, Suzanne Gardinier) Adrienne Rich’s refusal to turn away from difficulty and resist literary fashion and convention made her the most important and influential poet of her generation. In this tribute which includes readings of the late poet’s own work and recollections about her life, Adrienne Rich’s editor at W.W. Norton is joined by friends and admirers who talk about the poet’s influence on poetry and upon the politics of poetry itself.

Room 302/304, Level 3

F271. Copper Canyon Press 40th Anniversary Reading. (Michael Wiegers, C.D. Wright, Jean Valentine, Bob Hicok, Dean Young) This reading, a tribute to the 40th Anniversary of Copper Canyon Press, features some of the most celebrated poets currently writing. For the past four decades, Copper Canyon’s belief that poetry is vital to language and living, has helped foster the work of established and world-renowned poets to reach an expanding audience. These authors have come together to honor and commemorate Copper Canyon’s dedication to the art of poetry by sharing their work.

Room 303, Level 3

F272. Russian, Jewish, Polish, and American Poets in Translation: Cultural Contexts. (Ewa Chrusciel, Fanny Howe, Tony Brinkley, Danuta Borchardt, Danuta Hinc) How do we carry the impulse of the original into an American idiom? How to translate the semblance of felt life? Fanny Howe presents her translation of Polish sisters Henia and Ilona Karmel who wrote in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Toney Brinkley addresses translation as dybbuk in the example of Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva. Three other presenters discuss Polish poets Norwid, Szymborska, and Milosz in translation into English, as well as American poets Hejinian and Graham in Polish.

Room 305, Level 3

F273. Self-Production Primer for Playwrights & Screenwriters. (Roland Tec, Rebecca Stump) Drawing on more than two decades’ experience producing at every budget level in both live theatre and film, Roland Tec’s Self-Production Primer seeks to empower scriptwriters by demystifying the road to self-production. Topics covered include: team building, scheduling, budgeting, and mounting an effective marketing and PR strategy. This is an abbreviated version of the popular day-long Self-Production Boot Camp.

Room 306, Level 3

F274. Tossing Off the Covers: A Peak Under the Sheets and Behind the Scenes of Running a Nonprofit Literary Organization. (Jocelyn Hale, Michael J. Henry, Jeffrey Lependorf, Tree Swenson, Michelle Toth) Literary talent can only take an organization so far. Eventually (and sooner than you think) your governance and operations must be as well crafted as your sentence structures. This panel dives into the nuts and bolts of management. Topics include governance from a board member’s perspective; how to raise, spend, and account for money; tips for managing people including teaching artists, visiting writers, and staff; and understanding program impact with strategic planning and evaluation.

Room 308, Level 3

F275. Born Again: The New Rise of University Literary Journals. (Robert Stapleton, Ann Neelon, John Andrews, Christopher Salerno, Randa Jarrar) The growth of MFA programs since the 1990s has paralleled, in many cases, the demise of university funding for literary publications and ventures. Yet, many schools and programs have adapted to the electronic age and/or found alternative streams of funding to establish vibrant publishing communities. This panel will interrogate the editors and practices of thriving publications all founded within the last ten years, including The Normal School, New Madrid, Booth, Front Porch, and Map Literary.

Room 309, Level 3

F276. Style and Story: Balancing Form and Content in the Short Story. (Steve Woodward, Ted Sanders, Susan Steinberg, Jessica Francis Kane, Joshua Cohen) How you tell a story is just as important as the story being told—but how do you balance the often opposing demands of form and content to make a compelling narrative? How do you find the right structure and style for a story? What leads to stylistic and narrative coherence in a collection of stories? Four Graywolf Press short story writers with diverse writing styles share their own approaches and discuss how they’ve achieved balance in their own work.

Room 310, Level 3

F277. Island Hopping: A Multilingual Reading of Contemporary Caribbean Poetry. (Urayoán Noel, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Kristin Dykstra, Judith Kerman, Orlando Ricardo Menes) The postcolonial poetry that has emerged from the constellation of islands and countries in and surrounding the Caribbean Sea is written in such disparate languages as English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and numerous creoles. Reading poems from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Martinique, and Puerto Rico, exploring such themes as racial identity, sexuality, and alienation, this panel of translators and poets from the Caribbean brings to life the richness and diversity of writing from this region.

Room 312, Level 2

F278. Ready for Prime Time? The Future of Enhanced Digital Publishing. (Martin Lammon, Karina Borowicz, Julie Marie Wade, Benjamin Mitchell, Emily Chamison) Editors of the new digital literary journal Arts & Letters PRIME discuss the future of enhanced digital publishing, from start-up to design, from production to distribution. Designed for tablet readers such as the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy, and Kindle Fire, enhanced digital books and journals are changing the way we read. Joining the editors are two PRIME contributors, author Julie Marie Wade and poet Karina Borowicz, who discuss how digital media has impacted their work and literary exposure.

Room 313, Level 3

F279. Visible Shores: Writers of Color Listening Across Waters. (Patrick Rosal, Tiphanie Yanique, Roger Bonair-Agard, Christian Campbell, Rachelle Cruz) Award-winning writers of color share fiction, poetry, and nonfiction across genres. They read work composed with one ear toward the dear shorelines that are often mere elsewheres to America.

Alice Hoffman Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall D, Level 2

BF30. Nightboat Books Reading. (Christina Davis, Susan Gevirtz, Rob Halpern, Martha Ronk, Lytton Smith) A reading by poets with new titles from Nightboat Books. The reading will feature a range of emerging and established poets working across the aesthetic spectrum. This event will highlight the range of work published by Nighboat Books, dedicated to publishing volumes rich with poignancy, intelligence, and risk.

Patricia Olson Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall A, Plaza Level

BF31. The New School Presents: LIT and 12th Street. The New School writing program features writers from LIT magazine and 12th Street journal.

6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.

Room 107, Plaza Level

F280. LGBTQ Caucus. (Andrea Jenkins, Tobey Kaplan, Matthew R.K. Haynes, Danielle Stanard) At the AWP annual conference, we offer a LGBTQ caucus for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer to network and discuss common issues and challenges. These concerns are related to gender fluidity and identity while teaching and writing professionally along with leading a literary and socially responsible life. We share interests, publications, and projects in order to strengthen our visibility and importance to AWP, along with addressing our social/creative and artistic significance to academic/literary communities and to the varied neighborhoods where we live, teach and work.

Room 108, Plaza Level

F281. Two-Year College Caucus. (Ryan Stone, Sharon Coleman, V. Hunt) Two-year college instructors and those interested in jobs at two-year colleges should join us for our annual networking meeting. Nearly half of all students begin their college careers at two-year colleges, and an increasing number of MFA graduates are earning two-year-college teaching jobs. The future of creative writing at our campuses looks bright. We will discuss teaching creative writing at the two-year college, hold a short business meeting, and provide tangible resources for faculty.

Room 109, Plaza Level

F282. Art School Writing Faculty Caucus. (Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Monica Drake, Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, Ryan Flaherty) Annual meeting of art school faculty members to discuss pedagogy, programming, administration, and best practices particular to Art School writing classes and programs.

Room 110, Hynes Convention Center, Plaza Level

F283. Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors (FUSE) Caucus. (Catherine Dent, Michael Cocchiarale, Esme Franklin, Andrew Baker, Sarah Gzemski) Are you an undergraduate interested in editing and publishing or a faculty member working with undergraduate students on a literary journal or small press? Come join FUSE for its annual meeting, which includes national elections and FUSE chapter updates, followed by a roundtable discussion. This year’s topic is the interdisciplinary nature of undergraduate publishing, i.e. how and why to forge good relationships among departments. Bring ideas and journals to exchange.

7:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.

Room 204, Level 2

Barrow Street Press and Ocean State Review. Our AWP cocktail party will host readings by our Barrow Street poets—who will also be signing books at the Barrow Street bookfair table (M26) from 2:00–4:00 p.m.—as well as contributing authors published in the Ocean State Review. Drinks are on us..

Room 205, Level 2

Black Mountain Institute. Join the staff of the Black Mountain Institute for a reception.

Room 203, Level 2

Boston Review and the Northeastern Humanities Center. Join Boston Review editors, contributors, and staff as well as special guests of the Northeastern University Humanities Center for a reception and short reading..

Room 201, Level 2

Brown University. Join the students and faculty from Brown University for a reception.

Room 202, Level 2

California College of the Arts: MFA Writing, MFA Comics, Eleven Eleven. Come and join the California College of the Arts in San Francisco triumverate. Meet faculty from the fledgling MFA in Comics program, the established MFA in Writing program, and the CCA MFA student run journal Eleven Eleven..

Room 303, Level 3

Salmon Poetry. Join the editors and staff of Salmon Poetry for a reception.

Room 209, Level 2

Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Come celebrate with the Sewanee Writers’ Conference at a reception.

Room 301, Level 3

Creative Collaboration: The Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program & Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. Join the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program and Solstice for drinks, appetizers, and mini readings by MFA writer-in-residence/Solstice fiction editor Helen Elaine Lee; faculty member Robert Lopez; and graduate Emily Van Duyne.

Room 307, Level 3

Spalding University. Join MFA students and faculty for a reception featuring alumna Jacquelin Gorman, winner of the 2012 Flannery O’Connor Award; faculty member Philip F. Deaver, past winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award; and Ned Bachus, author of Fleur-de-Lis Press’s City of Brotherly Love.

Room 207, Level 2

Split This Rock Reception. Join writers from Split This Rock for a reception with drinks, mingling, and a short program featuring powerhouse poets Martín Espada, Lenelle Moïse, and Saeed Jones reading his 2013 Split This Rock Poetry Contest winning poem. Free drink for the first 50 to arrive!

Room 208, Level 2

University of Tampa Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing. Join the faculty and staff of the University of Tampa Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing for a reception.

8:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Level 2

F284. Amy Bloom & Richard Russo: A Reading and Conversation, Sponsored by Lesley University. (Leah Hager Cohen, Amy Bloom, Richard Russo) Amy Bloom is author of the New York Times best-selling Away: A Novel, and Where the God of Love Hangs Out, a collection of short fiction. Richard Russo is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls, Straight Man, and Nobody's Fool. The reading will begin with an introduction by poet Steven Cramer, director of the Lesley University Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing, and will be followed by a discussion moderated by novelist and critic Leah Hager Cohen, author of The Grief of Others and House Lights.

Hynes Ballroom, Hynes Convention Center, Level 3

F285. Language at the Breaking Point, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts. (Kwame Dawes, Jorie Graham, Terrance Hayes) Pulitzer Prize-winner Jorie Graham and National Book Award-winner Terrance Hayes stretch language past the barriers of mind and limitations of personal experience to reinstate a kind of dignity to the world. Their creative tensions puncture the commonplace allowing the familiar to dislocate, laying bare our tenuous connection to life. Yet grace and a vivid, wakeful presence abide. Their poems demonstrate how the excavation of language itself can shape new possibilities for imagination to evolve.

10:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight

Room 102, Plaza Level

F286. The All Collegiate Afterhours Slam. (Jim Warner, Phil Brady) The All Collegiate Afterhours Slam is open to all undergraduate and graduate 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 the organization of the event will be handled by Wilkes University Creative Writing Program and Etruscan Press. A limited open mic will follow the slam (time permitting). Come visit the Wilkes University/Etruscan Press booth to register.

Sheraton Boston Hotel, Constitution Ballroom, Level 2

F287. AWP Public Reception & Dance Party, Sponsored by Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department & Story Week. A dance party with music by DJ Neza. Free beer and wine from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. Cash bar from 11:00 p.m. to midnight.