Fairfax, VA, August 22, 2012 — AWP has launched a redesigned website at awpwriter.org with new
community-building features and enhanced functionality. The site, which is visited by nearly 80,000 unique
users each month, includes updates to AWP’s Guide to Writing Programs, the Directory of Writer’s
Conferences & Centers, the AWP Job List, the Writer’s Calendar, and the Writer’s News. Several new
sections have been introduced, including a Directory of Members that allows users to build a personalized
profile, and In the Spotlight, a periodic feature of AWP’s members. According to executive director David
Fenza, “the new site encourages greater interaction among our members and provides them, and the field,
better services and resources.”

The site launch coincides with AWP’s release of its list of accepted events for the 2013 Annual Conference &
Bookfair in Boston. The conference committee accepted a record-breaking 516 readings, lectures, and
discussions, representing over 1,700 writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers. Scheduled for March
6 – 9, the conference will also feature an estimated 650 exhibitors and is expected to draw 11,000 attendees.
“The record expansion of AWP’s conference and bookfair reflects the great and growing diversity of
contemporary literature,” said conference director Christian Teresi, “as well as the vitality of independent
publishing.”

Sponsors and literary partners of the 2013 conference include Bath Spa University, the Academy of American
Poets, Adelphi University, Alice James Books, Antioch University Los Angeles, Cave Canem, the Center for
Fiction, the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses/Small Press Distribution, Emerson College &
Ploughshares magazine, Grub Street, Kundiman, the Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins
University, Lesley University, the Loft Literary Center, the National Book Critics Circle, the National
Endowment for the Arts, Paris Press, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, the Poetry
Society of America, Poets House, the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine, the
University of Tampa, VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, WAMFEST & Fairleigh Dickinson University,
Wesleyan University Press, and Writers in the Schools.