The next AWP conference will open the afternoon of Wednesday, April 8, 2015. This is the fifth day of Passover. We apologize for any problems next year’s scheduling may cause you. The conference staff is now developing accommodations for our members who wish to observe the holiday while they attend the conference. We will provide lists of kosher eateries and temples in Minneapolis that will welcome guests. If you are interested, please write to pesach@awpwriter.org, and we will place you on a mailing list for more information.

Whenever AWP commits to dates for a conference in our chosen city, the decision is a compromise among several factors: our need to avoid the months when winter travel is most problematic; our need to avoid holy days; the need for available exhibit halls and meeting rooms; our need to avoid high seasons when hotel lodging and convention centers becomes more expensive; and our need to avoid the secular feast day known as the Super Bowl. Seldom can we balance all these factors perfectly, and sometimes our conference has overlapped with holy days, the Super Bowl, and less than ideal times for air travel. Minneapolis has long winters, so we had to allow an especially large window to avoid winter travel to Minneapolis, while we also worked with the dates open to us for affordable hotels and convention center availability.