Now the largest literary conference in North America, the 2018 AWP Conference & Bookfair will take place March 7 to March 10 at the Tampa Convention Center. The AWP Conference & Bookfair is an essential annual destination for more than 12,000 writers, editors, publishers, arts administrators, teachers and students. The conference features over 2,000 presenters and 550 literary readings, panel discussions, and bookfair stage events focusing on fiction, nonfiction, poetry and prose, social and regional issues, craft, teaching, publishing, marketing, and more. The AWP bookfair hosts over 800 small presses; literary magazines; e-journals; trade publishers; writers’ centers; retreats; residencies; and writing programs from around the world.

AWP’s Keynote speaker is George Saunders, whose most recent book, Lincoln in the Bardo, was awarded the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Saunders’s collection, Tenth of December, was the winner of the 2014 Story Prize and the 2014 Folio Prize. The recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius grant, his work has appeared in the O’Henry, Best American Short Story, Best Non-Required Reading, and Best American Travel Writing anthologies. Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME in 2013.

Additional featured presenters include many of contemporary literature’s best authors including, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Rick Barot, Rita Mae Brown, Edwidge Danticat, Mark Doty, Nathan Englander, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lauren Groff, Ishion Hutchinson, Tyehimba Jess, Ha Jin, Min Jin Lee, Layli Long Soldier, Carmen Maria Machado, Claire Messud, Lorrie Moore, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Sigrid Nunez, Jamie Quatro, Mary Ruefle, Bob Shacochis, Maggie Smith, Dana Spiotta, Virgil Suárez, Karen Tei Yamashita, and Kao Kalia Yang.

The complete schedule can be viewed online.

Onsite registration will open on Wednesday, March 7 at the Tampa Convention Center, 333 S. Franklin Street: $215 for members, $315 for nonmembers, $65 for students, and $95 for seniors. Registration also includes admission to AWP’s bookfair. Requests for press passes must be made in writing from the editor of the media organization, on behalf of the journalist, to registration@awpwriter.org by February 21, 2018.

We are pleased to announce our 2018 Premier Sponsor is The University of Tampa. Major Sponsors include Amazon Publishing, Antioch University Los Angeles, Butler University, Randolph College, Saint Leo University, University of South Florida, University of Southern California, and Wilkes University.

Our Literary Partners include the Academy of American Poets, American Literary Translators Association, The Author’s Guild, Blue Flower Arts, Cave Canem Foundation, Coffee House Press, Copper Canyon Press, Community of Literary Magazines & Presses, Graywolf Press, Grove/Atlantic Press, Kundiman, National Book Critics Circle, Pen America, Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau, Poets House, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Red Hen Press, and Writers in the Schools.

AWP’s conference is made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

You can view the full press release in our Press Room.