Virtual AWP is back with our first premiere of 2023! In this installation we welcome mentor Neil Aitken and mentees Annette Wong and Megan Pinto for an insightful discussion about AWP's Writer to Writer program. Hear about what each mentee took from the Writer to Writer program, how the program helped them develop as writers, and what they're doing now. 

The premiere of this Virtual AWP event will also include a live Q&A on YouTube on Thursday, March 23, 2023, at 6:00 p.m. ET. Register online to receive a reminder and a direct link to this free event and updates on future events. Registration is free, and you do not have to be a member of AWP to do so. However, to participate in the live Q&A, you must be signed in on YouTube.

Bios:

Neil Aitken is the author of two books of poetry, Babbage's Dream (Sundress Publications, 2017) and The Lost Country of Sight (Anhinga Press, 2008), and a poetry chapbook, Leviathan (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2016). Of Chinese, Scottish, and English descent, he grew up in Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and various parts of western Canada. He is a past Kundiman fellow and holds both an MFA and PhD in creative writing. In addition to writing and teaching, he serves as the editor of Boxcar Poetry Review, the codirector of De-Canon: A Literary Project, and the curator of Have Book Will Travel.

Megan Pinto's poems can be found or are forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, Ploughshares, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. She has received support from Bread Loaf, the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Storyknife, AWP's Writers to Writers Program, and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers. She is currently a 2022–2023 Artist Fellow at The Peace Studio, and her debut collection of poetry is forthcoming with Four Way Books in Fall 2024. Megan lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson. Find her online at www.meganpinto.com

Annette Wong is a Chinese American writer, lawyer, and meditation teacher. Her poems grapple with infertility, caregiving, language, and loss. Her work appears in Waxwing, Poetry Northwest, and Lantern Review, among other places. Annette is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she received the 2019–2020 Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing. She holds a BA from Yale University and a JD from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, toddler, and a few unruly houseplants.