Way back in 1990 my family moved from the middle of nowhere North Dakota to a Seattle suburb. I grew up there and then went to college in Minnesota where I ended up settling down. Of course there have been trips to Seattle to visit family, but this marks the first time I’ve come back home without family being the impetus.
For those who haven’t heard of it, AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) holds a conference each year and each year a different city hosts it. This year it happens to be in Seattle and so of course I’ll have to work in some family time too (I’ve a new niece not even three months old to see).
AWP has two main parts: the conference, stuffed full of so many panels you’ll never be able to attend all the ones you want, and the book fair, is “the nation’s largest marketplace for independent literary presses and journals, creative writing programs, writing conferences and centers, and literary arts organizations” that’ll blow every other book fair you’ve been to out of the water. In particular I’ll be searching out the Hamline MFA as well as the Great Weather for Media booths as I’ve got a vested interest in each of them.
As for the panels, hopefully my brain doesn’t explode. Here’s the crazy list of sessions I’ll be attending:
- Writing about Culture and Place: Techniques for Vibrant and Ethical Worldbuilding
- Reading at 24 Frames Per Second: Exploring Cinematic Influence on Literature
- Demystifying the Application: Fellowships, Residencies, and Grants
- Minding the Gaps and Mining Landscape in Linked Short Story Collections
- How to Craft Enthralling Science Stories
- The Sentence Is the Story: Reading, Writing, and Revising for Style and Sound
- Nine Memorable Moments: Constructing Compelling Characters for the Screen
- Filling in the Gaps: Folklore as Antidote to Forgetting
- The Twenty-First Century Horror Novel
- The Twist: Plot Turns That Make Movie Magic
- Conjuring Thisness in Fiction: The Palpable Art of the Particular
- Giving Helpful Feedback
- Breaking Up with Shame: Writing Romance for Young Adults
- Writing the Monster
- Playwriting 101: Accessing Emotional Honesty in Storytelling
As you can see there’s quite the variety there. Obviously I’m interested in speculative content, but there revision and business sessions as well because like it or not those are part of the game. I don’t know exactly what I’ll get out of each session, but I’ll be taking copious notes for both my writing friends as well as MFA classmates to spread all that I learn.
I’ll sign off for now (I’m writing in the the hotel room and need to head out to meet up with someone attending AWP), but if you happen to be at AWP give me a holler.
Eric Taveren 