AWP 2010 IN DENVER!

Above is a picture of me and my friends Heather and Alex (taken by the illustrious Adam Morgan) in front of Coors Field in Denver, Colorado. We may have missed the very last session at the AWP Conference to catch a Colorado Rockies game... may have...

For those of you who are not familiar with the AWP Conference, AWP stands for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. It is the primary organization that fosters contact among the country's creative writing programs, literary organizations, and literary presses. The AWP Conference features three days of discussion panels, pedagogy forums, readings, book signings, and probably the country's largest literary journal, magazine, and small press book fair. Not to mention, there are a ton of evening off-site events to attend, which usually involve drink tickets (yay!), tasty hors d'oeuvres, and comrade-time with the best people on the planet: other writers!

So for the next several posts, I am going to provide an inside look at the AWP Conference. I attended a ton of discussion panels and walked away with a pile of notes. Michael Chabon gave the conference's keynote address, and I saw readings by George Saunders and Etgar Keret. The book fair was enormous, and when I returned to Chicago, my suitcase was bursting at the seems with new books (most of them free!). I listened to some of the country's finest writers speak on plot, reader reaction vs. writer intent, the ten-minute play, the non-linear plot in playwriting, writing about place, defending the mfa in academia, the advantages of a creative writing PhD, and much, much more. And Denver is a beautiful city. To hear all about it, stay tuned!