9:00 am to 10:15 am
Room 200
D&E, Level 2
S113. Yes,
Writing Is a Job: People Who Get Paid to Write. (Joy Lanzendorfer, Marcia Simmons, Nora Maynard, Ken Weaver) Believe it or not, it’s possible to make a
living writing. Four working writers from diverse backgrounds will talk about
how they make ends meet through article writing, blogging, nonfiction books,
and other projects. Panelists will discuss how we get work, the financial
realities of the publishing world, and our struggle to balance writing for
money with creative endeavors that are closer to our hearts (but harder on our
pocketbooks). Another panel on the
important topic of the practical side of making ends meet as a writer.
Room 211
A&B, Level 2
S120. Straight
Talk: What the MFA Promises & What It Delivers. (Lee Martin, Sonja
Livingston, Carter Sickels, Claire Vaye Watkins, Karen Salyer McElmurray) A 2013 Poets
& Writers index says that full-time teaching positions at the university
level are available, on average, for well less than one percent of creative
writing program graduates. This roundtable will discuss expectations and
realities of why we enter creative programs in the first place and our futures
afterwards. How can programs be more forthcoming about these realities and what
actions can faculty take? What does risk really mean when you choose the path
of the MFA? Good subject. I know a lot of
MFA students and alums are concerned about whether that degree is a good
investment of time and money.
Room M100
B&C, Mezzanine Level
S123. Latina/o
Poets as Publishers: A CantoMundo Roundtable. (Deborah Paredez, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Juan Morales, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Casandra Lopez) How are Latina/o poets occupying and
transforming the roles of publishers and editors today? This panel convenes
CantoMundo founders and fellows to discuss their work as publishers of small
presses, editors of literary magazines and blogs, and founders of new media
platforms. Our roundtable conversation explores the particular challenges,
visions, and contributions of Latina/o publishers and editors. Looks interesting.
10:30 am to 11:45 am
Room 211
A&B, Level 2
S151. Building
Communities: How to Develop Partnerships and Collaborations. (Sarah Gambito,
Francisco Aragón, Cornelius Eady,
Joan Kane, Diem Jones) This
panel gathers representatives of five organizations serving writers of color:
Cave Canem, Institute of American Indian Arts, Kundiman, Letras Latinas, and
Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation. We will discuss best practices and
possibilities for collaboration—across organizations; with presses,
residencies, and university affiliations; and beyond. Panelists will discuss
how partnerships promote cross-cultural solidarity and foster organizational
sustainability, growth, and inspiration. Excellent
panel and worthwhile topic.
Room M100 J,
Mezzanine Level
S158. Teaching
Translated Texts in the Writing Program. (Nadia Kalman, Geoffrey Brock, Elizabeth Harris, Douglas Unger, Russell Valentino) Creative writing
programs incorporate the reading and study of literature, but often focus on
English-language writers. Four writing professors, all of whom translate, talk
about teaching international literature in their programs. Panelists discuss
the use of various works and writers and their respective literary traditions;
consider pedagogical approaches to language, style, narrative conventions, and
subjects; and reveal how their own work as writer/translators informs their
teaching. Important subject for exposing
students to more world literature.
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
Room 200
B&C, Level 2
S175. From the
Thickets of Translation: How and Why We Should Teach Contemporary World
Literature in the Creative Writing Classroom. (Jia Oak Baker, Ravi Shankar, Forrest Gander,
Wayne Miller, Carolyne
Wright) In the 21st century, any conversation about literature must expand
beyond the Western tradition, reflecting the globalization intensifying around
us. But the MFA classroom is often limited to the same few canonical examples
of international writers. Join editors from highly acclaimed anthologies of
contemporary world literature as they discuss pedagogical strategies and the
necessity for enlarging the perspective used in classrooms today by infusing
new voices into the conversation. Similar
and important topic on world lit in the MFA.
Room L100
D&E, Lower Level
S193. Writing
into the World: Memoir, History, and Private Life. (Honor Moore, Carolyn Forche, Catina Bacote, Alysia Abbott, Garth Greenwell) Memory drives memoir,
but it can take writing to realize that while we thought we were just living,
history was unfolding. Contemporary memoir has been ridiculed as MEmoir, but
where would history be without the testimony of individuals, whose memories of
“how it was” bring into focus, add nuance, even contradict received accounts?
Even what seems private is subject to the dynamics of political, economic, and
cultural change. How do we bring the larger world into our autobiographical
writing while retaining the intimacy of the personal voice and affirming the
uniqueness of each life? Strong panel in
the memoir area.
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
Auditorium Room
1, Level 1
S197.
Disappearance and Forgetting: Geeshie Wiley and Last Kind Words Blues, A
Lecture by Greil Marcus, Sponsored by the Poetry Foundation. (Robert Polito, Greil
Marcus) In 1930 a blues singer and guitarist named Geeshie Wiley recorded a
song that opened up the deepest crevices of the American imagination. Then she
fell off the map. While recent research has, for the first time, tracked the
outlines of her life, she remains in the mist—and in this talk, the song writes
the singer's adventures in the long years after she once spoke in public to
describe life as she knew it. A conversation with Poetry Foundation president
Robert Polito follows. Greil Marcus is a
fascinating speaker and thinker.
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Auditorium Room
1, Level 1
S229. Keeping
Our Small Boat Afloat: A Tribute to Robert Bly, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts .
(Tom Verner, Tony Hoagland, Marie Howe, Jill Bialosky) A tribute to honor and celebrate the life and
literary work of groundbreaking poet, writer, translator, storyteller, and
cultural critic Robert Bly. Bly has changed the American literary landscape
with pioneering translations of Neruda, Transtromer, Machado, Hafez, and Rilke.
His own poetry permeates the space between the conscious and unconscious, and
finds rich meaning in mythology. An icon of American letters, Bly's many awards
include the Frost Medal. He has lived in Minnesota for 80+ years. Great group of readers to honor a seminal
poet/translator.
Room 101
F&G, Level 1
S235. Revisiting
Highway 61. (Mark Conway, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Dessa, James Allen Hall )
Fifty-five years after Minnesota’s native son Bob Dylan came down from the Iron
Range on Highway 61, four poets will respond to his pervasive influence. They
will read their own work and explore how it reflects and deflects powerful
elements in Dylan including Blake, the blues, the Bible and the North Country. How can you have AWP in Minnesota and not
talk about the immortal Bob D.?
Room 205
A&B, Level 2
S242.
Speculating Darkly: A Poetry Reading . (Bianca Spriggs, Keith Wilson, Kenyatta Rogers, Ladan Osman, Airea Matthews) Taking its title and spirit from a series of
essays written by poet Roger Reeves (published on the Poetry Foundation's
"Harriet the Blog"), and subsequent reading series curated by poet
and visual artist Krista Franklin, "Speculating Darkly, or The Folk
Surreal Future," is a poetry reading that features some of the Midwest's
emerging African Diaspora writers who focus on the Black Fantastic, the
Grotesque, the Afro-Surreal, the Gothic, the speculative, and science fiction. Looks like a strong reading. Make sure you
hear Ladan Osman.
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Room 211
A&B, Level 2
S277. Persimmon
Tree Poets Read. (Wendy Barker, Chana Bloch, Tori Derricotte, Sandra M. Gilbert, Fleda Brown) A
reading by poets featured in past issues of Persimmon Tree: An Online Journal
of the Arts for Women Over Sixty, a magazine that has showcased many of the
most significant women poets of our era. The founding poetry editor and current
poetry editor will also briefly review the history and direction of this highly
successful journal that now reaches 12,000 unique readers each month from
across the globe. Good group. I’ve heard Alicia
Ostriker might read Chana Bloch’s poems, since Chana is recovering from an illness.
Room M100
H&I, Mezzanine Level
S283. Everything
I Know about Poetry I Learned from Li Po and Tu Fu: The Influence of Classical
Chinese Poetry . (John Bradley, Sam Hamill, George Kalamaras,
Ken Letko) Once, Li Po was stepping over a puddle, and a wood splinter
fell from his shoe sole into the water, making ripples that will be felt at
this AWP Conference. These ripples, in fact, have formed Modernist poetry. Join
the conversation so you can practice splitting firewood by moonlight. Good topic and panel.
Other recent posts about writing topics:
How to Get Published: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
How Not to Become a Literary Dropout, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
Putting Together a Book Manuscript, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
Working with a Writing Mentor: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Does the Muse Have a Cell Phone?: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
How to Deliver Your Message: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Why Write Poetry? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Using Poetic Forms, Part 1: Introduction; Part 2: The Sonnet; Part 3, The Sestina;
Part 4, The Ghazal; Part 5, The Tanka
