Here’s the trouble with Associated Writing Program’s Annual Conference: It ends.
It ends, and then we are left to process everything we learned, remember every moment that blew us away, hang on to all of those words.
We were there about 10 minutes when we bumped into Stephen Dunn, who gives us a hug and a kiss and even while it was happening we had to say to ourselves, STEPHEN DUNN?
AWP Moments: Gettysburg Review to the rescue with a book cart on Day One, Hour One. It’s all about bumping into the right people.
And speaking of serendipity: plans for PBQ’s 2014 editors’ roundtable were made while waiting for the elevator. Hello, Graywolf Press & Fiona McCrae! AWP is like that.”
And it’s like this: Tony Hoagland judges the Literary Death Match and Andres Dubus III wins. Yeah. It’s kinda surreal. The LDM—more than 300 people pack a music venue, but of course all were willing to stand in a crowd to hear the genius of Parul Sehgal (as we wonder—what’s it like to have it all?), and Amelia Gray? How can we possibly tell you about Thomas Sayers Ellis’s moves, both literal and physical? We couldn’t tweet about Adrian Todd Zuniga’s jacket even if his name wasn’t so impossibly long. What? What?
Would you believe us if we told you that PBQ’s Anniversary Reading was the best we’ve ever been to? Yeah, I know we’re not exactly objective, but ask the audience. With a line-up like DanielNesterKeetjeKuipersAdaLimonGregoryPardloJasonSchneiderman, how could we go wrong? And we get to call these people our authors, and even our friends? What?
At AWP you leave the party at 2:15 a.m. and have a Terrance Hayes sighting on your way back to your room.
At AWP you meet the lady who tells you she is the inventor of “cut and paste.” She believes it, so, so do you.
You eat craisins.
When your waiter can’t open the Prossecco you rely on the kindness of the people at the table next door, who happens to be Martin Farawell, director of the Dodge Festival.
More soon…We’re exhausted.