That annual convention of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (#AWP) at the Washington, DC, Convention Center two weeks ago wasn’t all bad.

I talked to some smart, exciting people as well as many drudges. Here are my favorites.

Kudos to:

• Bix Skahill, author of Dope Tits and other titles and founder and proprietor of Thicke and Vaney Press: Publishers of Fair to Middling Works  in St. Paul, MN. I could have talked to Bix all day.
• Soho Press passed out double-fold bookmarks that listed all of their crime authors and titles. Very cool.
• Paper Monument distributed a wonderfully ironic postcard promoting its book, “Social medium: artists writing, 2000-2005”. You can see it at right.
• Indiana Review printed a 2 3/4″ x 4 1/4″ preview (about the dimensions of a small cell phone) of its coming issue. The literary magazine fit four excerpts and one complete poem within its 16-pages. Cool idea, even if it’s still print.
• Robert Kerbeck, Michal Lemberger, Sujata Shekar and Zach Powers presented an informed and informative panel on “Emerging from the Slush: How to Get Your Short Story Published.” They understood the low-tech nature of the convention and passed out their key points on a book mark. It will hold my place in every print book I read from now on. Bravo!

More to come from AWP 2017:

• Books I Could Not Resist – I didn’t intend to buy; I don’t need more books; but some thing are too good to pass up.
• Hitchcock: What to Tell the Reader – What?