Category Archives: Lessons

AWP 2017: Books I Could Not Resist

Posted on by
Reply

I didn’t plan to buy any books at the annual convention of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (#AWP) at the Washington, DC, Convention Center.

I have more books now than I have time to read. Besides, I’m trying to write books for other folks to buy.

Nonetheless, I succumbed:

books

  • Dope Tits by Bix Skahill. I mean, how could I not? Bix, we will meet again, whether you like it or not.
  • A Simplified Map of the Real World by Stevan Allred. I met the founder and publisher of Forest Avenue Press, Laura Stanfill,  and shared her enthusiasm for two graphics in the book, one the author’s hand-drawn map and the other a diagram linking the characters of the various stories. I love people who experiment. Always have. Best of luck to you.
  • Color Your Campus – Indiana University. As a left-hander, I hate coloring, but I’m trying to understand the fad that accounted for last year’s increase in sales of print books, and I know a bit about I.U. from my years as a reporter in Indiana.
  • I will read Allred and Skahill, but I can’t promise I’ll color I.U. I’m still left-handed, and the smearing problem has not gone away.

Finally, I let a good one get away.

It was a memoir about the Viet-Nam war set in the early 1960s before the huge American military buildup and executed by a Vietnamese author as a graphic book. I thumbed through it, comparing observations against my own experiences and unpublished memoir (HIDDEN WAR: A Memoir of the CIA’s Secret War in Laos).

I should get this, I thought. But my backpack weighed heavily on my right shoulder, and I figured I would pick it up on Day #2. I never found it despite haunting the bookseller aisles in the exhibit hall.

I regret that decision. If anyone knows the book I’m talking about, I would love to hear from you.

Lesson Learned: When your gut says Buy it, buy it.

One more post to come inspired by the AWP: Hitchcock: What to Tell the Reader – What?

AWP 2017: Kudos

Posted on by
Reply

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:

generate-content_img_2728

  • 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 Kerroberts-rulesbeck, 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?

Writing Conventions: AWP 2017 (Thumbs Down)

Posted on by
Reply

Nine days have passed since I staggered out of the annual convention of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (#AWP) at the Washington, DC, Convention Center. Two long days at the gathering – Metroing in and out, walking the enormous exhibit hall, hustling from one disappointing panel to another – left me rung out.

But the detritus of the convention (see photo) still litters the floor, and I need to move on. Spring has interrupted my usually thought-filled February, and I have gardens to till and photographs to take.

awp-img_2727

Post-convention slush pile

Preliminary thoughts overall:

  • That’s a lot of concrete to walk on.
  • Metro actually worked for my writing colleague and convention partner, and me.
  • Exhibit Hall was worth the price of admission, or at least the senior citizen fare.
  • Whole lot of poetry going on. Good for them.
  • Panels extremely uneven, most poorly planned and executed and full of academic drivel.
  • Also, the panel titles reminded me of National Enquirer headlines. They contained enough truth to keep them out of court, but their representation of reality would qualify as fake news.
  • There was not a single big-name writer on the program.
  • Most – not all – exhibitors and panels operated without benefit of technology that was popularized more than a decade ago. A discouraging number of exhibitors collected email addresses with a pen, paper and clipboard. Does no one own a tablet?
  • Overall convention managed very poorly.
  • Convention Center is so big it made 12,000 seem like a few hundred. I was surprised at how few people I remember seeing more than once.
  • This is a low-cost convention compared with the pricey Thrillerfest I attended in New York three years ago, but I got my money’s worth at Thrillerfest; I did not feel the same about AWP, which cost a tiny fraction.
  • I would not return, even for all those wonderful exhibitors. I don’t do conventions and conferences too well.

Finally, why would anyone waste money getting an MFA? You want to write? Write! But first do some living. A little experience can enrich writing immensely.

Going forward, I need to revive and revise some of my short stories.

For more rants about AWP 2017, stop back for:

  • Kudos – It wasn’t all bad.
  • 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?