belated awp wrap-up

A big thank you to all who attended my panel at AWP10. I was thrilled with the other essays presented (by Nicole Walker, Shannon Lakanen, and Desirae Matherly) and by the insightful questions and comments from the audience.

Ephemera from the conference:

In "Traces of Places: Finding Our Literary Identities Through Landscapes" (Michael Downs, Debra Marquart, Michael Steinberg, Barbara Hurd, Joe Mackall), Barbara Hurd talked about having two kinds of relationships with place: a storying one and a sensory one. I'm fairly sure she said "sensory" now, but at first I heard "censoring." Ever since, I've been caught in that misheard idea, what a censoring relationship with place would be--where we impose silence on landscape, where it imposes silence on us. The rest of her essay, which I'm almost sure I heard correctly, was also stimulating; I look forward to reading her work.

"Mock-Docs, Fakes, and Hoaxes" (David Lazar, Jeff Porter, Catherine Taylor, Mary Cappello, Patrick Madden) was the most intellectually rigorous and complex of the panels I attended. All of the presenters said something fresh and unique about this topic, giving fakery historical and cultural context. I was positively gleeful. I only wish they could repeat this panel on Oprah.

The key to any successful conference, though, is to have great roommates: a grateful shout-out to Jen Schomburg Kanke, Becca J.R. Lachman, and Carling Futvoye.

awp and opp

You can see me at the panel I am heading at AWP in Denver. If you go to the Thursday conference schedule, search for "R201. Goodbye to All That: Coming of Age in the Personal Essay." The panel is April 8, 3-4:15pm, Room 201, Colorado Convention Center, Street Level.

The opp in the title of this post refers, of course, to other people's publications. I'm happy to (re)announce that Ali Stine, one of our presenters on the panel, will have a second book of poetry published with University of Wisconsin Press next year. The book won the The Brittingham Prize. Congratulations, Ali!