Of course! I was a great first one to set the bar and it set it pretty high. Thank you for being open and vulnerable and willing to talk about the hard stuff alongside a panel of equally amazing women.
Nicole, I appreciate that! I'm grateful I'm here as well after I thought I wouldn't make it. I'll continue advocating for myself and other survivors 'til the day I die.
By the way, I'm the one who took the picture for you lovely ladies at the panel! I look forward to reading the newest book!
Last thing about #AWP26: The BEST part was meeting other authors and publishers who were so lovely, so passionate, so fashionable, and so inquisitive. I have a plethora of people I can follow on social media, support by purchasing their books, and look to for community. I'm so happy I went.
Overall, I had a wonderful time at #AWP26, and I look forward to attending #AWP27 in Chicago next year. I might even have a little table to bring in both readers and writers to learn more about S.R. Crane Books (for the books and the editing services!). Visit www.srcranebooks.com to learn more. 🙂
made by each of the panelists and I hope to hear more from them in the future when, five years from now, we'd have fought the good fight and made our way to a world where people have realized AI cannot replace human art or language. #AIisNotArt
about the impact of AI on our literary world, how the LLMs are being misused especially by the big tech companies who are using these tools to collect more training data and information on the public (who gives access to a tool for free if you're not the product, right?). Loved all of the points
that industry, and I have SO many ideas. Biggest takeaway was community (and that was important across the board).
Last session of #AWP26 before we had to leave to catch our flight was Art Under Threat? The Use of AI in Creative Writing with Karen Hao, Vauhini Vara, and Ken Liu. All of them spoke
Sat 3/7: Story Game Presses: Pitching, Submissions & Publishing moderated by Brigitte Winter with panelists Nat Mesnard, Dominique Dickey, C.J. Linton, and Justin Sirois, all with a plethora of knowledge & experience about the game design and publishing industry. Loved learning about how to get into
Sat 3/7: POV Sluts moderated by Nic Anstett with panelists Megan Milks, Mariah Rigg, Ploi Pirapokin, and Jeffrey Xiong, which was PACKED (love that for them). Discussed some perplexing and fun ways to experiment with POV, which gave me an idea for my current novel, so I owe them all a drink.
I didn't get to do as many sessions as I wanted on Friday due to utter exhausting from my first day and needing to complete a therapy session midday, but I thoroughly enjoyed browsing the book fair, buying books from @huribooks.bsky.social to raise awareness of Ukranian novelists, poets & artists.
They read from their own books & then discussed their experiences with diaspora, which was defined as the displacement from one's homeland to another place, whether consensually or non-consensually (especially as children/a terrorized people). I'm buying every one of their books & you should too.
F 3/6: Home, Belonging & Agency in Diasporic Fiction, moderated by Serkan Görkemli with panelists @cleyvisnatera.bsky.social, Elysha Chang, Nawaaz Ahmed, and Roohi Choudhry. Goodness, was it nice to get my first taste of readings from #AWP26; it makes me remember why I love attending them at all.
walked away feeling invigorated and far more prepared than I ever have been. I also am so happy I did not ultimately take the route of becoming a literary agent as I'd planned when I was attending UNCW. Their experiences have cemented it was the right choice. They do so much & should be appreciated.
F 3/6: Ask An Agent Anything, moderated by Regina Brooks with panelists @mmmlysaght.bsky.social, @kaylalightner.bsky.social, @nicolecunningham.bsky.social, and Heather Carr. God, these women provided so much insight into an industry that is incredibly opaque (paraphrasing Regina's words), and I
In the middle of the day, I also got my author portrait done by Adrianne Mathiowetz Photography (adriannemathiowetz.com) for a discount due to AWP, though it was incredibly difficult to narrow down, and I ended up going with three of them despite my wallet wailing into the void.
books, circuitry diagrams as inspiration and companions to text, and maps juxtaposed onto photographs or videos to tell a story. It gave me plenty of ideas for my own classroom in the near to distant future. Please pick up their books!
Carlina Duan with panelists @aproflection.bsky.social (go Seahawks!) and Kathy Wu. I'm an alumni of UNCW and so it was a joy to see Anna Lena again, as she's always great to be around. All three women discussed the ways they have brought the multimodal into the classroom, including accordion
haven't looked into any of their work, I highly recommend it. Jill and Nicole both had a combined launch party on Friday night (which I attended briefly, but couldn't stay for the whole thing). Lovely women all around.
Th 3/5: Material Encounters: On Teaching the Multimodal. Moderated by
their advice left me feeling good about where I'm at with my own mental health, that my PTSD has not absolutely taken over my life anymore. As I go into the world, I want to be able to do what they have done and be the support students need when experiencing something so violating and scary. If you
w/ panelists Brooke Champagne, Jill Christman, @nikwalk.bsky.social, and Karen Michelle Otero. As a survivor myself, it was a touching ~1-hr session that left me feeling empowered and strong, not triggered, and it was such a win for me. The way these women spoke about their experiences & offered
I didn't get to attend all of the #AWP26 sessions I wanted (b/c it was so insanely packed with events from 9 to 5, Th through Sat), but I thoroughly enjoyed the ones I did.
Th 3/5: Writing Gender-Based Sexual Violence is Difficult Enough: So How Do We Teach It? Moderated by Sue William Silverman,
And gotta love Margie & her profanity. Published in 2018, but just coming around to it now because I was immersed into #AWP26 and was compelled to spend all of my money on books I'd never seen before. Got 15 more books to go, starting with @jillchristman.bsky.social's memoir, THE HEART FOLDS EARLY.
The staccato nature of the prose (at least told from Gideon's POV as opposed to other characters' dialogue) can be a little difficult to swallow at first (I myself am a rambling type of gal when it comes to narrative voice), but because of the nature of Gideon and the story, it worked nicely.
I used to loathe first-person, present tense narratives when I was younger, but something about the immediacy of it here, even as Gideon recalls now-distant memories, juxtaposed against the long life he's lived and how he doesn't have the ability to see a sunrise again is really interesting.
On the flight back from #AWP26 last night, I read THE VAMPIRE GIDEON'S SUICIDE HOTLINE AND HALFWAY HOUSE FOR ORPHAN GIRLS by Andrew Katz, which was picked up at the massive book fair at Lanternfish Press's booth. I've never finished a whole book on a plane before and enjoyed it so thoroughly.
I'm buzzing with excitement about getting to go to #AWP for the first time ever. I'm ready to talk novels and chapbooks and social justice with other struggling writers and spend money I don't have. 😅
Stoke fear. Exploit desperation. Suspend the rule of law. Fan brutality.
Every time the stronger brutalize the weak, it’s fundamentally the same playbook.
Our duty is to stand up to brutality.
Our moral obligation is to protect the vulnerable and hold the powerful accountable.
You're either with ICE or with humanity and democracy.
Choose.
“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”
Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943
Turns out some of the “we want small government” people kiiiinda wanted the government to be just one guy.
