Attending AWP: a Report for SLF (aka Alphabet Soup)
Attending AWP: a Report for SLF (aka Alphabet Soup)
[SLF=Speculative Literature Foundation, https://speculativeliterature.org]
5 Ws:
Who? Your intrepid reporter
What? Attended AWP. AWP? Association of Writers and Writing Programs. From https://awpwriter.org: AWP amplifies the voices of writers and the academic programs and organizations that serve them while championing diversity and excellence in creative writing.
When? March 26-29, 2025
Where? This year it was at the Los Angeles Convention Center
Why? To join a huge number of writers together in one place for readings, panels on craft, publishing, and marketing, plus information on writing programs, all while mingling and having access to a massive book fair filled with publishers, academics, artists, writers, bookmarks, stickers, temporary tattoos and myriad other cool things.
What was good:
The kabilliondy sessions to choose from, making it easy to attend ones that aligned with where I am now as a writer and next steps to take to get me where I’m going.
The H U G E bookfair filled with publishing professionals excited to chat with writers
Excellent readings. Wow.
The way AWP organized the event: volunteers were outside in the mornings to direct writers toward the convention center and on hand inside the convention center to answer questions.
What was not-so-good:
A kabilliondy sessions that overlapped—essentially a training ground for FOMO.
A cognitive overload of a bookfair—sights, sounds, smells, lights, people people people.
A very, very lot of people.
What sessions I attended and what I got out of them:
New Literary Forms for a New Los Angeles
Description: Five writers of genre-defying poetry, creative nonfiction, cultural criticism, and fiction consider what it means to effect social change. What informs twenty-first-century Los Angeles writing?
Event category: Multiple literary genres craft & criticism
Event organizer/moderator: Claire Phillips
Writers: Steph Cha, Sesshu Foster, Gina Frangello, and Audrey Shipp
Take away: What started as a disappointing name-dropping session (names of bookstores in L.A. and local publishers who no longer existed) (and none of which I had heard of before) ended up being really inspiring and came back to me later outside of the convention. Hopeful to hear L.A. writers who had seen a lot of change, ups and downs in the industry and local writing culture, but onward they keep going, showing up and writing really great stuff. In the evening, I attended a reading at North Figueroa Bookshop and bumped into many names of authors and publishers mentioned right there on the shelves of the shop. Later, I visited the Central Branch of the L.A. Public Library and saw an exhibit that included a profile of Sesshu Foster. All the writers on the panel had made deep connections with L.A., such that I could see them in places when I wasn’t looking for them.
They inspired me to ask what I can in my community. What’s going on where I live that I can connect to and contribute to and boost up higher?
Understories & Mycrocosms
Description: How do we tap into networks outside of established power structures in precarious times and spaces to connect with allies and advocates? What cues can we take from the remarkable pathways ignited by trees, fungi, and other species in activating our understories?
Event category: Artistic & Professional Development
Moderator: Anna Maria Hong
Organizer: Lesley Wheeler
Writers: Sarah Audsley, Amarnath Ravva, Asali Solomon
Take Away: I should hydrate between sessions. And maybe have some almonds. As a member of SLF, I am naturally fascinated by weirdo tree roots, fungi, mushroom networks, bizarre fish at the bottom of the ocean that seem like aliens…it’s all worldbuilding material. This was a great reminder to look to nature for solutions when I am stuck on a story.
The Art of the Uncanny
Description: Does “realism” carry the same weight as a genre that it once did? As a writer, how might you use elements of the speculative, the uncanny, the surreal, horror, and black comedy to speak to what it’s like to be alive today?
Event category: craft & criticism panel
Moderated by Heather Scott Partington
Organized by Anita Felicelli
Writers: Rita Bullwinkel, Kate Folk, Carribean Fragoza, and Anita Felicelli
Take Away: The most interesting idea came from one of the writers challenging what we call “real.” She described how often we are off somewhere in our thoughts when walking down the street, not taking in what is around us. So in that instance, what is real—the surroundings or where we are in our heads? This really opened my mind up to a connection between speculative literature and realism—that a scene could have two characters talking to each other on planet Earth, but each could mentally be in another part of the Universe. Which actually, might be how things are all the time. Hmmm.
The Long & Short of Craft: Authors Publishing Novels and Flash Fiction
Description: Many writers struggle with when and how to compress and expand their fiction. These panelists, experts in both the flash and novel form, will discuss tips and strategies for finding the best size for your story, what the two opposite ends of the writing spectrum have to learn from each other, and how stretching your expertise helps a career.
Event category: fiction craft & criticism
Event Moderator and Participant: Sherrie Flick
Event Participants: Alan Michael Parker, Venita Blackburn, John Dufresne
Take Away: I liked the ideas here. The panel talked about how in flash fiction, the reader is given the elements of a story, which ends abruptly, but the writer has lighted the path for the story to continue in the reader’s head. That’s cool.
Craft techniques:
Barf out a story, then go through and highlight the sentences you like, then just use those to put together a story.
Write a scene with a beginning, middle, and end. Then put that scene on the bottom of page 5 and write toward it. Then let that scene go (ouch).
Describe a scene or setting as fully as you can. Then take from that description just one element — an orange on a table in a house, for example and let that one element be the description. Not sure about this one but I will try it.
Build the world, introduce the characters, write, write, write, don’t worry! Let all of this writing serve the plot and the characters and remove what isn’t necessary.
Build the world—blah-blah-blah away with the writing, then read through and identify the coolest thing in your world and have the character encounter that on page one.
Big Ideas, Short Forms Sarabande Books
Description: Sarabande is a publisher of hybrid works, chapbooks, novels in stories, and experimental prose. Four nationally acclaimed writers pressed and discussed original short form works of various genres.
Take Away: This was less discussion and more reading, and the work was amazing. So incredible to hear how much these writers were able to pack into different short forms.
Writing & Publishing Short Story
Description:
The publishing industry remains largely geared toward novels. Many writers, however, come to fiction through the short form. How, then, to reconcile the disconnect between what we feel called to write and what the industry prefers to publish?
Event Category: Fiction, Craft, and Criticism
Event participants: Lan Samantha Chang, Gwendolyn Paradice, Leslie Pietrzyk, Gina Chung, and Jeremy Broyles
Take Away: These panelists were a little defensive about short form, lol. The overall tone of the discussion was really geared towards students and encouraging them to use short form to develop the skills that are needed to tackle bigger works. But also, lean into short form if that’s your thing.
Bookfair: talked to McSweeney’s, stopped by Aunt Lute Books/Sistah Scifi, Kelsey Street Press, Weird Lit Mag, Atmosphere Press, random program tables, and was easily blown off course by shiny book covers
Extracurricular activities:
Bad Romance: Readings for the Filthy Bent & Heartbroken organized by Adèle Barclay (Canadian writer also attending AWP) held at the North Figueroa Bookshop
met writer Margaret Dunlap, member of my Cosmic Zoom Book Club in person
visited the Central Branch of the L.A. Public Library
Walked around the streets of L.A.
meeting fellow SLF member Margaret Frey in person!
If you decide to go:
BEFORE
What do you need? Are you looking for a writing program? A job? Professional feedback? Workshops? Figuring this out will help you select the best panels and events to get the most out of this experience.
Register early. It’s cheaper and allows for more time to plan
Download the app. There’s a section called “My Planner” that you can use to organize times and locations of sessions that you want to attend
Book accommodations asap. I chose a hotel within walking distance. It was expensive, yes, but enabled me to have a safe, sure place to go at the end of long days and get good rest. I really enjoyed the mile walk to the convention center in the mornings.
Book travel asap. Cheaper and more options the earlier you can book.
1 month out: look at the schedule and highlight sessions that interest you. There’s a very lot to sort through and I found multiple passes of the scheduled events helpful in clarifying my own thinking around what I wanted to get out of the convention. Within the event description, check out the link under “Docs” to get a detailed breakdown of how the topic will be discussed.
1 month out: Where are you going? Different cities host AWP every year. The joy of emerging from your writing lair is to see what’s out in the world—don’t just exchange your writing den for a day indoors at a generic convention center, see what you can see! You’ll need a chance to recharge—how about a museum? A cool tour? A fancy restaurant? A food truck?
Who do you know in the area?
Who do you know who is attending AWP? Is there anyone you can buddy up with? If so, agree to meet for snack time at the site or have dinner together to swap experiences
Where are the cool bookstores? Any readings going on?
Plan, plan, plan so you don’t have to figure out what to do on your feet. It’s easier to jettison plans in the moment than get overwhelmed and have to pivot mid-conference
Do what it takes to get in the right headspace: meditate, ensure that you will stay somewhere chiller so you can sleep, plan to have a good breakfast, schedule when you’ll fit in breaks, breathers, walks, and chances to integrate notes.
DURING
At the convention:
Where are your people? Look for sessions where you can learn about organizations to join, classes to take, publications to read and/or submit to, also, chat with your neighbors. If you don’t see a session that matches your needs, go into the open waters of the book fair, people want to talk writing with you!
Listen to / see in person / and even meet your writing idols.
Get free stuff, discounted books, books signed by authors, cool stickers, bookmarks, cups of coffee.
You cannot attend every session. Do your best to select ones you want to hit before the convention starts, then whittle your list down to one must-do per day and see if you can fit in more, but don’t fry yourself out.
This is an information overload event, schedule time to process what you are learning—sit for a spell with a cup of coffee and write up your notes, make lists, doodle, recharge.
Strike up a conversation while waiting in line for food, or before a session starts—you’re all there for the same reason, see if you can get others’ thoughts on what you’ve been hearing.
Again, you cannot attend every session. You cannot do everything. Build in some alone time. Quality over quantity—go as deep as you can with the sessions you do attend, take notes, free write what associations it made you have, how you might incorporate tools and techniques described into your own work.
AFTER
Write about the experience.
All those great writing tips that came up during the panels? Yeah, start trying them out.
Share what you learned with SLF.
Would I go again?
Yes.
But.
I’m not as young and foolish as I was when I attended my first AWP in March of 2025—now I know some tricks that would make the experience even better. I would be more intentional about creating some of the happy accidents that happened this last time. I would research readings that were taking place while I was in town. I would make efforts to meet up with friends and reach out through organizations I belong to find out who else is going and plan to meet up with them during the convention.
I can also bide my time and match an AWP to a specific place in my own writing life—I’ve finished a novel and am looking for all the minutia around getting published, for example. I want to connect with specific publishers who will be attending, maybe, or it’s being held in a city that has something amazing that I must see.
Hey, but what if all my efforts and money spent don’t help and it ends up being a lousy experience? Pshaw, I’m a writer. A member of SLF, to boot, so I’ll just take notes for the story happening at that convention on the moon.