Conversations at AWP 2017 by blog editor Leticia A. Urieta
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference is a microcosm of the national and international writing and publishing community, where hundreds of writers, publishers, educators and administrators convene in one city for four days and engage in a communal celebration of and conversation about the nature of writing. This year, the AWP conference was held in Washington D.C. and this made all the difference.
I should explain that this was my first time attending AWP, and I went into the experience primed by the charged environment of where we were and what I might experience. I was staying with friends and colleagues who had attended other AWP’s, and so I was given much conflicting advice: enjoy the panels, don’t go to the panels they are a waste of time, attend off site events, the readings are the best, etc. I also had to be cognizant of my scheduled time at the bookfair representing Front Porch Journal. When I downloaded the app the AWP provides to plan your schedule, I was a bit overzealous, like a young Hermione Granger attempting to attend too many classes; since I didn’t have a Time Turner, I would have to split my time as best I could between the bookfair, panels, readings and time with friends who I had the privilege of seeing because we were meeting in this city for these few days.
If I could summarize the conference into one word (besides more colorful words that my friends were using after a few nights of drinking), it would be resistance.
As I said, we were in the capital of our nation, where our president was signing contentious and discriminatory executive orders whose effects were taking place around us. While at the conference, part of me wanted to avoid social media, lock myself in this bubble of literary dreams to hear writers and poets like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speak about her novel or hear the quiet, hypersensitive voice of Ocean Vuong as he read his poetry like I’ve never heard anyone read before. It was invigorating to be around and amongst these talents, some I knew and some I was meeting for the first time, and gave me energy to want to return to my own thesis work, now at the end of my final semester in the Texas State MFA. Then I would get on Facebook and see the ICE raids occurring back home, threatening friends and youth in the community that I served. I couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of guilt and need to perform some form of resistance while I was here, to take some action that would mean something before I left the birthplace of so much fear and division in our country.
As I wandered the Bookfair and attended panels centered around race, language and identity as these facets of ourselves shape our relationship to our writing and to other writers, I saw people wearing black buttons with ‘Resist” written in bold white ink. I saw women wearing “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts and rainbow flags sewn to their coats. All around me, resistance was occurring in a multitude of forms, from the reading of political, angry, passionate poetry from Terrance Hayes, to the conversations taking place. At several points during the conference, there were overt acts of resistance to the current political regime, from several writers creating a “wall” during the bookfair (which I participated in) to inconvenience those trying to pass, as well as readings and candlelight vigils around the capital that made statements-this may be normal, but this is not OK. What was especially interesting, however, was that it seemed that the word “resistance,” meant very different things to different people. During our brief “human wall” demonstration, several people scoffed and complained that we were blocking their way to certain booths at the bookfair, to which we responded that that was exactly the point. It seemed that people who espouse the ideals of resistance, and continuously call for us to avoid normalizing the Trump administration, were in fact resistant to being criticized or made to feel uncomfortable for even a few minutes of their day. The dream bubble of AWP isolation was bursting before their eyes, and they didn’t like it.
Another resistance I discovered, and enjoyed, was people’s resistance to labelling themselves with binaries of genre, language, identity and even style. During my time at the bookfair, I had so many wonderful conversations with people who responded to our questions about what they wrote when they said “everything.” Having had the experience of people trying to label me and my work in binary terms, as fiction, or poetry, as real, or fantasy, as white, or latina, I loved finding kindred spirits who, despite the publishing industry's insistence that branding oneself means reducing yourself to one thing, were embracing hybridity, versatility and even the political act of affirming their very existence through their art. I attended a panel led by mixed writers, and took away so many quotes to live my life by as a mixed woman, including one reminder that stood out: “Insist upon the integrity of your work.”
During my last night in D.C. I went to eat with friends. At the dinner table, I asked a question I had considered before, but never voiced: What is the difference between a writer and an author? The responses varied-some said that writers worked, while authors were already published. Some said that the terms were interchangeable. I argued that there was a level of ethos associated with the term “author,” and that this ethos opened doors for authors to do more work and have a defined platform in the writing community. A poet acquaintance pointed out that you don’t have to be published to be active in the community. Even here, there was a resistance of definitions and delineations because, as traditionally marginalized writers, we all knew that the work for us would never be done. After hearing responses from friends and new writers I met, it was obvious to me that the act of writing is a conversation with the literary communities that form us. With so many of embarking into new and unknown territory, because we are graduating from MFA programs, or because we are beginning new community and artistic projects, we are looking for our places in a social landscape that is often in disagreement.
Sitting here at the airport waiting for my flight home, I am OK with the fact that I didn’t go to any museums or visit any landmarks while I was here. That will be another trip. I am OK that I didn’t go to all the panels and readings that I wanted. The body and spirit are both invigorated and exhausted after a conference that requires so much travel and creative energy. In the end, I am simply grateful to have been a part of a conversation.
