Where you can find Sackett Street writers at AWP 2016 Los Angeles...
THURSDAY, March 31st
9-10:15am
Scott James Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
R138. Literary Orphans Presents: Burning Down the Walls: The Art and Importance of Writing Essays That Can Change the World.
Featuring Anna March, Megan Stielstra, Sackett Street instructor Michele Filgate, Jamia Wilson, and Ashley Ford.
Essays concerned—directly or indirectly—with the social crises of our time are receiving unprecedented readership. In that context, this panel will discuss the role of the essayist as citizen, issues surrounding personal disclosures in the socially conscious essay, their own call to create change, as well as their own recent works confronting topics such as race, feminism, queer identity, and abortion. Handouts will include a reading list, suggested markets/editors and helpful craft suggestions.
12-1:15pm
Room 510, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
R193. Read the Essay, Buy the Book?
Anna North, Esme Wang, and Sackett Street writers Tony Tulathimutte, Marie Helene-Bertino, and Eric Sasson.
In today’s publishing climate, writing essays related to a book has become as important a part of promotion as giving readings or interviews. What makes a successful essay of this kind, for the writer and for the reader? How can writers craft and place essays that both are meaningful in their own right and acquaint the reader with them and with their books? The five writers on this panel explore, along with the audience, the place of the book-related essay in a writer’s life and career.
AWP Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
R137. Class Matters: Considering Class in the Classroom.
Adam Penna, Christina Marrocco, Stephanie Lindberg, KateLynn Hibbard, and Sackett Street writer Mary Lannon
How do we reach out to students with different class backgrounds in our classrooms, welcome them to creative writing workshops, and encourage them to make the literary world their own? Five writers with working-class roots share how their own stories of coming to voice and their own experiences teaching a wide range of students inform their teaching philosophies. Strategies for students, common pedagogical challenges, and best practices applicable to classrooms at all levels are discussed.
4:30-5:45pm
Room 503, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level R287
Panel #R287 BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME: Creating a School and Community Outside Academia. Edan Lepucki, Writing Workshops LA Julia Fierro, Founder of The Sackett Street Writers' Workshop Sonya Larson, Grub Street Writers Michelle Wildgen, Madison Writer's Studio Jason Koo, Brooklyn Poets
On this panel, the founders and directors of five successful writing schools offer practical advice on how to develop a strong community of writers, expanding the subject of a 2014 Poets & Writers article, "Academic Alternatives: The DIY MFA," in which some of the panelists were featured. Panelists also examine the role these workshops play in the shifting MFA landscape and discuss how they provide another path to writers looking for instruction and community outside academia.
FRIDAY, April 1st
9:00-10:00am
Room 407, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
F114. We're on the Road to Somewhere: Approaches to Managing the Writing Life. (Sackett Street instructor Josh Rolnick, Yiyun Li, Austin Bunn, Sonya Chung, Leslie Pietrzyk) There are no shortcuts when it comes to writing. Sometimes, the challenge isn’t getting started—it’s sticking with it through criticism and rejection; doubts and confusion with the material itself. In this inspiring panel, successful writers discuss their own winding paths to publication and offer practical suggestions for building a creative and professional life in a variety of writing fields—including editing, blogging, and screenwriting—while managing a writing life over the long haul.
Room 518, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
S132. Without Representation: Authors Who Sold Their Literary Debuts Without an Agent. (Sackett Street instructor Cari Luna, Will Chancellor, Wendy C. Ortiz, Chelsea Hodson) A literary agent can be a writer's closest ally in the publishing business, but is your career sunk if you don't have one? Four authors who sold their literary debuts to traditional publishers on their own, and then went on to sign with agents, discuss their publishing experiences with and without representation.
10:30 am to 11:45 am
Gold Salon 1, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
F132. The Art of the Book Review. (Joseph Salvatore, Helen Schulman, Courtney Maum, Tony Leuzzi, Sackett Street instructor Scott Cheshire) Thousands of books are published each year. We're led to many of them by intelligent, engaging, well-made book reviews, which not only investigate and articulate the mysteries and pleasures a literary text offers, but also please the reader with their style. Five widely published writers/critics/editors will discuss the review as a genre in its own right, a unique artistic form that contributes to the formation of taste, raises the level of public discourse, and establishes critical reputation.
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
Room 506, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
F223. Translation as Pure Writing IV: Nonfiction. (Becka McKay, Sarah Viren, Sackett Street alum Jen Zoble) This panel follows last year’s on poetry translations (as well as the 2014 panel on fiction translations) by turning to creative nonfiction and exploring the pleasures and virtues of translation as pure creative nonfiction writing, where the writers are not distracted by what sort of form to employ, how to develop a character, or how in the world to end or begin. The panel also examines the question of whether the idea of “truth” in nonfiction is affected by the presence of translation.
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SATURDAY, April 2nd
9:00 am to 10:00 am
Room 404 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
S112. Writing Characters Who Buck Gender Norms. (Lucy Jane Bledsoe, William Lung, Sackett Street alum Nicole Dennis-Benn, Lydia Conklin, Erin Judge) In a market that tends to want fairy tales, and characters who conform to strict gender norms, how do we write characters who resist these stereotypes of what men and women are supposed to be? Are brainy and/or bossy female characters unsympathetic? If a male character is excessively romantic, has his believability been diminished? How do we write convincing characters, ones who do not reflect standard gender expectations, without triggering questions about the characters’ credibility?
Room 515 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
S164. Ten Years of 5 Under 35. (Benjamin Samuel, Kirstin Allio, Molly Antopol, Sackett Street writer Alex Gilvarry, Grace Krilanovich) The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, created “5 Under 35” in 2006 to highlight the work of a rising generation of fiction writers, because the majority of winners and finalists for the National Book Awards were mid- or late-career writers. We’re celebrating ten years of bringing the finest young fiction writers to the attention of the reading public. Come raise a glass and listen to some great writing!
3:00pm
Gold Salon 4, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
Panel #S235. NO FACTS, ONLY INTERPRETATIONS: An Examination of the Multiple Point of View Novel. Sackett Street alum Eric Sasson, Anna North, Sackett Street founder Julia Fierro, Rebecca Makkai, J Ryan Stradal Five novelists who have experimented with POV will discuss their POV choices and how those choices informed the tone and shape of their books. Does having multiple POVs—an accumulation of subjective perspectives—allow us to approach the “truth”? How do we decide that another POV is necessary to tell the story? What dangers arise when that POV is outside the writer's gender, race, or sexuality? The panel examines the pitfalls and benefits that a writer who experiments with POV might encounter.
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Room 402 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
S272. Speculative Fiction: Defining the Rules of a Rule-Breaking Genre. (Rob Spillman, Sackett Street writer Marie-Helene Bertino, Ramona Ausubel, Aimee Bender, Manuel Gonzales) What are the risks of breaking rules in fiction? What are the rewards? Do unicorns exist? Five award-winning speculative writers share their origin stories and reasons for writing fiction that eschews formal convention (and occasionally the laws of physics). Though speculative fiction is often marginalized, they discuss why it should be necessary reading for students of any genre, and offer practical advice for writers who want to try it and teachers who want to implement it into their curriculum.
Room 511, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
S289. Launching Your Passion Project. (Rachel Fershleiser, Amanda Bullock, Maris Kreizman, Colin Dickey, Sackett Street writer Allison Devers) How can writers bring their passion projects to life? This panel investigates the practical and creative ways in which a collection of esteemed writers launched zines, marathon readings, anthologies, literary websites, and more—all while remaining focused on both their day jobs and their larger artistic visions.