Fear not, intrepid readers. I didn’t fall into a wormhole,
nor did I hitchhike across the Midwest or get kidnapped by a band of rogue literati.
I did, however, attend the AWP conference in Chicago, and the experience felt
much like I would imagine getting dropped into an alternate reality would feel.
For those who don’t know, AWP (Association of Writers and
Writing Programs) hosts an annual conference for writers, students, and
teachers – and anyone, really, who wants to shell out the $230 non-member,
non-student fee. AWP is Mecca for writers, and this year, Mecca came to
Chicago. This was my first AWP conference, and I had no idea what to expect. This
is what I experienced.
The Panels
First of all, the conference schedule is almost paralyzing in its number of options. There are over twenty panels you can attend during
each hour-and-fifteen-minute block, with subjects ranging from “How to transition
from short stories to novels” to “The business of publishing,” to “The poetry
of the music video.” My initial game plan involved making myself a rigid
schedule of panels to attend, and attending as many panels as possible.
I quickly realized this was a stupid, if not impossible, plan.
The first panel I attended was the aforementioned “short
story to novel,” in which I anticipated the speakers bestowing upon me
some enlightening and specific advice on craft and the writing process. What I got
was a mixed bag. Hannah Tinti, author of The
Good Thief and editor-in-chief of One Story, was engaging and thoughtful and relatable. Kevin Wilson,
author of the absolutely brilliant short story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (seriously, stop what you’re
doing and go read it now) and The Family Fang,
was funny and charming and had many relevant experiences to share. But another author
on the panel (whose name I can’t remember) talked mostly in abstractions,
mentioning the cosmos and humanity’s shared neurological experience and a lot of other arty babble,
which confused and disappointed me.
Many people already have this conception of writers as pretentious
weirdos, sitting around waiting for the world to bestow inspiration upon them,
until they vomit words onto a page. That’s not my experience at all. Yes, we
are sort of weirdos, but we’re not vacantly sitting around waiting to become a
vessel for literary genius. Writing is a craft, which requires a lot of
practice, finessing, and working very hard on minor (and major) technical
issues. It's not easy for us. Stories are like machines; if one part isn’t working, the entire contraption
fails. If we didn’t practice, only waited for the next brilliant idea to
come to us, we’d never get anything done.
That’s why I was so disappointed to see published and
respected authors treating the writing process like some sort of mystic ritual.
Not only does it perpetrate the stereotype, but it’s not helpful to other
writers searching for some solid, tangible advice on how to improve their
craft. Many of the panels I attended at AWP were like this: some knowledgeable
authors and editors giving helpful advice, and some knowledgeable authors
saying flowery things that didn’t mean a whole lot. (Not the editors. The editors
are very practical about writing. Sometimes painfully so).
So my advice for those attending their first AWP is this:
plan on going to the panels that sound like they'll truly help, that really
interest you, but don’t expect your life to change. You’re going to get some
helpful advice. You’re going to get some not-so-helpful advice. But don’t plan
your whole conference around the success of the panels. Leave time open for other activities, such as socializing, perusing the bookfair, and wandering around in
an overwhelmed daze.
More on these things tomorrow…
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