Advice for AWP

After 7 or 8 AWPs, I thought it might be fun to see if I’ve learned anything that could help someone else. I’m one of those strange people who like AWP a lot, and the reason is simple: I see people at AWP whom I often don’t get to see the rest of the year. I’ve made AWP more enjoyable for myself over the years by, I guess, being economical about this: maximizing the time I get to see people and minimizing the things that keep me from seeing people. So here are some tips if anyone is interested, followed by a list of panels and events that Pleiades and its editors are involved in.

1. My best piece of advice is: Schedule time to see people. Schedule lunch. Schedule dinner. If you’re ambitious, schedule breakfast. If not, you’re liable to miss people you really want to see. 

2. Use the buddy system. AWP is more fun with a buddy. Especially a buddy who knows some of the same people but also many different people from you.

3. Everything leads back to the hotel bar. If you’re in doubt about where to go, if you’ve lost your buddy, go there.

4. If you want to go to panels, don’t go to more than two a day, and choose based on the panelists, not the topics. A topic might sound interesting, but it’s only as interesting as the people speaking on it.

5. Readings are more fun than panels. But think of them like parties, not concerts. Prioritize hanging out over star power. Especially if you live in or near a place where folks will come through and read in a place you can actually hear them, like a bookstore.

6. Skip the readings with double-digit readers.

7. Go to the book fair to see people first. Stop by the tables where you’ve been published or where writers you’ve published are editors or wherever you know someone and say hi. I’ve made a lot of friends this way whom I see every AWP. Go back to the book fair on Saturday to buy books/mags at a discount.

8. Don’t try to pitch anything. I don’t know. I’ve heard stories where this has worked out. But I’ve found the friendships I’ve made far more valuable, and if you pitch something, you’re establishing a business relationship, not a friendship.

9. Stop staring at people’s name tags. Stop trying to figure out whether someone will be useful to you. If you’re going to think of that way, know that the people you ignore one AWP will become people you wish you hadn’t ignored, and they’ll remember.

10. If you work for a lit mag, trade your lit mag for other lit mags. Trade your book for other people’s books.

11. AWP isn’t Facebook.

12. Be flexible. Don’t overplan, except for meals. You never know where you’ll end up and the best AWPs are full of surprises.

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Here are some panels and events with Pleiades involvement:

Thursday, February 9, 2017
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Room 207A, Washington Convention Center, Level Two

R263. The Animal That Therefore I Am: “I”-ing and Eyeing the Animal. (Elena Passarello, Steven Church, Matthew Gavin Frank, Clinton Crockett Peters, Lisa Couturier) Derrida once lectured for eight hours about standing naked in front of his staring cat. Essayists are known for standing “naked” in front of their audiences, looking at the world while also looking in. How do these two acts of gazing converge when essayists turn to animals? What are the problems of anthropomorphism? In this panel, five authors of recent creative nonfiction on the animal kingdom discuss their approaches to essaying animals, combining their “I” with the eye of the house cat (or of the tiger).

Thursday, February 9, 2017
8:00 pm to 10:00 pm

Bayou, 2519 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC, 20037

The Magnificent Seven: A reading hosted by Pleiades, AGNI, American Literary Review, Boulevard, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, and Poemoftheweek.org
Cost: Free
Event URL: website
Come to Bayou to celebrate the Magnificent Seven at a reading by our contributors, including: Chen Chen, Alice Elliott Dark, Matt Donovan, David Keplinger, Shara McCallum, Gregory Pardlo, Caitlin Pryor, Maggie Smith, and Ryo Yamaguchi. Meet us upstairs for a drink in the company of friends.
Contact: Jenny Molberg
Organization: Pleiades Magazine
Organization URL: website

Friday, February 10, 2017
10:30 am to 11:45 am

Marquis Salon 6, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two

F140. Greater than the Sum: Collaborations Between Publishers. (Wayne Miller, Brigid Hughes, Kathryn Nuernberger, Martin Rock, Daniel Slager) Now that small and independent presses do more of the heavy lifting in the literary world than was once the case, a number of presses and literary journals have sought out innovative collaborations to enhance visibility, production, and reach. The editors of Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Milkweed Editions, Pleiades Press, and A Public Space discuss the goals, methods, and benefits of collaborative publishing projects, paying particular attention to their own collaborations currently underway.

Friday, February 10, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Capital & Congress, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four

F284. Beyond Diversity: How to Run the Truly Inclusive Creating Writing Workshop. (Jonathan Escoffery, Matthew Salesses, Eson Kim, Alison Murphy, Dariel Suarez) How do we move beyond the vague concept of diversity to create truly inclusive workshops? In focusing on craft and ignoring the larger cultural context of our writing, we often sideline POC, queer, and other voices marginalized by the literary establishment. Speakers from GrubStreet, Warren Wilson, and the University of Houston will traditional pedagogy for inherent bias and offer strategies on navigating issues of identity to take workshops from simply diverse to truly inclusive.

Saturday, February 11, 2017
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

Marquis Salon 6, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two

S204. Practicum and Beyond: Publishing Courses and Literary Citizenship . (Erika Meitner, Phong Nguyen , Rebecca Morgan Frank, Lisa Roney, Ron Mitchell) Educators and editors from The Florida Review, Memorious, Pleiades, Southern Indiana Review, and SIR Press address strategies for the vision and implementation of publishing courses in academia, creating a learning environment that both introduces professional skills and addresses larger questions of literary aesthetics, ethics, history, and community. Topics include diversity, gender, inequity, intersectionality, multimedia technologies and social justice.

Saturday, February 11, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Capital & Congress, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four

S278. Expanding the Canon. (Brigid Hughes, Kevin Prufer, Lisa Pearson, Farnoosh Fathi, Kendra Sullivan) How do we seek out great writing by authors whose work has been forgotten or ignored? What role does the magazine or book publisher play in expanding the canon? In this panel, writers, editors, and publishers who have been involved in highlighting work from the archives of unheralded writers come together to seek answers to these questions. Panelists discuss the discoveries and challenges of bringing this work into the world and the importance of posthumous and later-life recognition.

Saturday, February 11, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Room 202B, Washington Convention Center, Level Two

S285. Eco-Writing: Plotting a Way Forward in Three Genres. (Clinton Crockett Peters, Toni Jensen, Megan Kaminski, Roger Reeves, Kurt Caswell) “Nature writing” has sometimes had a storied history as a privileged pursuit, occasionally ignorant of social justice. “Eco-writing” is a new brand, one that acknowledges ecological and social embeddedness. This panel features a cross-genre reading of essays, poems, and stories interested in the entwinement of human with the more-than-human world. The featured work incorporates social justice and escapes, as much as possible, the baggage of privileged outdoor pursuits.

Saturday, February 11, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Liberty Salon I, J, & K, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four

S274. The Personal (Essay) Is Political: Nonfiction as an Agent of Social Change. (Katie Cortese, Jaquira Díaz, Eric Sasson, Gabrielle Bellot, Matthew Salesses) Online nonfiction venues such as Salon, Slate, and The Atlantic, among others, invite writers to respond to world events through the lens of personal experience while also allowing works to be shared virally via social media. The best of these spur public conversations about issues as pressing as police brutality, rape culture, LGBTQ rights, and more. This panel explores the various roles of the personal essay in contemporary culture, and discuss how words effect change on the world.