I think I finally get AWP

And I'm not going to tell you the point until you get to the end of this montage

in my element: white lotus unicorn jedi on an upside down table drinking biodynamic orange wine at a queer kink reading. photo by Mischa Kuczynski. vestiment by Free People.

The first time I went to AWP was 2020. Yeah.

I won’t waste any of our time discussing that in depth, but I’ll say in spite of ~everything~ I made two dear friends that weekend and evolved my understanding of myself as a writer.

Last year was my first time being back since 2020. I was promoting a big project and was invited to volunteer at Sarabande’s booth. I met a ton of people, tried to be everywhere at once, tried to prove to everyone I was a Serious And Important Person, and honestly stressed myself out in the process. I thought the vibe was supposed to be more like SXSW. Like if you didn’t walk away with a new investor or brand deal you “did it wrong.” I thought to myself, “all these great minds together in one gargantuan conference complex: and for what? Are we going to actually do something together??”

Maybe I am just continuing to evolve my understanding of my role to play in this life, but after last weekend in Los Angeles for AWP25, I have a completely refreshed vision of who I am, who writers are, what writing is, and why I will plan to attend every AWP that I can for as long as it exists.

Before I reveal that juicy conclusion, however, allow me to tantalize you with a few anecdotes from the conference. One from every major element of the full AWP experience, rated out of 10.

Working At the Book Fair Booth 10/10

I am not a normal person who can just be told to be somewhere at a specific time and do a simple task in the order in which it was assigned. But I am an over-achiever in that I will absolutely do all I can to achieve the desired outcome. So when Sarabande asked me to assist them in selling the works of their authors, I said “how about I perform bibliomancy for book shoppers?” Somehow, Kristen Renee Miller (bless her) agreed and I proceeded to use my divination talents to showcase otherworldly passages from hit new titles like the still-to-be-officially-released My Heresies by Alina Stefanescu, Lauren K Watel’s debut hybrid genre poetically channeled memoir Book of Potions, and an chang joon’s God-Disease, among dozens of others.

Being accepted as my fullest kookiest self, while getting to elevate and showcase the words of others instead of having to generate every word myself as I do in my normal performances, was such an utter relief and treat! I was totally free, and felt I was in a divine flow state the entire time. And by serving other authors in this way, passionately peddling their precious gifts to the world, I felt happier and more satisfied perhaps than if I would have been “performing” or selling my own books myself. Though that brings up a point I will reveal later on toward the end…

one of my fave books of the YEAR. author signings at booths are so so charming

Visiting Booths & Buying Books at the Book Fair 7/10

I love buying books. Even if I wasn’t a writer or the owner of a global poetic talent incubator and agency, I’d consider coming to AWP just to roam the book fair and listen to publishers and book sellers and buy the mystical symbol-filled rectangles they helped bring into existence. I was able to find something exquisite and unique for every person on my list. However there is room for improvement in this experience. I wanted to find a YA sci-fi fantasy and had no idea where to look. I spent a long time wandering up to random booths and asking “Do you have any YA sci-fi fantasy?” and being told “sorry…” until finally another attendee overheard me and said “oh there is a booth that looks like they might sell something like that one aisle over.” Now maybe that is the Easter Egg experience they want us to have, but it felt stressful to me. (Sure enough, the booth over was spot on. Here’s my TikTok about the experience.)

I love talking to strangers. So visiting booth after booth of interesting looking writing orgs, MFA programs, publishers, and indie authors was overall exciting and enriching for me. I learned about a writers retreat that I almost certainly will be attending in 2026 (HELLBENDER!!!) got a strategic partnership conversation underway with an organization I’ve had no luck connecting with online, reconnected with some of my fave people in this whacky scene (I’m looking at you Derrick Brown and Write Bloody Publishing) and on the spot interviewed multiple talented poets and artists who may find a place within the constellation of Ars Poetica someday.

But.

Can we talk about some volunteer training or basic etiquette or expectation setting for marketplace living? Like, are we talking to each other and greeting people that come to our booths? Or are we staring blankly at them? Are we acknowledging someone’s presence when they walk up even if we’re in another conversation? Or are conversations solely 1:1 on and served on a first-come-first-served basis? Do college students doing this for the first time get a little training? Do a role play of talking to a stranger? At times it felt a bit like Russian Roulette walking up to a booth, wondering if I’d be warmly received or totally ignored, or begged to purchase something I had no connection with. (Honestly, props to those brave souls though!)

For maximum accessibility and welcoming of different styles and comfort levels, maybe people / booths could even have orientation signage or a color system like a green flag for “we love to chat with anyone and everyone,” a yellow flag for “we’re a little shy but please come look at our books and take swag” and a purple flag for “we are an invite-only booth so please steer clear unless we already know you.”

And!

For helping people navigate the labyrinth and find the genres and authors they love, there could be a tag-able map system in the AWP app that allows you to scan for exactly what you’re interested in and find it based on your location. This map function could also open up a whole new world of accessibility and fun ways to encourage attendees to go places they might miss otherwise. Literary scavenger hunt, anyone?

Attending Official On-Site Panels and Readings 8/10

From my point of view, the selection of choices of presentations to attend was MASSIVE and sooooo inspiring. Some of my favorites were:

Long Live Octavia E Butler

Natalie Daily, Nikki High, and Tamisha Tyler were so compelling to hear, and I loved the way they truly dialogued together and braided their perspectives together. Blaise Zerega was a passionate and supportive moderator. This panel left me asking myself, “What can we do as a society to make sure we never so abysmally undervalue a mind and heart like Octavia E Butler’s during their lifetime?” And one of those things is probably to make AWP have a larger place in our daily culture, and our local civic planning. The fact that people in her own neighborhood didn’t know she was there… a travesty. The world needs writers!

Holy F**k: Women, Faith & Sex in Fiction

Probably my favorite panel overall. Could go to an entire conference about this theme. And let me tell you, it was PACKED! Candice Marie Benbow, Felicia Berliner, Aaliyah Bilal, Dantiel Moniz, and Deesha Philyaw brought such wildly diverse yet complimentary perspectives to this theme!!! Whoever curated the panel… you might want to consider turning it into a TV show. I was utterly riveted the entire time. Here are a couple key quotes I wrote down:

“I’m under her skin…

There is an uncomfortability you can invite inside of you.

I’ll take an obsessive negative review over apathy any day.”

~ Dantiel Moniz

(on a woman who hated her book so much she made a point of insulting it multiple places)

“The good and the harm that the church does does not stay within the walls of the church. The whole world is at the mercy of some of the worst teachings of the church, instead of the best. So we all have a right to critique it.”

~ Candice Marie Benbow

(on a reader questioning her “right” to critique the church)

“There is a way to say hard things with love.”

~ Aaliyah Bilal

Nightboat Books Through the Ages

I could only stay for part of this incredible panel featuring Kazim Ali, Dawn Lundy Martin, Brandon Bom, Brian Teare, and Jackie Wang, but I was moved by Kazim Ali’s reading of other writers’ words, those not in the room, namely the tantalizingly surreal Michael Burkard. There was something sweet and profound in the idea of a writer using their stage time to embody someone else’s words instead of their own. Almost like they sacrificed themself to celebrate another. As someone who often points to spotlight toward others instead of myself, I honored that choice.

Big Ideas, Short Forms: Sarabande Writers on the Art & Craft of the Short Form

Whitney Collins, Khaled Mattawa, and Kiki Petrosino in conversation with Sarabande EIC and ED Kristen Renee Miller was like watching three virtuoso composers discuss music with an expert piano designer. I was stunned, and so was the whole audience. I think I’m not a total writing nerd until I witness something like that and think, “will my ideas ever refine themselves to the point of a needle that can thread through the minds of 200 people at once?”

A lot of people complain about the AWP selection committee being too “stuffy” or strict. No one likes feeling gate kept, I get that. We’ll always complain about those who give us structure, governance, and boundaries. An easy way to keep the official presentation selection prestigious while allowing for a little more radical and alternative energy on-site would be designated soap box areas, facilitated debate and discussion groups, and even perhaps the ability for would-be panel presenters to workshop their ideas with successful past presenters and the AWP team themselves. Who knows, maybe some of these things already exist but I just didn’t hear about them.

Long story long: don’t go to AWP and skip all the on-site stuff! Review the immense schedule and at least book mark things and check them out. It’s a great way to get a sampler of genres you might be interested in, and learn unexpected ways to hone your craft.

Attending Off-Site Readings and Parties 11/10

As a literary party girl, this has to be my favorite part. The unofficial, the raw, the satellite programs, the underground offerings, the orgiastic multi-room carnavalian poetic collective effervescence!!!

The two off-sites that best blew my mind were:

SAY PLEASE kinky queer reading (flyer here)

Maybe I’m biased but I do think that erotic poetry is the best poetry. Like maybe the adjective “poetic” could be replaced with “erotic” 9 times out of 10. And who does eroticism better than queer folks? A rhetorical question, to which there is no other answer than a juicy and full-throated “mmmmmm”

Mischa Kuczynski kicked off the reading in a vintage frock accessorized with a leather and chain mail harness so I knew we were in for the real deal. Her shy and girlish presentation of utterly debauched limericks was so delightful I was sad when she finished.

Amanda Hawkins read poems about grief that were so palpable they became erotic. Their voice was calming and deep, helping our feelings plunge with them to new depths.

Elizabeth Burch-Hudson took us back to high school with a wry yet somehow incredibly earnest acrostic called “JAILBAIT.” A performer that can make me genuinely laugh while also squirming in the discomfort of some revelation is one from whom I will definitely want to hear more.

torrin a. greathouse melted my heart by reading a devotional poem directly to their partner, turning away from the audience. I hope to replicate that one day for my beloved.

Every reader, and the host, Jenny Johnson, who also read some seriously juicy stuff, shone uniquely, yet perfectly in the harmony of the theme.

We were all aroused by the end ;)

Side note: the venue was a restaurant called “Good Clean Fun” which from a punny name perspective was the perfect choice, but in spite of us bringing a massive crowd of hungry and thirsty people, the majority of the staff seemed to despise us, and we were somehow disallowed from buying their food. To businesses considering hosting events for AWP: consider preparing your staff to be hospitable to an influx of customers. <3

Poetic Research Bureau (flyer here)

WOW how did I not know about this place until now?!?! Thanks to Eduardo Rios Pulgar for making me aware of the poetic carnival of my life.

Every room (there were multiple rooms and readings all happening at once like a literary funhouse) was bursting with wild poetic co-creation and it nearly filled me to bursting. I even bought a stranger a tequila shot. THIS POET had one audience completely transfixed. I’m desperate to know who they are so I can join their cult so please tell me if you know them.

There were many other readings, parties, dinners, and events that I popped into, some of which I was invited to and others of which I may or may not have just crashed, but that feeling of just floating from place to place and feeling the care and attention and reverence and desperation and joy and bravery… it’s unlike anything else. And I’ll tell you I’ve been to industry conferences and festivals across pretty much every major societal segment (at which my attendance would not be disrespectful) and AWP is unique. Writers are special.

Impromptu Small Group & Intimate Meetings 9/10

If you go to AWP next year (if so I’ll see you there and I’ll be bringing some of the Constellators and Creative Agents of Ars Poetica with me!) don’t worry too much about trying to set up meetings in advance like you might do at other industry conferences. Seek out people who interest you and listen to them read, join their conversations, buy their writings, buy them a drink. Open yourself up to the serendipity of it all and you just might end up at a table with the CEOs, Executive Directors, Founders and Presidents of some of the greatest literary orgs in the world. And you might end up coming up with a wild idea with a radical young thinker from another part of the country whom you’d never have crossed paths with otherwise. And you might bond with someone you’ve seen around for years but never knew them “like that” until it was 1am at the hotel bar and the moment was just right.

I’m only knocking off one point here because I think there is probably even more that AWP can do to encourage this even further. Perhaps a function of the app in the future can include attendee profiles that we can scan for each other to learn what we’re looking for, how we can help each other, who we know in common, etc. Every impromptu interaction and confluence felt powerful and precious. If we could have more of those, the network effect and community resilience and bonding that would ensue would be absolutely priceless.

Reading Books 3/10 (so far)

This section is honestly a joke. I was not expecting to sit and read much at AWP. But I did get a lovely little haul and the first on my list to read this week is Robert Eric Shoemaker’s Ca’ Venezia, which I had to practically beg him to let me buy.

Though… just because I’m obsessed with offering unsolicited ideas for how to improve everything about our society and the events we produce… AWP26 could totally create a cozy quiet reading nook that existed 24 hours a day during the conference to allow people to collectively lounge and read together and allow their bodies to reset a bit between things… a furniture purveyor might even sponsor such a thing…

Writing By Myself 1/10

I barely had the strength to even do my waking up dream journal, let alone anything else during the 72 hour whirlwind!!! But for a professional writer… not writing for a few days was weirdly refreshing for me.

In Conclusion, What I Now Get About AWP

I am a writer.

And I now can feel where in my body that part of my identity lives.

And now that I have practiced accessing it so unabashedly, I believe I will be able to access it again within myself more easefully.

I will, one day, write my own book, full of my own most intimate and feral ideas, and it will change me to do so, and it will change those who read it.

And perhaps most importantly, for the phase of my life’s work into which I am entering now, I know more than ever how important my role is not only as a writer in my own right, but as

protector,

guide,

cheerleader,

book fairy godmother,

creative capacity builder,

translator and ambassador for the writer that lives within us all.

The writer is the witness.

The writer is the highest self.

The writer is the compass.

The writer is the way

from the desert of then,

through the mirage of now,

forward toward the home of tomorrow.

We can write ourselves into a new future. We must.

But we can only do that when we commune together, make space for each others’ weirdnesses, fears, follies and foibles. Forgive each others sins and forgive ourselves our seriousness.

For we will not win by cutting each other down.

We will only win by writing and talking each other up.

For as Roxane Gay said in her calmly delivered yet filled-with-fire keynote speech:

The pen is not mightier than the sword.

The pen IS the sword.

Also please comment! I’m obsessed with comments.