Recap: AWP 2008
It's been a while since our last entry, but everyone here at Dislocate has been busy. We're culling material for Issue #4 and getting ready to send it to the printers ... always an exciting time. And, we just returned from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs annual conference, held in New York City.
This year's conference was supposedly the biggest one yet, and I had no trouble believing it. The sheer number of panels, panelists, and especially journals, writing programs, and publishers present at the bookfair (filling three floors of the midtown Hilton) was staggering. As such, it was hard to digest everything, or make it to every panel that looked interesting, but I tried. I saw a great panel about hybrid forms in nonfiction—a hard concept to explain, so I won't even try—that featured the inimitable Ander Monson delivering a fascinating talk about video games. I browsed the bookfair enough to accumulate a fair amount of publishing envy. And I talked with a host of people from other writing programs and publishing houses.
Overwhelming, yes. But well worth it.
- Jake