CRAFT at AWP
If you’re heading to AWP, please stop by and say hello! We’ll be at Table 1219, along with drDOCTOR and Triangle House.
Are you staring at that AWP schedule, not sure where to begin? Quite a few of our authors and contributors will be on panels, signing books or reading offsite, so we’ve rounded those up for you. Check them out!
AWP Panels
Clare Beams, “The Renaissance Person Tournament”
Crafting the Weird: Techniques of Fabulist Female Fiction. (Clare Beams, Brenda Peynado, Jamey Bradbury, Celia Johnson, Ramona Ausubel) Surreal, magical, or fabulist fiction has traditionally been employed to attack political systems through subversive means. Yet, women writers have adapted this genre for their own modes of critique. In this event, panelists will discuss how they use elements of the weird to address subjects such as the domestic, the female body, otherness, and LGBTQ identity. Presenters will provide examples, methods, and techniques for crafting subversive fiction that offers new methods of witnessing reality.
Saturday, March 10, 3-4:15p
Meeting Room 1, Marriott Waterside, Second Floor
Megan Giddings, “Vacations”
Who Are We Writing For? Who Are We Writing Toward? . (Bix Gabriel, T Kira Madden, Megan Giddings, Ursula Villarreal-Moura, Patty Yumi Cottrell) Do I have to explain the difference between Pakistan and Bangladesh? Do I have to give a translation in my work for this phrase? How explicit do I have to be that this character is not white? Five emerging writers discuss their decisions about audience, the choices and negotiations they make while writing and editing their prose for mass consumption.
Saturday, March 10, 3-4:15p
Room 13, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
Mary Kuryla, Interview
AWP Award Series Reading. (Lauren Clark, James Janko, Mary Kuryla, Paisley Rekdal) A reading featuring the 2016 AWP Award Series winners Lauren Clark, James Janko, Mary Kuryla, and Paisley Rekdal.
Friday, March 9, 12-1:15p
Room 25, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
Patrick Ryan, “Tidings of the Apocalypse”
The Shadow of the Mouse: How Florida Fiction Can Escape Theme Park Culture. (Chris Eder, Regina Sakalarios-Rogers, Jeffrey Newberry, Patrick Ryan, Lynne Barrett) When Americans think of Florida too often they think of theme parks or mobility scooters. Those who write in and about this region hope to be taken seriously when the place they write about isn’t. Five writers of literary fiction consider the inward and outward facing qualities of Florida literature. Specifically, how can fiction writers make Florida feel real when it’s so often associated with make believe? How can they humanize a cartoon state?
Saturday, March 10, 9-10:15a
Room 11, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
Author Signings
Mary Kuryla, Interview
University of Massachusetts Press
Friday, 3-3:30P, 1804
Louise Marburg, “I Love the Bad Ones Best” (upcoming craft talk)
WTAW Press
Thursday, 12:30-1P, T1508
Off-site Readings
Megan Giddings, “Vacations”
AWP Offsite Reading with The Atlas Review & The Offing
Join us for a Friday night AWP Offsite reading with The Atlas Review chapbook contest winners Megan Giddings, George Abraham, Nadia Owusu, Diane Glancy, and The Offing contributors Cortney Lamar Charleston, Erika T Wurth, and Tia Clark!!! This prose & poetry reading will be hosted on the CAVU patio!
Friday, March 9,8-10P
CAVU, 1601 N. Franklin Street, Tampa, Florida 33602
Louise Marburg, “I Love the Bad Ones Best” (upcoming craft talk)
WTAW Press Presents
Cost: Free
Event URL: website
WTAW Press & Why There Are Words are proud to present readings from Michael Collins (Appearances), Louise Marburg (The Truth About Me: Stories), Angela Mitchell (Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories), Tanya Perkins (People Are Naturally Attracted to You), & Sarah Stone (Hungry Ghost Theater: A Novel) with Peg Alford Pursell (Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow). Irish 31-“The People’s Pub”-offers a full menu of cocktails & adult beverages, traditional Irish food, vegetarian options, Southern favorites, and classic comfort foods.
Contact: Peg Alford Pursell
Organization: WTAW Press & Why There Are Words
Organization URL: website
Thursday, March 8, 6-7P
Irish 31 Pub House & Eatery, 1611 W Swann Ave, Tampa, FL, 33606
Michelle Ross, “Key Concepts of Ecology” (upcoming fiction)
Finishing Each Other’s Sentences: A Reading of Collaborators
Cost: Free
Event URL: website
Join us post-panel, post-bookfair, and pre-dinner for a reading featuring collaborative writers, including Dana Diehl and Melissa Goodrich, Naadeyah Haseeb, Kelly Magee and Carol Guess, Kim Magowan and Michelle Ross, Aimee Parkison, and Joanna C. Valente. The reading will be followed by a brief Q&A and other fun, collaborative magic TBA.
Thursday, March 8, 4:30-6:00
CAVU, 1601 N Franklin St, Tampa, FL 33602
Moon City Press Reading
Cost: Free
A reading featuring Moon City Press authors Kerri French (author of Every Room in the Body, winner of the 2016 MCP Poetry Award), Kim Magowan (author of Undoing, winner of the 2017 MCP Short Fiction Award), Michelle Ross (author of There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You, winner of the 2016 MCP Short Fiction Award), and Travis Mossotti (author of My Life as an Island, winner of the 2012 MCP Blue Moon Chapbook Prize).
Contact: Michelle Ross
Organization: Moon City Press
Organization URL: website
Thursday, March 8, 6:00-8:00
Felicitous Coffee Shop, 14204 N 42nd St, Tampa, FL 33549
TriQuarterly‘s Annual Reading
Cost: Free
Join us to celebrate Issues 151 and 152! Our annual reading is at Franklin Manor, a lounge near the Tampa Convention Center. Readings by: Paige Lewis, Alex McElroy, Michelle Ross, Ruben Quesada, Chelsea Dingman, Kerry Neville, Jorge Sánchez, Morgan Kayser. Northwestern faculty will be on hand to answer any questions about the MFA program. Drink tickets will be available!
Contact: TriQuarterly
Organization: TriQuarterly
Organization URL: website
Friday, March 9, 6:00-8:00p
Franklin Manor, 912 Franklin St, Tampa, FL 33602
IU Alumni Reading
Cost: Free
Please join us for a happy hour reading featuring IU MFA alumni with recent books. Readers will include poets Marcus Wicker (Maybe the Saddest Thing, 2012; Silencer, 2017), Ife-Chudeni Oputa (Rummage, 2017), Leslie Marie Aguilar (Mesquite Manual, 2015), and Simeon Berry (Ampersand Revisited, 2013; Monograph, 2014), and prose writers Ming Holden (Refuge, 2018), Rachel Lyon (Self-Portrait with Boy, 2018), Bradley Bazzle (Trash Mountain, 2018), Michelle Ross (There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You, 2017),and Lana Spendl (We Cradled Each Other in the Air, 2017).
Contact: Rachel Lyon
Organization: Indiana University MFA
Organization URL: website
Saturday, March 10, 5:00-7:00p
Four Green Fields, 205 W Platt Street, Tampa, FL 33606