2012 AWP!

For years, I've wanted to attend the AWP Conference. I even posted about it back on Groundhog Day. Around the same weekend in April, I received panel invites from both Collin Kelley and Christina Katz. Since I never receive panel invites, I figured this increased my odds of going to an AWP Conference significantly.

Fast forward to Friday. On the drive up to my grandmother's house for the weekend, I received an e-mail from Collin that his proposed AWP panel was not accepted. This was a big bummer, because Collin's a fun and nice poet. Plus, his proposed panel was going to include January O'Neil, Karen Head and Deborah Ager. I mean, it would've rocked!

Maybe next year...

So anyway, we kept trucking along to my grandmother's house until we hit a little construction. Instead of losing my patience with the pace of the traffic, I let curiosity get the best of me and started checking Facebook to see if Christina Katz had shared any status updates on how her proposed panels went. Sure enough, one of them was accepted!

Two of the people I'll be speaking with in Chicago: Katz on left; Friedman on right.

As a result, I'll be at the 2012 AWP Conference in the panel discussion The Tech-Empowered Writer: Embrace New Media, Experiment & Earn with Christina, Jane Friedman and Seth Harwood. You can click here to check out all the event descriptions and presenters, but here's the panel description on the site:

What can a professor, a journalist, a novelist, and a poet teach you about new media? Using real-life examples from our own experience and that of other tech-savvy writers, we'll construct a composite of how working writers use technology to invest in their careers, experiment and launch new works, and grow their income opportunities. Whether you need a day job, a part-time job, or just enough gigs to pay a few bills, there have never been as many ways for tech-savvy writers to earn.

I'm really excited!

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By the way, the weekend trip to my grandmother's house was a lot of fun. She lives about 20 minutes from Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains. So grandma got a little time to hold her newest great-grandchild (she has nine now), and we were able to do a little sight-seeing and break our diet a little with some fudge and BBQ sandwiches.




While in Tennessee, Will held one of Grandpa Sam's giant tomatoes!


One of my personal highlights was hiking along a small section of the Appalachian Trail with Will while Tammy fed Hannah. Even though the trail just kept rising and the terrain was difficult, Will just wanted to keep going. I think he wanted to march all the way up to Maine. Of course, I'm not sure why I would be surprised since he's already hiked all the way up Stone Mountain.

Anyway, great news and a great weekend!

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To celebrate, here's a link to Writing Creative Nonfiction: Instruction and Insights From Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs, which co-incidentally was published by my employer F+W Media (though back in the day, we were known as F&W Publications).