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Boston was here, and we were there, and now we're back. This year's AWP began on an impossibly high note with the Barn Owl Review + Thrush Poetry Journal Birds of a Feather Reading. There were over 100 poetry enthusiasts in attendance, and we had comfortable chairs for every one of them, as well as elbow room, a private bar/tender, food, cheer, and a tidy and spacious loo.
Huge thanks to Helen Vitoria of Thrush and all the readers and listeners. We will be having Birds of a Feather II as a Wednesday night AWP offsite in Seattle next year, so mark your dance card now.
Aside from Wednesday night's awesomeness, this AWP was not among my favorites. It's going to be pretty damn hard for any AWP to live up to AWP Denver. This year, for some reason I just wasn't feeling it.
There was also a huge snowstorm that made us live like mall dwellers and run through glass tunnels that contained all the makings of migraine headaches.
On a happier note, it was awesome reading for Steel Toe Books, iO/Interrupture/Jellyfish, and The Country Dog Review. I signed copies of OHI at the Black Lawrence Press table and sold out (of copies). Thank you to everyone who asked me to sign a book! It was also a delight hanging out with the Akron Series in Poetry & Poetics authors and selling their books like hotcakes.
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By the last day I was a very tired girl. It's emotionally exhausting seeing so many cool and dear people for way too little time. I was a little blue. I wish AWP let you rent parlours where you could relax with your friends in oversized and intimidating chairs with drinks service and plenty of space to catch up. Maybe we can find a forest parlour in Seattle.
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Farewell, AWP 2013. I never liked the number 2013 anyway. Hoping to restore my high hopes for 2014. Who knows what color 2014's Barn Owl Review (issue 7!!!) will be.
4 comments:
I think I met you in person for the first time at AWP in Denver. It was a spectacular few days out there among the clouds. :)
It sure was, Sandy. I remember walking around, going to that Copper Nickel reading and chatting with Jake. Happy times.
Jake. Happy times, indeed.
It was fun chatting for a few minutes at the bookfair. I also get a little frustrated that there's never any real * time * at these things, or space for that matter, to just sit and really talk. What to do?
I also would have enjoyed it if the weather had been a little more cooperative, though truthfully (since it snowed for two days in Minneapolis just before I flew east, and the snow in Boston let up and went away before I flew back), I was just glad that the snow at least came when I didn't have to fly anywhere.
(Here in Minneapolis, we call those sideways-blowing snowstorms "spring.") :)
I've written about this year's AWP conference in my blog, here, if you care to take a look.
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