AWP On-Site Events! “Who Runs the Word?”
Come to the various panels and discussions happening at AWP! Information c/o AWP website.
R272. Who Runs the World? Women with Power and Purpose, Sponsored by WITS
Marquis Salon 9 & 10, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two
Thursday, February 9, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Jen Benka is the Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets. She worked previously as the managing director of Poets & Writers and for 826 National. She is the author of Pinko and A Box of Longing with Fifty Drawers. Jen holds an MFA from the New School.
Amy King teaches English and creative writing at SUNY Nassau Community College, serves on the Executive Committee for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, moderates the Women’s Poetry Listserv, and she was the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award. She also coedits Poets for Living Waters and blogs for Boston Review.
Mahogany L. Browne is a Cave Canem, Poets House, and Serenbe Focus alumna, playwright, poet, and activist. The publisher of Penmanship Books, she earned her MFA in writing & activism from Pratt Institute, and she serves as the poetry program director at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/event_detail/10603
VIDA Panels and Events at AWP
BOOTH #464
Visit our table to say hello, arm yourself with information, and stock up on swag!
E V E N T S :
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2017
**Women’s Caucus Reading
with Melissa Febos, Camille Rankine, and Lidia Yuknavitch.
8:30 pm to 10:00 pm (co-sponsored with the AWP Women’s Caucus)
The Loft at Busboys and Poets – 5th & K (1025 5th Street NW ).
https://www.facebook.com/events/1715608502102684/
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2017
**Candlelight Vigil for Free Speech (Melissa Febos, Luis J. Rodriguez, Gabrielle Bellot, and Eric Sasson with more to be announced soon)
6:15 pm to 7:30 pm (co-sponsored with Split This Rock)
Lafayette Park, across from the White House
We invite writers assembled in DC for AWP to a Candlelight Vigil for Freedom of Expression. This basic freedom is threatened in new ways and with more intensity than in recent memory. As the nation’s poets and writers, editors and critics, we have a unique and vital obligation to stand watch over free speech and expression. May our candlelight vigil February 11 provide encouragement and focus to our watch in the coming years. Cosponsors: Aforementioned Productions/apt, CantoMundo, cream city review, Iota Short Prose Conference, Lambda Literary, Letras Latinas at Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, Split This Rock, Storyscape, Sundress Publications, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, VONA/Voices, Weird Sister
https://www.facebook.com/events/660670117436306/
**VIDA Presents: Dance Apocalyptic!
9 pm to 1 am
The Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW
Featuring: DJ Mothershiester of Anthology of Booty
with Special Guests: Aziza Barnes, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Melissa Febos, Khadijah Queen
$10 in advance (ticket info to come); $15 at the door
P A N E L S:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2017
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
AWP Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Halls D & E, Washington Convention Center, Level Two
**R188. VIDA Voices & Views: Exclusive Interview with Joan Naviyuk Kane, Ada Limón, & Alicia Ostriker. (Sheila McMullin, Melissa Studdard, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Ada Limón, Alica Ostriker) Calling attention to a plurality of voices by interviewing writers and dedicated members of the literary community about their work, vision, concerns, and topics at the forefront of literary activism, this panel contributes to a better understanding of craft, the literary landscape, and issues facing artists. Panelists seek to foster nuanced conversation about gender parity, race, and other crucial issues impacting writers today as well as speak to how their work expands this conversation.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2017
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Room 204C, Washington Convention Center, Level Two
**F265. Not Invisible: Editors of Literary Journals Speak Out on Disability and Building Inclusive Writing Communities. (Sheila McMullin, Marlena Chertock, Jill Khoury, Mike Northen, Sheryl Rivett) Disability voices are underrepresented in literature; the VIDA Count further points to this. Examining social ramifications of exclusion, this panel explores ableism in the literary world, barriers to accessibility and publishing, and promotion of disability literature. Editors of online magazines actively seeking work from writers routinely excluded from the literary field discuss disability, impairment, and embodiment with the intention of building inclusive and dynamic writing communities.
6:00 pm to 7:15 pm (co-sponsored with the AWP Women’s Caucus)
Room 206, Washington Convention Center, Level Two
**F305. Women’s Caucus. (Amy King, Ashaki Jackson, Hafizah Geter, Melissa Studdard, Lynn Melnick) Where is the place for women writers within AWP and within the greater literary community? The women’s caucus discusses questions of continuing inequities in creative writing publication and literature, issues of cultural obstacles in the form of active oppression, stereotypes, lack of access to literary power structures, and the historical marginalization of women’s writing. The caucus also explores perspectives and the diverse voices of women and offers networking opportunities.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Room 209ABC, Washington Convention Center, Level Two
**S293. VIDA Count in the Classroom. (Holly Burdorff, Camille Rankine, Sarah Marcus-Donnelly, Prageeta Sharma, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie) Panelists will present best practices for incorporating VIDA Count data into a creative writing class—how to: talk to students about inequities in literary publishing, use Count information to reshape syllabi, and create assignments which aim to close the reviewing gap. Panelists have a range of teaching experience (with regard to geographic location, grade/degree level, and academic affiliation) and as such, they will present on and discuss a wide variety of classroom settings.
http://www.vidaweb.org/vida-panels-and-events-at-awp/
And if also, you felt intersectional feminists weren’t listening, they have more ears than you can handle.
9:00 PM
Photo Credit: Copylab
AMY KING View All →
Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) Award. Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She co-edited with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She also co-edits the anthology series, Bettering American Poetry, and is a professor of creative writing at SUNY Nassau Community College.
AMY KING 