Showing posts with label AWP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AWP. Show all posts

21 January 2020

'Red Bull' Author to Speak in Iowa City & Des Moines

Author Steven L. Moore, a former Iowa National Guard citizen-soldier who deployed with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) to Afghanistan in 2010-2011, will conduct book talks in Iowa City and Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 23 and Jan. 24, 2020.

A 2010 graduate of the University of Iowa and now a resident of Oregon, Moore wrote "The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier," a collection of essays that won the 2018 award in non-fiction from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (A.W.P.).

Widely published in literary magazines and journals, Moore was recently featured in the Military Writers Guild-sponsored anthology, "Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War." A selection of his work can be sampled FREE on-line at the author's website here.

In 2018, AWP awards judge Dinty W. Moore wrote about Steven Moore's work:
"The Longer We Were There" is both a tale of our longest war and an astute coming of age memoir, the story of an English major who finds himself filling sandbags as an Iowa National Guardsman one day and deployed on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border the next. The prose is marked throughout by his compelling voice and precise description, and like Heller, Herr, and O’Brien before him, he understands that war can often be most hellish in its tedium. The Longer We Were There is an honest, absorbing, sharply-observed narrative that questions both the nature of war and the nature of the stories we tell ourselves.
Moore will speak at the following times and places:
Thurs., Jan. 23, 2020 at 7 p.m.

Prairie Lights Bookstore
15 South Dubuque St.
Iowa City, IA 52240

Fri., Jan. 24, 2020 at 6:30 p.m.

Beaverdale Books
2629 Beaver Ave. #S1
Des Moines, IA 50310

14 February 2018

War-writing Events at AWP 2018, Tampa, Fla.

The annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs (A.W.P.) national conference is March 7-10, 2018. It will be the 51st anniversary of the event. This year, it's being held in Tampa, Fla.

The annual event brings together approximately 12,000 writers, educators, students, editors, and publishers, and travels to different cities each year. A concurrent bookfair showcases more than 800 exhibitors.

A searchable, on-line schedule for the event appears here.

While the motivational value of networking with fellow travelers and cocktails with friends should never be discounted, much of the intellectual energy of the conference is to be found in panel discussions and presentations. Good topics challenge our perspectives and presumptions, and AWP includes any number of potential conversations about war and conflict, veterans issues, population displacement, and related topics:

In the spirit of Sherpatudes Nos. 1 and 15, here's what we know so far about "war writing" panels, presentations, and readings at AWP2018: Please direct corrections and suggested edits/additions to: sherpa AT redbullrising.com.

***** THURSDAY, March 8, 2018 *****

9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
Room 13, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

R126. Silenced Dimensions in Crisis and Conflict. (Catherine Parnell, Jasmin Darznik, Martha (Max) Frazier, Monica Sok, Danuta Ewa Hinc)
In narratives about international conflict, women writers, and those identifying as women, are marginalized and grossly underrepresented. Exposing their lack of visibility and peeling back the layers of privilege is the goal of Consequence magazine’s tenth anniversary issue, and we’ve dedicated our Spring 2018 issue to women writers. In this panel, we’ll talk to four writers who write about the culture and consequences of war and activism, and how they see writing as a path to peace.

12 noon to 1:15 p.m.
Room 1, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

R182. Arab & Muslim Writers Surviving Trump's America: A Reading and Discussion Presented by Mizna. (Lana Barkawi, Glenn Shaheen, Sagirah Shaheed, Jess Rizkallah, Tariq Luthun)
Heeding Edward Said’s call for cultural resistance to “write back” against forces seeking to marginalize and vilify Arabs and Muslims, Mizna, the only Arab American lit journal, presents its issue themed “Surviving” with readings and discussion about our communities’ latest bouts with xenophobia and Islamophobia. Acclaimed and important emerging authors will discuss the maneuvers the Trump era has us making—resisting, dodging, bearing, and more—surviving.

3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Grand Salon C, Marriott Waterside, Second Floor

R234. Writing Toward the Margins: When the Stereotypes Are Also Your Story. (Monica Prince, Mike McClelland, Penny Dearmin, Natalie Sharp, Adam Sirgany)
Submission calls strive to include voices of marginalized identities, but many do this by requesting work that pigeonholes writers. Writers of intersecting marginalized identities balance writing what an audience “expects” and real life. How do writers address the stereotypical markers of their work (as women, POC, veterans, LGBT+ community, etc.) while also honoring their life stories? This panel explores stereotypes for marginalized writers while navigating expectation and truth.

3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Grand Salon D, Marriott Waterside, Second Floor

R235. Humanizing “the Enemy”: Veterans Share Poetry of Reconciliation. (Toni Topps, Kevin Basl, Anthony Torres, Aaron Hughes) Veterans and service members have received a lot of attention over the past decade, with politicians and media focusing on themes of sacrifice, heroism, and trauma. But what about those countries attacked and occupied by the US? Inspired by the work of Maxine Hong Kingston, Warrior Writers and others representing the Veteran Art Movement will read original poetry of reconciliation and cross-cultural understanding, turning the focus towards Iraqis, Afghans, and others affected by US militarism.

4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.
Room 5 & 6, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

R279. Hometown Nocturnes: A Reading by Arab American Writers. (Leila Chatti, George Abraham, Zaina Arafat, Hazem Fahmy)
Five award-winning Arab American writers will present rich, multilayered poems and essays. This is an engaging and electric intergenerational reading from texts as varied as chapbooks, spoken word, Buzzfeed essays, and poetry collections. The writers explore topics such as the pain of diasporic existence; the political undercurrent of everyday life; and cultural taboos of sexuality and death.

4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.
Room 13, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

R283. Reimagining America: Reading by Children of Vietnamese Refugees. (Lauren Bullock, Nghiem Tran, Cathy Che, Vt Hung, Paul Tran)
Forty-three years after the Vietnam War, exile to the United States continues to haunt life for children of Vietnamese refugees. Five nationally award-winning poets and fiction writers will perform new work investigating how imperialism, migration, sexual violence, queerness, and our families’ silence about the War shapes our craft decisions and community activism. We’ll specifically examine the collision of longing and belonging, nostalgia, and the imperative to imagine new definitions of home.

***** FRIDAY, March 9, 2018 *****

9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
Room 1, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

F120. Women, War, and the Military: How to Tell the Story. (Mariana Grohowski, Helen Benedict, Tracy Crow, Mary (M.L.) Doyle, Jerri Bell)
Five writers—three military veterans and two civilians—weigh the pros and cons of telling military women’s stories through fiction versus memoir. Is the novel still better, as Virginia Woolf argued, at representing the private discourses of women’s lives to the public? Or does the memoir better afford women the opportunity to write themselves into history? What can a novel do that a memoir cannot, and vice versa? Is there a reason why more women veterans have turned to memoir than to fiction?

10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Ballroom A, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

F149. Strong Medicine: The Poetry of Addiction. (Dawn McGuire, Kaveh Akbar, Lynn Emanuel, Owen Lewis, Nick Flynn)
From Horace to Hass, poets have both lauded and vilified getting high. The “milk of paradise” can lead to masterworks, while addiction deserts ambition and destroys lives. In this panel, five award-winning poets, including two physician-poets, explore the swerve from inspiration to ruination from different perspectives and diverse writing styles. Themes of addiction in self, family, mentors, patients—e.g., post-9/11 veterans—as well as the seductive intimacy of shared intoxication, are featured.

1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Room 11, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

F222. Go Home! Asian American Writers Imagine Home Beyond a Place. (Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Gina Apostol, Karissa Chen, Rajiv Mohabir, Esmé Weijun Wang)
For many immigrant writers, home is more and less than a place. Home might be found in a language that one is losing one’s grasp of. Home might have been lost in the aftermath of war. Home might be an impossibility. The writers on this panel, all contributors to the new anthology Go Home!, discuss how they navigate ideas of home in their writing. How can fiction, nonfiction, and poetry approach home? What does it mean to write for people with different ideas of home?

1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Room 17, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
F228. Above, Beyond, and After Duty: Teaching Creative Writing to Veterans. (Steve Kistulentz, Jesse Goolsby, Seema Raza, Lovella Calica, Matt Young)
Working artists across multiple genres discuss the challenges and rewards of teaching writing to veterans and active duty service members. In our panel discussion, we will cover institutional and individual approaches to pedagogy, why this work is worth doing, and how to do this emotionally exhausting and occasionally triggering work sustainably in university and community settings. Panelists will also discuss how their own writing has been influenced by working with this unique population.

3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Room 23, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

F266. The Role of the Expatriate Writer in Times of Political Upheaval. (Connie May Fowler, Xu Xi, Donald Quist, Abayomi Animashaun)
During periods of deep political turmoil, do expatriate writers bear special responsibilities? Do we return home and resist or do we, from our perches abroad, seek to create a more nuanced, globally informed narrative? Our panelists live in far flung reaches—Hong Kong, Mexico, Paris, Southeast Asia—and will discuss how they deal with urgent issues such as dissent, war, American policy, terror, and climate change as both writer and other in a world in which being neutral is not an option.

***** SATURDAY, March 10, 2018 *****

9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
Florida Salon 5, Marriott Waterside, Second Floor

S114. Conflict, Crisis, Verse: Four Poets in Conversation. (Peter Molin, Jehanne Dubrow, Dunya Mikhail, Benjamin Busch, Brian Turner)
During a period of political exigency and social anxiety, how can poets and poetry teach, inspire, connect, and heal? Four widely published and celebrated poets—two military combat veterans, an Iraqi-American emigre, and the spouse of a military officer—draw on the urgency and insight born of their experience of war to trace the dynamic relationship of poetic voice and technique, personal circumstance and perspective, and turbulent national and global events.

10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Meeting Room 1, Marriott Waterside, Second Floor

S144. The Value of Redemption When Writing YA Literature About Protest and Violence. (Ann Angel, Debra Brenegan, Heather Lee Schroeder, Artress Bethany White)
Recognizing the conflict inherent in protest and how protest ignored can lead to violence and war, writers instinctively examine the redemptive qualities found in protest and transform their communities by opening readers to diverse ideas and challenges. This panel of writers and writing teachers provides a powerful opportunity to help participants recognize the many ways that protest can effect redemptive resolutions through the written word.

10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Meeting Room 9 & 10, Marriott Waterside, Third Floor

S146. Crossings and Crosses: Caribbean Women Writers on Immigration, Deportation, and Identity . (Jennifer McCauley, Donna Aza Weir-Soley, Fabienne Josaphat, Anjanette Delgado, Katia D. Ulysse)
Long before the Trump era, Caribbean writers have long been concerned with issues surrounding immigration. As subjects of colonial powers "crossing the sea" has long been our preoccupation whether it was to seek out opportunities for economic advancement, to pursue higher education or to fight in various wars for our colonial "Mother country." Our writing, like that of Junot Díaz or Ana Menendez, addresses immigration including assimilation, acculturation, nostalgia, identity, and deportation.

10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Room 1, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

S151. Giving Voice to Nontraditional Populations Through Storytelling. (Deborah Finkelstein, Robert McKenzie, Alfonso Ramirez, Charles Rice-Gonzalez)
How do we give voice to nontraditional populations? Through storytelling. We will discuss successful methods of working one-on-one or in groups with members of nontraditional populations including the elderly, veterans, the incarcerated, young adults with special needs, and multilingual speakers. We’ll demonstrate exercises for sharing stories with actors to create a collaborative piece as well as methods for individuals to write their stories as short stories, monologues, poetry, and plays.

10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Room 11, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

S155. Subverting the Stereotypes: Performances by Warrior Writers and Combat Hippies. (Lovella Calica, Nicole Goodwin, Hipolito Arriaga, Allen Minor) Military veterans and service members are often used as commercial and political props. This reading will offer performances by two veteran-focused literary organizations challenging veteran stereotypes that not only stifle constructive dialogue about war and its consequences, but also fuel US militarism. These poetic performances will present veterans as the diverse social group they are, while also encouraging other veterans to speak truth to power.

12 noon to 1:15 p.m.
Room 14, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor

S188. Not Heartwarming: Beyond Military and Feminine Tropes in Veterans’ Stories. (Dorothy Hasson, Krista Tucker, Sonya Lea)
How do we create new narratives in a culture dominated by conventional war stories? Stories of women veterans are less emphasized in our culture, and are often challenging to write and teach, due to the fragmentation resulting from military sexual trauma and PTS. Two mentors discuss working with under-represented populations alongside two of their students—a young veteran forced to alter her gender to survive a war, and a mature veteran who broke traditional female roles to survive the military.

22 February 2017

Lessons-Learned on Pitching & Producing AWP Panels

M.L. Doyle, Matthew Hefti, and Randy Brown were part of a panel titled "The Middle Americans: How Flyover Country Responds to War."
Photo by Andria Williams
I attended my first national conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs in Minneapolis, 2015. At that event—an annual gathering of 12,000 writers, editors, publishers, instructors, and academics—I was impressed with the number of offerings that focused on war themes. These included both panel discussions and author readings. While I skipped Los Angeles in 2016, I vowed that I'd help add to the war-writing conversation by proposing a few such events for the 2017 conference in Washington, D.C.

As I quipped at the end of this year's event, paraphrasing that ubiquitous quote attributed to Gandhi, "Be the proposer of panels that will contribute to the change you want to see in the world."

The 2018 event will be held in Tampa. The window for event proposals will open in mid-March, with final deadline of May 1, 2016. I thought I'd document and share a few lessons-learned, in hopes that other war-writers will add their voices to the mix.

There are many little rules to proposing an AWP event. It's a little like simultaneously filling out your tax forms, calling your friends on the telephone, and playing a tabletop war game. Thankfully, the association offers a detailed how-to manual and video. To give you a flavor, however:
  • Moderators/organizers can propose up to three events. A maximum of two can be accepted.
  • Prospective participants can themselves be listed on up to three event proposals, but can only be on two accepted events.
  • Of multiple proposed events, only one can be a "reading."
  • You have 500 characters—not words, characters—to describe your proposed event.
  • You have an equal number of characters to describe the qualifications of your panelists.
Acceptance rates for AWP event proposals averaged around 39 percent for years 2013-2016. In 2017, I was fortunate to have two out of two approved. At their respective links, you can read my 500-character descriptions for "Citizen-Soldier-Poet; How to use Poetry to Bridge the Civil-Military Divide" and "The Middle Americans: How Flyover Country Responds to War." That's because the words you use in your pitches are the words that show up in the conference agenda.

Here's what worked for us, both in terms of pitching and conducting AWP panels:

1. Emphasize diversity
Find panelists who represent diversity in age, gender, color, life and work experiences, and publishing experience. Strive for balance. In the war-writing context specifically, I subscribe to the notion that every citizen has an experience with the topic of war, regardless of whether or not they've ever served in uniform. Remember: "We're all in this together" and "Everybody has their own war. " In our two sessions, then, we featured both civilians and military veterans, from a variety of branches and deployments. Some were just starting out in their publishing careers. Others had multiple published book credits. I'd like to think that, in many ways, our panels demographically reflected our audiences. And we can always do better!
2. Keep your shot-groups tight
Panel math is like beer math: Keep it simple, and know your limits. Don't show up with a list of 10 in-depth, doctoral-thesis questions. Narrow it down to two three formal questions. Make sure to share those prompts with your panelists prior to the event, so they can consider their responses without over-rehearsing. 
Assuming five panelists, if each panelist responds to a given question with a 3-minute answer, three questions will eat up 45 minutes. This will leave 20-30 minutes for questions from the audience. (Depending on venue and schedule, some audience members may have to leave earlier than the official 75-minute end-time.) People like Q&A. Most likely, the people in your audience are fellow practitioners. They want to interact with your panel. Engage them in conversation.
3. Conduct a leader's recon
As moderator/organizer, I arrived to the conference a day early, on Wed., Feb. 8, to make sure there were no unforeseen obstacles. The AWP registration staff helped me run a last-minute check on whether our panelists had properly registered for the event. I also helped coordinate one panelist's last-minute request for press credentialing on behalf of a Washington, D.C.-based media contact. 
I'd told my colleagues on our Thursday morning panel that we'd meet at the Veterans Writing Project's table (seize the key terrain!) on the Bookfair floor, and walk together to the conference room. 
One panelist, however, had spent an hour Wednesday getting eyes on the target, and determined out that our Thursday morning venue wasn't as easy to find as I'd assumed. Instead of being located in the convention center, it was one-quarter mile below ground in a hotel across the street from the main venue. His early-bird information saved us from collectively showing up late and in the wrong place. 
Also, our second panel, unlike the cozy meeting space of our first, turned out to be located in a ballroom the size of a small airplane hanger. You get the space you're randomly assigned, of course, but knowing that ahead of time would have been good information to share with my fellow panelists.
4. Look for ways to make connections & continue the conversation
With only 15 minutes between events, conference schedules often get in the way of exchanging business cards at the end of panel event. Our fix was to publish a two-sided 8.5 x 11-inch hand-out for each panel, complete with author published credits, and contact information. Listing complete biographies cuts down on spending valuable discussion time on introductions. Also, offering public-facing ways of communication (e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) gives introverts an easier way to contact authors after the conference. 
(For panelists, we also published an internal list of telephone numbers and private e-mail addresses, in case of emergencies and dinner coordinations. In fact, we treated information like we would in an infantry squad: Everybody should know the plan.) 
Following our poetry panel, one of our colleagues was immediately approached by a literary journal editor, who inquired regarding a work that had been read aloud. So, having debuted at AWP, the poem will soon see print, later in 2017! It's all about helping make connections!
We published 50 hardcopy handouts per session, assuming that number would likely exceed our maximum attendance. (We had from 35 to 50 people attend each session.) Just in case, however, we also posted a link to an electronic copy of each document at the Red Bull Rising blog. Later, we posted MP3 audio files of each session. Not production-quality, but good enough for note-taking. When the original files proved too huge for his iPod, a blog reader helped us out by compressing those files for easier portability.
So, to recap, here are some takeaways and recommendations for future panel events:
  • Promote diversity in panel composition
  • Plan for 3 to 4 formal questions, tops
  • Arrive early; get eyes on your venues
  • Offer handouts with author contact info
  • Post audio recordings (But try to keep file-sizes small!)
I'm not the only one musing and reflecting on their AWP17 experiences, of course. Check out what these other war writers have been are saying about their experiences:

10 February 2017

AWP2017: How Flyover Country Responds to War

"Middle Americans" and writers, from left to right: Mary Doyle; Matthew Hefti; Randy "Sherpa" Brown; Kayla Williams; Angela Ricketts. Photo by Andria Williams
(Blog editor's note: Updated February 14 to include photo of panelists and MP3 audio file link.)

Today is Fri., Feb. 10, 2017. I'm pleased to be moderating the following session at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs convention in Washington, D.C. As previously noted on the Red Bull Rising blog, this is one of many AWP2017 sessions related to war-writing.
Session F110: "The Middle Americans: How Flyover Country Responds to War"
Marquis Salon 6, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two
Fri., Feb. 10, 2017: 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
By various measures, rural Americans are more likely to enlist in the US armed forces. Despite isolation from traditional centers of publishing and military power, voices with Midwestern roots have sprung forth like dragon's teeth to deliver clear-eyed, plainspoken views of war, service, and sacrifice. The civilians and veterans of this stereotype-busting panel of published writers offer their insights regarding themes, trends, and markets in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
A downloadable PDF listing of panelists, including biographies and contact information, is here.

(Posted February 14: A downloadable MP3 audio file of the session, good enough for note-taking, is here. Smaller file here.)

Panelists include:

RANDY BROWN
*****

MARY DOYLE
*****

MATTHEW HEFTI
*****

ANGELA RICKETTS
*****

KAYLA WILLIAMS

09 February 2017

AWP2017: Using Poetry to Bridge the Civil-Military Gap

Panelists and poets, from left to right: Eric "Shmo" Chandler; Randy "Sherpa" Brown; Frances Richey; Tessa Poppe; Susanne Aspley. Photo by Joy Riggs


(Blog editor's note: Updated February 14 to include photo of panelists and MP3 audio file link.)

Today is Thurs., Feb. 9, 2017. I'm pleased to be moderating the following session at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs convention in Washington, D.C. As previously noted on the Red Bull Rising blog, this is one of many AWP2017 sessions related to war-writing.
AWP 2017 Session R144:
"Citizen-Soldier-Poet: Using Poetry to Bridge the Civil-Military Gap"
Supreme Court, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four
Thurs., Feb. 9, 2017, 10:30 to 11:45 a.m.


With a boot on each side of the civil-military divide, America's citizen-soldiers and their families are uniquely positioned to bridge the gaps between our armed forces and the society they serve. Five civilian and military-veteran writers of poetry, memoir, and fiction read from their works and discuss how they have specifically used poetry in published, practical ways to promote peace, respect, understanding, and empathy.
A downloadable PDF listing of panelists, including full biographies and contact information, is here.

(Posted February 14: A downloadable MP3 audio file of the session, good enough for note-taking, is here. Smaller file here.)

Panelists include:

RANDY BROWN
*****

SUSANNE ASPLEY
*****

ERIC CHANDLER

*****

TESSA POPPE

*****

FRANCES RICHEY