Exhibit Hall A
Colorado Convention Center, Upper Level

F100. Conference Registration. Attendees who have registered in advance may pick up their registration materials throughout the day at AWP's Paid Registrant Check-In area, located just inside the main entrance to the bookfair. Badges are available for purchase at the Unpaid Registrant Check-In located on the street level of the Convention Center.

Exhibit Hall A
Colorado Convention Center, Upper Level

F101. AWP Bookfair. With more than 500 exhibitors, the AWP Bookfair is one of the largest of its kind. A great way to meet authors, critics, and peers, the Bookfair also provides excellent opportunities to find information about many literary magazines and presses.

Rooms 102, 104
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F102. Mommy, I'm Having an Existential Crisis!: The Voice of Children in Fiction. (Catherine Cortese, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Dan Chaon, Eric Puchner, Melissa Pritchard) Writing from a child's perspective is tricky business. In workshops, students are often discouraged from writing about children or from children's perspectives. Try to capture the voice, and too often you're left with an annoying character with superficial concerns. Try to make it more serious, and you no longer have a believable character. We discuss strategies and pitfalls for writing through the voice of children, treading that fine line that bridges believability and significant issues.

Rooms 103, 105
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F103. Reading Keats for Writers. (David Baker, Linda Gregerson, Meghan O'Rourke, Stanley Plumly) How does a young medical student—sick, poor, struggling—become the great lyric poet of his day, perhaps of all time? John Keats provides a case study for four prominent poet-critics who ask: what do Keats's works and life give to contemporary poets? We examine his reading practices, his cultural and personal life, the changing aesthetic tactics of his poems, and the afterlife he has found in contemporary poetry. How do his struggles and discoveries provide a template for poets today?

Room 106
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F104. Pedagogy Forum Session: Nonfiction. This session is designed to give contributors to the 2010 Pedagogy Forum an opportunity to discuss their works, though all are welcome. The papers will provide a framework to begin in depth discussion in creative writing, pedagogy, and theory. A pedagogy speaker will contextualize the discussion with some brief remarks before attendees break out into small discussion groups. These groups will be facilitated by trained pedagogy paper contributors.

Room 107
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F105. Pedagogy Forum Session: Poetry. This session is designed to give contributors to the 2010 Pedagogy Forum an opportunity to discuss their works, though all are welcome. The papers will provide a framework to begin in depth discussion in creative writing, pedagogy, and theory. A pedagogy speaker will contextualize the discussion with some brief remarks before attendees break out into small discussion groups. These groups will be facilitated by trained pedagogy paper contributors.

Room 110
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F107. The Transatlantic View: Creative Writing Studies & International Cooperation. (Patricia Clark, Daniele Pantano, Chris Haven, Siobhan Campbell) This panel will feature a discussion among faculty members from two English universities and one U.S. institution—seeking to elaborate ways of sharing opportunities for students and faculty across the Atlantic Ocean. Our panel will suggest strategies for sharing curriculum ideas for undergraduate and graduate creative writing students, highlighting common features already existing between creative writing workshops and classes. Focus continues on how we can streamline cross-university exchanges, enhance international publishing opportunities, and devise summer programs that will help recruiting, writing, and enrollment at both sets of universities.

Room 111
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F108. To West or Not to West. (Jenny Shank, Marilyn Krysl, Steven Wingate, Laura Pritchett, Robert Garner McBrearty, Janis Hallowell) Fiction writers in the West inevitably find themselves face to face with two forces: the region's role in America's cultural mythos and the shadow of "the Western" as a genre in fiction and film. Many authors with roots in the West do not write "western" fiction, yet they feel their aesthetics and subject matter being influenced by the life of the region. This panel will explore the variety of ways Colorado fiction writers respond to the West at a time when the region's identity is shifting.

Room 112
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F109. Low-Residency MFA Program Directors' Caucus. (Stan Sanvel Rubin, Kathleen Driskell, Sarah Wells) This is a regular annual meeting of the directors of low-residency MFA Programs. In addition to providing a forum for discussions on program development and pedagogy particular to the low-residency model, the caucus will hold elections to appoint a new vice-chair and secretary at the 2010 meeting. All low-residency directors are welcome to attend and vote.

Room 113
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F110. Two-Year College Caucus. (Lois Roma-Deeley, Charles Burm, Simone Zelitch) Do you teach at a two-year college? Interested in opportunities at two-year colleges? Join us for our annual networking meeting. With almost half of all students beginning college careers at two-year colleges, and increasing numbers of MFAs landing two-year college teaching jobs, the future of creative writing programs at our campuses looks bright. We will discuss teaching creative writing at the two-year college, hold a short business meeting, and provide tangible resources for faculty.

Room 201
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F111. Hybrid Aesthetics and Its Discontents. (Mark Wallace, Arielle Greenberg, Craig Santos Perez, Michael Theune, Megan Volpert) Recently, numerous writers and anthologists have tried to move beyond distinctions between mainstream and avant-garde poetry that from the 1950s well into the 1990s often dominated discussions about new directions in poetry. This panel considers if and how this work has changed the aesthetic, cultural, and ideological implications of the mainstream/avant-garde distinction, looking at the extent to which boundary-crossing hybrid aesthetics have or have not been truly transformative.

Room 203
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F112. University of Arizona MFA Alumni Reading. (Aurelie Sheehan, Robert Boswell, Gregory Martin, Kristi Maxwell, Richard Siken, Padma Viswanathan) The University of Arizona MFA Program celebrates its 35th year with an alumni reading featuring work of fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry. Come hear some of the many exceptional and groundbreaking authors who spent their earliest days reading, writing, and pondering craft in Tucson, a literary oasis in the Sonoran Desert.

Room 205
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F113. Writing Sex: Implicit Censorship in Contemporary Poetry. (Jan Beatty, Dorianne Laux, Aaron Smith, Wanda Coleman, Sharon Doubiago, Bruce Weigl) Four poets read their work and respond to the wasteland of sexuality represented in contemporary American poetry. Their reading and discussion sandblasts the implicit and explicit censorship on the page, in the presses, and in the academy. What is the continued cultural attachment to a lack of courage, vision, and articulation when it comes to sexuality?

Room 207
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F114. Writing the Mind's Wild Geography. (Hannah Fries, Maurice Manning, Ann Pancake, Lia Purpura, Alberto Rios, Pattiann Rogers) How is a sense of place both abstract and utterly grounded? The physical and the metaphysical worlds may not be so far apart after all—nature being various, mysterious, imperiled, and decisively not other. Gary Snyder has written of poetry as a creature of the wild mind that reflects back the wildness of nature. How then, in various genres, do the terrain of the imagination and the physical terrain meet? How do they work on each other? What happens when we engage both?

Rooms 210, 212
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F115. Finding Lost Memories. (Vicki Lindner, Emily Fox Gordon, Jana Harris, Ann McCutchan, Steven Schwartz) Distant memories easily elude writers of memoirs and personal essays. You don't have to be old to eclipse your intimate history. Brain chemistry, stress, and unconscious screening cause crucial scenes to blur. Assuming we want to tell a vibrant truth, how can we revive faded images? Can writers research their memories? Does the writing process itself produce trustworthy visions? Our panelists, who have done extensive work with memory, will offer tools to help writers dig up their pasts.

Rooms 301, 302
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F116. A Tribute to Norman Dubie. (Elizabyth A. Hiscox, Christopher Burawa, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Matthew Gavin Frank, Sarah Vap, Cynthia Hogue) Author of more than twenty books and numerous honors, Norman Dubie is an acclaimed poet who is also a master mentor. This celebratory event will include readings of Dubie's work, and that of celebrated former-students. The poet-presenters will read work that speaks to Dubie's influence: real and implied.

Room 303
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F117. The Dramatic Monologue in Contemporary Canadian Poetry. (Alessandro Porco, Carolyn Smart, David McGimpsey, David O'Meara, Jeanette Lynes) Since Browning, the dramatic monologue has proven to be a rather plastic genre, capable of communicating a variety of moods—from the comic to the frightening and everything in-between. It also demands a high degree of performativity. This panel offers readings by contemporary Canadian poets invested in the formal, lexical, and psychological avenues afforded by the dramatic monologue. Canadian poets use the genre to test and contest the boundaries of self and nation.

Room 304
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F118. One Never Know, Do One?: Identity vs. Aesthetics in Contemporary Poetry of Color. (Adrian Matejka, Sherwin Bitsui, Douglas Kearney, Matthew Shenoda, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon) Robert Hayden suggested that good poetry has a human impact, rather than a narrow racial or ethnic impact. For many minority poets, however, poetry serves as a statement of identity. In Hayden's view, this approach is limiting both to the poet and the poem. This panel will discuss the experiences of a diverse group of poets who have navigated the demands of identity and aesthetics in their first and second books. We will explore the necessary balance between artistic and cultural expectations.

Rooms 401, 402
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F119. The Place of Place: Crafting Place as Character in Fiction. (Sejal Shah, Margaret Lazarus Dean, Geeta Kothari, Michael Byers, Jesmyn Ward) It's a commonplace notion that setting can be so central to fiction that the landscape can become a character—even a central character. But how, in craft terms, does it come to pass that place can inhabit fiction as much as fiction inhabits place? Five fiction writers will discuss their approaches to writing place—both urban and rural—in their works, drawing on settings as diverse as Bombay, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Upstate New York, Cape Canaveral, Washington State, and the American Midwest.

Agate Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F120. Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors. (Catherine Dent, Melissa Goodrich, Karen Craigo, Bryant Davis, Kara Martin, Zach Tarvin) Along with providing a meeting ground for undergraduate editors and their faculty advisors, the eighth annual Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors (FUSE) caucus will include a panel discussion on the topic: "Funding Undergraduate Literary Journals." Presenting journals include the Susquehanna Review, Prairie Margins, andthe Allegheny Review; significant time will be allocated for audience discussion. The Forum will also provide an update on its website.

Granite Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F121. Work Like a Writer, Negotiate Like an Agent. (Anita Fore) Anita Fore, Director of Legal Services for the Authors Guild, will offer her expert advice on reviewing a book contract and the negotiating with publishers. She will review the important clauses routinely found in traditional as well as academic publishing agreements, such as copyright, royalties, and out of print provisions.

Mineral Hall
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F122. Poetry in the Public Sphere. (Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker, Karla Elling, Liam Callanan, Sean Nevin) Which words do we etch on sculptures, libraries, and sidewalks? Are they different from words we choose for temporary public art projects that exist for a year, a month or even a day? How do these texts appear differently from infrastructure and advertising? Poets and public art administrators will speak to the process of creating and managing public poetry projects including: selection process, lessons learned, and what poets should know when submitting poetry for placement in the public sphere.

Room 108
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F123. $$ CLMP Workshop—Grant Proposals 101: Effective Strategies for Limited Funding. Discover how to better pick the right funders and write the most effective proposals from CLMP's executive director and fundraiser extraordinaire. (Note: CLMP Workshops cost $30 for CLMP members and $60 for nonmembers. To register, please stop by the CLMP booth at the Bookfair.)

Room 101
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F124. Somewhere Far from Habit: The Poet & the Artist's Book. An Exhibit Hosted by Creative Writing at Longwood University. A collaboration of some of the country's most inspiring poets and most exciting book artists, for which the artists have created one of a kind or limited edition artist's books inspired by the poets' work. The exhibit features poetry by Joy Harjo, Robert Pinsky, E. Ethelbert Miller, Natasha Trethewey, Aaron Smith, Michael Burkard, Tom Sleigh, Lucie Brock-Broido, Jason Shinder, and Liam Rector. Art work by Buzz Spector, Ben Blount, Kerri Cushman, Audrey Niffenegger, Margot Ecke, Richard Minsky, Shawn Sheehy, Karen Kunc, Hedi Kyle, and Beatrice Coron.

Rooms 102, 104
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F125. The Western Identity Revisited. (Russell Rowland, Lynn Stegner, Kenneth Lincoln, Cheryl Strayed, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Page Lambert) Moderators Russell Rowland and Lynn Stegner are compiling an anthology by Western writers which means to be a Greek chorus that defines, remarks upon, and characterizes the West as we grew to know it and the West that is still becoming. The panelists will read from their essays and discuss the issues addressed by these readings, which cover a wide variety of experiences and viewpoints.

Rooms 103, 105
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F126. Weaving Story and Music Into Poetry: Libretto and the Homeric Tradition. (Kate Gale, David Mason, Annie Finch, David Yezzi) Poets have always been singers and story tellers. The poets on this panel take those roles seriously, creating librettos for chamber operas, full length operas, and art songs as well as epic poems and novels-in-verse. Themes will include collaboration, style choices, the role of the poet, and the adaptation process.

Room 107
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F127. Translating LGBTQ Writers and Writing. (John Keene, Jen Hofer, Timothy Liu, Nathalie Stephens) This panel will examine an array of issues that arise in the process and practice of translating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) writers into English and U.S. publication of these texts. These issues include: the ongoing crisis surrounding literary translation in the U.S.; differing contexts and understandings of queer life; translation as a practice of interpretation; cross-cultural conversation; and social activism: a gesture toward "queering" our approach to language.

Room 109
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F128. Traces of Places: Finding Our Literary Identities Through Landscapes. (Michael Downs, Debra Marquart, Michael Steinberg, Barbara Hurd, Joe Mackall) Nonfiction writers shape the realities of particular places to match their literary visions. But their words, sensibilities, and identities can also be influenced, even formed, by those same settings. Using rural, urban, suburban, and bioregional perspectives from across a range of nonfiction forms, this panel of writers and teachers will explore how old addresses and new ones have shaped their literary selves and their work.

Room 110
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F129. The MFA in Academia. (Matt Tullis, Joe Oestreich, Kyle Minor, Emma Bolden, Miroslav Penkov) This panel focuses on first-year experiences of MFA-degree holders holding tenure-track (or comparable) jobs in academia, including finding a job, defending the MFA as schools look for PhDs and generalists, and defending your scholarship in the face of colleagues who may not see it as serious work. It will look at how these attitudes differ greatly from institution to institution, how to move from a visiting to a tenure-track position, and how to carve out writing time amidst a heavy teaching load.

Room 111
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F130. Summer Writing Conferences: What they Offer, How to Choose the Best One for You. (James Jordan, Rob Spillman, Wyatt Prunty, Claudia Emerson, Rebecca McClanahan, David Lynn) The director/founders and writer-teachers of the Tin House Writers' Conference, The Kenyon Review Writers' Conference, and The Sewanee Writers' Conference discuss their workshops, faculty, and culture, informing poets and writers about their communities and educational and networking opportunities, including the application process, craft and guest lectures, workshops, selecting a workshop leader, and scholarships. The panel is moderated by a recent participant of these conferences.

Room 112
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F131. The MFA Literary Journal: From Start to Renewal. (Robert Henderson, Brian Kevin, Jazzy Danziger, Martin Rock, Laurie Ann Cedilnik, Shelby Goddard) The editors of CutBank, Gulf Coast Magazine, Meridian, New Delta Review, and Washington Square Review will discuss fundraising, submission selection, maintaining a journal's literary voice with regular staff changes, layout, design, budget and website development. The unique mission statements of each journal, coupled with their varied perspectives from around the country, will provide a comprehensive discussion on the inner workings of the MFA literary journal.

Room 201
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F132. The University of Montana Poetry Faculty Reading. (Prageeta Sharma, Greg Pape, Brian Blanchfield, Peter Richards) The University of Montana creative writing faculty present a poetry reading.

Room 203
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F133. Happy Birthday, Paris Press: Fifteen Years of Daring and Beautiful Literature by Women! (Jan Freeman, Robin Becker, Martha Rhodes, Catherine Chung, Edita Keller) Paris Press celebrates fifteen years of publishing daring and beautiful literature by women, with a reading from Sisters: An Anthology, the Press's most recent publication. With humor and heartbreak, rage and love, participants will read their own work as well as stories, essays, and poems by emerging and well-known writers, including Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Grace Paley, Ruth Jhabvala, Audre Lorde, and Muriel Rukeyser.

Room 205
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F134. Death Issues: A Reading by Contributors to Seattle Review's Death-Themed Issues. (David Shields, David Kirby, Janet Desaulniers, Robin Hemley, Dorianne Laux, Peter Mountford) The sole inevitability of existence, the only consequence of being alive, is death. J.M. Coetzee: "That, finally, is all it means to be alive: to be able to die." All the gods have gone to sleep or are simply moribund. We're a bag of bones. All the myths are empty. But look at the bravery of all these writers diving into the wreck, dancing/grieving in the abyss. Come for wildly cheerful poetry and prose readings by contributors to Seattle Review's 2009-2010 death-themed issues.

Room 207
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F135. Remembering David Foster Wallace, Essayist. (Katie Livingston, Caroline Chapman, Natalie Graham, JIll Kolongowski, Daisy Levy, Suzanne Webb) David Foster Wallace's recent passing has inspired conversation about his legacy as a writer and editor. While Wallace continues to be labeled as a fiction writer, his substantial contributions to creative nonfiction are surfacing as writers begin to reinvent the genre using Wallace's unconventional techniques, rhetorical moves, and genre crossing. This panel aims to reclaim Wallace as a nonfiction writer by exploring his work, his influence on other writers, and on the evolving genre.

Rooms 210, 212
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F136. God and the Workshop: Accommodating Religious Students. (Kevin Clark, Wendy Barker, Gregory Wolf, Todd James Pierce, Jeanne Murray Walker, Jim Heynen) A quarter of a century ago, religion was a rare classroom concern for American teachers of creative writing. Now, after the rise of evangelicalism and the traumas of 9/11, many workshop leaders find that the topic of religion asserts itself in student work, aesthetics, and commentary. This panel will consider both the pedagogical problems and advantages arising from students who declare their religious viewpoint in their writing and in class.

Rooms 301, 302
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F137. Justice, Community, and The Republic of Poetry. (David Mura, Martín Espada, Tara Betts) Martín Espada describes the Republic of Poetry as "a place where creativity meets community, where the imagination serves humanity." When poetry bears witness to the community and issues of justice, what is its purpose? How do we judge its effectiveness? What tools does such poetry require? What are the difficulties of writing such a poetry? How does it challenge certain definitions of poetics? Of audience? Of who may write poetry? What poems from our own work explore these concerns?

Room 303
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F138. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, & Writers in the Field. (Abby Beckel, Randall Brown, Kim Chinquee, Sherrie Flick, Robert Shapard, Lex Williford) Join five of the twenty-five contributors to this ground-breaking anthology for a roundtable discussion on the history, cross-cultural influences, reemergence, and current practices in the field of flash. These authors also will offer exercises and read examples of stories that will be of use and interest to anyone who writes, teaches, edits, or just generally enjoys the short short form.

Room 304
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F139. Elements of Voice in Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction. (Swati Avasthi, H.M. Bouwman, A. LaFaye, Julie Schumacher) Voice is perhaps the most immediately noticeable element of a story, and, yet, when we talk about it we often find it hard to pin down. This panel offers concrete ways to consider voice in your own writing and revision, and we discuss the special concerns for voice in middle grade and YA fiction.

Rooms 401, 402
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F140. National Book Critics Circle: The Practice and Purpose of Poetry Reviewing. (Kevin Prufer, Matthew Zapruder, Craig Morgan Teicher, Nickole Brown, Timothy Donnelly) Poetry books sell in small numbers, yet the poetry publishing scene is booming with new books. Readers' enthusiasm often takes the form of book reviewing—in literary journals, on blogs, and in the pages of newspapers and magazines. There's some debate about what the point of poetry reviewing really is: to explain esoteric writing? To keep the art form from getting sloppy? To please the poet under consideration? In this panel, poetry reviewers, publishers, and poets will debate these questions.

Rooms 403, 404
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F141. Poet Lore's 120th Birthday Reading. (Jody Bolz, Jane Shore, Nadell Fishman, E. Ethelbert Miller, Gregory Pardlo) This event marks the 120th birthday of America's oldest continuously published poetry journal, Poet Lore, with a celebration reading. Contributing editors Cornelius Eady and Jane Shore will share the stage with poets whose work they've showcased in the magazine's Poets Introducing Poets feature.

Agate Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F142. Low Residency—High Resolution. (Paul Munden, Graeme Harper, Graham Mort, Kathy Flann, Patsy Sims) The proliferation of low residency programs inevitably raises questions about quality control. At their best, such programs avoid mere substitute solutions, offering instead new, creative opportunities with specific rewards. This panel will discuss how e-learning is working at the highest level—even facilitating doctoral study across continents—and contributing to an enriching transcultural exchange.

Centennial Ballroom
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F143. A Tribute: Ed Dorn and a Western American Poetics. (Matthew Cooperman, Amiri Baraka, Jennifer Dunbar Dorn, Peter Michelson, Dale Smith, Joseph Richey) This tribute panel of Dorn admirers—poets, scholars, wives, former students and colleagues—will explore Dorn's contribution to American poetry in light of its western edges.

Granite Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F144. Indigenous-Aboriginal American Writers Caucus. (Simon Ortiz, Kimberly Blaeser, Laura Tohe, Brandy McDougall, Gordon Henry, James Stevens) With the flourishing proportion of Indigenous writers and academics participating in AWP and teaching in affiliated programs (including endowed chairs and program directors), the present time is highly conducive to impart field related celebrations and concerns as understood by Native writers from the Americas and surrounding island nations.

Mineral Hall
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F145. Scars on My Heart—A Staged Reading from Milspeak: Warriors, Veterans, Family, and Friends Writing the Military Experience. (Sally Drumm, Michael Kobre, Shawne Steiger, Richard Peabody, Vivian I. Bikulege, Harry Parmer) Milspeak Creative Writing Seminars is an outreach workshop program for military people. The Milspeak Anthology contains memoirs by military people and guest contributors. "Scars on My Heart" is a staged reading from a script created of excerpts from anthology selections. Audience members will be asked to participate.

Rooms 102, 104
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F146. Honoring Reg Saner—Essayist, Poet, Environmentalist. (Stephen Corey, Elizabeth Dodd, Douglas Carlson) Three widely published writers (two of them also editors) will speak succinctly on the writing career of long-time Colorado resident Reg Saner, whose vital but under-appreciated publishing career began when he was forty-five (in 1976) and continues to this day as he approaches eighty. Saner himself will then take the podium for a 30-minute talk and reading.

Rooms 103, 105
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F147. Beloit Poetry Journal 60th Anniversary Celebration. (Lee Sharkey, Sherman Alexie, Karl Elder, Albert Goldbarth, Janet Holmes, Susan Tichy) The Beloit Poetry Journal celebrates sixty years of uninterrupted publication and honors Marion Kingston Stocking's 54 years with the magazine with a brief reprise of the journal's history; readings by recipients of the BPJ's annual Chad Walsh Prize; and the unveiling of a chapbook of new poems by 15 Walsh Prize winners.

Room 106
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F148. Writing South Asia—Issues of Representation and Identity. (Samrat Upadhyay, Rishi Reddi, Ru Freeman, Anis Shivani, Gemini Wahhaj, Oindrila Mukherjee) South Asian writers have taken the Western literary world by storm in recent times. But this recent popularity gives rise to new challenges. How do you represent contemporary South Asia in authentic, original ways and stay commercially viable? How do you write for a Western and a regional audience at the same time? How do you balance the political and aesthetic? Come hear writers of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Sri Lankan, and Indian origin read and discuss their fiction.

Room 107
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F149. From Page to Stage. (Crystal Alberts, Diane Glancy, Frank X Walker) Literary adaptations are ubiquitous in our culture, but often the nuances of the original text are lost in translation. This panel brings together two authors who have converted their works to theatrical scripts/screenplays and have assisted in the staging/filming of it with a critic who studies their texts. It will discuss the challenges of adapting poetry/novels to the stage, the art of negotiating between the arts, and ways of teaching the craft of the various versions.

Room 108
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F150. Indie Mags: Publishing Outside of MFA Programs and Other Institutional Support. (J.W. Wang, Aaron Burch, Dave Clapper, Mike Young, Jennifer Flescher, Blake Butler) Independent journals provide an alternative to the established journals affiliated with universities and creative writing programs, and they frequently serve as pioneers in the world of literary publishing. Join editors from Tuesday; An Art Project, Hobart, NOÖ Journal, Juked, Lamination Colony and SmokeLong Quarterly for a roundtable discussion about the workings of independently-published literary journals, what it takes to keep them going, and what these journals mean to potential contributors.

Room 109
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F151. University of Wyoming MFA Faculty Reading. (Peter Parolin, Joy Williams, Brad Watson, H.L. Hix) The MFA Program at the University of Wyoming celebrates its 5th year of innovation and imagination with a reading by current faculty members and National Book Award nominees for fiction and poetry.

Room 110
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F152. An Insurgent Surging: The Case for the Novella Now. (Josh Weil, Michael Knight, Tom Franklin, Cynthia Reeves) This panel will examine the novella as a renegade art form whose time has come. We will discuss the underappreciated rewards the form offers writers, readers, teachers, and publishers. But the focus will be on the craft of writing novellas—challenges, rewards, and the unique approaches that the form—all directed towards answering this question: why is right now the right time to refocus attention on the novella?

Room 111
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F153. Living Words: Folklore and Creative Writing Programs. (Margaret Yocom, Darcy Holtgrave, J. Michael Martinez, Eric Pankey, Wayne Ude) Folklore and creative writing both depend on word magic, bewilderment, and attention. And there's more they share. Five writers—poets, novelists, nonfiction writers, folklorists, MFA program directors—read from their works, and discuss the partnership between folklore and creative writing. What role does folklore play in writers' creative processes, in MFA programs and courses? Might folklore be an option for MFAs who plan to earn a PhD?

Room 112
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F154. Creative Conformity: Standardizing Fiction and Poetry Courses. (Linda Trinh Moser, Jane Hoogestraat, D Gilson, Benjamin Pfeiffer, Brian Shawver) This panel focuses on Missouri State University's recent attempts to standardize the curriculum of its multi-section introductory creative writing courses. We will present the rationale underlying the decision to standardize and discuss the processes by which we selected the standard texts, topics, and methods. Finally, we will share the effects of the project on student performance, program assessment, and graduate student mentoring.

Room 113
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F155. Bathtub Kansas Writers' Collective: A Community of Writers. (DaMaris Hill, Amy Ash, Jameelah Lang, Andy Anderegg, Kari Jackson, Robert J. Baumann) The Bathtub Kansas Writers' Collective, founded by the graduate students in creative writing at the University of Kansas, aims to promote literature and writing. The panel will discuss the need for and benefits of establishing a community of writers that extends beyond the limits of the university. We will share our experiences in creating writer exchanges with other programs, developing a Writers in the Schools program, and engaging in community arts and writing projects.

Room 201
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F156. Truth or Trash? Women Writing Memoir. (Kerry Cohen, Sue Silverman, Rachel Resnick, Melissa Febos, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah) This panel of memoirists will explore why women's stories—those which fill an otherwise cultural silence—are more readily labeled confessional and even trashy by some in the media and even academia. Is there a connection between our outsider voices and the frequency with which our work is judged as a lesser art form? We will also address how best to handle negative reactions we receive when we reveal our intimate stories, and how to use this reaction to even grow as writers and mentors.

Room 203
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F157. Graywolf Press Reading. (Tony Hoagland, Alyson Hagy, Ander Monson, Catie Rosemurgy, Tiphanie Yanique) For over thirty-five years, Graywolf Press has supported the works and careers of some of the most important writers in the field. This reading features five writers recently published by Graywolf.

Room 205
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F158. Newer Testaments: Contemporary Poets Responding to Biblical Texts. (Philip Memmer, Mark Jarman, Alicia Ostriker, Jacqueline Osherow) Whether they wish to justify the ways of God to men or vice versa, contemporary poets continue to be drawn to the Bible as a source of literary inspiration. This panel discussion will focus on how and why poets respond to the stories, themes, and formal elements of one of our culture's bedrock texts, and examine what it means to tackle overtly religious subject matter in the 21st century.

Room 207
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F159. A Reading from Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery. (Sarah Cortez, Mario Acevedo, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Manuel Ramos, Sergio Troncoso) This reading by some of mystery fiction's most accomplished practitioners will be followed by a discussion of the current status of mystery writing and its use by Latino/a writers in creating discourse and revelation of self.

Rooms 210, 212
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F160. (WITS Alliance) Navigating Need: Teaching Creative Writing to Students with Disabilities. (Jack McBride, Nicole Callihan, Sharon Ferranti, Jourdan Keith, Laren McClung, Giuseppe Taurino) In educational jargon, the special needs label serves as a catch-all for students with disabilities who have been left behind by a highly standardized school curricula. WITS writers are asked to teach students who are deaf, blind, autistic, dysgraphic, or who have other disabilities, often without training or having these students identified. However, as these five teaching writers show through case studies, creative writing becomes an amazing bridge among all students, regardless of ability.

Rooms 301, 302
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F161. West By Midwest: Women Writers Crossing the 100th Meridian. (Vivian Wagner, Kyoko Mori, Debra Marquart, Joy Passanante, Jane Varley, Jonis Agee) The writers on this panel will explore their experiences in the West and Midwest, focusing on the ways their writing has defined and been defined by these two regions. Where does the Midwest end, and the West begin? How does one shape the other? The hybrid, always evolving landscapes of the West and Midwest resist easy definition and categorization, and this panel will examine real and imagined intersections between the known and unknown, prairies and mountains, home and wilderness.

Room 303
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F162. Those Who Can, Teach: Program Directors Talk Shop. (Nan Cohen, Lan Samantha Chang, Maxine Chernoff, Fred Leebron, Geoffrey Becker, Brighde Mullins) Wallace Stegner asked "How can anyone teach writing, when he, himself, as a writer, is never sure what he is doing?" What do we owe our students, what are our responsibilities? What is the influence of a mentor? Does a creative writing degree carry the value it should? As the contours of publication and academia change, should graduate writing programs change as well?.

Room 304
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F163. The Prince of the Face: Translating Mystical Poetry from Middle Eastern Sources. (Sheri Allen, Sidney Wade, Willis Barnstone, Haider Al-Kabi, Betty De Shong Meador) In addition to the linguistic challenges facing poetry translators, when source texts are vatic, incantatory poems from the ancient or modern Middle East, further complexities emerge. How do translators cope with sources that are not only from a markedly different environment than the contemporary Anglo-American arena, but can also be shadowed by political or religious assumptions to overcome?

Rooms 401, 402
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F164. The Future of Book Publishing: How Authors Should Navigate the New Market. (Mary Gannon, Dennis Loy Johnson, Jeffrey Shots, Michael Reynolds, Lee Montgomery, Julie Barer) Editors and agents will discuss the changes that have occurred in the practices and policies of literary publishing—from acquiring books, producing them in all of their incarnations, and marketing them. They will also offer timely advice on how authors should best navigate the changing industry and the new market.

Rooms 403, 404
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F165. Poets as Legislators: Bearing Visions in Private and in Public. (Luisa Igloria, Cathryn Hankla, Anita Skeen, Meg Kearney, Daniel Tobin, Sandra Meek) Just as Confucius the poet was also Confucius the bureaucrat, poets increasingly find themselves in roles serving the academy and the public, not just the Muse. Six poet-administrators (editors, directors of poetry centers, writing festivals, traditional or low residency MFA programs), consider the effects of negotiating these seemingly opposed aspects of the writing life, as well as the relationships between the private and public, the intimate and impersonal, the imaginative and pragmatic.

Agate Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F166. How Words Matter. (Lance Olsen, R.M. Berry, Lidia Yuknavitch, Vanessa Place) This panel discusses fictions from the Russian Futurists to hypermedia that explore their physical basis. Their ambition is to transpose vehicle and message, making the extraneous central. Cataloguing-in-publication data, blurbs, and bar codes cease to lie outside. Page number and headers control reading. Margins, fonts, and justification all act. The parts of texts which, to an eye fixed on the action, appear least material, become what matter most.

Centennial Ballroom
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F167. Writing In(to) the Age of Obama: Poetry, Politics, and the People. (Rachel Zucker, Cate Marvin, Major Jackson, Patricia Spears Jones, Brian Teare, Matthew Rohrer) Poets who participated in Starting Today: Poems for Obama's First 100 Days (originally a blog, now a forthcoming book) will describe the anxiety and pleasure of writing an Occasional, political poem. They will discuss what makes a poem "political"—is it content, tone, intended audience, authorial motivation?— whether poetry should be more or less political than it is, whether all poetry is political, and how poetry has changed since Obama's election.

Granite Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F168. Pen, Screen, Action: Digital Storytelling in the Writing Classroom. (Shannon Lakanen, Daniel Weinshenker, Christina Fisanick, Kayann Short) This panel explores the ways writers take creative writing from the page to the screen by incorporating still images, voice over narration, video footage, soundtrack, and nonlinear editing to create digital poetic, narrative, and reflective texts. Panelists will share their experiences teaching digital storytelling in community and college workshops, examples of the work produced in these forums, and the challenges and advantages this multimodal form offers writers and artists.

Mineral Hall
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F169. Gurlesque Poetry: A Reading. (Lara Glenum, Cathy Wagner, Dorthea Lasky, Danielle Pafunda, Cathy Park Hong, Elizabeth Treadwell) Five poets will read from their works as featured in Gurlesque, a new anthology of contemporary women poets and visual artists now out from Saturnalia Books. Gurlesque poets perform their femininity in a campy or overtly mocking way, drawing on burlesque performance, girly kitsch, and the female grotesque. Their often humorous work assaults the norms of acceptable female behavior by irreverently deploying gender stereotypes to subversive ends.

Rooms 102, 104
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F170. The Chicana Social Novel, the Border and the Americas: A Political Literary Forum. (Rigoberto Gonzalez, Stella Pope Duarte, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Reyna Grande, Emma Pérez) The border is the war zone that serves as the foundation for the Chicana novel. The Río Grande, the wall, the fence, the border patrol, are but superficial divisions for the long-contested birthright of the Southwest. These four novelists will give insights to the historical context of U.S.-Mexico relations and how this legacy fuels the Chicana writer's imagination. Their novels take a critical look at border culture, and an unflinching view of contemporary social and political conditions.

Rooms 103, 105
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F171. From Manuscript to Book: A Cave Canem Reading & Discussion. (Alison Meyers, Curtis Crisler, Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Aracelis Girmay, Linda Susan Jackson) Three Cave Canem fellows read from their debut collections of poetry and discuss how the Cave Canem pedagogical model influenced their creative process and helped advance their work. With Cave Canem co-founders Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, they talk about the advantages of writing in an environment of trust and respect, being mentored by pre-eminent black poets, and coming together with talented peers to work on craft and engage in critical debate.

Room 106
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F172. Let's Get This Program Started: How to Develop and Implement a Creative Writing Degree Program. (Jennifer S. Davis, Harvey Hix, Rus Bradford, Brian Barker) Faculty from newly-launched MFA programs at the University of Wyoming and New Mexico State University and faculty from the University of Colorado Denver, whose English department is developing a BFA, will explore the complexities of establishing robust graduate and undergraduate degree programs. The panel will discuss issues of institutional support, curriculum development, student recruitment, evaluating programmatic goals and outcome assessments, program sustainability, and program identity.

Room 108
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F173. The University of Montana Fiction/Nonfiction Faculty Reading. (Kevin Canty, Deirdre McNamer, Debra Magpie Earling, Robert Stubblefield, Judy Blunt) The University of Montana creative writing faculty will present a fiction and nonfiction reading of recent work.

Room 109
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F174. (WITS Alliance) Starting a Writers in the Schools Program at Your University. (Melanie Moore, Chloe Honum, Sean Nevin, David Hassler, Terry Ann Thaxton) On this panel sponsored by the WITS Alliance, panelists discuss the pragmatic aspects of starting a Writers in the Schools outreach program. Topics include developing relationships with public schools, finding funding sources, and compensation/course credit for students teaching in the program. Program directors from the University of Arkansas, Arizona State University, the University of Central Florida, the Wick Poetry Center, and Badgerdog Literary Publishing will share their expertise.

Room 110
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F175. The Essayist's Dilemma; How to Assemble a Collection. (Marcia Aldrich, Lucy Ferriss, E.J. Levy, Kim Dana Kupperman) This panel examines the expectations that publishers have for essay collections, including aesthetic and marketing issues. What are the various connecting apparatuses used to assemble essay collections that do not cohere around a theme, a single grand narrative, or other linking device? How might essayists protect the stand-alone essay from being subsumed into an artificial memoir? And, finally, how can essayists reestablish the importance of this literary form?.

Room 111
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F176. Street Smarts: Getting Real World Literary Experience While You're a Student. (Steven Cramer, Teresa Cader, Joan Houlihan, Katherine Russell Rich, Robin Romm) This panel explores how MFA students can hit the streets as writers before they've earned their MFAs. We discuss the advantages of credit-bearing internships; teaching in non-University settings; online book reviewing, interviewing authors, or literary journalism for specialized websites like the Huffington Post; starting a blog or web zine; and initiating a reading series or a literary organization. The panelists seek to help MFA students, as students, begin professional literary work.

Room 113
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F177. Who Are Community College Creative Writing Students? (Richard Newman, Mary Lannon, Laura McCullough, Christina Rau, Phoebe Reeves, Jan Ramjerdi) It's no accident that most people of color in higher education started at a community college. The nationwide growth of creative writing enrollment and program development at the two-year level reflects that fact, along with the socioeconomic and other forms of diversity found on community college campuses. Faculty from urban and rural community colleges will discuss strategies for addressing that diversity both in the classroom and in nurturing our students' future careers as writers.

Room 201
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F178. Latin American Poets in the USA. (Lila Zemborain, Mariela Dreyfus, Eduardo Chirinos, Víctor Rodríguez-Núñez, Carmen Valle, Eduardo Espina) This bilingual poetry reading (Spanish and English) aims to present six outstanding Latin American poets in mid-career. It is a very representative selection, with authors coming from strong poetic traditions all over the continent, namely Argentina, Cuba, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay. All these authors are long-time residents in the U.S a nd their poetry collections have been either partially—or fully—translated into English.

Room 203
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F179. Ecopoetics on Colorado's Front Range: Intersections and Ecotones. (Soham Patel, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Serena Chopra, Juan Morales, Mia Nussbaum) Poets from Colorado's Front Range discuss how the region's landscape pushes up against their craft. On this purlieu of Ecotone: a region of transition between two biological communities, five poets consider how attention to place intrinsically and intentionally negotiates the making of a poem. Moving beyond nature writing to investigate how the identity of place engages entropy while putting diverse communities together, this is a coming together to celebrate the songs echoing on this Ecotone.

Room 205
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F180. A Reading by the 2008 AWP Award Series Winners. (Beth Bachmann, Ramola D, Goldie Goldbloom, Sonja Livingston) A reading featuring AWP's 2008 Award Series winners Beth Bachmann, Ramola D, Goldie Goldbloom, and Sonja Livingston.

Room 207
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F181. Beyond the "First Compliment, then Criticize" Method: Teaching Students How To Be Better Workshoppers. (Rachel Marston, Alissa Nutting, Kathryn Cowles, Robert Glick, David McGlynn) How do you help undergraduates become better peer critics? We often ask undergraduate creative writing students to critique the work of their fellow writers. While we may provide some models of feedback, we assume that our students structure and articulate their critique intuitively. This panel, composed of professors and graduate student teachers, offers techniques and exercises (for all genres) designed to improve a student's ability to communicate an incisive, meaningful critique.

Rooms 210, 212
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F182. Mysterious Ritual: Linear and Non-linear Narratives in Playwriting. (Lisa Schlesinger, Matthew Maguire, Kenneth Prestininzi, Ruth Margraff, Erik Ehn, Charlotte Meehan) This panel explores the symbiotic relationship between linear and nonlinear approaches to playwriting. The Aristotelian plot-based narrative is embedded in our cognitive development as human beings and it continues to dominate mainstream American theatre. Yet playwriting is an evolving form in a global world. This panel discusses how playwrights may effectively merge linear and nonlinear forms to encompass global vision, inspire cultural fusion, and explore new theatrical perspectives.

Rooms 301, 302
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F183. Jean Valentine, Poet. (Celia Bland, Kazim Ali, C.D. Wright, Catherine Barnett, Miguel Murphy) Jean Valentine speaks with a prophetic authority of the inner life, plumbing the visible and the invisible–the red candle of "find it," the chimpanzee of longing, and the cliffs of the mind. Join us as poets discuss the pleasures and challenges of Valentine's poems on the occasion of her 75th birthday, followed by a reading by Valentine.

Room 303
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F184. It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup and Divorce. (Jerry Williams, Kim Addonizio, Gerald Costanzo, Amy Gerstler, J. Allyn Rosser) Poetry is one of the most beautiful forms of human expression on earth; breakup and divorce are among the worst. Does the poet's experience with such a dire emotional event change the way she approaches the topic? Featured in a new Overlook Press anthology on the subject, these panelists will read and discuss their work in order to explore the connection between breakup and divorce and their own poetic process.

Room 304
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F185. Collages & Collisions: A Braided Reading. (Sarah Maclay, Gail Wronsky, Louise Mathias, Molly Bendall, Holaday Mason, David Dodd Lee) Recent experiments with the braided reading have led us to The Uberbraid: three pairs of poets involved in ongoing collaborative projects will join one another in a completely collaborative reading involving all six at once. Beyond traditional call and response, we will lend our voices to one another's already collaborative work, further erasing boundaries while magnifying chance connections at the level of line and image, as well as whole poem. Format fatigue? Try our sound-collage.

Rooms 401, 402
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F186. Declarations of Independence: Voices from The Writer's Center. (Charles Jensen, Dwaine Rieves, Leslie Pietrzyk, James Mathews, Rose Solari) In its 33-year history, The Writer's Center has fostered exceptional work in all genres of writing through its exceptional workshop program. The writers represented here began writing with us, developed book projects with us, or found support in our community of writers and readers. Join us as we celebrate their work and literary accomplishments.

Rooms 403, 404
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F187. Reinventing the Wheel: The Tradition of Innovation in Poetry. (Blas Falconer, Patricia Clark, Nancy Eimers, Elline Lipkin, Angela Sorby, Michael Theune) Sir Philip Sidney famously writes, "And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way" ("Astrophel and Stella"). However, one would only need to read Homer, Virgil, and Dante, the letters between Wordsworth and Coleridge or Moore and Bishop, to recognize the long tradition of poets mentoring and inspiring other poets. In revealing how specific poets and poems have influenced them, panelists will challenge the notion that tradition and innovation are at odds.

Agate Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F188. The Entrepreneurial MFA. (Carla Caglioti, Robert Reeves, Lou Ann Walker, Annette Handley Chandler, Emma Walton Hamilton, Stephen Hamilton) Stony Brook Southampton's MFA in Writing and Literature has practiced a unique entrepreneurial approach to writing programs for over a decade. Our directors share their expertise in breaking away from traditional academic models, launching successful summer conferences, and tapping journals, readings, and writers-in-the-schools programs for their learning and earning opportunities.

Centennial Ballroom
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F189. The Southern Review 75th Anniversary Reading. (Jeanne Leiby, David Kirby, Sydney Lea, Steve Almond, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Beth Ann Fennelly) Founded in 1935 by Robert Penn Warren at Louisiana State University, the Southern Review celebrates seventy-five years of publishing the best contemporary fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by the world's most accomplished writers.

Granite Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F190. Research Training in Creative Writing. (Graeme Harper, Graham Mort, Helena Blakemore, Steve May) This panel will critically consider the research training needed for Creative Writing graduate students and discuss training given in the U.K. to develop Creative Writing at graduate level and beyond. The panel will suggest research themes, subjects, and approaches, and draw on recent developments at Britain's National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) where a nationwide training program for creative writing researchers is being launched.

Mineral Hall
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F191. Honoring the Sandhill Crane Migration Annual Literary Tribute. (Allison Hedge Coke, Sherwin Bitsui, Cristina Eisenberg, Wang Ping, Jim Wilson, Laura Tohe) UNK hosts the Honoring the Sandhill Crane Migration Literary Retreat on the Platte Valley, naming participating writers as Literary Crane Fellows annually. Sandhill Cranes have migrated to this spring apex for sixty million years, thus, traditionally, numerous indigenous eco-philosophies and languages, including written, were justly influenced. The regional apex numbers 600,000 arriving birds. Each panelist will speak toward and share their work as a Crane Fellow in this unique regional miracle.

Room 107
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F192. $$ CLMP Workshop—Building Your Magazine Circulation. (Jeffrey Lependorf, Maribeth Batcha) Expand your subscriber base with tested strategies and techniques for designing mail campaigns, increasing renewals, and building subscriber loyalty. (Note: CLMP Workshops cost $30 for CLMP members and $60 for nonmembers. To register, please stop by the CLMP booth at the Bookfair.).

Rooms 102, 104
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F193. Responding to Personal Trauma in Creative-Writing Classrooms. (Gregory Fraser, Susannah Mintz, Chad Davidson, Jill Hendricks) Student journals and workshop submissions sometimes include highly private and disturbing material, and creative-writing teachers are often left wondering how best to address expressions of personal trauma, psychological distress, and emotional pain. Bringing together three experienced writer-professors and a university-based mental-health and crisis-management expert, this panel explores effective, conscientious guidelines for responding to student writing of an unsettling or worrisome nature.

Rooms 103, 105
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F194. From the Fishouse: A Reading of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great. (Jeffrey Thomson, Major Jackson, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Erika Meitner, Oliver de la Paz, Adrian Matejka) Introducing From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great, which focuses on the aural quality of the collected poems and the success of the poems on the page and in the air. The editors invite you to celebrate this new collection with a reading by five of the book's exciting featured poets who will read from their work and the work of other poets in the anthology.

Room 106
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F195. University of Nevada Press Reading. (Gary Short, Phyllis Barber, Lawrence Coates, Susan Lang, Richard Yanez) Award winning writers read from their fiction and nonfiction works set in the American West and published by the University of Nevada Press. Writers will read from memoirs, novels, and short stories that illuminate the life and diverse cultures of the west. Nevada poet, Gary Short, introduces fellow UN Press authors, celebrating the Press's Western American Literature Series and new West Word Fiction series.

Room 108
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F196. From MFA Thesis to First Novel—Five Writers Share Their Stories. (Sheila O'Connor, Geoff Herbach, Nami Mun, Valerie Laken, Patti Frazee, Margaret Lazarus Dean) Is the MFA thesis an end or a beginning? How do we know if our thesis project is a viable book or an early draft that still requires radical revision? For books that need revision, how do writers practice the necessary discipline novels require over the long haul? How do emerging writers secure agents and publishers for that first book?  Focusing on the challenges and triumphs of seeing theses projects into print, five first- time novelists will share their diverse writing and publishing experiences.

Room 109
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F197. What We Hate: Editorial Dos and Don'ts. (H. Emerson Blake, Katie Dublinski, Andrew Leland, Denise Oswald, Daniel Slager, Rob Spillman) You won't find this in the FAQ. Get it straight from the source. Six distinguished magazine and book editors speak candidly about what they love and loathe and everything in between. What do editors really want from writers? What do they absolutely not want? If you're positively sure you know the answers to these questions, then don't come to this panel featuring editors from The Believer, Graywolf Press, Milkweed Editions, Orion, Soft Skull Press, and Tin House..

Room 110
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F198. Immigrant Poetry: Aesthetics of Displacement. (Gene Tanta, Jenny Boully, Johannes Goransson, Ramona Uritescu-Lombard, Andrei Guruianu, Uche Nduka) We will discuss the relations between formal innovation and biographical politics. More specifically, immigrant American poets such as Waldrop, Simic, and Dinh challenge the meaning of innovation through their word choices, visible racial markers, or audible accent. Do poets still want to surprise? What does making it new mean to immigrant poets? How do the industrial, technological, and informational revolutions influence the citizen's ethical responsibility and the poet's aesthetic power?

Room 111
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F199. Diva Complex: Gay Men Explore the Diversity and Meaning of Diva Worship. (Michael Montlack, David Trinidad, Paul Lisicky, Christopher Hennessy, Jeff Oaks) Inspired by their participation in the nonfiction anthology My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, the panelists will discuss the relationships between their personal divas and the gay male urge toward diva celebration. They will discuss what that means for writers and readers, as well as for the gay community and feminism. Divas to be discussed include Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Stevie Nicks, Princess Leia, Wendy Waldman, and Wonder Woman.

Room 201
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F200. University of Denver Faculty Fiction Reading. (Brian Kiteley, Rikki Ducornet, Laird Hunt, Selah Saterstrom) This will be a reading by four fiction writers—one former and three current University of Denver professors. The reading will showcase the qualities DU's creative writing program hopes to promote: a love of language and an interest in blurring the boundaries between genres

Room 205
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F201. Amistad Press Fiction Reading. (Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Attica Locke, Ravi Howard, Bridgett Davis, William Henry Lewis) HarperCollins' Amistad Press is the oldest imprint at any major New York publishing house devoted to books by, for, and about people of the African diaspora. For over twenty years, the press has served a critical role in the industry. Five Amistad authors—ranging from an accomplished screenwriter to a Hemingway/PEN finalist—will read from recently published fiction and discuss the continued importance of black presses.

Room 207
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F202. University of Utah Faculty and Student Reading. (Paisley Rekdal, Lance Olsen, Melanie Rae Thon, David Baker, Lynn Kilpatrick, Connie Voisine) The University of Utah's Creative Writing Program is one of the most respected in the West and the nation. Graduates and faculty have won NEA and Guggenheim fellowships, awards from PEN and the National Book Critics Circle, and have been published by noted journals and presses. We will celebrate the achievements of our program with short readings.

Rooms 210, 212
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F203. Camp Kerouac—35 Years of Naropa's Summer Writing Program. (Lisa Birman, Max Regan, Akilah Oliver, Shane Jimenez) In June 1974, Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman launched a Summer Arts Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Over the last 35 years, a who's who of U.S. and international poetics has taught, learned, lectured, listened, written, and read at Naropa's Summer Writing Program. The SWP is now an integral part of Naropa's MFA degrees, in addition to its thriving undergraduate and non-credit populations. Faculty, staff, and students will discuss diversity, community building, recruitment, and pedagogy.

Rooms 301, 302
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F204. Exploitation, Empowerment, and Everything In Between: Women on Writing Sex. (Ashley Emmert, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Rosemary Daniell, Jacklyn Marceau, Kathleen Rooney) In the past, women writers struggled to express their sexuality, whether fictionally or nonfictionally, in the face of societal pressure to keep the subject locked up and secret. But what happens when the door is thrown wide open? Has a new generation of women missed out on a deeper exploration of self? Is there more pressure for younger women to write about sex before understanding fully their own sexuality? Women writers of different generations describe their experiences in writing about sex.

Room 303
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F205. Writing on the Walls: Promoting Writing and Museum Relationships within the Community. (Brian Barker, Long Chu, Kurt Heinzelman, Mary Flinn) A creative writing program invites poets to respond to the university's art collection. A writers-in-the-schools program collaborates with a local museum in teaching creative writing to children. A literary journal organizes a gallery exhibition exploring influence in poetry and art. Our panelists will draw on their expertise in discussing how writing programs and other literary entitities can tap the potential for creative collaboration with their local art centers, galleries, or museums.

Room 304
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F206. Northern Colorado Poets Reading. (Lisa Zimmerman, Veronica Patterson, Bill Tremblay, Mary Crow, Robert King, Dona Luongo Stein) This is a reading to celebrate seven award-winning poets of Northern Colorado. One of the things these poets have in common is their commitment to bringing poetry to a larger audience in their communities.

Rooms 401, 402
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F207. It's Not Just About You: Solidifying Journalism's Role in Creative Writing Programs. (Patrick Walters, Jim Sheeler, Philip Gerard, John Calderazzo, Rebecca Skloot) Many believe creative nonfiction is limited to memoir and personal essay, and consider journalism a dirty word. But journalism must be embraced by creative writing programs, where students often resist looking beyond their own lives for material, and avoid the pursuit of hard facts. Four writers who write from deep reporting will explore what's wrong with fudging things, what's involved in getting facts right, and teaching students to apply journalistic techniques to creative nonfiction.

Rooms 403, 404
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F208. Ashland Poetry Press: More Than Forty Years Anniversary. (Stephen Haven, Richard Jackson, Vern Rutsala, Robert Phillips, Kathryn Winograd, Nathalie Anderson) Director Stephen Haven moderates the Ashland Poetry Press (APP) celebration of more than forty years of publishing. APP authors read from their poems to celebrate Ashland Poetry Press's longevity.

Agate Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F209. Editing Indigenous, Editing the Americas. (Janet McAdams, Diane Glancy, Katherine Hedeen, Gordon Henry, Víctor Rodríguez-Núñez, Susan M. Schultz) This panel brings together editors whose work focuses on writers from communities historically marginalized by American presses and publication processes, as well as the publishing world outside of the so called Americas. Presses and series represented include Salt Publishing (Earthworks Indigenous and Latin American literature in Translation), Tinfish (experimental writing from the Pacific Rim), Michigan State University Press (American Indian), University of Nebraska Press (Native Storiers).

Centennial Ballroom
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F210. A Poem is the World and the World Is a Poem. (Alison Granucci, Matthew Dickman, Brenda Hillman, Philip Schultz, Patricia Smith) This reading presents four aesthetically diverse writers whose poems encompass both personal and social life in praise our common humanity. Their poetry accepts the violence, grief, and failures of being human with empathy, forgiveness, and even joy, to expose the sacred longing imbued—if sometimes hidden—in all of daily life. With an emotional directness that does not fear the interior struggle, the poetry of these artists overflows with the world's vitality and shows us the power words have to change lives.

Granite Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F211. Mock-Docs, Fakes, and Hoaxes. (David Lazar, Jeff Porter, Catherine Taylor, Mary Cappello, Patrick Madden) Although a spate of false memoirs has recently rocked the mainstream press, we shouldn't be too startled given the long history of aesthetic forgeries. Fakes and hoaxes, especially involving works of art, have a curiously abiding appeal which often supersedes any debates about their authenticity or truth value. This panel will explore our culture's romance with fakery across media, from Orson Welles's notorious radio hoax and Christopher Guest's sham documentaries to Nabokov's literary spoofs.

Mineral Hall
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F212. Translation as Collaboration / Collaboration as Translation. (Amaranth Borsuk, Kate Durbin, Gabriela Jauregui, Tatiana Lipkes, Lara Glenum, Mira Rosenthal) We will consider the ways in which translation is a collaborative practice, both between the author (living or deceased) and translator and also among co-translators. We will also consider how collaborative work often involves acts of translation. Is collaboration always already translational? Is translation always necessarily collaborative? The panelists work both as translators and poets. They have collaborated variously with one another and will discuss intersections among these projects.

Rooms 102, 104
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F213. Bone Deep in Landscape?: New Perspectives on Place. (Karen Auvinen, David Gessner, James Campbell) This panel looks at issues of ownership, place, and regionalism in nonfiction. Who gets to write about a place? Do you have to live in the West or South to write authentically about it? In an era of increasingy mobility, how is it possible to be "bone deep in landscape" if you haven't spent a lifetime gazing at your patch of grass? A panel of nonfiction writers, from three different regions, will address place and the concerns for writers traveling to other places to write about them.

Rooms 103, 105
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F214. Serious Business: The Use and Abuse of Humor in Poetry. (Patty Seyburn, Nin Andrews, Tenaya Darlington, Charles Harper Webb, Jeffrey McDaniel) T.S. Eliot said that humor is a way of saying something serious. Do poets take themselves too seriously? What should the role of humor be in poetry? In this presentation, panelists–each of whom is a poet who someone, at some moment in time, has called "funny"–will discuss how and why they and their poetic predecessors employ humor of various timbre (irony, sarcasm, jokes, pun, language-play, sonic effects, and other forms of wit), as well as the risk of various types of backfiring.

Room 106
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F215. The Road Less Taken and the Ivory Tower: Getting Creative about Creative Careers. (Laura Valeri, Andrea Dupree, Margo Rabb, David Rothman, John Brehm) Poets, fiction, and nonfiction writers with different degrees and career tracks discuss the skills and strategies that helped them succeed, including why we should look beyond the MFA vs. PhD argument into the roles of writing programs today, what academic searches really value, how academic careers interact with creative careers, and why finding alternatives that keep us prolific, creative, and advocating for the art is an essential strategy for success.

Room 107
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F216. If It Takes More Than Two Minutes to Introduce a Reader, Then You Are Probably Not Doing It Right: This and Other Practical Advice For Running Your Reading Series. (Cody Lumpkin, Timothy Schaffert, John Chavez, Emily Danforth) Panelists who have run reading series, literary festivals, and writers' conferences will discuss simple yet often overlooked methods on how to improve the quality and attendance of your reading series, no matter how large or small it may be. Topics covered will include how to get the word out, how to create a welcoming environment for your audience and your reader, and how to avoid common mistakes that derail many reading series.

Room 108
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F217. Wave After Wave: The Legacy of Muriel Rukeyser in the 21st Century. (Nicole Cooley, Anne Herzog, Jen Benka, Jan Heller Levi, Jan Freeman, Kate Daniels) This roundtable is composed of six women writers who will investigate the influence of Muriel Rukeyser on 21st century writing. Panelists will reflect on our roles as writers, biographers, critics, and editors who consciously follow in Rukeyser's tradition. We will discuss Rukeyser's linking of literary work and social activism and her work across genres such as poetry, fiction, journalism, and biography.

Room 109
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F218. Open For Submissions: Starting Your Own Literary Magazine or Small Press. (Stephen Motika, Jay Rubin, Megan Garr, Mary Gannon) Have you ever dreamed about starting your own own press or literary magazine? In this panel, the publishers of Nightboat Books, Alehouse Press, and Versal discuss what it takes to start a new literary magazine or small press, from garnering submissions to finding sources of funding. They also share insights into why writers should consider becoming publishers.

Room 110
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F219. A Rattle Reading: Cowboy & Western Poetry. (Jeff Streeby, JV Brummels, Donald Williams, Lisa Lewis, David Romtvedt, Joshua Dolezal) The image of the cowboy has long been mythologized, and so, too, has the image of the cowboy poem. Modern cowboy and western poetry is as complicated and eclectic as the modern cowboy—there are plenty of appearances by cattle and corrals, but topics range from love and politics to ecology and philosophy. And while some of the poems speak in meter and rhyme, plenty of others roam wild and free. Six diverse poets from Rattle's Tribute to Cowboy and Western Poetry perform their work.

Room 111
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F220. Normal Nonfiction: A Reading from The Normal School Literary Magazine. (Dave Griffith, Adam Braver, Abraham Brennan, Oz Spies, Patrick Madden, Duncan Murrell) Contributors to this new literary magazine share their unique angle-of-vision as it is brought to bear on our shared reality. True crime, food memoir, speculative journalism, personal essay, and travel narrative help us to understand the new definition of normal.

Room 201
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F221. Censorship and its Aftermath: Self Censorship, Legitimacy, and the Dream of Artistic Freedom. (Brighde Mullins, Holly Hughes, Sapphire, Aram Saroyan, Veronica Gonzalez, Kyoko Mori) Seamus Heaney writes that "I became a writer when my roots crossed with my reading." All writers inherit a cultural and political climate. Our panelists, of diverse ethnic, aesthetic, and genre stances, have had grants revoked, their work vetted, and found subversive. We have all faced issues around the fact that writing a home truth often means crossing boundaries. What are the legacies of these experiences?

Room 203
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F222. Plot as Ritual, Not Representation. (Debra Monroe, Antonya Nelson, John Dufresne, Lynne Barrett) A reader approaches a story expecting what Iris Murdoch called the consolations of form: concordance, development, characters who matter, a past which applies, and an ending which changes our perspective on the beginning and middle. Plot is not an imitation of life's details as much as an antidote to the random way we experience life's details. The writer can find tension between details and use it to forge a plot that's resonant and yet startlingly new. Plot generates, not stifles, a story's content.

Room 205
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F223. Transnational Identities: Asian American Writers & Asia. (Bryan Thao Worra, Ed Bok Lee, David Mura, Yuko Taniguchi, Wang Ping, Kao Kalia Yang) Five prominent Asian American writers—recipients of the Loft's highest awards—read and discuss their work. Asian American writers are engaged not just with their place in multicultural America, but with changing relationships between Asian countries and between Asian ethnic populations. The writers on this panel cross borders and genres, writing in multiple genres and sometimes fusing them together. This reading and discussion will celebrate and explore contemporary Asian American literature.

Room 207
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F224. In a Place of Bones: Indigenous Place-Based Writing. (Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Linda Hogan, Deborah A. Miranda, ku'ualoha ho'omanawanui, Elaine Chukan Brown, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano) Indigenous poets, novelists, nonfiction writers, and editors from North America, the Pacific, and Latinoámerica examine the ways place shapes and guides our writing. From the South to Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears to the missions of California and coasts of Alaska, and from the edge of the U.S.-México frontera to the encroached-upon, urbanized spaces of NYC and Hawai'i, we will discuss the connections between Nations and narration, our bodies (of work) and the lands from which we are born.

Rooms 210, 212
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F225. California Poets in the Schools Reading from Celebratory, Retrospective, 45th Anniversary Poetry Anthology. (Cathy Barber, Alexa Mergen, Brandon Cesmat, Terri Glass, Giovanni Singleton, Tobey Kaplan) California Poets in the Schools (CPITS) poet teachers from Mendocino to San Diego will read from the Full Circle themed 45th anniversary anthology of new and selected student and poet teacher poetry. The annual anthology is a hallmark of CPITS' writers-in-residence program. The 45th anthology is a break in form and size from prior anthologies. The reading will include poems by new and veteran poet teachers, their students, and a sampling of poems by award-winning poets.

Rooms 301, 302
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F226. Colorado's Innovative Writers Past and Present. (Julie Carr, Noah Eli Gordon, Eleni Sikelianos, Bhanu Kapil, Dan Beachy-Quick, Matthew Cooperman) This panel includes five writers currently living and teaching in the Front Range, whose writing reflects the vibrant history of innovative writing in the area. Each participant will speak about a particular writer or group of writers who lived in Colorado and who has influenced his or her own work. The participants will then speak toward and briefly read from their own work in order to demonstrate this lineage.

Room 303
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F227. Africans Writing American. (E.C. Osondu, Akin Adesokan, Chielozona Eze, Victor Ehikhamenor, Maik Nwosu) African writing in the U.S. has been in the news in recent times. Such books as Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie and Graceland by Chris Abani have found a large audience. African writers have recently won such awards as the MacArthur "genius" Grant, the Guggenheim, and the Orange Prize. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart remains an all-time staple on college reading lists. A few people have posited that African writing is experiencing a Rennaissance akin to what Indian literature experienced in the 80s and 90s. How true is this? This event will feature readings by African writers who you probably have not heard of, but who you'll hear of pretty soon.

Room 304
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F228. This Story Based on Actual Events. (Jotham Burrello, Randall Albers, Maggie Kast, Sharon Solwitz) At the end of the movie, Europa, Europa, color gives way to documentary black and white, and it hits us: this fiction is based on reality. Does this matter? Does reality affect the reader's belief in the story? Every fiction creates what Umberto Eco calls its small world, the part of reality needed for its telling. How do fact and fiction mesh in stories with an element of real time or place? Four writers of reality-based fiction discuss this interaction in their works and the works of others.

Rooms 401, 402
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F229. Navigating Chaotic Changes in Literary Magazine Publishing. (Melanie Moore, Maribeth Batcha, Carolyn Kuebler, William Pierce, Stephanie G'Schwind) Join publishers and editors from American Short Fiction, One Story, AGNI, Colorado Review, and the New England Review for a discussion of the opportunities and challenges in the current "publishing crisis." As more readers come to expect free content on the internet, how can literary publishers continue to pay writers, sustain their operations, and build their audiences? As paradigms shift, learn how these magazines are adapting their business models and their magazines to succeed.

Agate Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F230. Collaborations of Poetry and Visual Art. (Kim Bridgford, Jo Yarrington, Terri Witek, Cyriaco Lopes) Poet Kim Bridgford and visual artist Jo Yarrington present their photography and poetry project on sacred space in Iceland, Venezuela, and Bhutan, as well as their work from a three-book travel series with two other poets and fourteen printmakers. Poet Terri Witek and new media artist Cyriaco Lopes present their word and image constructions: these include a postcard game, an art video, and live performance.

Centennial Ballroom
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F231. A Reading and Conversation with Rita Dove, Sponsored by The Poetry Foundation. (Kyle Dargan) Rita Dove will read from her work. The reading will be followed by a conversation with poet Kyle Dargan.

Granite Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F232. Building a Mentoring Community through Writing. (Susanna Horng, Tayari Jones, Maya Nussbaum, Caroline Berger, Mary Roma, Moskoula Harisiadis) As writers, how do we sustain ourselves and our creative work? This panel explores the role of a mentoring community in nurturing the next generation of writers and ourselves. Members of Girls Write Now, a close-knit community of professional women writers in New York City who have provided guidance, support, and opportunities for underserved or at-risk high school girls since 1998, will discuss the possibilities and challenges of creating and sustaining a support network in your community.

Mineral Hall
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F233. A Reading by Michael Nava & Achy Obejas, Sponsored by the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetrics, Naropa University. A Reading by Michael Nava & Achy Obejas.

Quartz Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University
Join students and faculty from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University for a reception.

Agate Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by the Emerson College Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing
Join students and faculty from Emerson College's Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing for a reception.

Granite Room
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by The Writer's Center and Poet Lore
Join members of The Writer’s Center and Poet Lore for a reception.

Mineral Hall B
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by New England College MFA Program in Poetry
Join students and faculty from New England College’s MFA Program in Poetry for a reception.

Mineral Hall C
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by the New York University Creative Writing Program
Join students and faculty from New York University’s Creative Writing Program for a reception.

Mineral Hall D
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by Tin House Books
Join Tin House Books for a reception.

Mineral Hall A
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by the University of Utah
Join students and faculty from the University of Utah for a reception.

Mineral Hall E
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

A Reception Hosted by Benu Press
Join Benu Press for a reception.

Centennial Ballroom
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F234. A Reading by George Saunders & Etgar Keret, Sponsored by Wilkes University Low Residency MA/MFA Program in Creative Writing in association with Blue Flower Arts. A Reading by George Saunders & Etgar Keret.

Four Seasons Ballroom
Colorado Convention Center, Lower Level

F235. A Reading by Gary Snyder & Anne Waldman, Sponsored by the University of Denver. Ecopoetic scholars and political activists Gary Snyder and Anne Waldman gather for a reading,

Rooms 301, 302
Colorado Convention Center, Street Level

F236. The All Collegiate Afterhours Slam. (James Warner, Philip Brady, Christine Gelineau) The All Collegiate event is open to all undergrad and grad students attending the slam. Participation is capped at ten slammers a night. Slam pieces must be no longer than three minutes in length. Prizes, judges, and organization of event will be handled by Wilkes University Creative Writing Program.

Mineral Hall
Hyatt Regency Denver, 3rd Floor

F237. AWP Public Reception & Dance Party. Music by DJ Neza. Free beer and wine from 10:00-11:00 p.m. Cash bar from 11:00 p.m.-Midnight.