Back in Lincoln, most of our AWP contingent—pretty much all of them, really—are getting ready for midterms and looking forward to spring break. I, on the other hand, am looking back at how we did, what we did, and what it all might mean.
We took a pretty good-sized group with us to what turned out to be the largest AWP on record. And I say it that way because the event’s become pretty much a force of nature. Thirty people seemed like a pretty large contingent, but we were still overwhelmed by the 8,500 other people.
One of the highlights of any AWP is watching how the first-timers respond. We brought MA and PhD students who had never been, and they were a bit overwhelmed by the press of people, books, and journals, but in that delightful way that leaves you excited and feverish (not literally—only one person I know caught anything communicable).
You might have seen Hilda Raz or me at one our panels—and if you made it to the Book Prize Reading scheduled for the last session of the last day…Well, you should know that we love you. It’s true. You’ll get the roses shortly. You might have seen Jonis Agee, Grace Bauer, Rebecca Bednarz, Kelly Grey Carlisle, Joy Castro, Timothy Schaffert, or been in a pedagogy session with any number of our current PhD students. Or you might have gone to see Hilda’s Bookslut appearance.
And of course we had a wonderfully busy table. People seem to get shy—well, some people—when they approach the table, but we’re really a friendly group, and it’s a charge to talk to all the people we’ve only met on the page. So when you see us in Denver, please come talk to us.
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