One Day at AWP is Enough
Seeing friends and creating community is always the best part
As a writer, your feelings about AWP will invariably change. In your MFA and even PhD years, it feels like a literary Lollapalooza: too many events, too many people, too many fans of the art form, and not enough time for everything. Even at my age, AWP can be that in its best moments. But as you get older and as you start teaching creative writing as a career and not just for a measly graduate student stipend and after you’ve got a couple books under your belt and you’ve seen how publishing works, the conference just feels different. Not bad per se, but exhausting. You start to realize that just like musical festivals, you just don’t have the energy to dance for ten hours as you once did. I remember during the Seattle AWP, after doing a panel for hybrid creative nonfiction writers of color, instead of joining a bunch of writers for cocktails and attend some off-site readings, I walked to the Pioneer Mall (where I used to window-shop back in the early 2000s when I lived in Seattle), got Thai take-out, and then proceeded to march to my room at the M Hotel and devour my food and do absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. It was literally my favorite night in Seattle (and I saw amazing there every night).
That kind of antisocial behavior would have been unthinkable during my MFA years, not to mention pointless, since we all shared hotel rooms and my cohort would never have let me be alone for that long. But part of growing up is trusting your inner voice and being comfortable making choices that are the best for you even if they’re not the best for everyone else. This year at the 2025 AWP in LA, I had three nights of readings including a fundraiser for writers who’d lost their homes at 1642 Bar in Echo Park, a joint reading of small presses at the gorgeous Telescope Studios in the Arts District, a joint reading with a group of Unsolicited Press writers at the AWP Bookfair Stage, and a joint reading with a group of Unsolicited Press writers at the Village Well bookstore in Culver City called “The Stort of the Self in CNF: Womxn, Allies, & Personal Histories.” Other than that, I spent a half day at the book fair and that was my absolute limit.
Unless I have a new book that’s coming out, where I need to do scheduled readings and book signings and coordinate my schedule with other editors and publicists, my policy regarding AWP is to follow the laws of kismet. So far, kismet has never let me down.
Basically, I just show up at the book fair and walk around aimlessly and whoever I run into is who I was supposed to run into.
I did make pit stops at the Poets & Writers table to say hi to my Nisei sister, Jessica Kashiwabara and the Noemi Press and Unsolicited Press tables to hug Suzi and Summer, take pics of my books on the sale table, and just revel in the undying bond and devotion I have with, and to, these small presses as one of their authors in their permanent catalog. Summer, in particular, is easily one of my fave people in the small publishing world and I would do anything for her. Fight off a bike gang. Eat a scorpion tail. Whatever. But besides those few, select, intentional stops, every other person I ran into was part of the kismet project. From my friend and mentor, Aimee Bender, to my friend and colleague Rone Shavers who’s at the University of Utah now, from my wildly talented friends in my former USC cohort like Ed Gauvin, Lisa Locascio, & Bryan Hurt, to my wildly talented former students from Bowling Green and CSUN who found me in the library, from supervisors, managers, and directors at The Center for Fiction and elsewhere who read my earliest work, encouraged me to keep writing and submitting, helped me promote my work along with a cast of incredible writers, to the many editors who published my short stories a decade ago in their print literary presses, every AWP always feels like a partial reunion with some of the people who helped me become the writer I am today, which is why I’m always burning with joy and gratitude for them.
It sounds naive and lazy, but every time I walk around the AWP bookfair, I feel like the people I’m supposed to run into are the people I’m going to run into and I will love them each in their own way for crossing paths with me and sharing their lives with me for a few moments.
Of course, I wish I could have run into a bunch of my other friends too like Marie Mutsuki Mockett and Porochista Khakpour and so many other writers I’m too tired to list here, but I also know that someday we will run into each other and our brief intersection will be a moment of intense joy, affirmation, & reconnection. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, please consider supporting an amazing local LA bookstore and buying a copy of Dream Pop Origami in the spirit of AWP 2025 (just click on the pic below):
Now, it’s time to go back to studying for Series 66 Exam. So much less sexy than a writers conference but so much better for the inner nerd inside me right now.