Hello from my post-AWP hangover. I don’t drink but that doesn’t seem to matter at AWP as it’s 3-ish days of nonstop poetry / tabling / reading / chatting / everything. I arrived home at 1am on Monday morning, exhausted from the trip, the flights, and the time change. I love AWP, I really do. It’s the biggest writing conference in the country and it’s guaranteed I’m going to see writer friends I haven’t seen since the previous year’s conference, I’m going to find and fall in love with new collections of poetry, I’m going to chat with new people and make new friends. This year was all that and more.
My newest collection of poetry, Her Whole Bright Life, published by Write Bloody, had its soft launch at the conference. The official pub date is 4 April but my publisher was able to have advance copies at the conference. And here’s the exciting news – my book SOLD OUT over the weekend! To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement. Holding my new book in my hands, doing three readings from it, signing it for people, and then learning every last copy at AWP had been snagged – well, that’s a high I won’t soon forget. You can still pre-order a copy, books will begin mailing in about a week! And my book tour kicks off next month with readings in Newport News and Arlington, VA. Check out my tour calendar as I’m adding dates and cities to this book tour and would LOVE to see you at a reading!
This is the second year my press, Riot in Your Throat, had a table at the AWP book fair. I was there all day, every day. AWP is a completely different animal from the press side. I’ve attended two AWPs as a writer and two AWPs as a press. When you’re there as a writer you can go to the panels you want to go to, you can meet up with friends for lunch or coffee, you can take an afternoon nap if desired. When you are a one-woman press, you have to stay at the press table from 9am-5pm each day to talk to people, make connections, and hopefully, sell books. I’m an extrovert so I enjoy this kind of thing. I also love talking about poetry, especially to other poets because we connect on a different level. But even my extroverted self was exhausted at the end of each day. It didn’t help that due to the three-hour time difference I woke at 4am every day…and didn’t get to bed until ~11pm each night. Just a few days of this meant I was exhausted by the end of each day. But my day wasn’t over – I had readings each night.
I read from my new book at the Write Bloody Showcase on Wednesday night, the joint Riot in Your Throat/Write Bloody reading on Thursday night, and the December Poets on Friday night. I had an invitation to read on Saturday night but between breaking down the press table, shipping home the unsold books, and general exhaustion, I had to bow out of that reading. It was wonderful reading from my new book, sharing poems that are deeply intimate and personal, and connecting with people through my words.
Overall my AWP was a success and I’m already looking forward to next year…or I will, once I’m fully recovered. 