Where can you pick up the latest issue of Fairy Tale Review — the ground-breaking, breath-taking, tenth-anniversary Emerald Issue — featuring new prose and poetry from over 35 fairy-tale authors? Where can you meet the Fairy Tale Review editorial staff and find answers to burning questions about all things fairy tale? Where can you learn about upcoming submission guidelines and the soon-to-be-announced inaugural writing contests (well, here, for starters, but also…) at AWP Seattle 2014.
Stop by our, and Wayne State University’s, booth at the book fair: K26, in the North Hall, and get your hands on The Emerald Issue–in all its illustrious glory.
And be sure to visit the following panels, the first of which will feature Kate Bernheimer — Fairy Tale Review founder and editor — and a veritable crew of fairy-tale authors dazzling the audience with their wisdom and magic. Read on!
Friday, Feb. 28th
10:30 – 11:45 am: Room 3B, Washington State Convention Center, Level 2
Magic and the Intellect. (Lucy Corin, Rikki Ducornet, Kate Bernheimer, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, Anna Joy Springer) In her essay “The Deep Zoo” Rikki Ducornet writes: “the work of the writer is to move beyond the simple definitions or descriptions of things… and to bring a dream to life through the alchemy of language; to move from the street—the place of received ideas—into the forest—the place of the unknown.” On this panel five fiction writers intend to describe, depict, illustrate, and otherwise expose this movement from known to unknown in order to ask: what do we mean when we say “magic”?
Thursday, Feb. 27th
12:00 – 1:15 pm: Room 303, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3
FC2 at Forty Years. (Matthew Roberson, Luke Goebel, Lance Olsen, Steve Tomasula, Kate Bernheimer) A flash fiction reading of new FC2 authors in celebration of the press’ 40th year.
More Fabulist Panels of Interest:
Thursday, Feb. 27th
12 – 1:15 pm: Room 400, Washington State Convention Center, Level 4
Fabulist Fiction for a Hot Planet. (Christian Moody, Tessa Mellas, Alexander Lumans, E. Lily Yu, Matt Bell) This panel of fabulists explores how eco-conscious fabulism is changing the literary landscape and public imagination. Panelists survey this trend in a collage of eco-fabulism from Kevin Brockmeier, Paolo Bacigalupi, Julia Slavin, Blake Butler, Alissa Nutting, and others. They dissect its writerly effects, pedagogical uses, and potential political and social reach in the world. Read it. Write it. Teach it. Eco-fabulism is the future and a way that writers can help save the world.
4:30 – 5:45 pm: Room 3B, Washington State Convention Center, Level 2
New Fairy Tales from the North. (Maya Sonenberg, Valerie Arvidson, Rikki Ducornet, Anca Szilagyi) “It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts.” – Angela Carter, “The Werewolf.” What does it mean to write fairy tales now, in the 21st century? What does it mean to write them here, in the Pacific Northwest? Four northwest writers will read their contemporary tales, influenced by the old tales and by the landscape of their home.
Friday, Feb. 28th
9 – 10:15 am: Room 303, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3
Science Fiction and Fantasy by Women of the Pacific Northwest: A Hydra House Reading. (Louise Marley, KC Ball, Danika Dinsmore, Rachel Swirsky, Abbey Mei Otis) The Pacific Northwest is a hub of science fiction and fantasy writers, which in turn has generated a number of small presses. Hydra House is one such press, which in its short history has received critical acclaim and generated a Nebula nomination. Join the respected women writers of Hydra House as they read middle-grade fiction, near-future science fiction, alt-history fantasy, flash fiction, and discuss the impact that women have had on the genre.
Saturday, March 1st
3 – 4:15 pm: Aspen Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor
The Uncanny West, or How to Conjure the Real West through the Fantastic. (Adrianne Harun, Debra Magpie Earling, Sharma Shields, Kent Meyers) Western writers traditionally have been tethered to a narrow definition of realism, replete with hardship and routine. Yet myth and legend pervade, even conjure the West and when embraced can instigate stories that transcend stereotypes of Western fiction. This panel of Western and Northwestern writers will present and discuss forms of the Western Uncanny, including Southern Gothic’s kin, the “Natural Grotesque,” Native American witches, and the rise of Northwestern magical realism.
4:30 – 5:45 pm: Room 611, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Weird Girls (Fabulous Ladies of Fabulist Fiction). (Christine Vines, Marie-Helene Bertino, Amelia Gray, Karen Thompson Walker, Deb Olin Unferth) Female writers have been marginalized as have genre writers, so Fabulist female writers are, in essence, writing from the margins of the margins. Four Fabulist writers will share their origin stories and inspirations. They will address the specific rules of writing “weird” and the challenges and/or surprise perks they’ve encountered as risk-takers. They will offer practical advice for writers in any stage of the process who wish to learn more about the Fabulist realm.
Even More Panels Featuring Fairy-Tale Comrades and UA Affiliates:
Thursday, Feb. 27th
12 – 1:15 pm: Room 611, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Translating Radical Women Poets. (Stefania Heim, Don Mee Choi, Jen Hofer, Jennifer Scappettone, Jennifer Kronovet) This panel focuses on the historical and political importance, practical complexity, and artistic excitement of translating the work of radical women poets. Panelists explore what constitutes radical poetics in different countries and how they can be brought from one language, literary tradition, or culture to another. We also discuss how these women poets interact with larger forces, opening up new ways to speak and think here and now about poetics, politics, and gender.
12 – 1:15 pm: Room 303, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3
FC2 at Forty Years. (Matthew Roberson, Luke Goebel, Michelle Richmond, Lance Olsen, Sarah Blackman) A flash fiction reading of new FC2 authors in celebration of the press’ 40th year.
3 – 4:15 pm: Room 611, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Translation in Creative Writing Programs. (Kaveh Bassiri, Geoffry Brock, Sidney Wade, Susan Briante, Roger Sedarat) This panel will discuss the growing role of translation in creative writing programs, as well as translation’s place in scholarly studies and American multicultural poetry. Panelists will share their pedagogical experiences and suggest different types of workshop and craft courses. They also will speak about their own work as writers and translators and how translation has helped their writing and teaching of poetry.
Friday, Feb. 28th
9 – 10:15 am: Room 607, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Tupelo Press 15th Anniversary Reading. (Jeffrey Levine, Ilya Kaminsky, C.M. Burroughs, Amaud Johnson, Stacey Waite) This showcase reading by four important American poets of diverse aesthetic, regional, and ethnic backgrounds celebrates 15 years of independent literary publishing on the part of Tupelo Press. Tupelo authors write for and speak to issues national and international and explore questions of migration and immigration, slavery, racial, gender, and national identity, and ultimately, of life in the balance.
12 – 1:15 pm: Willow Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor
All Publishers Great and Small: Reexamining the Book Business in the 21st Century. (Peter Mountford, Amelia Gray, Kevin Sampsell, Matt Bell, Tara Ison) Major publishers increasingly chase blockbusters and avoid literary authors. Smaller presses still have less money for advances and marketing, but their titles attract an ever-growing share of award and review attention. The paradigm is shifting. A unique group of authors who have straddled this hinge—they each have at least one book out from a large trade house and one from a small independent press—offer an unusually honest and intimate appraisal of the rapidly changing book business.
1:30 – 2:45 pm: Room 604, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Ekphrasis as Edge: Moving Beyond Description of Visual Art When Writers Engage Paintings and Photos. (Jennifer Sinor, Christopher Cokinos, Paisley Rekdal) In this panel, writers explore the joys and challenges of bridging the visual and the literary. Taking inspiration from visual artists (Rene Magritte, Edward Curtis, and Georgia O’Keeffe), these panelists are not writing about art as much as they are using the visual to leap into the imaginary, the personal, and past. Poets and prose writers who are working in both narrative and lyric modes, they will share both their process and their results.
1:30 – 2:45 pm: Room 202, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 2
Women Writing Violence. (Aimee Parkison, Alissa Nutting, Gretchen Henderson, Lily Hoang) Studies of violent literature often focus on the world of masculine literature, the so-called literature for men. But the trend of women writing violence is often ignored. This discussion of violent literature by women writers focuses on female violence in fiction and questions how violent literature by women compares to violent literature by men. In the trend of women writing violence, does the role of the victim change based on gender? Or, is it the reader’s perception that changes?
Saturday, March 1st
9 – 10:15 am: Room 613/614, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
So You Want to Change the World? Literary Editors on Writing with a Social Purpose. (Simmons Buntin, Michael Archer, Michele Johnson, Elizabeth Murphy, Jennifer Sahn) Are you interested in crafting literature that speaks to the world’s larger social issues? Do you know where to publish and what editors are looking for? Gain insight from five leading literary publications that focus on the social context, from class to environment, feminism to race. The editors of Guernica, Orion, So to Speak, the Straddler, and Terrain.org will share their experiences, insight, and wisdom on writing and publishing with a social purpose.
10:30 – 11:45 am: Room 612, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Queer Translation. (Joyelle McSweeney, Johannes Goransson, Don Mee Choi, Lucas DeLima, Jeffrey Angles) As translators, artists, scholars, and performers, we’ll consider how ‘queer translation’ might host a queer interaction or strange meeting; how it might undermine nationalist demarcations of the body, including binaries separating male and female, able and disabled, human and inhuman, whole and partial bodies; the force of translation as a ‘political uncanny’; and whether translation itself might figure a queer or middle body, an activist body, a political resource.
10:30 – 11:45 am: Room 615/616/617, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Hyphenated Poets: Ethnic American Writing Against Type. (Kaveh Bassiri, Barbara Jane Reyes, Cathy Park Hong, Farid Matuk, Solmaz Sharif) While immigrant poets have long sought to recover and celebrate their ethnic identity, a new generation is problematizing the notion of identity and what it means to be American. These poets respond to socially constructed types that marginalize them to fulfill diversity quotas, and they seize the English language to interrogate the myth of American essentialism. In this reading and discussion, we will hear four writers respond to these challenges with poetry.
10:30 – 11:45 am: Room 618/619/620, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6
Rethinking the Poetry Workshop: Innovating and Subverting Traditional Creative Writing Pedagogy. (Michael Dumanis, Mark Wunderlich, April Bernard, Kazim Ali, Joshua Marie Wilkinson) The poetry workshop, essentially a moderated session of peer critique of student drafts in which the writer stays largely silent, has been the trusted model in creative writing pedagogy since the advent of creative writing programs. Five professors of poetry discuss the pros and cons of the traditional workshop as the primary teaching tool in the poetry writing classroom, suggest unconventional workshop techniques, and consider alternate ways to approach the teaching of creative writing.
4:30 – 5:45 pm: Room 301, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3
Small is the New Big: Publishing Story Collections with Independent Presses. (Anne Valente, Molly Patterson, Alissa Nutting, Tim Horvath, Gabriel Blackwell) Despite the rumors, story collections do sell. The contemporary publishing world is a rich marketplace for fiction writers, with independent presses taking up where the New York houses have left off. This panel explores the benefits of publishing story collections with small presses, the various paths to doing so, the process throughout, and the many opportunities offered for where to go next. Writers publishing with Bellevue, Dzanc, Five Chapters, Press 53, and Starcherone will present.
This list is not exhaustive! Many more wonderful writers, artists, and humans are giving many more important talks on literature today. Check the official schedule over at the AWP website, and get excited!
