#AWP16 is happening next week. Are your ready? We’re barely ready. Depending on who you are, at this very moment you may be freaking out, running around like a chicken, excited, already packing, already budgeting how many books you can buy or fit in your suitcase, training for the drinking marathons, feeling overwhelmed, feeling done with your life, looking at new career choices, or just going on with your daily life cuz you can cope like there’s no tomorrow. There may not be. In any case, if you are going to be in Los Angeles next week, you may already know that AWP tends to fall on the side of UTTER CHAOS and for some of us socially awkward, shy writer-types that can barely get out of the house if it means putting on real pants, being in a city with thousands of other writers may have you seriously reconsidering your career path. And if it’s your first time, well, GOOD LUCK TO YOU, FRIEND. AND GODSPEED.

So here’s Entropy’s Guide to AWP. For the lover of indie & small press culture, let this guide be your compass. It’s got our selection of official panels, bookfair tables, off-site readings & events, general tips, and of course, cats.

Don’t forget to visit us (CCM-Entropy) at Table 432 where we will have free stickers, bookmarks, hot new merch like tshirts and tote bags, and lots of books.

Also, grab a copy of the print edition to Entropy’s Guide to #AWP16. Sneak peek below. You can grab a free copy of the Guide at our table, or at many of the tables around the Book Fair.

Look out for live-blogging at Enclave. And follow Entropy on Twitter for live and regular tweeting from the conference. @entropymag / #AWP16

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Selected AWP Panels:

The schedule of panels is longer than the manuscript for your next novel. We know. So here’s a slightly curated edition for the discerning AWP-goer.

Thursday, March 31

9:00 am to 10:15 am

The Active Politics of Queer/Feminist of Color and Indigenous Feminist Publishing Movements
(Lisa Moore, Felicia Montes, Audrey Castillo, Kim Tran, Casandra Lopez)
Room 408 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Queer/feminist of color and indigenous publisher-activists have historically demonstrated their commitments to amplifying the voices of transgressive artists and writers in the US publishing culture that relentlessly attempts to erase us. This gathering of queer/feminist of color publishers from As/Us, Mujeres de Maiz, RedBone, and Third Woman addresses the politics that undergird our impetus to publish alternative writing/thought and how we understand publishing as a form of activism.

Printing the Forked Tongue: Bilingual Publishing After Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera
(Britt Haraway, elena minor, Diana Lopez, Maria Miranda Maloney, Raina J. León)
Room 501, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Gloria Anzaldúa demanded her freest expression, whether in Spanish, English, and/or the in-between. The literary world had trouble keeping up—and, to an extent, still does. There are contemporary publishers that take up her challenge and seize an opportunity to create open spaces for language. Whereas Anzaldúa was told to wash the linguistic richness off of her tongue, these editors encourage writers to blossom into their natural language palate and create their best words in the best order.

Story by Design: Visual Narratives
(Zach Dodson, Stephen Farrell, Samantha Gorman, Warren Lehrer, Keith McCleary)
Room 513, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
There is a secret history of designed works in fiction, from Tristram Shandy to House of Leaves. Incorporating the tools of design, authors can create works of visual literature in which typography, image, and visual sequence are integral. Starting from writing and print design, these designers-as-authors, interactive storytellers, professors, and publishers of visual narrative explore the design thinking behind these works. This panel is a writer’s bridge to the visual and interactive realms.

Multiple Feminisms: Celebrating 10 Years of Switchback Books
(Hanna Andrews, Stefania Heim, Morgan Parker, Marisa Crawford, Jennifer Tamayo)
Room 504, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Switchback Books was founded with the vision of being an inclusive feminist poetry press, and with a mission to seek out groundbreaking work by woman-identified writers. This 10th-anniversary panel brings together a diverse group of Switchback poets who will speak on the connection between feminist perspective and aesthetic choices, reflect on Switchback’s editorial process, consider the evolution of the press within the larger field of contemporary feminist writing, and read/perform from their work.

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10:30 am to 11:45 am

Coming-Out Narratives: Beyond Queer 101
(Chelsey Johnson, Justin Torres, James Hannaham, Lucy Corin, Charlie Jane Anders )
Gold Salon 1, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
Every queer person has a coming-out story (or several), and queer and straight writers alike have shown an enduring fascination with writing them. As coming out remains the dominant queer narrative in America, by its sheer hegemony this trope often becomes a generic move. Five LGBTQ writers discuss what compels and/or bores us about these stories; why we write them or don’t; what distinguishes a great coming-out narrative from a tepid one; and what writers get wrong when they write them.

SoCal Magical Realism
(Heather Fowler, Ben Loory, Bonnie ZoBell, Andy Roe, Daniel Olivas)
Gold Salon 4, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
Magical realism has trickled up the coast from Latin America to the Golden State. Set in reality with magic introduced matter-of-factly, it’s less of a genre than a style. Five SoCal writers mix it up with magical elements, most set in SoCal, some speculative. Each reads a sample of work and discusses what magical realism means in his or her writing, followed by a Q&A.

Burning Down the Walls: The Art and Importance of Writing Essays That Can Change the World
(anna march, megan stielstra, michele filgate, jamia wilson, ashley ford)
Scott James Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
Essays concerned—directly or indirectly—with the social crises of our time are receiving unprecedented readership. In that context, this panel will discuss the role of the essayist as citizen, issues surrounding personal disclosures in the socially conscious essay, their own call to create change, as well as their own recent works confronting topics such as race, feminism, queer identity, and abortion. Handouts will include a reading list, suggested markets/editors and helpful craft suggestions.

Future Tense Books: A 25th Anniversary Reading
(Jamie Iredell, Kevin Sampsell, Chelsea Martin, Myriam Gurba, Wendy C. Ortiz)
Room 404 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Founded in 1990, Future Tense Books continues to publish some of contemporary literature’s most diverse and daring voices, many of whom continue to contribute to American letters today, among them three of the panelists. Come hear the bold and eclectic voices from the many years of Future Tense authors, as well as from the publisher.

Reverberant Silence: Making and Meaning a New Silence
(Jeffrey Levine, Ilya Kaminsky, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Prageeta Sharma, Amaud Johnson)
Room 501, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Referring to the challenge of this remark by Mark Doty—”One ambition of poetry is to create a reverberant silence in its wake, one that means more or differently than the silence that preceded the poem”—four culturally astute poets of highly diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds speak and debate about how and by what means the silence that a poem leaves in its wake is intentionally and irrevocably altered, and how reverberant poetry makes a case for a new approach to reading and listening.

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12 pm to 1:15 pm

Education Isn’t an Acronym: Collectives, Pop-ups, and Other Alternatives to the MFA
(Tom Healy, Dorothea Lasky, Adam Fitzgerald, Mónica de la Torre)
Gold Salon 3, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
Poetry’s relationship to traditional educational spaces needs to be revised to reflect the multidimensional perspective that poets use to create. In this panel, we consider how alternatives to these spaces might provide counterpoints for poets to learn and grow with other artists, thinkers, and members of their greater communities. The panel’s five poets discuss their work in building their own spaces, such as the Ashbery Home School, Home School Miami, BOMB magazine, and Cave Canem.

The Art of Medicine: A Reading of Creative Nonfiction by Health Practitioners
(Lee Gutkind, Catherine Musemeche, Thomas Gibbs, Diane Kraynak)
Room 402 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
In the past five years, Creative Nonfiction and In Fact Books have published five anthologies of medical narratives, illuminating the professional, personal, and emotional experiences of doctors, nurses, therapists, and patients. Contributors to several of these collections read from their work and, in discussion with the books’ editor, reflect on how they approach writing honestly about their professional lives and deal with ethical questions about writing patients’ stories.

Queertopia or Bust: Thoughts on Intersectional Queer Poetics
(Jason Schneiderman, Rickey Laurentiis, Julie Enszer, Viet Le, Trace Peterson)
Room 407, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
“Queer” emerged in the 1990s as an activist formation that challenged liberal politics and became the preferred term in academia for everyone who was not straight or normatively gendered. The inclusivity of “queer” has been contested by those who felt instrumentalized or excluded by the term. Though it continues to be useful as a rubric (and easier to say than “LGBTQIA”), is queer really working, and for whom? Four poet-editors discuss their experience at the intersections of queer identity.

From the Drudges: Sustaining a Writing Life from Outside of Academia
(Jen Fitzgerald, Rodrigo Toscano, Alyss Dixson, Ashaki Jackson)
Room 408 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
The lion’s share of prizes, grants, fellowships, and accolades originates in academia and is awarded to academics. Does this mean we have to teach in order to sustain a writing life? Five panelists discuss how a meaningful and successful writing career can be established and sustained from outside of the university cycle.

The Poetry of Comics
(Erica Trabold, Bianca Stone, Gabrielle Bates, Alexander Rothman, Catherine Bresner)
Room 411, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
The combination of text and image holds the power to create indivisible meaning on the page. Just as poets ground their work in the arrangement of words, ordered by such elements as sound or sense, most cartoonist-poets gravitate toward comics’ foundational device of juxtaposition. The tradition of comics has created generous, exciting spaces for the poetic, lyric, and hybrid. In this panel, artists showcase and read from works that live at the intersection of the visual and the poetic.

From the Inside: Writers of Color on Editing and Diversity
(J.L. Torres, Allen Gee, Duriel Harris, Christine Amezquita, Ravi Shankar)
Room 501, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
This panel, comprised of writers of color with editing experience, discusses topics related to editing with a focus on diversity. Discussion includes soliciting, competing for a limited number of diverse writers, having diverse work approved by colleagues, nurturing writers of color early in their careers, and promoting one’s journal as diversity grows. Panelists share their experiences as writers negotiating writing with editorial duties and comment on editing as a career option.

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1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

The Violence of the Page
(Lucy Corin, Maggie Nelson, Brian Evenson, Ben Weissman, Fred D’Aguiar)
Room 403 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
This panel explores the various tones, reasons, genealogies, and methodologies writers might choose to employ when representing violence, cruelty, and bodies on the page. The writers on this panel have explored these issues in a variety of genres (fiction, scholarship, and poetry) and in a variety of registers (comedic, elegiac, outrageous, conceptual, documentary, and more), and are uniquely capable of discussing the aesthetic, political, and metabolic effects of such writing.

The Black Jazz Poetic in the 21st Century: Ancient to the Future?
(Tyehimba Jess, Duriel Harris, Geoffrey Jacques, Harmony Holiday, Jerriod Avant)
Room 411, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
As jazz approaches its centennial, a multigenerational panel of Black poets analyzes how its influence has shaped their understanding of craft and what that influence will look and sound like in the 21st century. In an age where jazz has been reported to be Americans’ least favorite music genre, how do younger Black poets access a jazz aesthetic to reclaim, reimagine, and regenerate it for themselves? How do mid-career poets relate and regenerate a jazz aesthetic in their practice and praxis?

The Life of the Poet in the World
(Samuel Ace, R. Erica Doyle, CA Conrad, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Saeed Jones)
Room 502 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Only recent history has put poets into universities. In the past, poets have traveled, begged, and worked in insurance companies or as lawyers, surveyors, merchants, doctors, census takers. Although some of us now teach in universities, this is a gathering of poets who have worked outside of the academy—by choice, chance, struggle, and/or luck, surviving through audacity, guile, starvation, and love. Come hear the reasons, histories, work, and trajectories of these writing lives in the world.

Grove Atlantic Writers Question Race: What Difference Does It Make?
(Margaret Wrinkle, Sarah Broom, Roxane Gay,  Mitchell Jackson, Emily Raboteau)
Room 502 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Critically acclaimed and award-winning writers Roxane Gay, Mitchell Jackson, Emily Raboteau, Sarah Broom, and Margaret Wrinkle come together to discuss race in literature and the literary world.

From New Wave to Punk: Musical Influences on Latino Literary Aesthetics
(Vickie Vertiz, Daniel Chacon, Carribean Fragoza, Marlen Rios-Hernandez)
Room 505, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
From all corners of Los Angeles and across this country, punk and New Wave music have influenced Latino writers for decades. This multigenre panel is equal parts reading, discussion, and listening party. Through poems, essays, and stories, the panelists highlight how, as listeners, they blend literary aesthetics with New Wave and punk sounds to tell new stories.

So You Think You Want to Start a Lit Mag: Straight Talk from Editors About Launching Mags and Keeping Them Afloat
(Jennifer Acker, Benjamin Samuel, Jonathan Lee, Natalie Eilbert, Paul Legault)
Room 518, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
You want to start a literary magazine, or recover an old one. Why? And now what? How do you communicate your vision, and what do you need to spend your nights and weekends doing to realize it? Founders and editors from A Public Space, Atlas, The Common, and Electric Literature share their experiences and advise how to balance the idealism and realism necessary to gain fame and fortune—or at least some fun, excellent writing, and great community—through running lit mags.

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3 pm to 4:15 pm

A Place of Our Own: Literary Organizations that Foster Creative Community
(Elizabeth Hughey, Guy Pettit, A.M. O’Malley, Bob Snead, Susannah Felts)
Gold Salon 3, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
A new style of literary center is emerging. These centers not only provide resources for writers, but also serve as an incubation space for ideas, collaborations, events, and publications. Representatives from the Desert Island Supply Co. (Birmingham, Alabama), Flying Object (Hadley, Massachusetts), The Porch (Nashville), Press Street (New Orleans), and the Independent Publishing Resource Center (Portland, Oregon) discuss how their organizations have evolved to meet the needs of their creative communities.

Octavia Butler and Her Legacy
(Katharine Beutner, Walidah Imarisha, adrienne maree brown, Ayana Jamieson, Monica Drake)
Room 402 AB, L.A. Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Octavia Butler, a Pasadena native and MacArthur Fellow, is one of the best-known women writers of science fiction. By imagining worlds altered by alien encounters, vampirism, or ecological ruin, her writing addresses questions of race, gender, and class fundamental to our society. The editors of the new anthology, Octavia’s Brood, the head of the Octavia Butler Legacy Network, and two writers will discuss Butler’s engagement with Afrofuturism and how she inspires writers and artists today.

The Garden of Forking Paths: Journals Focusing on Translation
(Martin Rock, Daniel Simon, Wayne Miller, Elizabeth Clark Wessel, CJ Evans)
Room 403 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Access to writing in translation is essential to all writers, and a growing number of literary journals are focusing heavily on publishing translated works. In this panel, editors of journals that focus on translation engage in a discussion on the necessity of translation to a robust and diverse literary community. We also focus on the practice of translation, ranging from ethics to accuracy to the process of obtaining rights and paying translators for their work.

Let’s Go Make Some Books: A Tribute to Coffee House Press Founder Allan Kornblum
(Chris Fischbach, Tree Swenson, Karen Yamashita, Bao Phi, Michael Wiegers)
Room 406 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Allan Kornblum (1949–2014) founded Toothpaste Press in 1972, which became Coffee House Press in 1984. He ran Coffee House as publisher until 2011, after which he served as an editor and consultant until he passed away in November 2014. Allan was a hugely important figure in the small press movement that helped pave the way for the emergence of the field of small to midsize nonprofit literary publishers. Panelists pay tribute to him and talk about his accomplishments and influence.

Diversity Integrated: The Literary Art of Inclusion
(Lillie Teeters, Anjali Enjeti, Soniah Kamal, Valerie Boyd, Matthew Salesses)
Room 407, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
A diverse panel (Pakistani, African American, mixed race, lesbian, Korean adoptee) reviews problems of unconscious segregation in literary communities, offering tips on seeking writers from marginalized populations to contribute to, participate in, and enhance critique groups, workshops, creative writing programs, conferences, and organizations. Panelists discuss benefits and risks of identity-based writers’ groups and a need for inclusion at all levels of professional and creative writing.

Just Saying: A Tribute to Rae Armantrout
(Stephen Burt, Amy Catanzano, Catherine Wagner, Monica Youn, Rae Armantrout)
Room 502 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Four author-critics approach Armantrout’s work from a variety of angles, including her association with Language poetry, her exploration of science through verse, her treatment of pop culture and current events, and her merging of everyday experience with epistemological questions about perception

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4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Throwback Thursday: Four Forms of Performance from the Early 90s Nuyorican Poets Café
(Xavier Cavazos, Ava Chin, Crystal Williams, Regie Cabico)
Room 404 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café! Slam stars from the past celebrate their early roots at the Nuyorican Poets Café, deemed “the grand pappy of the spoken word scene” by New York Magazine. With nods to the Green Mill and those poets who came before them, these diverse, multicultural poets—now published authors, academics, and actors—perform work, discuss their earliest beginnings at NYC’s Nuyorican Poets Café, and discuss how being at the café in the 90s changed their writing lives.

Trans Memoir: Resisting Literary Tropes and Narrative Narcissism
(Cooper Bombardier, Elliott DeLine, Joy Ladin, Everett Maroon)
Room 405, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
In this panel discussion, four published transgender authors from around the country discuss their work in memoir.

A Tribute for Wanda Coleman
(Natasha Saje, Lisa Katz, Cornelius Eady, Austin Straus)
Room 411, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Panelists view Wanda Coleman’s life and work through multiple lenses. They appreciate her jazz performance in words, brilliant wit, wildly various modes of expression, and her politics. They read examples of her writing and explain what it means to them, celebrating the many contributions of this unforgettable woman of letters.

It Ain’t What They Call You, It’s What You Answer To: Peeling Off Genre Labels
(Daniel Orozco, Doug Dorst, Maureen McHugh, Kelly Luce, Manuel Gonzales)
Room 502 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
How does fantasy fiction (or sci-fi, or detective or horror fiction) become literary fiction? Who decides how/when the genre label gets affixed, or peeled off? Why is the move from genre to literary always somehow a narrative of progress, implying a lesser realm left behind? Hear firsthand as writers with varying affinities to genre fiction reflect on how they negotiate with (wrestle, embrace, sidestep) genre conventions in the creation of their work.

Writing on Fault Lines: Central American Literary Diasporas
(Leon Salvatierra, Raquel Gutierrez, Robert Karimi, Carolina Rivera, Leticia Hernández-Linares)
Room 505, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Since 1990, Central Americans in the US have tripled in number, yet mainstream literary and academic institutions still discuss Central Americans in 1980s Civil War terms. This panel takes up the vast middle ground between traditional tropes and postmodern trends, and explores how Central American writers in California are not only painting new and complex stories, but also constructing the very frames to hold them.

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6 pm to 7:15 pm

#AWP16 Keynote Address by Claudia Rankine, Sponsored by USC Dornsife English & PhD in Creative Writing and Literature, and Graywolf Press
(Claudia Rankine)
Concourse Hall, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award in the poetry category for Citizen, the first book to ever be named a finalist in both the poetry and criticism categories. Citizen also was a finalist for the National Book Award, was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award, and is the only poetry collection named a New York Times best seller in the nonfiction category.

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Friday, April 1

9:00 am to 10:15 am

More Than Numbers: How Conscientious Poetry Editors See Beyond Quotas
(Amy King, Timothy Donnelly, Cathy Hong, Phillip B. Williams, Lynn Melnick)
Room 402 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
This panel, featuring editors who have successfully published a diversity of poets in both magazines and anthologies, will explore ways that poetry editors can diversify their own publications. With an eye toward the VIDA Count, we discuss how poetry editors might become more aware of, and actively seek out, the plurality of voices in poetry and how the pages of journals and anthologies can only be enriched by seeking new voices.

New Voices of Copper Canyon Press
(Kelly Forsythe, Camille Rankine, Ocean Vuong, Paisley Rekdal, Josh Bell)
Room 408 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Help Copper Canyon Press welcome four dynamic poets to their family, as they join their decades-long lineage of award-winning and esteemed authors. Each of these poets—whether emerging or midcareer—has recently found a home for their work at Copper Canyon. The poets will read from newly released or forthcoming collections, and the Press will provide introductory comments revealing the story of how and why these manuscripts were selected for publication.

Jotas: A Chicana Lesbian Reading by Barrio-Based Writers
(Verónica Reyes, Griselda Suárez, Claudia Rodriguez, Wanda Alarcón)
Room 410, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
¡Orale! This is a queer reading by Chicana poets and writers from East LA, Long Beach, and beyond these fronteras. This is the next generación. Their writings reflect their politics, beliefs, and lived experiences of la jotería existing in this país. Their hybrid writings build bridges within all their communities: LGBTQ and gente of color. They are proud of their roots. This is ¡Soy Chicana Lesbiana! Femme, Butch ¡Y Que!

The New Translation Economy
(Will Evans, Chad Post, Olivia Sears, Stephen Sparks, Jadranka Vrsalovic-Carevic)
Room 501, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Translators, publishers, booksellers, and cultural agencies work together to create the economic context for the publication of translations, affecting what gets translated and by whom fundamentally. This panel discusses striking the economic balance between authors, translators, publishers, distributors, bookstores, cultural organizations, and readers to create a more vibrant and diverse translation marketplace and readership.

Necessary Hybridity: The Politics & Performance of Making Multigenre, Multimedia, Multiethnic Literature Visible
(Tisa Bryant, Kazim Ali, Amarnath Ravva, Micha Cardenas, Sesshu Foster)
Room 502 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Hybridity in literature is often thought of as a kind of cross-pollination that leads to “vigor.” But what happens when hybridity is considered through the lens of political and aesthetic necessity? From queer politics to POC feminism to postcoloniality, hybrid forms have been a critical part of making visible otherwise illegible experiences. Join five writers as they explore the significance of hybridity to queerness, trans culture, black bodies, mixed-race narratives, and erased histories.

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10:30 am to 11:45 am

Through the Closet: Writing Human Complexity in Queer Characters in Fiction
(Kate Maruyama, Jeanne Thornton, Seth Fischer, Catie Disabato)
Room 404 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
The typical “coming out of the closet” narrative is a fantasy of a starkly contrasted before-and-after, of complete disclosure and consequence. Through the lens of their works of fiction, the panelists discuss the limitations of this oversimplified account of the queer experience and explore their varying approaches in writing queer characters in all of their human nuances and differences across genres and time periods.

Hybrids, Bastards, and Half-Breeds: On Writing Hybrid Forms
(Catherine Liu, Donna Minkowitz, MG Lord, Sesshu Foster, Carol Guess)
Room 410, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Hybrid forms tend to be heartier than the recognized, canonical genres, according to Kim Wright at The Millions. This panel explores the glories of mixing: the formidable creative power that can be won from blending memoir with magic realism or trenchant social critique, fiction with visual art, lyric with essay, fiction, or even journalism. Does the decision to resist the firm divisions of genre let us go beyond expected sentiments, statements, and permissible content?

California/La California/Califas
(Belinda Acosta, Pablo Martinez, Helena Maria Viramontes, Pat Alderete, Harry Gamboa)
Room 411, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Los Angeles is said to be a city of many cities, each with their own stories to tell, their own secrets to keep. The assembled Latino writers from and beyond LA come together to discuss the people, places, and experiences that have shaped their work and how their “El A” contributes to the larger tapestry of American arts and letters.

Asian American Writers Reinventing Los Angeles
(Ginger Ko, Kenji Liu, Grace Shuyi Liew, Lam Pham, Chiwan Choi)
Room 512, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing group in the US, and the LA area has the highest US API population, but APIs are often ignored and stereotyped by mainstream America. This panel presents East and Southeast Asian American writers who write, work, and live in LA, and have cultural ties to the diasporic landscape of the metropolitan area. The panel makes visible the intersectional histories, politics, and artistic practices that feed and are fed by their literary work.

Black Bodies Matter
(Patricia Smith, Justin Phillip Reed, Susan Somers-Willett, Adriana Ramirez, Jonah Mixon-Webster)
Room 515 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
The Black Lives Matter movement is a recent response to a larger history of violence against Black bodies in the US and abroad. What roles does poetry play in this response, and how do poets negotiate the lenses of race, gender, sexuality, and class in their responses? Can poets write about racialized violence without reinscribing it on others? A diverse group of poets gather to read their work and discuss their approaches to writing about brutality against Black bodies.

You Don’t Know Me at All: The Creation of Self as Protagonist in Memoir
(Laurie Lindeen, Leigh Stein, Eileen Cronin, Cheryl Strayed)
Room 515 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Memoirists aged 30 to 55 who are also writing instructors, journalists, and editors explore the invention of self as protagonist in the craft of memoir writing. In order to be a reliable, relatable narrator, the “me” in memoir must be a character and protagonist who is neither hero nor victim nor navel gazer, regardless of the nature of personal challenges. A true protagonist experiences the full breadth of human experience, both good and bad. One challenge lies in saving a private sense of self.

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12 pm to 1:15 pm

Women of Color Write Crime
(Maria Kelson, Gigi Pandian, Naomi Hirahara, Rachel Howzell Hall, Steph Cha)
Gold Salon 1, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
Women crime novelists read from new work. Panelists include mid- and early-career novelists who write for a broad audience and identify as Indian-, African-, Japanese-, Mexican-, or Korean-American. They discuss their varied publication paths (print/e, legacy/indie, commercial/literary, and large/small presses). They also address how pop culture’s views of crime and policing, mystery genre structures and forebears, and writing from or about California do/don’t fuel their inspiration.

Beyond Confession: Women’s Writing and a Radical Poetics of the Personal
(Dorothea Lasky , Amber Rose Tamblyn, Rachel McKibbens, Deborah Landau, Ada Limón)
AWP Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
“Confessional poetry” is often a coded term for poetry written by women and is disparaged as domestic, personal, and small. This panel examines ways in which the poetics of the personal and the everyday can subvert traditional gender binaries and move towards a radical reassessment of women’s roles in literature and society. Five women read from their work and discuss their relationships to poetry of the body, the spirit, and the world.

Translation as Animation: New Poetry from Japan
(Kyoko Yoshida, Forrest Gander, Sawako Nakayasu, Goro Takano, James Shea)
Room 402 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Beginning with a short reading, this panel of translators and writers explores the formal problems, aesthetic choices, and political implications of translating contemporary Japanese poetry. Panelists discuss the diversity of Japanese poetry and consider how the pleasures and challenges of translation animate their own writing. Poets under discussion include Takashi Hiraide, Sayumi Kamakura, Shirō Murano, Kiwao Nomura, and Gozo Yoshimasu.

The War on Both Sides: Writing on Violence and Healing in the Drug War
(Rubén Martínez, Raquel Gutierrez, Gabriela Jauregui, Cristina Rivera-Garza)
Room 409 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Convening poets, critics, and nonfiction writers, our panel asks what ethical modes are available to represent the violence of the Drug War that takes a terrible toll on both sides of the US-Mexico border. What aesthetic challenges to presenting the real arise across our genres? How can writing play a healing role? We stage a performance dialogue, which includes readings as well as conversation among ourselves and with the audience, embodying the ideal of writer as public intellectual.

Cunty Faggots: Who Can Say Wut?
(Christopher Soto, Eileen Myles, Danez Smith, Jackie Wang, TC Tolbert)
Room 515 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
This panel will discuss the reclamation of language, the local economy of language, and whether an author’s identity markers allow or prohibit them from using certain words. What does censorship look like today? How can we discuss the realities of queer and trans communities, if we cannot use vernacular language? What does it mean to export (publish) vernacular languages to our nonregional communities? What does it mean to have your word choice, your slang, delegitimized by publishers or readers?

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1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

Korean Feminist Poetics and Translation
(Eunsong Kim, Johannes Goransson, Ji Yoon Lee, Don Mee Choi, Joyelle McSweeney)
Gold Salon 3, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
South Korea’s contemporary history has been deeply impacted by US imperial policies. Yet its history remains relatively unknown: its war, dictatorships, and 47 Free Trade Agreements. We poets and translators discuss feminist Korean poets and propose poetry-as-activism and translation-as-resistance to colonizing power.

Intersections: Race, Sexuality, and Other Collisions in Los Angeles Literature
(Alex Espinoza, Noel Alumit, Felicia Luna Lemus, Myriam Gurba, Frederick Smith)
AWP Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
This panel brings together LGBTQ authors of color from the greater LA area to explore issues facing writers of sexual and racial difference. What conflicts and confrontations arise as LGBTQ writers navigate the tricky terrains of ethnicity, culture, and class all while writing, living, and working in one of the most eclectic and vibrant metropolises in the country? In a city rife with misconceptions, how do these novelists further complicate our notion of a place we may think we already know?

Two Sides of the Mirror: Writing About Body Image Across Gender
(Jim Warner, Ray Shea, Brian Oliu, Tabitha Blankenbiller, Cooper Lee Bombardier)
Room 402 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
The drive to stay thin, young, attractive, and sexy is a struggle synonymous with womanhood. What are often overlooked—in both our culture at large and in nonfiction writing—are the challenges men face with similarly impossible demands on ideal size, shape, and appearance. This discussion brings together writers working against gender expectation to expand the conversation on body image.

Coming of Age Queer
(Amber Dawn, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Tom Cho, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Megan Milks)
Room 410, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
In recent years, LGBTQ literature for young adults has proliferated. But LGBTQ writers who grew up without it are still reckoning with that void. This panel brings together a diverse group of writers who are producing new narratives of queer and trans adolescence both within and outside the YA market. Defying expectations of what coming of age queer and trans looks like, these writers speak back to the YA lit of their youth—and to expectations of human maturation that themselves must come of age.

Women in Spec: Women Writers in Speculative Poetry and Fiction
(Jeannine Gailey, Lesley Wheeler, Sally Kindred, Nancy Hightower, Margaret Rhee)
Room 511, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
This cross-genre panel celebrates women’s lively contributions to the male-dominated fields of speculative fiction and poetry. These authors, editors, and critics discuss recent changes and controversies in fantasy and science fiction, addressing how women are represented in the literature; publishing opportunities and challenges; and what it will take to foster women’s voices and support their increasing success.

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3 pm to 4:15 pm

A Reading and Conversation with Geoff Dyer, Leslie Jamison, and Maggie Nelson, Sponsored by Graywolf Press.
(Fiona McCrae, Geoff Dyer, Leslie Jamison, Maggie Nelson)
Concourse Hall, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
Join three remarkable writers whose works challenge and invigorate new nonfiction with wit, empathy, intelligence, and style. Geoff Dyer received the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism for Otherwise Known as the Human Condition. Leslie Jamison is the author of the essay collection The Empathy Exams, a New York Times best seller. Maggie Nelson is the award-winning author of the innovative works The Argonauts and The Red Parts. Introduced by Graywolf publisher Fiona McCrae.

Poetry Los Angeles: Reading the Essential Poems of the City
(Laurence Goldstein, Harryette Mullen, William Mohr, Susan Suntree, Garrett Hongo)
AWP Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
How do poets conjure a complex city into imaginative forms? How do they articulate the city’s many layers and locations, evoking a visible, audible, and tangible city? How do they construct a vital spirit of place with intimacy and authenticity? Through readings and discussions based on Laurence Goldstein’s book Poetry Los Angeles: Reading the Essential Poems of the City, panelists consider how poets arouse and sustain readers’ attention by diverse and artful approaches to urban life.

What the Heck Does Innovative Fiction Actually Mean?: Authors Cut Through the Jargon
(James R. Gapinski, Ashley Farmer, Lindsay Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones, Carmiel Banasky)
Scott James Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
Innovative fiction is fast becoming a literary buzzword. It’s often a placeholder term for experimental or avant-garde, but what does it really mean? It’s time for a down-to-earth chat that eschews all the labels and jargon. In this panel, presented by The Conium Review , several authors cut through the marketing ploys and hype for a candid talk on the strange, weird, and new in contemporary fiction.

Translation Poetics Continuum
(Anna Deeny Morales, Raúl Zurita, Valerie Mejer, Daniel Borzutzky)
Room 502 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
This panel brings together poets and translators from different countries, generations and political contexts. Through bilingual readings, talks, and dialogue, speakers focus on the translation of poetry that emphasizes continuously shifting political, historical, and geographic contexts. The panel considers the ethical imperative of translation as an art that continues these dynamic shifts initiated in the original text.

Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction
(Dinah Lenney, David Ulin, Amy Gerstler, Bernard Cooper, Meghan Daum)
Room 515 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, the fourth in a series of anthologies edited by the late Judith Kitchen (this one with co-editor Dinah Lenney), includes 77 authors, a significant number of whom live, work, and teach in LA. Four such authors read and talk about their essays, as well as other aspects of writing, teaching, and appreciating long- and short-form nonfiction.

Les Figues Press Reading
(Teresa Carmody, Alta Ifland, Frances Richard, Harold Abramowitz, Divya Victor)
Room 518, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Writers published by Los Angeles-based Les Figues Press as part of the TrenchArt Series present readings from their books, and from TrenchArt Monographs: hurry up please its time—a new essay anthology about the politics, poetics, and possibilities of writing. In a postreading conversation with LFP cofounding editor, authors explore poetic interventions of the TrenchArt series, and its contributions to conceptual writing, essay experimentation, and Los Angeles publishing.

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4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Phoneme Media Presents New Voices in Translation
(Angélica Freitas, Ahmatjan Osman, David Shook, Hilary Kaplan, André Naffis-Sahely)
Gold Salon 4, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
Brazilian poet Angélica Freitas reads from her English-language debut, Rilke Shake, translated from the Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan, who will join her to read the poems in English; and Uyghur poet Ahmatjan Osman reads from his selected poems, Uyghurland: The Farthest Exile, the first ever literary translation from the Uyghur language of East Turkestan. Following the multilingual reading, Freitas, Kaplan, and Osman will take questions from the audience.

A Reading and Conversation with Douglas Kearney, Robin Coste Lewis, and Gregory Pardlo, Sponsored by Cave Canem
(Robin Coste Lewis, Gregory Pardlo, April Heck, Douglas Kearney)
Petree Hall, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
Three poets read from collections that provoke new ways of seeing and thinking about culture, art, history, naming, race, and home. They discuss how strategies of experimental performative typography, meditations on the roles played by desire and race in the construction of the self, and autobiographical lyric poems connecting the complex intimacies of domestic life with the profound issues of our day create a seamless line between craft, vision, and critical thought.

A Tribute to and Celebration of Eloise Klein Healy
(Robin Becker, Eloise Klein Healy, Peggy Shumaker, Alicia Ostriker, Amy Uyematsu)
Room 411, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Eloise Klein Healy, author of eight books, is a poet, editor, educator, mentor, LGBTQ advocate, and feminist pioneer, and was appointed first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2012. For over forty years, her poetry, mentorship, and advocacy have mattered greatly, especially to women, minorities, and LGBTQ writers, not only in Southern California, but across the country. Significant colleagues will celebrate her poetry, mentorship, and advocacy, after which Eloise Klein Healy will share her work.

Central American Poetics: Guatemalan and Salvadoran Poets in the City
(Maya Chinchilla, Karina Oliva, William Archila, Javier Zamora, Gabriela Ramirez-Chavez)
Room 505, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Acclaimed and emergent Californian Central American poets discuss the need and limits of writing on social justice, (historical) memory, trauma, language, and alternative futures/fantasies. While Central American poetics used urgency to end their civil wars (1970–1996), how do diaspora poetics matter today? Through poetry, this reading engages the question while speaking about the aesthetics of refuge, loss, healing, and notions of home.

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Saturday, April 2

9:00 am to 10:15 am

Creating Literary Community in a City of Freeways
(Terry Wolverton, Jessica Ceballos, Traci Kato-Kiriyama, Michael Kearns, Conney Williams)
Room 403 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Meet the organizers of some of LA’s most vibrant community-based literary workshops and reading spaces, striking sparks outside the walls of academia and Hollywood—Bluebird Reading Series at Avenue 50 Studio, Tuesday Night Café, Queer Wise, Anansi Writers Workshop at the World Stage, and Writers at Work. Each is geared toward a specific cultural or geographic community. We share our diverse missions, strategies, and structures, and explore how our communities intersect and cross-pollinate.

Mayhem and More Mayhem: The World of Collaborative Writing
(Susan Finch, Tom Franklin, Joshua Shenk, Justin Petropoulos, Jessica Pitchford)
Room 408 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Collaborative writing creates the potential for mess and mayhem, but when a piece succeeds, collaboration soars. How do you begin to collaborate? How do you find the right partner? How do you revise? How might you use collaboration as a teaching tool? From inspiration to execution, participants discuss the pleasures and pitfalls in collaborations with other writers, visual artists, and even students.

How to Go Home Again: California Dreaming and the Reality of the California Memoir
(Tara Ison, Kelly Daniels, Cris Mazza, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Erin Aubry Kaplan)
Room 409 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
A promised land blessed by the Pacific or a cultural desert; the future in industries inspired by science fiction or our daydreams; and exotic living experiments—California represents all these possibilities and more. But how should writers whose birthright is thick with such lore approach documenting their own experiences? Join us for a discussion on escaping and capturing the tropes and mythos of the state, from the idealism of a new frontier to the reality of labor, economics, sexism, and racism.

A Reading for Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion
(Calvin Bedient, Cathy Park Hong, Joshua Clover, Catherine Wagner, Shane Book)
Room 410, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
The Santa Monica-based Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion celebrates its eighth annual issue with a reading by contributors from past issues. The event will be moderated by journal co-editor Calvin Bedient.

Ekphrasis in the Digital Age: Beyond Mere Description
(Timothy Bradford, Amy Catanzano, Megan Kaminski, Amaranth Borsuk, Matthew Cooperman)
Room 505, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Contemporary ekphrasis has been described as a form of critical meditation that mixes commentary, homage, resistance, argument, and self-criticism, but what does it look like in practice, especially given digital tools? And how does one push beyond mere description or instrumentalization of the work of art? These panelists present examples from their own work and offer practical exercises, with an emphasis on digital technology, for community, undergraduate, and graduate classrooms.

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10:30 am to 11:45 am

Sensuality, the Body, and the Quest for Authenticity in Translation
(Johannes Goransson, Alireza Taheri Araghi, Diana Arterian, Yvette Siegert)
Room 405, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
When we speak of translation, we often speak (metaphorically) of the body: of mother tongue and foreign tongues, foreign texts and bodies of work, faithfulness and betrayal, contexts and origins, the crossing of boundaries and borders. Meanwhile, translation can entail quite radical experiences of embodiment—of possession by ghosts, ventriloquism and impersonation, vertigo and déjà vu. This panel discusses translation’s implication for embodiments both literal and metaphorical.

Remapping Displacement: Women Writers from LA Redefine “Home”
(Melissa Sipin, Nayomi Munaweera, Rae Paris, Melissa Chadburn, Micheline Marcom)
Room 512, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Writers of Armenian, Sri Lankan, African, and Philippine diasporas discuss how their Los Angeles upbringing has impacted their craft and narrative of home/displacement—home as a person and/or a place, a longing, a genesis, and a journey; displacement as genocide, war, sexual/child abuse, and inherited/generational trauma. How have the multicultural/diverse communities of their youth invaded their fictions? How do the traces of loss affect the reimaginations of Los Angeles in their work?

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12 pm to 1:15 pm

In the Realms of the Real and the Unreal
(Katharine Beutner, Sofia Samatar, Carmen Machado, Alice Sola Kim, Kelly Link)
AWP Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
This panel explores genres of fiction that juxtapose the real and the unreal in experimental ways: historical fiction, literary fantasy/science fiction, weird fiction, and satire. Where do we draw the line between a secondary world and a distorted reflection of our own world’s beauty, violence, and diversity? Can we discern a poetics of the unreal in contemporary fiction? How have the continual debates over generic boundaries—and/or their irrelevance—affected the ways contemporary writers work?

The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide
(Christopher Cokinos, Eric Magrane)
Robert Muroff Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
More than 50 writers respond to the stunning biodiversity of one of the world’s most important deserts. From serious to comic, postmodern to narrative, this community produced an anthology as varied as the desert itself. Editors and contributors will do brief readings, followed by a discussion of the processes behind creating a unique book that combines, for the first time, anthologizing creative work with (playful) natural history descriptions and illustrations found in traditional field guide.

In Whose Image: Trans and Genderqueer Writers on Magic, Spirituality, and (the Bodies of) G-d
(CA Conrad, Joy Ladin, Ryka Aoki, Ian Ellasante, TC Tolbert)
Room 402 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Spirituality, like writing, hinges on transformation. Similarly, trans and genderqueer writers have unique experiences with transformation on and off the page. This dynamic panel explored the intersections between ritual, myth, magic, magical realism, and even end-rhyme as they shape our various embodiments and faiths. We don’t want to save you, but we hope you are ready to be changed.

Translating the Sacred in a Postreligious Age
(Afaa Michael Weaver, Ewa Chrusciel, Cole Swensen, Karen An-hwei Lee)
Room 411, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Our panel explores the translation of sacred texts in our secular age. What is a faithful translation of a religious text? How are concepts of freedom versus fidelity problematized? In a postreligious context, are ritualized methods of translating sacred writings relevant? In diverse tongues of global faith traditions—Hebrew, Chinese, Polish, Aramaic, Greek—our panelists share insights on translating sacred texts, and then discuss the politics and poetics of their strategies.

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1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

Contemporary Korean Literature in Translation: A Cross-Genre Reading and Conversation
(Jake Levine, Chad Post, Kim Yi-deum, Bruce Fulton, Kyung Ju Kim)
Diamond Salon 6&7, JW Marriott LA, 3rd Floor
Considering the surge in popularity of Korean gadgetry, cars, music, film, and television, there has been, conversely, a considerable deficit of attention paid to contemporary Korean literature abroad. This is changing. Along with the South Korean poets Kim Yi-deum and Kim Kyung Ju, a small group of highly distinguished poets, translators, and publishers will participate in a reading and conversation illustrating why there is no better time than the present for Korean literature in America.

Why We Innovate: The Case for Hybrid Genres
(Jacqueline Kolosov, Jenny Boully, Tung-Hui Hu, Mary Szybist, Kathleen Rooney)
Room 409 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Editors of and contributors to Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of Eight Hybrid Literary Genres discuss writing and teaching hybrid literature as innovative acts of artistic, social, and cultural criticism, and as radical self-creation. Panelists discuss why writers mix forms and provide ideas and examples for crafting and teaching hybrid genres, focusing on blendings of visual, performative, lyrical, and narrative techniques.

More Than What Meets the Eye: Word and Image in a Digital Universe
(Susan Meyers, Tammie Kennedy, Deborah Poe, Margaret Rhee, Trent Hergenrader)
Room 505, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Members of this panel press at the edges of multimedia and digital literature: writing combined with other mediums like audio, visual arts, bookmaking, physical computing, videos, and gaming. Sharing examples—a poetry machine, a women’s digital archive, a handmade project, an experiment in gaming, an LGBTQ e-book in South Africa—they will look at what it takes to get book arts, visual poetry, and digital media projects going (both in and out of the classroom) and what those projects have to offer.

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3 pm to 4:15 pm

Publishing Poets of Color: The Power of Diversity and the Literary Landscape
(Jennifer Flescher, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Nate Marshall, Camille Rankine)
Room 403 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
The literary world is plagued with the lack of diversity on its mastheads, boards, and pages. What can publishers, editors, and writers do to work toward more meaningful diversity in literary magazine publishing? We need to build trust, relationships, and communication. Four editors discuss what they see as their current challenges and successes, and where we need to go next.

Slouching Tiger, Unsung Dragon: The Next Chapter of Asian American Writing
(Anna Ling Kaye, Ed Lin, Doretta Lau, Chiwan Choi, Paolo Javier)
Room 406 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
What does it mean to be a writer of Asian descent publishing in North America? These five writers are exploring territory beyond tiger moms and immigrant hardship, venturing into updated expressions of Asian masculinity, Confucianism, and contemporary Asian culture. The panelists will discuss traditional and experimental approaches to Asian American fiction and poetry, and explore how artistic and professional choices impact perceptions of their work and their identities.

UA Poetry Center Presents: Spectacular Poetics & the Poetry of Spectacle
(Hannah Ensor, Kimiko Hahn, Khadijah Queen, Adrian Matejka)
Room 502 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
If poetry engages with spectacle, why, and in what ways? In this panel, we address increasingly ubiquitous confluences of poetics and spectacle. Is the poet’s task to call attention to bright screens, to celebrity culture, to the many public-facing pleasures and pains of the 21st century? Do poets use spectacle (their understanding of audience, attention, flashing lights) to their advantage? When it comes to spectacle, do we want today’s poets to decry it? Reveal it? Hold it up? Celebrate it?

Wild Equations: A Math Poetry Reading
(Carol Dorf, Amy Uyematsu, Stephanie Strickland, Alice Major, Katie Manning)
Room 505, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
For poets, language is the structure on which everything depends, including the red wheelbarrow. But mathematics is a language, too—a universal one with the potential to link the logic of numbers with literary form. Poets like Wislawa Szymborska and Rita Dove, for instance, make use of pi, statistics, and geometry in their work. In this unusual reading and conversation, Talking Writing magazine presents five math poets with different approaches but a shared belief in a fresh take on the world.

Counting Its Presence: Race and Creative Writing Syllabi
(Adam Atkinson, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Sarah Vap, Prageeta Sharma)
Room 511, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Junot Díaz’s “MFA vs. POC” is just one example of a growing interest in confronting the whiteness of academia. The panel has collected syllabi from doctoral creative writing programs across the country in order to highlight oft-overlooked questions: How are the spectral bodies of the authors on a syllabus also tools of professionalization? Or: How many white writers is one asked to read in order to be a creative writing professional? This panel presents its analysis of the data (more than 3,000 texts).

Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in California
(Will Alexander, giovanni singleton, Lauri Ramey, Harryette Mullen, C.S. Giscombe)
Room 515 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
From the mid-20th century, black writers in America have produced a vibrant and diverse array of experimental and avant-garde poetry. Why has some of the boldest and most original poetry been overlooked? Are there particular challenges for black poets who use innovative forms and practices in the context of California literary traditions? The panelists, whose work is associated with a varied array of innovative forms and styles, consider these and other questions in a roundtable discussion.

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4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

The Long View: Moving from Essay to Book
(Geeta Kothari, Ladette Randolph, Irina Reyn, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Elizabeth Kadetsky)
Gold Salon 2, JW Marriott LA, 1st Floor
A narrative inherently changes shape when an author moves from short story to novel, but what about from essay to book-length nonfiction? What gets upset when the word count lengthens, and what might be gained by starting from the kernel of a theme or a structural motif contained in an essay? Might an essay collection gain market power by tackling a larger subject that strikes a chord with a wide readership? Editors and writers discuss their experiences in making books that began as essays.

Speculative Fiction: Defining the Rules of a Rule-Breaking Genre
(Rob Spillman, Marie-Helene Bertino, Ramona Ausubel, Aimee Bender, Manuel Gonzales)
Room 402 AB, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
What are the risks of breaking rules in fiction? What are the rewards? Do unicorns exist? Five award-winning speculative writers share their origin stories and reasons for writing fiction that eschews formal convention (and occasionally the laws of physics). Though speculative fiction is often marginalized, they discuss why it should be necessary reading for students of any genre, and offer practical advice for writers who want to try it and teachers who want to implement it into their curriculum.

Messenger to the Stars: Luis Omar Salinas (1937–2008), Pioneer Chicano Poet
(Christopher Buckley, Diana Garcia, Juan Felipe Herrera, Juan Delgado, Donald Wolff)
Room 403 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
In this tribute to pioneer Chicano poet Luis Omar Salinas (1937–2008), panelists discuss his importance to Chicano/a letters and contemporary poetry—from late 1960s political poems and poems of self-determination in Crazy Gypsy, to his last poems in Elegy for Desire, to his New Selected Poems. Salinas was a virtuoso of intense lyric originality, mercurial imagery, and social conscience, and this panel is a testament to his achievement at the forefront of Chicano/a poetry in California for 40 years.

Brazilian Women Writers
(Tiffany Higgins, Hilary Kaplan, Ellen Doré Watson, John Keene, Angélica Freitas)
Room 502 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Translators of 20th- and 21st-century poetry and fiction by women from Brazil read from their work and discuss the art of translation and the craft and advocacy inherent in translating writing by women. This panel follows last year’s on translating “Brazilianness” to focus on women writers, the stakes of that categorization, and the vibrant landscape of translations of women’s writing into English. Form, feminism, gender and sexual identity, age, language, race, and class all come into play.

Beyond Neruda: Latin American Women Poets Burn Down the House
(Forrest Gander, Yvette Seigert, Jen Hofer, Jesse Lee Kercheval)
Room 503, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Join a celebration of writing by Latin American women poets whose electrifying work responds to the most burning literary and political pressures of their time. These are poets every American reader should know, poets that teachers should add to their syllabi and class reading lists, poets who inspire other poets. The celebration includes readings from translations of Coral Bracho (Mexico), Dolores Dorantes (Mexico), Alaíde Foppa (Guatemala), Circe Maia (Uruguay), Valerie Mejer (Mexico), and Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina).

Diversifying Historical Fiction
(Laird Hunt, Nina Revoyr, Dolen Perkins Valdez, Kim van Alkemade)
Room 510, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level.
Too often, American historical fiction has cast diverse characters as one-dimensional sidekicks or minor characters—if it has included them at all. Characters of color have filled the roles of helpful maid or clever servant while LGBT characters have seemed not to exist. The authors on this panel discuss how situating diverse protagonists in iconic historical settings not only foregrounds their characters’ complexities, but also reminds us that American history has always been rich with diversity.

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AWP Bookfair:

The AWP Bookfair is perhaps one of the most simultaneously exciting and overwhelming literary spaces in existence. On one hand, there are awesome books and publishers around every corner. On the other hand, there are awesome books and publishers around every corner. In your mindless wandering, it might be hard to prioritize which tables you want to stop at. So here’s a selection of tables you don’t want to miss. Note: The Book Fair is open from 9AM – 5PM each day.

[Click to enlarge map]

Action Books    1531
Ahsahta Press    920
alice blue books      1060
Ampersand Books  754
Anomalous Press    527
Archipelago Books    727
Argos        1630
Birds, LLC    1529
Black Ocean    1547, 1549
Black Radish Books     1830
Black Warrior Review    1404
BOA Editions    800, 802
BOMB Magazine    729
Bookforum Magazine 522
BookThug    1729
Brooklyn Arts Press    1824
Canarium Books    1543
Catapult         834
Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.     806
Civil Coping Mechanisms/Entropy    432
Coach House Books    723
Coffee House Books    718, 720
Counterpoint Press         201
Curbside Splendor Publishing    440
Deep Vellum Publishing    436
Dorothy, a publishing project    428
Dzanc Books    203
Electric Literature    836
Ellipsis Press    1034
Eraserhead Press     431
Essay Press    1743
Eyewear Publishing    326
Fairy Tale Review    1402
Featherproof Books  1934
The Feminist Press  1934
Fence Books    1545
Fiction Collective 2 / FC2    1435
Free State Review     337
Future Tense Books     106
Futurepoem Books    236, 238 240
Gigantic Sequins     1527
Graywolf Press    805, 807
Gulf Coast 374
Hobart    318
H_NGM_N BOOKS    1054
Insert Blanc Press    345
Jaded Ibis Press    1663
Jellyfish Highway Press     331
Kaya Press    1310
Kelsey Street Press    234
Kore Press    1635
Krupskaya    408
Lambda Literary    922
Les Figues Press    529
Letter Machine Editions    1533
Litmus Press    236, 238, 240
Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative         1628
McSweeney’s    327
Melville House    419
Milkweed Editions     724, 726
New Directions     725
Monk Books        1741
Nightboat Books    1120
Noemi Press    1528
Octopus Books    1537
Omnidawn Publishing    1118
[PANK]    1056
Ploughshares     600
Poor Claudia    1844
PRELUDE     1654
Projective Industries    1941
Razorcake / Gorsky Press, Inc.     1244
Red Hen Press    909, 911, 913
Rescue Press     1640
Rose Metal Press    1525
The Rumpus    1246, 1248
Semiotext(e)      100
Sidebrow Books    531
Siglio    421
Slope Editions     1565
Small Press Distribution (SPD)    706
Song Cave    1745
So Say We All     438
Spork Press     1541
Submittable     1025
Switchback Books  1557
Tarpaulin Sky Press  232
Tender Buttons Press/Brightly Press  303
Tia Chucha Press     1310
Timber Journal / Subito Press       2137
Tin House    728
Tinfish Press    1830
Two Dollar Radio    430
Two Lines Press    735
Ugly Duckling Presse    423
Unnamed Press     827
VIDA: Women in Literary Arts     503
Wave Books    731, 733
What Books   1313
WONDER   408
Write Bloody Publishing/University of Hell Press   635
YesYes Books / Vinyl     1530, 1532

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Off-Site Events:

Tuesday, March 29

#AWP16 Elysian Park BBQ with Words As Works
11AM / Elysian Park / FB
A BBQ in Elysian Park for everybody to come together before the #AWP16 gets under way.

Celebrating #LITinCOLOR
7PM / Japanese American National Museum / 100 N Central Ave / FB
#LITinCOLOR will celebrate the invention and imagination of writers of color who seek to represent realities that lie outside of the mainstream imagination, be it the lasting impact of American concentration camps or the navigation of racially profiled notions of sexuality. Poets and novelists from various communities and generations will come together to honor the ways in which writers of color have changed how we think, feel, and live.

Wednesday, March 30

Lit in Color Write-a-Thon
11AM / Ronald Tutor Campus Center, 3607 Trousdale Pky (USC) / FB
Kaya Press and The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective invite you to drop in—or spend the whole day—with amazing Writers of Color who will be leading generative mini-writing workshops to help your writing break free. Envisioned by Minal Hajratwala as a creative respite for attendees of the AWP Conference, the #LitinColor Write-A-Thon aims to hold space for anyone interested in writing, creativity and community. All are welcome!

Arktoi Books Turns 10! Let’s Party!
5PM / Border Grill Downtown /445 So. Figueroa St / FB
Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press established by esteemed poet and educator Eloise Klein Healy, marks it’s 10th year of publishing high quality literary works by lesbians. Come celebrate with readings by Arktoi authors Elizabeth Bradfield, Ching-In Chen, Catherine Kirkwood, Rita Mae Reese, Kelly Barth, Amy Schutzer, Verónica Reyes, and Celeste Gainey. Great Music. Cash Bar. Surprise Guests!

Two Dollar Radio & McSweeney’s: AWP Party
6PM / La Luz De Jesus Gallery / 4633 Hollywood Blvd / FB
Two Dollar Radio and McSweeney’s is proud to present a free evening of cheap beer, tarot and personalized art. Featuring special guests Emily Carr, Colin Winnette, and Allan Peterson. Free.

Cave Canem Benefit Reception and Fellows Reading
6:30PM / Elysian / 2806 Clearwater Street / More Info
Cost: $10 for reading; $100 for VIP reception
Twenty talented Cave Canem fellows read original verse at four-minute intervals: come experience what all the cheering is about! Arrive early for a VIP reception hosted by Robin Coste Lewis and Claudia Rankine. Reserve your ticket here: http://cavecanempoets.org/benefit

Knockout Release Party w/Catie Disabato, Amy Silverberg, and Kara Vernor
7PM / Book Soup / 8818 W Sunset Blvd / FB
Book release party for John Jodzio’s new short story collection Knockout w/special guests Catie Disabato, Amy Silverberg and Kara Vernor.

Passion: An LGBTQ Caucus Reading
7PM / Avenue 50 Studio / 131 N Avenue 50 / FB
Cost: $5 Suggested Donation. Passion, an LGBTQ Caucus Literary Reading celebrates the passion to create, to love, and to transform lives. Performance takes place at Avenue 50 Studio, a beacon of community artistic expression. Open reading after eleven featured readers present from around the country. Bring your own beverages and snacks. Cost: donation, no one turned away for lack of funds Featuring: Miguel M. Morales, Tara S. Burke, Donna Minkowitz, Tobey Kaplan, Fernando Castro, Seth Fischer, Lori Horvitz, Everett Daniel Maroon, Elliot DeLine, Yana Calou, Max Wolf Valerio

Shipwreck LA Presents: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a Literary Erotic Fanfiction Competition
7PM / Bootleg Theater / 2220 Beverly Blvd / FB
Shipwreck, the San Francisco-based literary erotic fanfiction competition, is coming to LA for the first time, and we’re taking on Sherlock—yep, the whole f*cking canon. Featured writers: Carmiel Banasky, Nina Bargiel, Lauren Eggert-Crowe, Myriam Gurba, Zoë Ruiz, and Matt Young.

SUPERHEROIC
7:30PM / BOOK SHOW / 5503 N Figueroa St / FB
Readings by Francesca Lia Block, Lorinda Toledo, Peter Selgin, Noelle Falcis, Kristin McCandless, Eva Mejia-Shantharam, & Heather Hewson. MC’d by Erin Anadkat.

Writ Large Press Presents: Always in Translation: Trans Pacific Poetry and Prose
8PM / Document Coffee Bar /3850 Wilshire Blvd #107 / FB
featuring Kim Kyung Ju (trans. Jake Levine) / Kim Yi-Deum (trans. Jiyoon Lee) / Chiwan Choi / Eunsong Kim / Janice Lee / Hannah Sanghee Park

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Thursday, March 31

States of Terror presents: Creature Feature!
5PM / BOOK SHOW / 5503 N Figueroa St / FB
In a celebration of the States of Terror anthology books, Book Show & Ayahuasca Publishing are hosting a reading of stories from the upcoming third volume! Featuring: Kevin Maloney, Lauren Becker, J David Osbourne, Andrea Kneeland, Adrian Van Young, Thomas Martin, Rios De La Luz, David James Keaton, Robert Vaughan & Justin Hudnall. There will also be copies of volume one & two for sale, refreshments, & more!

Con Tinta 2016 Pachanga & Award Ceremony
5:30PM / Avenue 50 Studio / 131 North Avenue 50 / FB
Con Tinta is a collective of Chican@/Latin@ activist writers. La Pachanga and Award Ceremony is a time for us to come together and celebrate the wonderful achievements of our Chican@/Latin@ community. This year we honor Francisco X. Alarcón RIP, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Lucha Corpi, Luis Javier Rodriguez, and Juan Felipe Herrera. Let us stand together and be proud of the superb accomplishments.

AWP Offsite Event ▽▽Weird Sister Spit Queer Feminist Road Show▽▽ in LOS ANGELES
6PM / Precinct DTLA / 357 S Broadway / FB
Featuring readings by: Gina Abelkop, Denise Benavides, Jezebel Delilah X, Heather Jewett, Geraldine Kim, Julia Serano, Cassie J. Sneider, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan. Hosted by Juliana Delgado Lopera & Marisa Crawford

Birds / Black Ocean / Lettermachine / Spork / Third Man Books
6PM / Ace Hotel / 929 South Broadway / FB
Readers: Renee Angle, Josh Fomon, Casey Hannan, Lauren Hunter, Sophia Le Fraga, erica lewis, Monica McClure, Fred Moten, Adam Novy, Kelly Schirmann.

YesYes Books Celebration
6PM / Ace Hotel / 929 South Broadway / More Info
YesYes Books celebrates its year of new releases with a reception, readings and door prizes!

Denver Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky, and Dorothy
7PM / Pieter / 420 W Ave 33, Unit 10, Lincoln Heights/ FB
Cathy Linh-Che, Ching-In Chen, Claire Donato, Dana Green, Elizabeth Hall, Manuel Paul Lopez, Kim Parko, Suzanne Scanlon.

New Herring, DoubleCross, Projective Industries, Elis Press, Litmus Press
7PM / Los Angeles Contemporary Archive /  2245 East Washington Boulevard / More Info
Wendy’s Subway and the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive are pleased to announce a reading. Featuring: New Herring Press, DoubleCross Press, Projective Industries, elis press, and Litmus Press. With readings by: Leora Fridman, Katie Fuller, E. Tracie Grinnell, Angela Hume, Matt Longabucco, Jamie Townsend, Maya Weeks, and more tba from New Herring’s Weird Fucks Marathon

The Writers of Color, LGBTQ, and Disabled Writers Respond to White Privilege in Writing Programs and Publishing
7PM / Falls Lounge / 626 S Spring St / FB
Khadija Anderson & Poets & Allies for Resistance Reading Series present Writers of Color, LGBTQ, and Disabled Writers Respond! 15 nationally published poets: Jericho Brown, Ava Chin, Regie Cabico, Bao Phi, Xavier Cavazos,Teka Lark, Neelanjana Banerje, Dan Vera,Taz Ahmed, Linda Rodriguez, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Jessica Ceballos, Orlando White, Armine Iknadossian, Arash Saedinia+

Across, Beyond, and Through: A Reading by TAYO Literary Magazine + The Feminist Press
7PM / Visual Communications / 120 Judge John Aiso St / More Info
TAYO Literary Magazine & The Feminist Press proudly present “Across, Beyond, and Through,” an off-site reading at the 49th annual AWP Conference & Bookfair in Los Angeles. Featuring: Rajiv Mohabir, Kenji C. Liu, Angela Peñaredondo, Ana Castillo.

Crossing the Line: Genre Curious Readings
7PM / Wolf & Crane / 366 E. 2nd St.
The Cupboard Pamphlet, Rose Metal Press & DIAGRAM.

White Space
7PM / Esowon Books / 4327 Degnan Blvd / FB
Please join esteemed poets Tonya Foster, John Keene and Tyehimba Jess as they read from their recent work.

Switchback / No, Dear / Gazing Grain / Atlas: an AWP off-site
7PM / City Tavern Downtown / 735 Figueroa St / FB
This AWP off-site event, hosted by Switchback Books, Gazing Grain Press, No, Dear, and Atlas/TAR, presents a stunning roster of women who will cause the unsuspecting downtown LA area to quaver under the weight of such excellence. Featuring CYNTHIA ARRIEU-KING, MAHOGANY L. BROWNE, MARISA CRAWFORD, TAFISHA EDWARDS, MEGAN GIDDINGS, CHRISTINE KANOWNIK, ALYSE KNORR, ANNE LESLEY SELCER.

Textual Healing 2016
7PM / 1820 Industrial Street / Website
An interdisciplinary happening where we will make together.

Tender Buttons Omnibus Celebration
7:30 PM / LACMA / 5905 Wilshire Blvd / More Info
Celebrate the Tender Omnibus with readings by Harryette Mullen, Dodie Bellamy, Laynie Browne, India Radfar, Katy Bohinc, Julie Patton, Lee Ann Brown The Tender Omnibus is the collection of 25 years of Tender Buttons Books in one volume.

Sick / Tender / Haunted
7:30PM / South of Sunset / 1218 W Temple St. / FB
An auxiliary event of Sick Fest, SICK / TENDER / HAUNTED is an intimate conversation exploring the sick body and its identity under capitalism. Writers and artists Johanna Hedva (Sick Woman Theory), Amy Berkowitz (Tender Points), and Catherine Czacki (Ghost Gives) will give short readings followed by a conversation about the shared themes of their work and an informal discussion that prioritizes audience participation.

Embawdied Lit: A Drag Reading Sequel
7:30PM / The Lash / 117 Winston St. / FB
Adam Atkinson, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Lara Glenum, Kim Yideum, M Kitchell, Rickey Laurentiis, Ji Yoon Lee, JD Scott, Christopher Soto, Vanessa Angelica Villarreal, Ronaldo Wilson & more.

TÜLIPS at The Regent: Prüfrock Party w/BOUQUET
8PM / The Regent / 448 S Main St. / FB
We’re rockin’ the Prufrock out of The Regent with our floral friends BOUQUET for an AWP Offsite party hosted by  Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine.The PRUFROCK PARTY also features readings by Melissa Broder (So Sad Today), Douglas Kearney, Safiya Sinclair, and Eileen Myles. Roll your trousers for a slice from the Regent’s Prufrock Pizzeria, signature cocktails, and draft specials from the bar. 21+ FREE

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Friday, April 1

SMC MFA, Pool, and Wave Books Reading
4PM / The Last Bookstore / 453 S Spring St. / FB
Molly Bendall, Candace Eros Díaz, Brenda Hillman,Tyehimba Jess, Matthew Rohrer, Juan Alvarado Valdivia, Valerie Wallace.

Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Timothy Yu, Adam Tipps Weinstein, David Buuck: BOOK PARTY
5PM / Wolf & Crane / 366 E 2nd St / FB
Join Les Figues and Futurepoem to celebrate the release of new books by Timothy Yu, Adam Tipps Weinstein, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, and David Buuck. A happy time and happy hour! There may be cake.

Timeless, Infinite Featherboard
5PM / Paloma Street Studio / 1518 Paloma St. #201 / FB
Timeless, Infinite Light and Featherboard Writing Series co-present an intimate marathon reading featuring Timeless, Infinite Light authors, Featherboard performers, and friends. Readers include:  Amy Berkowitz, Elana Chavez, Madison Davis, Angel Dominguez, Steffi Drewes , Paul Ebenkamp, Ivy Johnson, Geri Kim, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Emerson Whitney

Bennington Review & Black Warrior Review Launch Party and Reading
6PM/ R Bar / 3331 W 8th St / FB
Heading to AWP? Join Black Warrior Review and the just-resuscitated Bennington Review for a celebration of our new issues and a reading in a Koreatown karaoke bar on Friday, April 1st.

FIERCE VERSE: FEMINIST AS F@/#^!
6PM / The Regent / 448 S Main St. / More Info & Tickets
$5. Amber Tamblyn, Eileen Myles, Roxane Gay, Amy Poehler, Lidia Yuknavitch, Randa Jarrar.

PUBLIC POOL Launch Party and Poetry Reading
6PM / Avenue 50 Studio / 131 N. Ave 50 / FB
Reading (so far):  Timothy Donnelly, Blunt Research Group, Aleshea Harris, Emily Hunt, Jason Koo, Dorothea Lasky, Timothy Liu, Justin Marks, Sara Renee Marshall, Lynn Melnick, Camille Rankine, Mathias Svalina, Monica Youn.

¡AWP Small Press Reading!
6:30PM / Opodz / 362 E 2nd St. / FB
Come for poetry, prose, wine, & vittles with authors from the following presses! More fabulous writers will likely NOEMI PRESS [Brent Armendinger | Chloe Garcia-Roberts | Nathan Parker] RICOCHET [Cameron Awkward-Rich | Elisabeth Frost] SHEARSMAN [Maxine Chernoff | Shira Dentz | Carrie Etter | Deborah Meadows] TARPAULIN SKY [Dana Green | Elizabeth Hall | Kim Parko] DRUNKEN BOAT [Kirstin Chen | Tim Tomlinson] ANOMALOUS [Scott Esposito | A. Kendra Greene | Temim Fruchter | Grace Shuyi Liew] GOLD LINE [drea brown | Sandra Hunt]

The Rumpus and Rare Bird Present PICK YOUR POISON
7PM / Lethal Amounts / 1226 W 7th St / FB
With readings from Cornelius Eady, Rich Ferguson, Ashley C. Ford, Erika Krouse, Anna March, and J. Ryan Stradal! Hosted by Antonia Crane!

Free Sushi & Friends
7PM / Far Bar Little Tokyo / 347 E 1st St / FB
Book party for James Meetze’s Phantom Hour (Ahsahta Press) and Andrew Wessels’ translation of Nurduran Duman’s Semi-Circle (Good Morning Menagerie) with readings by James Meetze, Kelli Anne Noftle, Andrew Wessels, Emily Motzkus, Fisayo Adeyeye and more. Plus FREE SUSHI ROLLS! (while they last).

AHSAHTA PRESS READING
7PM / BOOK SHOW / 5503 N Figueroa St.

The Midwest Goes West: A Mixtape for LA (CSU Poetry Center, Akron Press, & Rescue Press)
7PM / Seahorse Sound Studios / 1334 S Grand Ave / FB
Join the CSU Poetry Center, University of Akron Press, & Rescue Press for a night of literature and drinks in the warehouse-turned-recording-studio of Seahorse Sound Studios. Readers include: Sara Deniz Akant, Erik Anderson, Bridgette Bates, Jonathan Blum, Brittany Cavallaro, Leora Fridman, Lily Hoang, Lo Kwa Mei-en, Philip Metres, Jennifer Moore, Emilia Phillips, Martin Rock, & Vinnie Wilhelm.

DANCE YR ASS OFF w/ 7×7 LA x GULF COAST
7PM / Art Share LA / 801 E 4th Place / FB
Free booze, an exquisite corpse activity booth, and tunes spun by LA musician and DJ, ORA de ORO!  First 25 guests receive Gulf Coast freebies! Readers:  Fatimah Asghar, Bridget Dooley (w/ Austin Irving,) Michele Filgate, Bryan Hurt (w/ Jerry Byrd)

Boss Fight Books Presents: HEART-POUNDING PANIC
7:30PM / Stories / 1716 W Sunset Blvd / FB
Join Boss Fight Books for a night of great writers reading about classic video games! Matt Bell, Alyse Knorr, Nick Suttner, Gabe Durham, Jarett Kobek, Salvatore Pane, Daniel Lisi.

Poetry Reading & Book Launch for What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America
8PM / California State University – Downtown LA Campus / 801 South Grand Avenue Suite 600 / FB
Celebration of this new anthology with a poetry reading by contributors and both editors: Will Alexander, C.S. Giscombe, Duriel E. Harris, Harmony Holiday, Geoffrey Jacques, Dawn Lundy Martin, Fred Moten, Tracie Morris, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Julie Patton, Lauri Ramey, giovanni singleton, and Ronaldo V. Wilson. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing.

Two Dollar Radio/CCM/Entropy/Action Books/Writ Large #AWP16 READING
8PM / These Days Gallery / 118 Winston Pl – Indian Alley / FB
Join Two Dollar Radio, Civil Coping Mechanisms, Entropy, Action Books, and Writ Large Press for a night of literary readings, booze, socially awkward mingling, shenanigans, metal, metal, and, oh yeah, a raffle!  Expect readings by Mark de Silva, Colin Winnette, Janice Lee, Sean H. Doyle, Dolan Morgan, Ashley Farmer, Alexandra Naughton, Johannes Göransson, Don Mee Choi, Yideum Kim, Valerie Mejer, Wendy C. Ortiz, Rachel McLeod Kaminer, Traci Akemi Kato-kiriyama, Ashaki M. Jackson, and more.

Lana Turner and Nightboat Books Reading
8PM / Blank Spaces / 529 S Broadway, #4000 / FB
Lana Turner Journal and Niightboat Books are happy to present readings by Sara Deniz Akant, Brian Blanchfield, E Tracy Grinnell, Michael Heller, Brenda Hillman, Dawn Lundy Martin, Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Claudia Rankine, Sandra Simonds, Cole Swensen, and Nick Twemlow. Refreshments will be served. A few blocks north from the conference center. Wheelchair ramp at Friendly Space, in the alley.

Kundiman & Kaya Present Literaoke
9PM / Echoes Under Sunset / 1310 Glendale Blvd / FB
Come out and get down with Kaya Press & Kundiman as we combine readings and Karaoke into a never-before-attempted experiment of entertainment and enlightenment! The event will feature the literary (& musical) stylings of Vidhu Aggarwal, Sam Chanse, Leticia Hernandez, Ashaki M. Jackson, Janine Joseph, Teka Lark, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Ed Lin, R. Zamora Linmark, & more!

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Saturday, April 2

The 3rd Annual Rock and Roll Reading
4PM / The Echoplex / 1822 Sunset Blvd / FB
Rapid-fire readings followed by live music from Frances Gumm. Readers: Alice Bolin, Stephen Burt, Melissa Chadburn, Jerry Gabriell, Eleanor Henderson, Micah Ling, Nate Marshall, Adrian Matejka, Emily Nemens, Elena Passarello, Jim Ruland, Ethan Rutherford, Amy Scharmann, Amy Silverberg. 18+, no cover

The Account and Memorious
4PM / Mandrake Bar / 2692 S La Cienega Blvd / FB
The Account and Memorious invite you to join us for a reading featuring The Account contributors Stanley Plumly, David Baker, and Lee Ann Roripaugh, and Memorious contributors Derrick Austin, Hadara Bar-Nadav, and Jennifer Pashley.

YES FEMMES
6PM / Human Resources / 410 Cottage Home St / FB
Birds of Lace & Institute for Flying present: Amanda Ackerman, Kyunghee Sabina Eo, Myriam Gurba, Johanna Hedva, Lily Hoang, Temim Fruchter Amanda-Faye Jimenez, Clay Kerrigan, Meghan Lamb, Sade Murphy, Julie Tolentino

Incite Them to Poetry: A Reading for C.D. Wright
6:30PM / Ace Hotel / 929 South Broadway / More Info

Laynie Browne, Lee Ann Brown, Claire Donato, Lisa Olstein, Elizabeth Robinson, Prageeta Sharma, Craig Teicher, Sam Truitt, Chet Weise, Michael Wiegers, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, & more. 

Button Poetry + YesYes Books
6:30PM/ Art Share-LA / 801 E 4th Pl / FB
YesYes Bøøks & Button Poetry are teaming up at AWP 2016 in Los Angeles to showcase some of our amazing authors! The show will feature performances by: Danez Smith, Aziza Barnes, Ocean Vuong, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Tanya Olson, J. Scott Brownlee, Jamie Mortara, Cam Awkward-Rich, Jonterri Gadson. $5 at the door (50% of proceeds go to the Los Angeles Youth Network (LAYN))

VONA/Voices & Willow Books
7PM / The Falls Lounge / 626 S Spring St / More Info
Writers of Color from 2 Organizations Serving Our People: VONA/Voices and Willow Books From VONA/Voices: Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Tananarive Due, M. Evelina Galang, David Mura, Daniel José Older, Willie Perdomo From Willow Books: Yesenia Montilla, Cedric Tillman, Cole Lavalais, Mahogany Browne, Rachelle Escamilla, Reginald Flood, Randall Horton Sponsored by WritLarge Press

Caketrain/Solar▲Luxuriance PL( + )US
7PM / THE DRAIN / 2232 E. Cesar Chavez Ave / FB
Rachel Levy, M. Kitchell,Thibault Raoult,William Vandenberg, Kristen Hayter, Kit Schluter, Katy Mongeau, Bridget Brewer

Fourteen Hills and Red Light Lit
7PM / Lilith’s Corner / 672 S La Fayette Park Pl. / FB
Featured readers for 14 Hills: Will Alexander, Phillip Barron, MRB Chelko, Mary Hickman, Erika Meitner, Loria Mendoza, K Silem Mohammad, and Vincent Craig Wright. Featured readers for Red Light Lit: Fisayo Adeyeye, Carson Beker, Lara Coley, Kacy Cunningham, Natasha Dennerstein, Heather June Gibbons, Miah Jeffra and Ellery Washington.

Alice Bag, Keith Morris, Michelle Gonzales, Michael T. Fournier reading
8:30PM / Pehrspace / 325 Glendale Blvd / FB
Razorcake/Gorsky Press and Vermin on the Mount Present Alice Bag, Keith Morris, Michelle Gonzales, Michael T. Fournier. Readings followed by Q and A, with your host Jim Ruland. Music by DJ Little D

All of Us Witches: An AWP Offsite with Nat. Brut & The Spectacle!
9PM / MaRS Gallery / 649 S Anderson St / FB
Meghan Lamb with Kayla E. – All of Them Witches, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Ginger Ko, Tom Cho, Amber Dawn, Xina Xurner, Jayy Dodd, Carribean Fragoza, Morgan Jerkins.

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 Special Onsite & Offsite Events:

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 AWP Survival Tips:

[AWP Survival Tips borrowed from the #AWP15 Guide] AWP can be overwhelming, daunting, stressful, anxiety-inducting, exciting, hyperactive, fun, energizing, draining, exhausting, and many other adjectives all at once. It’s an annual happening, and there’s really no other gathering like it. Really, thousands of writers in the same city around the same event. So on one hand, it’s amazing to be around so many writers. These are other souls who are passionate about the same thing you are and finally you can discuss things here you might not be able to discuss with your friends back home. But on the other hand, it can be seriously exhausting to be around so many writers. Everyone is trying to “get ahead” and “network” and it’s hard to get a handle on what “you’re supposed to be doing.” Here’s some major advice though: you’re not supposed to be doing anything. Everyone’s personality and therefore AWP experience is utterly unique. Some people take advantage of the panels and official events. Others avoid all official conference proceedings like the plague. Some revel in the excitement and efficiency of the off-site marathon readings – so many readings from so many of your favorite readers! Some take the opportunity to see friends they only get to see once a year and spend the nights drinking, gossiping, and wandering the streets. Don’t go with any single goal in mind. Don’t try to kiss ass and don’t try to sell your manuscript. Just be your genuine, sincere, awkward self and have fun!

• Some great advice on making the most of AWP at The Review Review: Making the Most of AWP: Advice from Editors and Writers
• More advice from 2013, but still relevant, at Ploughshares: The AWP13 Post You’ve Been Waiting For
• AWP is hard for introverts, but not impossible: An introvert’s toolkit for AWP
• Also, Darin Klein’s Guide to Enjoying Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair – This is for a completely different event, but so much of this advice is still sage and relevant.
• This fantastic guide on How to Do AWP by Lauren Eggert-Crowe on Women Who Submit.

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Important Links:

• Official AWP Conference Page
• Los Angeles Literary Calendar
• Uber / Lyft
• Entropy’s Twitter
• LA Metro / Los Angeles Public Transit Guide
• LAX Ground Transportation
• Downtown Los Angeles Guide
• Small Press Database
• Enclave

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Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter & Enclave for live updates.

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*Typos & Corrections to Printed Guide:
– Back Page: Camp Real Pants – “Small Press Database” should be “Small Press Distribution”
– In our rush to get the guide to the printers, we forgot our friends at Subito Press on the Book Fair Map. Please visit them and Timber Journal at Table 2137! & check out their Small Press Interview here.