AWP Folks

This AWP blog is slow and possibly cursed. I am now crawling out from a fluish haze, but I don't care if I finish it on the plane to Chicago, I will finish this blog. With John Irving, as my witness, I will finish this blog.

Which brings us to the people of AWP. There are the famous (who knows what this means for authors) writers there, who you seldom see any of if you aren't equally famous or you can't get into their reading. Ha Jin visited his publisher (early works) who were tabled next to us. Robert Olen Butler told us we had beautiful books. (I didn't recognize him, I just saw his nametag.) This is partially my fault. I didn't go to any sessions this AWP- I was far too interested in doing NYC things rather than being talked at things. But there is a weird hierarchy to the whole event. MFA folks, publishers, independent publishers (hurrah us!) university presses, journals, magazines, etc. etc. Everyone's got a place.

We did meet lots of interesting folks there. On one side we had Bound Off, that does short story/flash fiction podcasts out of Iowa City. http://boundoff.com/about.html Kelly and Ann were great neighbors, even though they never finished my socks. They offered knitting lessons and had one of those funky laptops designed to provide computer access to poorer kids in sub-saharan Africa. Good work that they fund because they are interested and the 2 of them tabled the whole thing all by themselves.

We were visited by royalty as well you can see. Ms. Small Press Distribution 2008 ladies and gentlemen, Jill Essbaum, author of Harlot on No Tell Books. http://www.notellbooks.org/ It features a large cock on the cover (her description, not mine, although I'd probably say the same thing). I'm now committed to only having my picture taken with women wearing tiaras.

Mostly AWP is nice because you get to see folks you already know and meet a few others. I see the Wave Books boys here, who I got to meet when they came through Durham on the Poetry Bus Tour, I usually see some MFA folks from UNC-Greensboro, and other poets scattered to the wind.

OK, the flu medicine's taking over again, so I'll finish this later this week.

AWP Swag

We're in the airport getting ready to fly back to Durham. We've been without internet access, so this is our first update. We'll have pictures and our reading online this week, but I'll write a short review while we're waiting to board.

This was our second AWP conference for the Carolina Wren Press. When we went to Atlanta last year, the thing we learned was we needed good swag, that was not only unusual but had an interesting tie-in to our work. Since our featured book this year was Jeanne Lieby's Downriver, we had candy necklaces. They went over great- even people who didn't want them were happy to see them.

The cover of Jeanne's book is so powerful for the same reasons. Everyone has a memory or connection to these necklaces. Hand people a string of sugar and they either react with extreme joy or extreme revulsion. It was fun to walk through the Bookfair and see folks wearing and/or eating them. Children were immediately drawn to the table of course, but even for adults it was a real draw.

Gay men seemed the most joyous to see them, young hipsters were also rather thrilled, and older women usually reacted with a smile and a "of course" response when asked if they wanted a "tasty and fashionable candy necklace."

The necklace is also a really good connection for the book because it's the right feel. The children in the stories have that enthusiasm, that joyousness, but they are also kids who have lived, who haven't been denied sugar by their overprotective parents. The children are loved, but also have toughness to them because they live in a real world where they know their parents can lose jobs and one good Christmas doesn't guarantee a string of them.

Jeanne's a little like that herself. She clearly loves life and relishes its challenges, but you also know that's not just because she's been tiptoing through the tulips to get there. She had numerous devotees at the conference- lots of folks told us how happy they were we were publishing her and lots talked about the excitement they have for The Southern Review now that she's the editor there.

We also collected lots of swag. Magazines and journals and candy and coasters and pens and stickers. At CWP, we know the marketing is important, but as a small, independent, non-profit press, we also have to use our weaknesses as out strengths, so simple but clever is our idea.