October 26th, 2012
AWP
I’m in Seattle
for AWP 2014 planning. The next AWP is
in Boston,
March 6-9, 2013. I am always telling
young poets that they should go to AWP.
Here’s why.
You meet lots of writers there and there’s nothing like
being in a bar and looking across at Yusef Komunyakaa or C.D. Wright to know
you are in the center of greatness.
The panels range from great poets and writers reading to how
literature is made to the network on which literature is built. As a young writer, you want to understand the
world in which you live. You want to
understand what literary magazines publish the work you publish, you want to
understand what presses publish the kind of work you write and you want to
understand what is going on in your own community.
But what is much more important is knowing what you can do
to be part of keeping that afloat. The
world of poetry and literature requires many players, and there is no reason
you can’t be one of them. Maybe you can
help a literary magazine or a reading series, maybe you can start your own
press, but find out a way to become part of the solution, not part of the
problem. And the problem is very simple
and has three parts.
- There
are way more good manuscripts that want to be published than there are
writers to publish them. - There
are far more people writing and sending their words out into the world
than there are reading good work and buying books. - In
general, we need more intellectuals and readers. That might require
writing more poetry that people can actually understand. Poetry that isn’t just written for other
academics. Or not. Just know your audience.
These are the problems.
If you come to AWP with your poems, your stories, your stuff that you
want someone to help you out with, good luck.
Here is the story the gatekeepers want to hear. I like what you’re doing in the literary
world. I would love to be part of it.
What can I do to help? Once you
figure out where you fit in, what you can do to be part of the solution, then
you can start asking for something.
If what you want is a champion, then champion somebody
yourself. And when you do get a book
accepted, create a marketing/publicity plan that includes going to AWP and
selling books and making sure you get the word out there.
Remember that it is not about you. Or at least not just you. Writers needs to
have a community to sustain them.
Writers should work on being givers instead of takers, should work at being
less needy. Editors are not waiting
around to find writers that we can do stuff for. We are trying to live.
So when I see you at AWP in Boston, tell me what you are doing for the
literary community. Tell me what you’re
doing to make magic happen.