March 8, 2013; AWP Boston

9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.

Room 103, Plaza Level

F106. Post-Genre Lit: Form in the 21st Century. (Lacy M. Johnson, Nick Flynn, Lidia Yuknavitch, Kazim Ali, Stephen Elliott) An increasing body of literature not only blurs the boundaries between creative and critical, prose and verse, observation and invention, but also transcends and transgresses our most basic convictions about genre. Postgenre lit can alter our conversations about perception, experience, and reality; or it can kindle deep-seated animosities about the rules and limits of form. These divergent writers will discuss how they read, teach, write, and publish work that defies classification.

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Room 109, Plaza Level

F111. Poetry of Resistance: Poets Responding to Xenophobia and Injustice. (Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Carmen Calatayud, Elena Díaz Björkquist, Andrea Hernandez Holm) In response to AZ SB 1070, in 2010 a Facebook page titled Poets Responding to SB 1070 was born. It has become a lively forum of poetics and politics involving a response of over two thousand poems. Panelists will discuss the success of the project, an upcoming anthology, and how social movements can incorporate poetry and writing into their organizing in order to bring about political awareness and empowerment. Presenters will read from poetry submissions and from their own work.

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Room 110, Plaza Level

F112. Progression by Digression: Multiple Narrative Lines in Creative Nonfiction. (Deborah Lott, Peter Trachtenberg, Paul Lisicky, Hope Edelman) Laurence Sterne’s iconoclastic 1760 novel, Tristram Shandy, can be seen as a forebear to contemporary works of creative nonfiction. In this panel, four writers of CNF look at works that also progress via digression with their main narrative arcs illuminated, enhanced, commented on, and deepened by other threads. They’ll examine how seemingly digressive narrative lines can open up a work’s temporal frame, enlarge its perspective, provide metaphoric resonance, and add to its intellectual complexity.

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10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.

Room 104, Plaza Level

F135. This Is Not a Cigar: The Uses of Therapy in a Writing Workshop. (Diana Joseph, Geoff Herbach, Sue William Silverman, Kerry Cohen, Sam Ligon) Writing teachers often dismiss therapy’s place in workshop, equating it with navel-gazing, at odds with critical thinking. The writers on this panel think the word “therapy,” while highly charged, is widely misunderstood. We will discuss how we successfully appropriate selective practices of therapy, exploring theories borrowed from existential psychology, as well as ethical concerns faced when working with vulnerable students. Which elements work while maintaining the focus on creating art?

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Room 200, Level 2

F142. Essaying the Essay. (David Lazar, Phillip Lopate, David Shields, Lia Purpura, Reda Bensmaïa) This panel will speak to the essentially self-reflective nature of the essay: the ways essays have, historically, insistently talked about themselves. All the panelists have work in the newly released anthology Essaying the Essay, from Welcome Table Press, which presents essays on the essay from Montaigne to the present; they will read portions of their work and reflect/revise ways their views of the essay have modified over time.

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12:00 noon to 1:15 p.m.

Room 111, Plaza Level

F170. 1963: 50 Years Later. (Jeffrey McDaniel, Rachel Zucker, Thomas Lux, Amy Gerstler) 1963 was a year of crossroads and convergences in American poetry, a year that not only confirms American poetry’s lineage, but also highlights the various directions American poetry would go in the coming decades. Five contemporary poets discuss vital books published or written in ’63, including The Moving Target (Merwin), Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law (Rich), The Branch Will Not Break (James Wright), Ariel (Plath), and books by Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Creeley, Anne Sexton, WC Williams, and others.

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Room 204, Plaza Level

F175. Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry. (Dorothea Lasky, Michael Cirelli, Martin Farawell, Terry Blackhawk, Eileen Myles) Contributors to a new book focused on exciting young people about poetry will talk about their experiences with such poetry programs as InsideOut Literary Arts Project and the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and Poetry Program. The discussion will provide hands-on advice to those interested in creating poetry programming for kids both in classrooms and in nontraditional settings, and will cover topics such as what to expect, how to plan, and where to find poetry resources.

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Room 208, Level 2

F178. A Congeries of Voices: Vernacular and Diction in Contemporary Poetry. (Carmen Gimenez Smith, Joanna Fuhrman, Samuel Amadon, Lara Glenum, Rodrigo Toscano) Many contemporary poets appropriate the lexicon and syntax of foreign or marginal languages, often adopting the slang of a particular historical moment. These linguistic choices may be charged with political or cultural resistance, or they may be purely aesthetic. This panel will discuss the various possibilities and implications of appropriating and subverting foreign or marginal dictions in poems and what these explorations mean to the future of poetry.

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Room 210, Level 2

F180. The Urge Toward Memoir. (Elisabeth Schmitz, Jill Kneerim, Michael Thomas, Jeanette Winterson, Lily King) Novelists Jeanette Winterson, Emily Raboteau, Michael Thomas, agent Jill Kneerim, and editor Elisabeth Schmitz discuss the writer’s urge toward memoir. What defines memoir and is it any more “true” or less creative a process than fiction? Panelists will talk about a favorite memoir and the forms they invented for their own.

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1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Room 101, Plaza Level

F190. Options of the I: The Post-Memoir Memoir. (Alex Lemon, Lia Purpura, Brian Christian, Nin Andrews) AGNI marks its 40th birthday with an exploration of personal writing in the age of the complexified I. Panelists will consider issues of obliquity, fragmentation, collage, and counterpoint, truth-telling, personae, tonal ventriloquism, and other approaches that conduce to projecting new configurations of the contemplative and narrative self. Moderated by Sven Birkerts.

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3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m

Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Level 2

F219. Don DeLillo & Dana Spiotta: A Reading and Conversation, Sponsored by The Center for Fiction. (Noreen Tomassi, Don DeLillo, Dana Spiotta) Celebrated novelists Don DeLillo, author of Underworld, Libra, and White Noise, and Dana Spiotta, author of Stone Arabia, present readings, to be followed by a discussion moderated by Noreen Tomassi, Executive Director of the Center for Fiction

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Room 109, Plaza Level

F228. The Arcadia Project: Writing the Postmodern Pastoral. (Joshua Corey, Brenda Iijima, Dan Beachy-Quick, Jennifer Moxley, Jonathan Skinner) The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral is a groundbreaking new anthology from Ahsahta Press of contemporary poems that interrogate, refurbish, and upend the American pastoral tradition of Emerson and Thoreau. Four poets represented in the book discuss their work and explore the relevance of the ancient genre of idealized nature poetry to a world increasingly dominated by the discourse of disaster and environmental crisis

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4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.

Room 206, Level 2

F266. Bring Out Your Dead: Writing Ghosts (and Zombies) in Literary Fiction. (Rebecca Makkai, Tea Obreht, Lauren Groff, Dan Chaon, Alexi Zentner) The ghost story thrives in literary fiction as well as the oral tradition, defying genre. How do we keep these compelling tales fresh? How do we frighten without resorting to cheap tricks? How do we navigate the borders between spirituality, science, doubt, and a reliable narrative voice? And why are we drawn to these themes again and again? Five writers introduce you to their ghosts and tell you how they summoned them.

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Room 208, Level 2

F268. The Bible, Women, and American Literature. (Virginia Gilbert, Sena Jeter Naslund, Kelly Cherry, Alicia Ostriker, Grace Bauer) From the Pilgrim Fathers through Dickinson, Melville, Hemingway, and beyond, the Bible has been a major source for American writers. It is also constantly referred to in the national debates on women’s roles in society. How do women today contribute to this tradition which is both literary and political? Five women writers who use Bible-based themes transformatively in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction will discuss their own and others’ work and invite audience discussion.

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10:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight

Sheraton Boston Hotel, Constitution Ballroom, Level 2

F287. AWP Public Reception & Dance Party, Sponsored by Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department & Story Week. A dance party with music by DJ Neza. Free beer and wine from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. Cash bar from 11:00 p.m. to midnight.