I’m writing this essay the week before the Association of Writers & Writing Programs annual conference (likely known to a number of 3:AM readers as AWP) in Portland, Oregon. For anyone who is unfamiliar, the event is billed as a gathering of more than 12,000 attendees joining in communion “for four days of insightful dialogue, networking, and unrivaled access to the organizations and opinion-makers that matter most in contemporary literature.” And this year was going to be the first year that I attended, until my fear got the better of me.
Every fall, a number of the professors in my MFA will take a moment out of class at some point to remind their students that AWP is coming. They promote the chance to hear from and possibly even rub shoulders with our literary idols, or simply to make our names and faces known to the journals and magazines, small and large, in which we hope to one day see our work published. These professors have always offered the same caveats: that it’s an expense many can’t afford, that it can be nerve-wrecking meeting 12,000 people all simultaneously pursuing the very same dream you have, that it might even be a frightening icon of what some would consider the pyramid scheme of the American literary scene — a predatory capitalization on hopes and dreams through increasingly expensive programs, writer’s retreats and seminars; but in the midst of all that you might find something special and of value if you can see through the B.S. and hype. One of our most ardent proponents of AWP, a professor I look up to, always digresses from his conference pitch to say that “somewhere in that conference hall, Emily Dickinson has snuck out of the emergency exit and is weeping under a stairwell.”