Meeting you in the thick of it

A Monday recovery in Nashville, TN in the solace of my parents' acreage, still slightly reeling from the madness of three-plus days in the Denver AWP wormhole. I don't think I got more than a few hours' sleep at any given time, nor did I apparently manage to eat an actual meal, but the local stouts kept the carbs coming and clearly energy itself came from elsewhere. What an odd, odd place, AWP.

And because of that oddity or madness or, we barely had a chance to "blog" or "update", our Facebook pages and the Versal fan page going still as we went from place to place, person to person, table to table, book to book, reading to reading, to. And I can barely distinguish the days from each other, so telling you all about it now seems a failed exercise. If you have been to AWP, then you know how it is and won't want to read (more) about it; if you have never been, then a blog outlining the raucous timeline likely comes across as indulgent.

I didn't go with an agenda; I didn't have an AWP technique in hand. I barely kept to the vague schedule I'd laid out for myself. I didn't give my chapbook manuscript to anyone, I didn't meet anyone famous, and I didn't sleep with them either. I also did not dance at the dance party, though I did check it out and giggle for awhile. But I will say this, to anyone (you) out there. Meeting you, if I did, was the best part. For those days, Versal was not far away. Versal was right there, in the thick of it, meeting you: old friends, contributors, fellow editors, new writers. Something jumped in me every time you came up to the table and said, "Hey, you guys are great!" or whatever it is that you said that told me that you knew of our little project before I even gave you my spiel.

On Sunday, the Versal editors dispersed to various North American regions, all taking a few more days or weeks on the continent before heading back to Europe. Now I'm on my parents' porch in Tennessee, mulling over plans for the Versal 8 launch party (May 8!) and my girlfriend's 30th birthday. And also, now, it's spring, and as always, it is weird and wonderful.