Jennifer, Anna and I are sharing a hotel room at AWP. It's HUGE. About the size of a large Amsterdam apartment. So, after a delicious meal in the nearby Lebanese Taverna (crammed with other AWPers), we all gathered in our room tonight for a talk about the future of Versal. It's going to be big and bright, of course. To my knowledge, we have no photo documentation of this meeting, so just imagine nine beautiful people engaged in deep conversation about all the amazing things possible for our lit mag.
Overheard tonight over the second annual Tuesday night sushi Versal dinner somewhere in Washington D.C.: "Enter my bubble if you want to be sex free." Note this overhearing comes from and is by Versal editors.
We're here. Most of us, anyway. Here's a shot of Matt, Anna, and Robert tonight at an Irish pub.
Shayna and I endured a fairly bumpy ride between Ireland and Iceland (r/c). Go figure. Here's a dumb one of us between seatbelt constraints.
Does anyone else notice the incredibly high percentage of couches to floor space at the Marriott Wardman?
By now, if you're like me, you've gotten lost in the crowd of emails, blogs, status updates, event invites, and tweets (ugh, that word sucks) about AWP. Toggling between your Facebook event page and AWP's own mega-scroll lists is enough to make a poet develop a socialite ego. Hell, the conference has even gone mainstream.
So for those of you with Versal on your AWP radar (herewith referred to as "AWPdar"), here's a nicely compartmentalized program from the Versal angle.
WEDNESDAY Versal editors field trip and pow-wow. Nine of us will be in the same place at the same time. This is like when stars align. Some of us have never met (though one of us has met everyone, aka me). So we're taking ourselves out. See you on the other side.
THURSDAY-SATURDAY Drop by our table at D8 for some yummy Dutch flavors and other goodies (no, we're not bringing weed). And we don't have merch. We can't afford it. Would you really wear a Versal t-shirt anyway? But we will be selling issues 5 through 8 and subscriptions at drop-bottom (is that how you say it?) rates. Look for the Dutch flag.
If you see the French flag, that's us too.
THURSDAY If there's any day at the conference to go Versal, it's Thursday. The journal and its editors are freakin' all over the place.
9:00-10:15am Tearing Your Heart Off Your Sleeve: The Problem of Pathos in Creative Nonfiction with B.J. Hollars, Re’Lynn Hansen, Marcia Aldrich, Marion Wrenn, Katie Jean Shinkle Virginia C Room, Marriott Wardman Park, Lobby Level How can nonfiction writers avoid the pitfalls of sentimentality and nostalgia while directly addressing them in the work? Join editors from Black Warrior Review, Fourth Genre, South Loop, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Versal as they discuss the problem of pathos in nonfiction while offering concrete strategies for how best to approach emotionally driven topics. Panelists will also explore how traditional and experimental forms lend themselves to packing an emotive punch within the genre.
10:30-11:45am Things That Go Bump When You Write: Monsters, Myths, and the Supernatural in Literary Fiction with B.J. Hollars, Bryan Furuness, Hannah Tinti, Laura van den Berg, Scott Francis Thurgood Marshall South Room, Marriott Wardman Park, Mezzanine Level What do Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and ghosts all have in common? For one, over the past year, they’ve all managed to stomp, swim, and haunt their way onto the literary scene. Join writers as they discuss their experiences implementing supernatural elements into their fiction. Panelists will offer tips on how to add credibility to the incredible and humanity to the inhuman. They will also explore the evolving definitions of gothic and grotesque in the 21st century.
3:00-4:15pm What’s Normal in Nonfiction? with Steven Church, Debra Marquart, Ander Monson, Bonnie J. Rough, Bob Shacochis Maryland Suite Room, Marriott Wardman Park, Lobby Level Moderated by editors of the Normal School, the panel will feature a discussion of the polarizing questions concerning the ethics and aesthetics of nonfiction writing today. Is the nonfiction writer’s obligation to the art or to the subject? The audience? Can you conflate time, use composite or fictionalized characters, or borrow material from other sources without citing it? Panelists will consider what the role of the nonfiction writer is today and how that role is defined by ethical concerns for subject and audience, and/or aesthetic concerns for art, genre, form, and technique.
4:30-5:45pm Beyond Times New Roman: The Literary Journal as Object with Sandra Doller, Travis Kurowski, Shayna Schapp, Jodee Stanley, Jen Woods, Matvei Yankelevich Nathan Hale room, Marriott Wardman Park From curatorial art teams to the hand-bound letterpress, to pages upon which art and words are nearly indistinguishable, the literary journal is so much more than paper and font choice. Attention to design will turn a journal into an art object that sets it apart from the masses. Editors from five innovative journals share concrete strategies for incorporating art and design: getting submissions, working with an art editor, and how to redesign the literary journal from scratch. This is the panel we've put together our very own selves, and we're super excited about it.
7:00-11:30pm A Pair of Teeth / Aperitif IOTA Club & Cafe, 2832 Wilson Blvd. Join Articles Press, Flying Guillotine, and SpringGun Press for an exciting evening of music and writing at IOTA Club & Cafe. With Joe Hall, J. Michael Martinez, A. Minetta Gould, Donald Dunbar, Matt Sadler, derrick mund, Sarah E Harris, Greenland, Laughing Man, Black Telephone.
7:30-?am Journal Porn: Lit Mags You'd Sleep With The Black Squirrel, 2427 18th Street NW If you're super dexterous, you can catch Matt at the Apertif reading and still catch most of the amazing and incredibly wide-ranging line-up at Journal Porn, Versal's official offsite! We hope you'll come down to this (free!) fun-times offsite event with Versal, Trickhouse, Lumberyard Magazine, 6x6 and 1913 a journal of forms. With Lee Ann Brown, Katie Byrum, Julia Cohen, James Copeland, Brandon Downing (video storms!), Lucy Ives, Joanna Klink, Matthew Lippman, Sawako Nakayasu, Elizabeth Frankie Rollins. We've got the room all night so come hang out!
FRIDAY 6:30-9:30pm Wide Night Wonderland Ballroom, 1101 Kenyon St NW Self-fulfilling plug: I'm reading at the Wide Night offsite with Pilot Books, who are publishing my chapbook later this year. Pilot's put the event together with other fantastic presses Bateau, Birds, LLC, Brave Men, Factory Hollow, Flying Guillotine, Immaculate Disciples, and Minutes. The current line-up includes Chris Martin, Lily Brown, Mark Horosky, Sasha Steensen, Emily Pettit, Dan Boehl, Sommer Browning, Jessica Young, Farrah Field, Guy Pettit, Kelin Loe, Alex Phillips, Luke Bloomfield, and Francesca Chabrier.
SATURDAY Drop by the Versal table for last-day deals!
SUNDAY Me and the missus are off to NYC for a week of R&R before heading back to Holland. See you next year in Chicago, jongens!
The lineup has changed slightly this year, which makes me wonder how you get in, though like most things my gut says it's just friends and friends-of who have awesome presses.
I am seriously in love with most of the presses involved, but last year's "barricade" approach made my eyes roll. It's not clear yet if they'll cordon off at the bookfair in D.C. with trashbags or if the reading is just a convenient marketing throwback for recognition purposes. Because I love these presses so much and for other becauses, I'll get over it either way.
But still, seeing the event pop up in my newsfeed today brought up some questions which linger from Denver. Like, if Versal were asked "in" would I say yes? Should I applaud Table X for being explicit about in-crowd(edness)? Is it a "problem" that they have marked themselves "off" from the rest? Do I actually care? Or is the momentary throwback to the high school cafeteria just an annoying re-realization that this is how we congregate--posturing tall with our hands flat on our chests, pointing "me" and this is "us", hello to all of you.
Certainly they're not the first to do it at AWP, which like most of the world has its ins and outs and is, in and of itself, part of a larger machine that writers and presses may or can or do use to build their profiles. And even Versal is doing that, by being there in its own little unaffiliated way, and after just two years of attendance we've noticed a marked increase in submissions (and submission quality), sales, and subscriptions--so we'll keep going there. So that's another because, because we're all in this machine, in fact we make the machine, and it would be dishonest of me to condemn their efforts (though I think a little healthy criticism is ok)--which in the end are just ways to profile themselves and each other in a communal way.
In high school, I was an awkward and stressed out poet-slash-closet-lesbian who wore tie-dyes and fell in love with girls in the in-crowd. Now that that's all over, I apparently still have the habit of falling in love with things I perceive as in the in--which means I think I'm in the out, which is stupid.
Anyway, blah blah blog. Here's some kids having a lightsaber fight in their school cafeteria:
Thursday, February 3, 2011 4:30pm - 5:45pm Nathan Hale room, Marriott Wardman Park 2660 Woodley Road NW Washington, DC
From curatorial art teams to the hand-bound letterpress, to pages upon which art and words are nearly indistinguishable, the literary journal is so much more than paper and font choice. Attention to design will turn a journal into an art object that sets it apart from the masses. Editors from five innovative journals share concrete strategies for incorporating art and design: getting submissions, working with an art editor, and how to redesign the literary journal from scratch.
The literary journal as art object goes back at least to the Pre-Raphaelite The Germ, but the subtleties of art and design can be daunting to many literary editors. A journal that does not pay attention to good design practice lessens the pleasure of the reading experience and increases the perception that journals are mere vehicles for publication. This panel shows editors how to be sophisticated about art and design choices, and how it is possible without much added effort.
PARTICIPATING EDITORS & JOURNALS: Sandra Doller, 1913 a journal of forms Shayna Schapp, Versal Jodee Stanley, Ninth Letter Jen Woods, The Lumberyard Magazine Matvei Yankelevich, 6x6
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