Alumni Social
Wednesday (Feb. 7), 6-8 pm
The Davidson (located above Lula Southern Cookhouse)
1617 Main St., Suite 200, Kansas City, MO
RSVP by clicking HERE
(An RSVP is not required, but does help us in our planning. Thanks!)
University of Iowa alumni and other friends of The Writing University are invited to jumpstart their AWP 2024 experience by gathering with other alums, faculty, staff and friends at a free UI-sponsored Alumni Social Wednesday at The Davidson located above Lulu Southern Cookhouse which is a 10-minute walk from the Kansas City Convention Center. Bring a friend or two…and don’t forget to register to win a door prize!
Gifts for Alums and Educators at Iowa Booth in Bookfair
All conference long
University of Iowa Booth, AWP Bookfair
UI alums are reminded to stop by the Iowa booth in the AWP 2024 Bookfair to share their memories of Iowa with the current UI students staffing the booth and claim some gifts we have exclusively for graduates of The Writing University.
Calling All Elementary, Junior High, High School Educators: We’ve Got Stuff for You!
Are you a teacher of writing or a related subject at an elementary, junior high, or high school? If so, please be sure to stop by the Iowa booth in the AWP Bookfair. We have some gifts for you and some of the same for your students back home.
Fresh Coffee and Cookie Hours at the Iowa Booth
2 pm – Thursday and Friday
11 am – Saturday
University of Iowa Booth, AWP Bookfair
Again this year the University of Iowa will be providing complimentary coffee and cookies to AWP attendees each day of the annual conference. Stop by the Iowa booth in the AWP Bookfair and enjoy a cup or two and a couple chocolate chips to boot…and, like the coffee and cookies, the conversation is free, too!
“On the Couch” Series
Join us for our new “On the Couch” Series! We’ve planned a limited number of special intimate opportunities at the Iowa booth inside the AWP Bookfair that might interest to you. These sessions are likely to be attended by smaller numbers -- available space alone will limit the number participants -- and, therefore, you’ll have a greater opportunity to interact, ask questions and recieving important feedback/guidance.
On the Couch: Applying to Graduate Programs
With Blaine Greteman and Cary Stough
Thursday, 2 pm
University of Iowa AWP Booth 3035
Stop by to discuss:
- Personal Statement Power-Up (How to think of yourself as a writer or scholar before you put anything down on paper)
- Hotline Bling (How to ask for references from professors, even if you haven't talked to them in a long time)
- MFA Uploaded (How to transition from the MFA to PhD; differences in application process; differences in expected workflow, teaching, writing/research, etc)
- Pre-PhD (What to do before you apply; researching schools, reaching out to professors/staff; what to look for in a potential mentor, etc).
Guest Speakers
Cary Stough is a poet and critic with an MFA from Brown University, who is currently pursuing his PhD student in English at the University of Iowa. His writing has appeared in a number of publications, including the American Poetry Review, Cleveland Review of Books, and Annulet: a journal of poetics.
Blaine Greteman is Professor and Chair of the Iowa English Department. As a scholar of the renaissance, he’s published books with Stanford University Press and Cambridge. As a journalist and essayist, he regularly writes for venues including The New Republic, London Review of Books, Slate, TIME, and Newsweek.
On the Couch: Submit to The Iowa Review
With Lynne Nugent, Editor of the Iowa Review
Friday, 2pm
University of Iowa AWP Booth 3035
Pitch Your Idea! Stop by the couch to learn about an upcoming themed issue of The Iowa Review and pitch your ideas! Submissions are open until November 1 for poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, and artwork on the topic of Bodies In and Out of Control.
Lynne Nugent is editor of The Iowa Review. Her essay chapbook, Nest, won the 2019 Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award and was published by The Florida Review in 2020.
On the Couch: Pitch Your Book to the University of Iowa Press
With Allison Means, Assistant Director of the University of Iowa Press
Friday, 2pm
University of Iowa AWP Booth 3035
Pitch your book idea! Stop by to present your book idea in the genres of fiction or literary or Get answers to your questions about working with a university press as your publisher, or questions about the book publishing landscape.
Allison Means is the assistant director/marketing director for the University of Iowa Press, where she leads branding efforts, creates and fulfills marketing plans for thirty+ books published per year, and manages publicity and rights & permissions for all press titles. She has served as a board member for the Iowa Review and as a literary publishing panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. Allison holds a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in art/art history from the University of Iowa, where she graduated with honors and distinction. She is also a graduate of the Denver Publishing Institute and has completed the NYU SPS Advanced Publishing Institute.
FIND US AT THE AWP24 BOOKFAIR!
Visit us at our AWP24 Bookfair Booths
- The Iowa Review
- University of Iowa Press
- The University of Iowa
- Writing University
ALUMNI, FACULTY AND AUTHOR EVENTS
Birds LLC, CSU Poetry Center, Rescue Press & Windfall Room
Thursday, 8:30PM
21c Museum Hotel (Main Gallery), 219 W. 9th St., Kansas City, MO 64105
Join us for a reading and celebration of new work by Birds LLC, CSU Poetry Center, Rescue Press, & Windfall Room authors Stella Corso, Ryan Eckes, Rennie Ament, Lauren Haldeman, Lauren Hunter, Xavier Cavazos, Sarah Minor, Fred L. Joiner, Melissa Dickey, Zach Savich, Nicholas Gulig, and Niina Pollari!
Yale Younger Poets Reading
Thursday, 9PM
1228 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO 64105
All are welcome to come for a poem and stay for a drink! Celebrate the Yale Series of Younger Poets in a group reading of its winners, including: Peter Streckfus, Eduardo C. Corral, Airea D. Matthews, Yanyi, Robert Wood Lynn, Mary-Alice Daniel, and Cindy Juyoung Ok. Their books and more are available for sale from Yale University Press at this location only 0.2 miles from the conference!
Alumni and Friends of the University of Iowa Social
Wednesday, 6PM
The Davidson at Lula's Southern Cookhouse, 1617 Main St, Kansas City, MO 64108
Alumni of the University of Iowa, friends of "The Writing University," colleagues and fans of writing and communication, please consider adding this event to your conference calendar. We'll be serving hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages, and a cash bar will be available. We'll also be giving away some door prizes including some great books by great UI writers.
Triptych: A Reading, Screening, & Dance Party Featuring TriQuarterly, The Iowa Review, & You!
Friday, 8PM
Helzberg Auditorium, Kansas City Public Library, 5th floor, 14 W 10th St, Kansas City, MO 64105
The Iowa Review joins forces with TriQuarterly magazine to host a reading, video essay screening, and afterparty on Friday, February 9, at 8 p.m. We’ll gather in the Helzberg Auditorium at the Kansas City Public Library, a short walk from the Convention Center. Featured writers from The Iowa Review include Dorsey Craft, Mag Gabbert, Chloe Martinez, and TIR’s own managing editor, Katie Berta. Join us for appetizers, a glass of wine, and perhaps even some dancing!
Panel: Writers Making Comics and Collage: How Changing Mediums Changed Our Writing
Saturday, 12:10PM
Room 2101, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level
(Kelcey Ervick, Naoko Fujimoto, Nick Potter, Lauren Haldeman, David Lee)
Our panelists are writers who started making comics and collage to explore new ways of seeing the world—and our work. Our poems have exploded into collages; our characters speak in balloons; our metaphors are multi-sensory. Learn how graphic literature has energized our creative practices and clarified our voices and style. We’ll share our processes, materials, techniques, and drawing tips! Attendees will come away with strategies for transforming their own writing through comics and collage.
Panel: A Magic of Pauses: Poetry Editors on Collaborative Writing and Editing Practices
Thursday, 9AM
Room 2101, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level
Srikanth "Chicu" Reddy, Anthony Cody, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Bernardo Wade
Poet and editor Marianne Moore declared poetry a magic of pauses. Five poetry editors share how their varied editorial roles relate to their practices of poetry and cultural work, where their writing experience contributes to editing poems, and what conceptions of community have been born from working on journals and at presses, from established series to emerging spaces. The various pauses and magics that editing brings to writing is considered in terms of labor, time, and collectivism.
University of Wisconsin Press Reading
Thursday, 6:30PM
Tannin Wine Bar (1526 Walnut St), in the Mendoza Room
Celebrate Nightboat at Nimble Brewing
Thursday 5PM
Nimble Brewing, 1735 Oak St., Kansas City, MO 64108
Join Nightboat on Thursday, February 8 at Nimble Brewing for a reading and celebration. 1735 Oak St., Kansas City, MO 64108. 5:00–7:00 p.m. Readings by Janice Sapigao, Johannes Goransson, Jon Pitt, Azad Sharma, Emily Lee Luan, and Kevin Holden.
Bad Immigrant Daughters in Fiction and Nonfiction
Thursday, 1:45PM
Room 2211, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level.
Grace Loh Prasad, Monica Macansantos, Lisa Chiu, Lindsay Wong, Madhushree Ghosh
Oops—you married outside your race, didn’t get a high-status job, botched family traditions, moved far away, forgot your mother tongue, spilled family secrets, got divorced, can’t cook, didn’t have children. The list of sins is endless for immigrant daughters who walk a tightrope between assimilating enough to succeed while being judged by the values of their parents’
generation and homeland. These writers reject the model minority myth and portray the drama and humor of living across cultures.
Hybridity and the Case of the Active Reader
Thursday, 3:20PM
Room 2102A, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level.
Clara Burghelea, Felicia Zamora, Lauren Brazeal Garza, Jennifer Militello, Sam Moe
Contemporary writers turn to hybridity to grapple with social upheaval and political uncertainty at this critical time. This panel looks at how poets hybridize their work and teach their readership to dissolve genre borders, while asking for a curious and active response from their audience to the way poetry blurs, disrupts, and alters genres. Authors of recent poetry collections will gather to read work that negotiates hybridity as a creative space through linguistic innovation and inquiry.
Pollen, Rust, Lakes, & Plains: Writing Poems in the Midwest
Friday, 10:35AM
Room 2104B, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level
(Caryl Pagel, Zach Savich, Robin Beth Schaer, Jason Harris, Nicholas Gulig)
How can poetry account for the material conditions of the environment, tethering regional circumstances to questions of conservation, extinction, or the nonhuman? This panel of Midwest poets will consider what forms—ode, mess, palimpsest, somatic, plein air—might best connect a region’s particulars to global transformation. Poets will share experiences of writing their region and useful place-based prompts, texts, or fieldwork for landscapes that combine the urban, industrial, and agricultural.
You Say 'Narrative' Like it's a Bad Thing
Friday, 1:45PM
Room 2210, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level
Sonia Greenfield, Chloe Martinez, Abby E. Murray, Felicia Zamora, Amanda Moore
The term "narrative" has sometimes been used pejoratively to describe poetry that is lacking in innovation, just as "feminine" has been used to describe language that is indirect or internal. This panel challenges these notions, exploring narrative as a radical poetic technique that gives voice to complexity and the lived experience of women. Panelists will discuss how they use storytelling in their poetry, suggest approaches to narrative poetics, and read from their work.
Be Gay, Do Crime: Teaching Queer and Trans Poetics in Dangerous Times
Saturday, 10:35PM
Room 2103A, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level
( Meg Day, Oliver Bendorf, Donika Kelly, Ching-In Chen, Melissa Crowe)
Given our nation’s latest investment in suppressing both bodies and books, what is at stake—newly, historically—in the teaching of queer and trans poetics? Five seasoned poet-educators, working inside the classroom, libraries, and community centers, gather to discuss navigating threats on the poems they teach, the poems they make, and the bodies they occupy as they do both. Panelists will offer experiential commentary and strategies for protecting, generating, and sustaining queer and trans people and poems.