Back from Atlanta, where I went partly because the annual AWP Conference was being held there this year, but mainly to run away someplace warmer for a long weekend. I had a wonderful travel companion, Troy, who lived in Atlanta for many years and was able to give me the insider’s tour of hot spots in town. Highlights: our hotel, the Hotel Indigo, and its beachy theme; brunch at Java Jive; the Moroccan feast and the flaming belly dancers (by flaming I mean huge flaming candelabra on their heads); Muriel & Agnes’s (cute southern food restaurant owned by two gay boys who named it after their mothers); the High Museum of Art where I got to see life-sized pear sculpture; and an afternoon at the cafe Arpe Diem with my friend Greg Wrenn who I have not seen in seven years.
Needless to say I skipped most of the conference. I have a love-hate relationship with conferences anyway. The book fair is the best part, and seeing friends and making new ones. The panels are uneven–some are brilliant, others false advertise to be about one thing and turn out to be about something altogether different. The worst of these are the ones that say they will explore a certain set of ideas or themes and then the writers don’t write a paper or essay, they just stand up there and read their work with no context, as if we are simply to write the essay in our heads as to how it fits into the panel’s topic.
Most of the people I had intended to see–(Mark and Paul, Nancy and Rick)–I didn’t. But I did run into many friends and mentors and chance acquaintances at the book fair (Cynthia, Lyrae, Rachel R., to name a few) which is always fun. And got a bunch of free books. Two highlights: the on-line journal Memorious is now publishing limited edition box sets of their issues, starting with the most recent issue, Issue 7. The box sets are gorgeous, to say the least, printed on nice stock watercolor paper, a poem per card, the fiction done accordion style. The other highlight was meeting the folk at Spire Press where I learned Pear Slip is their next title set to be released by next year’s AWP Conference. We talked about ideas for Pear Slip‘s cover, upcoming readings and promotion, and where we all live in NY. As Troy remarked, isn’t it fun to be treated like a rock star?
Next year’s AWP will be here in NYC, and I promise to actually attend.