AWP Day 3: And So It Goes

I almost always get a lot out of AWP, but honestly, some years are better than others. This was a particularly good year. In spite of a few duds, which are inevitable, the panels I went to had a seriousness about them, the feeling that, unlike in previous years, the partcipants weren’t speaking off the top of their head.

I only went to one panel on Saturday, but it was a good one–the New MFA. Old programs that have reconfigured themselves and new programs that have figured out that if they are going add themselves to the 750 plus BFA and MFA programs they had better make themselves more useful. Panelists included Emerson College, which is really doing some interesting things, and a program with an environmental bent, Iowa State.

Throughout this trip, my husband has been reading a In My Father’s Footsteps by Sebastian Matthews and really enjoying it. So who would I practically walk into after leaving the first panel but. . .Sebastian Matthews. I wish it had been my husband instead of me but I took the opportunity to gush about how much he enjoyed the book. Matthews was very gracious and said that men especially seem to relate to it since it concerns his relationship with this father, the poet William Matthews.

And the rest? Bookfair, bookfair, bookfair. Pictures below. Art Institute. Great Bill Peet exhibit–my older son was a huge Bill Peet fan at one time. Dinner with our ULL friends, Tamara and Jim who teach in Florida now. It is always so great to see them. Party at Anna Leahy’s family pied’terre in the “Marina” (see my pictures from the 54th floor!). And finally, watching a taping of Selected Shorts, the highlight of which as finding out what Isiaih Sheffer looks like and hearing Carver’s “Cathedral” read aloud for the first time.

Today we are home-bound, where I am looking forward to getting back to my real life, to the world of math chunk tests and school runs and bedtime cuddles and revisiting the world of Harry Potter, which my youngest has discovered at last.

Enjoy the pictures.
Bye y’all.
SV

Letterpress at the book fair.

Northwest Hall of the Book Fair

Book mutilation at its finest.

Bill Peet

The view from the 54th floor.

Isaiah Scheffer, folks

BD Wong.