Blog and News
The Moral of Little Miss AWP
Let’s face it — a lot of us like to make fun of AWP. There’s the silly tote bags and overpriced drinks at the hotel bar. The geekish literary panels and readings, intermittently bisected by coffee lines, bathroom lines, and book-signing lines. Then there’s the awkward stroll through the book fair, the inevitable social anxiety it triggers made easier only by the promise of the boozy prom at the end of the day.
This year, the surreal atmosphere of AWP was heightened by a regional youth dance competition simultaneously being held at the Minneapolis Convention Center — and to me, the juxtaposition of dance moms and their bedazzled, spandex-ed little girls against poets and academics who could act as stand-ins on an episode of Portlandia made the whole operation feel a little like “Little Miss AWP.” I can remember observing as I trudged to a 9 am panel on the lyric essay that some of these dance moms seem a helluva lot more committed to their craft than I am to mine.
But in fact, it’s devotion to the craft that brings me to AWP every year — the urge to keep my writing impulse located as much in the professional realm as I can make it, as opposed to a nice little hobby for a stay-at-home mom. Still, my enthusiasm for this year’s gathering was tempered by the aftermath of my decision to publish some of my work, because when you write creative nonfiction like I do, there are usually real people involved in the story. And for me, the very act of transitioning my art and craft from hobby to profession has been labeled as an act of defiance.
I am all too familiar with punishment and the threat of punishment for my actions —which provides some explanation for the confidence issues I have— and this year for AWP, I packed an extra bag of guilt for what I’ve shared. In my hotel room, I poured over the schedule and catalog of panel descriptions to find a remedy for this problem of mine, something to nourish my confidence, resurrect my stalled creative process. And though many of the panels I chose to attend were helpful and good, nothing —no powerpoint presentation, no panel of distinguished academics— was as useful to me as just sitting with my writer peers over a nice glass of wine and sharing our publishing stories.
It should come as no surprise that many of us, whether poets, novelists, or nonfiction writers, have a mother/father/sister/brother or spouse/ex-spouse who is holding our story hostage. And even though I knew that I wasn’t alone, I felt all alone until someone else sat down with me in a quiet part of the restaurant to share their own experience with me. I can tell you first hand: nothing eases the guilt of wrongs committed, the pain of relationships strained than just sitting with another person and talking about how he or she is riding in a similar kind of boat.
And isn’t that what reading and writing is all about? Making those connections so we feel a little less alone in the world? Isn’t that what we’re doing when we allow someone else to read our work?
Of course it is. It just took someone else sharing their story to remind me that it’s okay to share mine, too.
photo credits: “Little Miss Sunshine” (Twentieth Century Fox)
2014 © Mary Heather Noble. Website Design and Development by The Savy Agency.
