AWP16 | The Conium Review

Caitlin Scarano’s Best Bets for AWP 2016

Mar 20, 2016

The annual AWP Conference includes over 550 readings, lectures, and panels from more than 2,000 presenters; a bookfair with over 800 presses, journals, and other organizations; and several of off-site events and shindigs each night. The gigantic scale of the AWP Conference can be a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, Caitlin Scarano has some suggestions that can get your itinerary offer to a good start. She highlights a few of her top choices for panels, off-site events, and bookfair tables/booths.

Panels

Thursday 10:30-11:45AM: There and Back Again: Writing from the Road (R150) – Room 410, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level. (Erika Krouse, Kai Carlson-Wee, Kim Barnes, Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, Maggie Shipstead).

Thursday 1:30-2:45PM: The Violence of the Page (R210) – Room 403 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level. (Lucy Corin, Maggie Nelson, Brian Evenson, Ben Weissman, Fred D’Aguiar).

Friday 10:30-11:45AM: Black Bodies Matter (F162) – Room 515 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level. (Patricia Smith, Justin Phillip Reed, Susan Somers-Willett, Adriana Ramirez, Jonah Mixon-Webster).

Friday at 12-1:15PM: Beyond Confession: Women’s Writing and a Radical Poetics of the Personal (F171) – AWP Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall Level One. (Dorothea Lasky, Amber Rose Tamblyn, Rachel McKibbens, Deborah Landau, Ada Limón).

Saturday at 1:30-2:45PM: The Unbearable Too-Whiteness of Workshop (S231) – Room 515 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level. (Joshua Robbins, V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan, F. Douglas Brown, Laura McCullough).

Off-site events

ELJ and OMP Literary Showcase: Thursday, March 31st 5 PM – 7 PM at Ham & Eggs Tavern. Join us for a night of poetry and prose by authors from ELJ Publications and Orange Monkey Publishing. Readers include: Steve Westbrook, S. Marie Clay, Aaron Reeder, Ruben Rodriguez, Cindy Rinne, Michael Cooper, Zack Bean, Katie Cortese, E. Kristin Anderson, Allie Marini, Lawrence Eby and Jessica Walsh. This one is free and open to the public!

Breakfast Club: AWP off-site Reading w/ ccr, Devils Lake, and Meridian: Thursday, March 31st 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM at Ham and Eggs Tavern. Right after the ELJ and OMP Literary Showcase, so just stick around! Presented by Writ Large Press. Readings include, for cream city review: Matthew Olzmann, Sueyeun Juliette Lee; for Devils Lake: Vievee Francis, Tahnee Salkey; and for Meridian: Michael Schmeltzer, Aimee Mepham. No door charge/cover. Rumor has it there might be free drinks, so get there early!

Button Poetry + YesYes Books Reading: Saturday, April 2nd 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM at Art Share-LA. YesYes Bøøks & Button Poetry are teaming up at AWP 2016 in Los Angeles to showcase some of our amazing authors! The show will feature performances by: Danez Smith Aziza, Barnes, Ocean Vuong, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Tanya Olson, J. Scott Brownlee, Jamie Mortara, Cam Awkward-Rich, andJonterri Gadson. Doors 6:30. Show 7:00. $5 at the door (50% of proceeds go to the Los Angeles Youth Network (LAYN)). The venue will have beer & wine available for purchase. Two of my favorite presses — not to be missed!

Tables and Booths

Artsmith – Table # 1610

Bellingham Review – Table # 1606

The Conium Review – Table # 1238. Stop by on Thursday from 3:00 PM – 4:00PM to pick up a free copy of my flash fiction micro-chap and have it signed!

Indiana Review – Table # 1625

University of Alaska Press and Permafrost Magazine – # 1221

Book signings at The Conium Review’s AWP Conference table

Mar 18, 2016

The Conium Review will be exhibiting at the 2016 AWP Conference, and we’re featuring three signings at our table. We’re located at table number 1238, and we hope you’ll swing by to meet these talented authors. Please share the details invite others to the Facebook event pages for each event. We hope to see you there!

Caitlin Scarano — Thursday, March 31st, 2016, 3:00pm to 4:00pm

Caitlin will be signing copies of her Conium Press micro-chapbook, Pitcher of Cream. This story won our 2015 flash fiction contest, judged by Laura Ellen Joyce, author of The Luminol Reels and The Museum of Atheism. Pitcher of Cream is also scheduled to be anthologized in the Best Small Fictions 2016 (forthcoming from Queens Ferry Press). Laura Ellen Joyce calls Pitcher of Cream “haunting and beautiful.” Copies of this micro-chapbook are free during the signing! We’ve done a limited-run of just 50 copies, so be sure to snag one for free while supplies last. Find this event on Facebook.

Carmiel Banasky — Friday, April 1st, 2016, 4:15 to 5:00pm

Carmiel Banasky will be signing her Dzanc Books novel, The Suicide of Claire Bishop, directly after The Conium Review‘s innovative fiction panel. Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, calls Carmiel’s book “Daring, precise, and linguistically acrobatic,” and Publishers Weekly says The Suicide of Claire Bishop is “A memorable, intricate, and inventive debut. . . . both an intellectual tour de force and a moving reflection on the ways we try to save ourselves and others.” Find this event on Facebook.

William VanDenBerg — Saturday, April 2nd, 2016, 2:00pm to 3:00pm

William VanDenBerg will be signing copies of Lake of Earth (Caketrain Press) and Apostle Islands (Solar Luxuriance). Brandon Hobson, author of Deep Ellum, says Lake of Earth is “a terrific and daring book, and Michael Kimball, author of Big Ray, says “William VanDenBerg writes so much story into so few lines that it’s easy to get lost in these bright fictions.” Find this event on Facebook.

2016 AWP Panel: “What the Heck Does Innovative Fiction Actually Mean?”

Nov 3, 2015

The 2016 AWP Conference schedule is now available. The Conium Review is pleased to be presenting an informal talk on innovative fiction. The panel is called “What the Heck Does Innovative Fiction Actually Mean?: Authors Cut Through the Jargon.” It’s scheduled for Friday, April 1st at 3:00pm on the Scott James Bookfair Stage.

Panelists include Carmiel Banasky, Ashley Farmer, Lindsay Hunter, and Stephen Graham Jones. James R. Gapinski moderates.

Carmiel Banasky is a writer and teacher from Portland, OR. Her debut novel, The Suicide of Claire Bishop, confronts the portrayals of mental illness in art. After earning her MFA from Hunter College, Carmiel spent four years on the road at writing residencies. She now teaches creative writing in LA.

Ashley Farmer is the author of the short fiction collection Beside Myself and two forthcoming poetry collections: The Women and The Farmacist. A former editor forAtomica, Salt Hill, and other publications, she currently coedits Juked.

Lindsay Hunter is the author of the novel Ugly Girls, which the Huffington Post called “a story that hits a note that’s been missing from the chorus of existing feminist literature.” She is also the author of the flash fiction story collections Don’t Kiss Me and Daddy’s.

Stephen Graham Jones is the author of fifteen novels, five collections, and more than two hundred short stories. More forthcoming.

James R. Gapinski is managing editor of The Conium Review. His fiction has appeared in Lunch Ticket, NANO Fiction, Cheap Pop, Word Riot, and elsewhere.

Be sure to stop by The Conium Review‘s table during the 2016 AWP Conference too. We’ll have discounted books for sale, a free micro-chapbook, and other swag. We’re at table #1238. The full map and list of exhibitors is available here.