“The artist deals in what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976) Continuing the theme of AWP 2014 highlights, the final session I attended was “A Reading …
The book fair consumed most of my first day at AWP 2014, but I do want to write briefly about one very worthwhile session from Friday morning: “Fiction, Memoir, and the University Press.” Moderator Alden Jones and panelists Ladette Randolph, Douglas Bauer, and Raphael Kadushin discussed their experiences as authors and editors at university presses, specifically the University …
Dead as a doornail. We’ve all heard the cliche, but what does reading it do to your brain? According to some neuroscience research, not much. In the AWP 2013 session “This Is Your Brain on Fiction,” Susan Hubbard discussed the 2012 New York Times article, “Your Brain on Fiction,” which references several recent studies of …
As I wait to leave for the airport, taking advantage of the free WiFi in the hotel lobby, I’m going to spend about 15 minutes trying to gather my general thoughts on the AWP conference. This will be an unedited rough draft, so here goes (I will write in more detail about some of the …
Walking into the AWP conference center this morning, I was reminded of why I fell in love with this conference last year. As I walked with another attendee who was looking for the registration area, we talked a bit about memoirs, and I mentioned that I am working on writing about the experience of reading …