On AWP

This year I attended the Association of Writers and Writing Progams' Convention(AWP) in New York. It was the first time I went to it, or for that matter anything like it. I had been looking forward to going well in advanced, yet it still managed to meet and surpass my expectations. At AWP I expected to learn new ideas about writing, meet the several authors speaking there on panels that I was a fan of as well as finding out about a few I'd never heard of, learn about opportunities for transfering to other schools for creative writing programs, and about possible careers in that field (I'm going to try to write that bestselling novel, but a back up plan is probably a good idea).
Quite a few of the panels I attended at AWP were well done and I learnt a good deal about craft from them. I found learning about other universities to transfer to a bit more difficult. Where as the convention was full of panel lectures on various aspects of writing it didn't provide such a straightforward approach to learning about creative writing programs at other schools. There was a large bookfare at AWP with tables from various universities across the country and a few from around the world. Some of the people working these tables were very friendly, but there were also those who couldn't care less about selling you on their college. I found this made it somewhat frustrating to learn about other universities, but I'll focus more on that in a later post.
One of the best things about AWP was just being in a creative enviroment. It's hard for me to articulate just what I mean, but there is something about being surrounded by other creative beings that makes it easier to write. It's the same kind of energy I can sometimes get out of creative writing clubs or workshops or out of a good creative writing class. They are creating and so I want to create. Like I said, I can't really explain it, but I spent a good deal of my spare moments, between panels or whenever I had a free minute, writing longhand in the black spiralbound notebook that was my constant companion throughout the convention. It was just nice to be somewhere where I wasn't worrying about life, school, and the usual stresses of normalcy, and felt like writing.
There was also something nice about going somewhere where I didn't feel like a fool telling people I was a writer. When people ask what I want to do when I "grow up" I usually say in a hushed voice, "I want to be a writer," and hope they don't hear and don't care enough to ask again, so I don't have to go into further detail with people who are still going to be skeptical about what I have said, no matter how I justify it.
As I said, AWP went above and beyond the expectations I had for it. I felt it was a good enviroment for any writer, aspiring or otherwise, to be in and would highly recommend that anyone who can attend it in the future does so. Next year it will take place in Chicago, which is a good deal further away than New York but still a lot closer than a lot of places that it could possibly be.