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Chapman representing at last year’s AWP conference. Photo by: AWP Staff

Next week, graduate students and faculty from the English Department of Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences will descend upon Washington D.C. along with 12,000 other authors, poets, students, teachers, editors, and publishers for the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference. From February 8-11, 14 current MFA Creative Writing students and 9 MFA Creative Writing alumni will attend specialty panels with topics ranging from pedagogy to podcasts, from advice for Ph.D. programs to boutique publishers, keynote speeches, readings, book signings, craft lectures, and the AWP Gala.

Last year’s event had over 2,000 presenters spread across various events, and as this is the 50th anniversary of the conference it is sure to be even more jam-packed with excitement. In addition to attending countless panels and lectures, attendees can wander the Bookfair where over 800 exhibitors, including independent literary presses and journals, creative writing programs, writing conferences and centers, and literary arts organizations, all gather to create the nation’s largest marketplace of its type. Our own faculty will be signing books on Saturday, February 11th from 12-2 p.m. Chapman professors Richard Bausch, James P. Blaylock, Anna Leahy, and Tom Zoellner will be at Chapman University’s booth (#319) to meet conference attendees and sign books.

We’ll also be distributing copies of the most recent issue of TAB at the Chapman University booth, with 200 copies available there, and 400 copies of TAB will be given away at the AWP Gala. It will be the first-ever Gala raising funds for the mentorship program, and coincidentally TAB is running a feature of mentors & mentees from the program.

Chapman University is proud to be a major sponsor of the 2017 AWP conference, and we wish all of our travelers the best as they represent our school at this prestigious event.

More information can be found at: https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/overview