Anyone (Babies included) want to do a panel at AWP next year? Proposals are due by the end of April (this April), but the proposal is a simple task -- 500 word description, quick panelist bios, no biggie. The panels are limited to six people, I think. Any of you working at a college or university can probably get a few hundred dollars, if not more, to pay for airfare/hotels and all that (adjuncts CAN get funding sometimes, too). AWP itself does NOT provide funding, and you'd have to register for the conference, which is fairly steep, but it's a great chance to meet smart people and also party with them and with me and with each other and all that fun stuff.
So anyone in?
And what should we yak about?
I've got a few ideas, but anything goes. And to be honest, we could probably do an intelligent regurgitation of some of the threads we've had here on Earth Goat. It's that simple.
10 comments:
I have coverage + photos from the AWP conference in Vancouver up on my site today. Come check it out.
personally, i would go to any panel that you guys were on!
blog on, The Happy Booker
Sounds super cool -- I'd love to do it. I'm giving papers at two legal conferences this month (D.C. and Phoenix), and it's been really fun. I bet I can get the lawschool to give me some money.
The one thing I've learned so far -- conferences love the powerpoint.
I would like to do it, despite my total lack of qualifications. I love Austin! I love Earth Goats! I love Babies!
I have a good friend in Austin and a department chair I could probably beg a ticket from, so I'd be down with some panel action. If we can get a few people interested, I'd be willing to commit. Any panel ideas?
This is looking good already. We're not full-up, but that's four (?) of us.
Would you guys be interested in having a panel discussion on the "American" part of American Literature? We could look at oldies (Melville, Whitman, and of course kclou could take on FSFitzy), but mainly we'd look at authors like DFWallace and DeLillo and whomever else anyone wants to talk about, to see how writers write "America" into their works, our own experiences with similar attempts, and why this nationalist preoccupations in literature are good, bad, etc.
I read a Russell Banks essay a few years ago that decried our lack of a "defining" national literature (The Aeneid/Italy & Homer/Greece being the examples Banks gave, as I recall). My idea would be an exploration of his complaint -- NOT trying to define The Great American Novel so much as looking at how writers have focused on "America" in their works and the effects/ineffects of this.
Does this sound interesting? Dumb? Other ideas?
I think that sounds super cool.
What about Rob? (not to be confused with the stellar Bill Murray vehicle, What About Bob?) And Paula? Who else has a department budget to fly down on?
And, as a side note, my favorite restaurant of all time is in Austin. I suggest we go often.
Is your favorite restaurant Guero's? That's mine. I also like Curra's.
Fonda San Miguel!
So I need to wait until we have a fairly committed group to submit a proposal (I'll need quick bios from everyone, for example) -- but Al . . er, El Gordo, would you want to email Rob about this?
Anyone else?
Tentative panelists:
kclou
ser
el gordo
dunkeys
Keep me posted!
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