Pre-AWP Post: shouting FICTION in a crowded bar

Some of my friends are posting their AWP schedules on facebook, panels they'll be at, readings they're giving, books they'll be signing. I thought I'd take a moment to list a few of the things I'll be doing at AWP.

Deciding the day-of which panels I'm going to. There are a gabillion panels every day. Many of them are interesting. I am not killing myself ahead of time trying to figure out where to be when.

Walking through the book fair like a dazed deer, picking up pens, shot glasses, notepads, post it notes and other swag. Running into people I know and then standing there talking for forty minutes before I get to the table I was trying to find.

Buying Tin House t-shirts for everyone in my family. Hugging every Tin House employee in reach.

Going to the Dzanc table to hug Matt Bell. Because, who wouldn't hug Matt Bell? His avatar is a bear. That says "hug" to me.

Going to the PANK table to congratulate Roxane Gay on being such a fucking rock star.

Shouting I WRITE FICTION to someone at a crowded hotel bar.

Afterparties.

Spending quality time drinking and eating and shopping with my dear friend Shanna Mahin, (whose tag line should be, totally a huge fucking deal) and whom by some tragedy of having all of America between us, I have not seen since 2008.

And finally, telling everyone who asks, or even people who don't ask, that yes, my novel THE SCAMP is forthcoming from Tin House Books.

This kind of Scamp.

cute, but no. 

Confession

Some things that are not in my novel:

• A rooster
• A flamingo as narrator
• Any birds at all
• Footnotes
• Dystopia
• Hybridity*
• Anything thrilling that doesn't come straight from the heart of a character

This might explain why I was so relieved to read this month's Poets and Writers, in which agent Emily Forland speaks about Susanna Daniel's novel, Stiltsville, which was not "narrated by a flamingo, or written in interconnected haiku."

Because these are the things I worry about, you know, when I'm not worrying about all the other stuff, like laundry, who is or isn't smoking weed, and who happens to be dating the most popular girl in school.

*I totally want to read this.