2014 AWP Conference & Book Fair

Grant:

Lecturers' Professional Development Fund (LPDF)

Academic Year:

2013 - 2014 (June 1, 2013 through May 31, 2014)

Funding Requested:

$740.00

Project Dates:

Tue, 02/25/2014 - Sun, 03/02/2014

Applicant(s):

jcodyw

Overview of the Project:

I'm requesting a grant to help fund my trip to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Seattle. The conference, which runs from February 26 to March 1, 2014, will further my professional development in several key ways. First, I plan to attend a number of panels (on Emily Dickinson, on John Berryman, on the lyric essay) that will encourage me to investigate both my practice (as a poet) and my pedagogy (as a Lecturer). Second, I'm scheduled on the first day of the conference to read from my new poetry manuscript, The Self-Styled No-Child (currently under consideration at the Waywiser Press). Third, I'll have the opportunity to meet with editors from the Waywiser Press (based in London) and Ooligan Press (based in Portland, and publisher of Alive at the Center: An Anthology of Poems from the Pacific Northwest, an anthology I co-edited). Fourth, I'll have the chance to re-establish (or strengthen) ties with many Pacific Northwest poets and educators with whom I once worked or studied. I've attended the AWP Conference for the past five years; I always feel recharged by the experience. A Lecturers' Professional Development Grant would help to counterbalance the conference's one downside: the financial toll it takes on faculty who lack department-sponsored travel support.

Final Report Fields

Project Objectives:

My primary objective was to speak with fellow teachers and poets about the writing life (which includes the teaching of writing). I also wanted to reconnect with journals and presses (e.g., The Kenyon Review, Poetry Northwest, Waywiser Press) that have published my work in the past.

Project Achievements:

I gave two poetry readings at the conference, on the opening and closing nights, and my hope is that the second of those readings, with the Waywiser Press, will lead to the publication of my second poetry collection. I also attended a number of readings and panel presentations, some of which will inform the teaching choices I make in the semesters ahead.

Continuation:

Yes, in that my engagement with pedagogy and poetic practice is continuing. The AWP Conference helps, of course, to sustain that engagement.

Dissemination:

Most of the dissemination will happen under the radar: in tweaks to course syllabuses, in new ideas for classroom conversations. Though I do hope to report soon to my colleagues that my second book is under contract. We'll see.

Advice to your Colleagues:

Attending this year's AWP Conference was helpful to my career in several ways. I was asked at the conference to give a reading in Louisiana next fall; several editors asked me for poems. Better still, the conference rekindled my excitement regarding teaching (I'm on leave this semester, after the birth of my second daughter). When I return to the classroom in the fall, I'll remember some of the conversations that took place in Seattle. So my advice is this: Make yourself available. Go to conferences, to readings, to literary festivals. Engage. And see where the conversations lead you.

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