GODDARD COLLEGE COMMUNITY
Events @ AWP Portland, 2019
Join the Goddard Community at AWP’s 2019 conference in Portland, OR!
- From March 27-30, 2019, Goddard College faculty, staff, and student and alumni volunteers will be on hand to represent our Creative Writing programs at the Goddard Booth: # 3063 in the Oregon Convention Center.
- Our Goddard College Reception will be held Friday, March 29, 6-8pm, at the Columbia River Brewing Company, 1728 NE 40th Ave, Portland, OR 97212. http://www.columbiariverbrewpub.com/home/
In addition, members of the Goddard community will be speaking at 14 events at AWP this year! If you’re planning to attend the conference, please come to one or all of these events and show your support.
Here is our very own Goddard@AWP schedule:
THURSDAY, MARCH 28
1. Andrew Pederson and Craig Thornton, Goddard College MFAW-VT Alumni, with Deborah Jordan
Event Title: Playwriting for Novelists
Does your novel or story feel like it needs to be on the stage? At a loss for how to make the leap? This workshop outlines the basic playwriting principles you will need to take your prose to script. We will cover the key issues of transferability, formatting, structure, dialogue, characters, and pacing. We will give you the tools to take your book from the private pleasure of reading to the communal and dynamic experience of live theatre.
Scheduled Day: Thursday
Scheduled Time: 9:00 am to 10:15 am
Scheduled Room: F149, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
2. Sassafras Lowrey, Goddard College MFAW-WA Student, with Michelle Tea, Tania De Rozario, Lori Horvitz, Mike McClelland
Event Title: Assimilate This!: Queer Literary Community as Sites of Mobilizing and Resistance
From queer bookstores, to poetry readings in bars, underground zine readings and drag queens reading picture books to toddlers in public libraries- books and literature are a site of mobilization and belonging for LGBTQ communities in the US and Singapore. Authors, writers and literary event organizers will discuss strategies to organizing successful events with focus on inclusion and diversity of queer voices across age/race/gender/sexuality/class/ability.
Scheduled Day: Thursday
Scheduled Time: 10:30:AM–11:45:AM
Scheduled Room: Portland Ballroom 251, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
3. Sherri L. Smith, Goddard College MFAW-VT Faculty, with Shanetia Clark, Todd Mitchell, Eliot Schrefer
Event Title: Surfing the Green Wave: Engaging Environmental & Social Issues for Young Readers
Stories shape the way we think and act. In this interactive panel, three award-winning middle grade and young adult authors will discuss how they’ve sought to engage wicked problems like climate change, species extinction, and income inequality through fiction. They’ll explore how literature is changing to address new problems, what lies beyond apocalyptic fiction, and the challenges of effectively engaging the generation that’s inheriting global problems on an unprecedented scale.
Scheduled Day: Thursday
Scheduled Time: 10:30 am to 11:45 am
Scheduled Room: C125-126, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
4. Sherri L. Smith, Goddard College MFAW-VT Faculty, with Cecil Castellucci, Eliot Schrefer , Carrie Arcos, Swati Avashti
Event Title: Companioning Loss: The Role of Children’s Books in Difficult Times
A young reader writes to an author, “Before I read your book, I thought I was alone.” An author asks “What book do we write for that child living in the back seat of a dark world?” From death to divorce, books have always helped young people grieve and find the way forward by mirroring and legitimizing their feelings. In these times of heightened crisis, such companionship is needed more than ever. Kid lit authors discuss writing books as witness, bibliotherapy, and lights in the darkness.
Scheduled Day: Thursday
Scheduled Time: 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Scheduled Room: C125-126, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
5. Kim Brown, MFAW-WA Alumna with Lisa Factora-Borchers, Amy King, Lauren Hook
Event Title: Women Editors on the Power of Change
Female, feminist, and womanist editors from a variety of contexts discuss the perceived and real power they hold and how they wield their actual power for a more just publishing environment. With experience across book publishing, literary magazines, a popular culture magazine, freelancing, and VIDA, which supports gender representation in media, these editors discuss the trials and joys of working for a more gender and racially diverse publishing world within a range of boundaries and purposes.
Scheduled Day: Thursday
Scheduled Time: 3:00:PM–4:15:PM
Scheduled Room: A106, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
6. Aimee Liu, Goddard College MFAW-WA Faculty, with JoBeth McDaniel, Pamela Johnson, Cai Emmons, Douglas Manuel
Event Title: Everything We Wish We Had Known Before Applying to Grad School
MFA or MA or Ph.D.? Low-residency or traditional? Thousands of applicants face a confusing array of program choices. How can a prospective student find the right fit? What are the most important criteria, and what’s the best way to pay for school? We’ll cover scholarships, fellowships, and private funding, along with other important lessons we’ve learned, both as grad students and professors who are also published poets, authors, and filmmakers.
Scheduled Day: Thursday
Scheduled Time: 4:30:PM–5:45:PM
Scheduled Room: D137-138, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
FRIDAY, MARCH 29
1. Simone John, Goddard College MFAW-WA Alumna
Event: AWP Book signing
| Scheduled Day: FridayScheduled Time: 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM Scheduled Room: Octopus Books/Fonograf Editions, Exhibit Space #4058 |
2. Frankie Rollins, Goddard College MFAW-VT Alumna, with Julia Cohen, Paul Martinez, Valerie Pell, David Campos)
Event Title: Beyond Worker Bees: The Value of Creative Writing in Community College
Community colleges funnel most students into programs that have “economic value” but little room for creativity or experimentation. We will discuss the radical supposition that incorporating creative writing & workshop pedagogy into core community college curriculum has tremendous value on personal & professional levels, naturally leading to enhanced economic opportunities. We will consider innovative approaches like service-learning & digital pedagogy that foster students’ identities as writers.
with Julia Cohen, Frankie Rollins, Paul Martinez, Valerie Pell, David Campos
Scheduled Day: Friday
Scheduled Time: 12:00pm – 1:15pm
Location: B116, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
3. Sassafras Lowrey, Goddard College MFAW-WA Student, with Shelley Marlow, Jacq Greyja, Tiff Ferentini, Blanche Boyd
Event Title: Both, Neither, and Something Else Entirely: Genderqueer Writers & Writing
Genderqueer writers investigate the pleasures, joys and challenges of writing and publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more outside of the gender binary.We’ll explore: navigating use of non-binary pronouns (they/theirs, ze/hir, and more) in text, professional misgendering of authors as well as characters, queering the boundaries and norms of publishing, challenges and opportunities that small and independent publishing offer non- binary writers, and the importance of representation.
Scheduled Day: Friday, 3/29/2019
Scheduled Time: 1:30:PM–2:45:PM
Scheduled Room: F150, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
3. Charles Rice-González, Goddard College MFAW-VT Alumnus
Event Title: Preaching Beyond the Choir: The Value of Creative Writing Outside the Major
This panel considers what best to offer a student if given one shot, one class, to make creative writing relevant in the student’s day-to-day life. Panelists will share diverse approaches to the classroom that expose students to ways of viewing both written work, and the world around them, as spaces that can be shifted and enhanced through creative effort. They will engage in a discussion on the importance of exposure and representation, aspiration and a writer’s brass tacks.
Scheduled Day: Friday
Scheduled Time: 1:30:PM–2:45:PM
Scheduled Room: B114, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
*** Goddard College Reception***
Scheduled Day: Friday, March 29 2019
Scheduled Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Scheduled Location:
Columbia River Brewing Company, 1728 NE 40th Ave, Portland, OR 97212
4. Sarah Townsend, Goddard College MFAW-WA Alumna
Event Title: The Lettered Streets Press Off-site Reading/ Launch of Sarah Townsend’s forthcoming book Setting the Wire: A Memoir of Postpartum Psychosis
Scheduled Day: Friday, March 29 2019
Scheduled Time: 6:00 pm
Scheduled Location: Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St
Portland, OR 97211
5. Sassafras Lowrey, Goddard College MFAW-WA Student
Event: Off-site reading
Scheduled Day: Friday evening
Scheduled Time: 7-9pm
Scheduled Location: Psychic Sister store
1829 NE Alberta St. (entrance on 19th)
Portland, OR 97211
SATURDAY, MARCH 30
- Andrew Pederson and Craig Thornton, Goddard College MFAW-VT Alumni, with Deborah Jordan
Event Title: How to Write a Play: The Basics
This workshop is designed for writers who would like to try their hand at writing at play and have never done so before. This panel of award-winning and produced playwrights will take you through the basics of plot, character, and dialogue, along with showing you tips and tricks on how to format your script. Panelists will cover everything from 10-minute plays to full lengths to one-person shows. We will also answer that important question “What next?” after you have your completed script in hand.
Scheduled Day: Saturday
Scheduled Time: 9:00 am to 10:15 am
Scheduled Room: A103-104, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
2. Aimee Liu, Goddard College MFAW-WA Faculty, with Janice Gary, Sue William Silverman, Reyna Grande, Karen Salyer McElmurray
Event Title: The World Splitting Open: From Memoir to #MeToo
What would happen, Muriel Rukeyser asked, if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. Women writers began telling the truth about their lives in the 1990’s, writing memoirs about previously off limits subjects such as rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment. Despite criticism by the literary establishment, they persisted. The world began splitting open. We’ll discuss the role women’s memoir has played in one of the most significant social movements of our time.
Scheduled Day: Saturday
Scheduled Time: 10:30:AM–11:45:AM
Scheduled Room: B117-119, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
3. Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Goddard College MFAW-VT Faculty, with Amy Wheeler, Shobha Rao, Hannah Tinti, Victoria Redel
Event Title: Hedgebrook Voices Rising
Hedgebrook’s global community of women authoring change comes together for readings of alumnae work across genre, generation, and geography. Come celebrate Hedgebrook’s thirtieth anniversary, enjoy hearing work by women writers in its community, and join a conversation about the movement for equal voice in the cultural conversation.
Scheduled Day: Saturday
Scheduled Time: 3:00:PM–4:15:PM
Scheduled Room: F152, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
4. Goddard College Alumni Deborah Finklestein–MFAW-VT; Charles Rice-Gonzalez–MFA-VT, with Robert McKenzie
Event Title: All the World’s Stage: Using Short Plays to Increase Diversity
Short plays and monologues are a beacon to integrate diversity and poetics to the YouTube generation’s short attention spans. Like short stories, short plays offer strong characterization and narrative while providing a theatrical experience. By reading shorts, students are exposed to a broad spectrum of perspectives, increasing empathy and understanding. Panelists will also discuss writing short drama as a method to explore craft, challenge biases and give voice to underrepresented students.
Scheduled Day: Saturday
Scheduled Time: 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM
Scheduled Room: E146, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
For more general info about the AWP conference, please visit: https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/overview