I’ll Be Signing River Walker and The Other History Books at AWP 2014 in Seattle

Aspen Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor

S166. The Greening of Literature: Eco-Fiction and Poetry to Enlighten and Inspire.
(John Yunker,  JoeAnn
Hart,  Mindy Mejia,  Ann Pancake, 
Gretchen Primack

)
From mountaintop removal to ocean
plastic to endangered species, ecological issues are increasingly on
writers’ minds. Authors on this panel discuss how their ecologically
themed fiction and poetry engages readers in powerful ways that
nonfiction can’t. Panelists discuss writing in these emerging sub-genres
as well as their readers’ responses and offer tips for writing about
the environment in ways that are galvanizing and instructive without
sacrificing creativity to polemics.

Room 302, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3

S254. A Tribute to the Poetry of Raymond Carver.
(Justin Bigos,  Rick
Ryan,  Ashley Reis,  Jynne Dilling Martin,  Carol Sklenicka)

Raymond Carver is widely considered a
master of the short story form, and yet Carver was also, from the time
he began writing in 1957 and until his death in 1988, a poet. Carver’s
partner, Tess Gallagher, describes the poems as the spiritual current
running through the stories. While this is true, the poems also ask to
be reckoned with in their own right. This panel gathers three poets, a
poet/eco-critic, and Carver’s biographer in order to praise the poetry
of Raymond Carver.

Room 613/614, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6

S276. Rounding the Human Corners: Writing the Truth about the Changing World.
(Marybeth Holleman, 
Linda Hogan,  Ann
Fisher-Wirth,  Eva Saulitis,  Juan Carlos Galeano)
Straddling mass extinctions and shifting
ecosystems, how do we write about the more-than-human in a way that
avoids simple metaphor? And how do we write of degradation and
extinction in language that engages the (human) reader and remains
truthful to these “other nations?” Discussing a diversity of approaches
are five authors of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction about horses,
wolves, birch trees, killer whales, polar bears—the depth and range of
the world just beyond our human skin.