… and writers do so by drinking coffee and beer and eating meals and trading stories into the night. Thanks to all who attended or presented at the war lit and veteran writers panels at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in Seattle this past weekend. On the war lit side, I enjoyed meeting and chatting with Brian Turner, Benjamin Busch, Elyse Fenton, Brian Castner, Mariette Kalinowski, Katey Schultz, and Colin and Lauren Halloran. On the academic side, kudos to Ron Capps and Alexis Hart’s presentation “Lead from the Front: Best Practices for Working with Veterans in the Writing Classroom” and everyone on Kathryn Trueblood’s panel “The Soldier’s Perspective: How Creative Writing Serves Vets and They Serve Each Other”: Shawn Wong, Christine Leche, Will Borego, and Clayton Swanson.
I presented with Phil Klay and Hilary Plum on a panel organized by Roy Scranton. Judging by the size of the crowd and the number and quality of questions we received, we did a pretty good job, but if you need more proof, read about Klay’s presentation in this NewYorker.com/online blog posting about “AWP14.”
Or, consult Boston-area author Julian Zabalbeascoa, who flagged me down the day after we presented to tell me how much he enjoyed our panel. AWP being what it is–a writers’ convention–Zabalbeascoa let slip that he was near completion of a novel about the Spanish Civil War, a portion of which appears in the latest Ploughshares. I read his story “498” on the flight home and was so blown away I immediately read it a second time. It’s available online here, so please check it out. In my mind “498” is an excellent example of war fiction that comments on our contemporary wars and war literature obliquely by nominally addressing other wars. Other examples of the form include Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn, about Vietnam, and Toni Morrison’s Home, about the Korean War, and I’ll have more to say about them in posts to come.
Finally, the talk of the conference was a recent N+1 essay titled “MFA vs NYC“ by Chad Harbach. The jist of Harbach’s argument is that the creative writing scene is divided. One camp, so to speak, is spread across the country and aligns itself with the burgeoning and welcoming MFA program and literary magazine market. The other is centered in New York City, Brooklyn specifically, and fights for upward mobility in the ferociously competitive publishing industry there. Ye war writers out there, does this formulation make sense to you???
“Wolves Keep in Touch by Howling” is a poem by Martha Silano that appears in the winter 2013-2014 Ploughshares. Not a war poem, but I like it and the title’s too good to pass up.
A transcript of my presentation, titled “War, Stories: Fact or Fiction”: Molin Seattle AWP. Overlook all typos, please, but comments welcome. Yea, that should be Donovan Campbell, not Donovan Fink, who wrote Joker One, as opposed to Nathaniel Fink, who wrote One Bullet Away.
UPDATE: This essay on AWP14 by Aaron Gilbreath, titled “My Fictional Fantasy: Finally a World Where Writers Matter,” appeared recently on Salon. I think it nicely captures the spirit of the conference from the perspective of one who was skeptical going in, as was I, but found a lot to like about it, as did I.
Time Now: The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Art, Film, and Literature 