A Warning Pertaining to the Weather

Dear Weather,

It has been so lovely getting to know the Chicago side of you.  I love the variety of four distinct seasons and the endless ways you inform my daily dialogue.  I loved each walk along the lake, the crunch of falling leaves, the sprinkled layer of salt, all of it is just so nice.

 But you know what is NOT nice?  Thirty mile an hour wind is not nice.  Lake Shore Drive under water is not nice. Impending storms and severe weather from Sheboygan to Oklahoma City IS NOT NICE!

So listen close, weather, DO NOT flex your muscles this Wednesday.  The Roosevelt MFA program, MUST get to DC and the AWP conference.  And if you get in the way of that plan, well we will just write terrible demonizing creative nonfiction portraits of you.  Be afraid.  They will all be published.

Warmest Regards,
RUMFA
Look for us at Booth #116! AWP or bust!

Support RUMFA student Heather Cox as she spreads the good word(s)!

Forget being a full time student, Heather Cox is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Ghost Ocean Magazine. This online literary magazine publishes writing that is clever, surprising, engaging and downright fun to read. Today marks the launch of Issue 2, which features poetry from Susan Slaviero, flash fiction from Cee Martinez, an interview with Chicago independent press Featherproof's Christian Tebordo, and two micro reviews of Featherproof's Patrick Somerville's short story collection The Universe in Miniature in Miniature. Feast your eyes!

Want to get involved? Ghost Ocean is launching a Kickstarter campaign to help them get to the 2011 AWP Conference in Washington, D.C.. Donations will be used to obtain a book fair table--where they will hand out lots of Ghost Ocean goodies, and have the magazine available for browsing. Pledges of $5 and up will all be met with fun, creative rewards! The Kickstarter is open for donations until 1:00 AM on December 1st.

Check out Issue 2, donate some of that pocket change, and look for Ghost Ocean and other Roosevelt affiliated writing at AWP 2011.

Everything You Need To Know About the AWP Conference

We're lucky at Roosevelt. Next week, the 2009 AWP Conference will descend upon the Chicago Hilton, and we'll be in the midst of it all.

Here's just a little preview of what to expect:

(In case you don't know, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference and bookfair is an annual gathering of authors, publishers, MFA programs, and publications. It's like a Comic-Con for Lit Buffs, packed full of seminars, readings, speeches by people you'd never get a chance to see anywhere else, and SWAG, of course.)

Wednesday

From noon to 7:00pm, you can pick up your registration badges on the lower level of the Chicago Hilton, which grants you access to all the fun. Even if you haven't pre-registered, there will be badges for sale.

Thursday

Let slip the dogs of war. The labyrinthine bookfair opens at 8:30am (check out this massive list of exhibitors and try not to drool), including our very own Roosevelt MFA booth.

Starting at 9:00am, there will be over 100 seminars on everything you could possibly ask for: memoirs, Jewish poetry, getting published, the influence of hip-hop on literature, writing your first novel, you name it. Click here for the day's full schedule.

Featured Presenters

At 10:30am, Charles Baxter talks about writing in multiple genres (event R132).

At noon, Stuart Dybek and Aleksandar Hemon speak on urban settings (event R142), while Dorothy Allison discusses gay regionalism (event R143).

At 1:30pm, Charles Baxter, CJ Hribal, Wang Ping, Scott Russell Sanders, Sun Yung Shin, Luis Urrea, and Barrie Jean Borich will be part of the Loft Mentor Series Reading (event R160),

At 3:00pm, CJ Hribal talks about landscape in narrative (event R187), while Tyehimba Jess, Roger Sedarat, and Achy Obejas discuss writing outside of American culture (event R180).

At 4:30pm, catch a reading by Eric Bogosian (event R199) or Tyehimba Jess (event R209), or hear Haki Madhubuti talk about founding his own press.

After Dark

At 7:30pm, head over to Roosevelt's glorious Auditorium Theatre for the conference's keynote address by none other than Art Spiegelman, author of the Pulitzer-winning graphic novel Maus.

If that's not enough, head back over to the Hilton's third-floor Waldorf room around 10:00pm for the AWP Public Reception and Dance Party, where you'll find DJ Neza and free beer and wine. Read that again; it isn't a typo.

Friday

The bookfair's back, as are the hundred-something seminars ranging from contract advice, working with editors, teaching creative writing, gay and lesbian lit, writing historical fiction, and comics. Click here for Friday's sched.

Featured Presenters

At 10:30am, editor Kim Addonizio talks about compiling anthologies (event F120).

At noon, Major Jackson and Paul Muldoon talk about a writer's role in society (event F138).

At 1:30pm, Kwame Dawes, Valzhyna Mort, Brian Turner, and Katja Esson speak on traumatic poetry (event F156). Scott Blackwood will also preview his new novel, We Agreed To Meet Just Here (event F167).

At 3:00pm, catch a reading by Frank Bidart and Mary Jo Bang (event F175), or head to the National Book Award reading featuring Aleksandar Hemon, Marilynne Robinson, Bharati Mukherjee (event F174).

At 4:30pm, catch a reading with Kim Addonizio, David Yezzi, Molly Peacock, David Mason, and Andrew Hudgins (event F193).

After Dark

After you grab dinner, head north on Michigan Ave to Roosevelt's Gage Gallery, where program director and author Scott Blackwood will celebrate the release of his AWP award-winning novel, We Agreed To Meet Just Here, at 8:30pm with a reading, jazz, and adult beverages.

Then, if you didn't get enough dancing and free drinks on Thursday, head back to the Hilton for round two.

Saturday

Make your last run through the bookfair, and sit in on topics like writing young adult fiction, breaking genre boundaries, online lit mags, bad poems by great writers, translations, and writing in the Windy City. Here's Saturday's full schedule.

Featured Presenters

At 10:30am, Wang Ping discusses writing about mothers (event S124), while Haki Madhubuti talks about African Diaspora writers (event S136).

At noon, Haki Madhubuti speaks on Black Literature (event S139), while Kwame Dawes speaks on his cultural responsibilities as a poet (event S149), and Barrie Jean Borich discusses writing in the Midwest (event S143). Dorothy Allison also speaks on writing as a woman (event S140).

At 1:30pm, Honor Moore, Nick Flynn, Donald Hall, and Carolyn Forche talk about writing memoirs as a poet (event S158).

At 3:00pm, catch a reading by Paul Muldoon and a conversation with Alice Quinn (event S177), or a reading by Major Jackson (event S180), or Stuart Dybek (event S176). Frank Bidart will also read from the work of Elizabeth Bishop (event S173).

At 4:30pm, catch a reading by Naeem Murr (event S194), Charles Baxter (event S195), or Andrew Hudgins (event S193).

After Dark

AWP ends with a blast: celebrated actors B.D. Wong, Rita Wolf, and Isaiah Sheffer lend their talents to the reading of new short fiction. And don't forget DJ Neza and the free drinks again.

Scott Blackwood's Novel Now Available

We Agreed To Meet Just Here, the AWP award-winning novel by Scott Blackwood (our very own director), hit the bookshelves this week and is now available on Amazon. Published by New Issues Press, Blackwood's novel is "a lyrical mystery about disappearance, told in precise and luminous prose."

We Agreed To Meet Just Here has already garnered some good reviews in Texas Monthly and My San Antonio. Here's what others have to say:

"Extravagantly beautiful and yet offhand, We Agreed to Meet Just Here sweeps us along with its lush, hypnotic prose. Each of its characters is drawn to the illusion of forbidden perfection, the belief that the darkness, absence, and silence from which babies arrive and into which the dead enter is numinous proof our every wish will be fulfilled. As readers, we see what Scott Blackwood’s characters can’t see: a world so perfectly wrought every small gesture or urge matters."  --Debra Monroe, author of Shambles

"This little gem of a book puts on lush display Scott Blackwood's talent for measuring and connecting the previously un-connectable in lived experience, and making of it an entirely new whole which we immediately accept as true, natural, exhilarating, even inevitable. He is a lovely sentence writer, and this first novel sparkles with invention." --Richard Ford

Scott Blackwood will be reading an excerpt from We Agreed To Meet Just Here during the AWP Conference next week, on Friday, February 13th in Roosevelt's Gage Gallery. More details soon.