![]() “I Dissent, Do You?” is a coordinated effort by writers Danya Kufkafka, Danielle Lazarin, and Celeste Ng to use our freedom of speech to speak to our elected officials during AWP 2017. Start planning what you’d like to write to your representatives, and then grab a postcard and write it. Relax and learn about our organizations: Lambda Literary Foundation, LGBTQ Writers Caucus, CantoMundo.įind people with buttons, or go to the Kaya Press Booth (#115) or VIDA Lit table (#464) Toast another successful AWP with the return of the Social Justice Mixer! Connect with other writers focused on social justice and inclusion. Scarlet Oak Room, Marriott Marquis, Mezzanine Level, 6:30pm May our candlelight vigil February 11 provide encouragement and focus to our watch in the coming years. As the nation’s poets and writers, editors and critics, we have a unique and vital obligation to stand watch over free speech and expression. This basic freedom is threatened in new ways and with more intensity than in recent memory. We invite writers assembled in DC for AWP to a Candlelight Vigil for Freedom of Expression. ![]() Speakers include Kazim Ali, Gabrielle Bellot, Melissa Febos, Carolyn Forché, Ross Gay, Luis J. On Saturday night, Split This Rock, along with a flurry of cosponsors, is hosting a candlelight vigil for free speech. We have the right to walk in and speak to them.” They spend the money, they pass the laws, but they are our congresspeople. “We are people of the word, and we need to go speak those words directly to those who have the job of representing us,” Marshall told Sarah Seltzer at Flavorwire. Since this will be just before Valentine’s Day, these can also be a good way to convey a message. Preparing a letter to present in advance is also a good idea you can obtain signatures from people unable to attend the conference. But no appointment is needed to visit if you are a constituent. If you make an appointment in advance, you may be able to speak to higher level staffers. But those from blue districts and states may think about meeting up with friends from more red or purple places. If that time doesn’t work, we absolutely encourage you to head to Capitol Hill any time on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday Morning. It’s about 20 minutes by metro and ten minutes by cab to Capitol Hill. We’ll meet in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis, the main AWP hotel at 1:30 pm. The main action will take place on Friday afternoon, February 10. You are more than welcome to join this group even if you can’t be at AWP, we’d love your support in any case. During AWP 2017 we will be making a field trip to Capitol Hill to visit the offices of our Senators and Representatives to make the case against the Trump agenda. ![]() We are writers, poets, novelists, critics, essayists, journalists, playwrights and educators committed to resisting the Trump Agenda. The group’s mission statement, as posted by organizer Robert Marshall: Not affiliated with PEN’s Writers Resist nor AWP, though obviously friendly to both, and not limited to AWP attendees, or even writers-all are welcome. Meet at 1:30pm in the Marriott Marquis lobbyĪ group trip to meet with staffers on Capitol Hill. Writers Resist Trump field trip to Capitol Hill Also, despite how dire everything seems, there will be a party, too. Show your strength, writers.ħpm to 9:30pm, U Street Music Hall, 1115 U St., NWĮven if this wasn’t co-hosted by Lit Hub (along with the lovely folks at Catapult, The Rumpus, and Barrelhouse), we’d recommend heading out to this great line-up, featuring (short but powerful) readings from Jericho Brown, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Melissa Febos, Morgan Parker, and Sarah Sweeney. ![]() You may also like to peruse Lambda Literary’s list of LGBTQ-related events. But for the rest of the conference, here’s your guide to the political, from a Capitol Hill field trip to an organizers’ meeting to a candlelight vigil. This year, the enormous annual writers’ conference will feature a new kind of event, beyond readings, panels and parties: yep, that would be political protests. Fittingly, the conference’s keynote address will be given by Iranian-American author Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, so you should absolutely catch that on Thursday night. It may be by sheer coincidence that some 12,000 writers will descend on Washington DC this week-but many of them are not planning to waste the opportunity.
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