AWP 2018
Mar 07, 2018 - Mar 11, 2018
Thursday, March 8, 2018
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Ballroom A, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
R274. Stranger and Truthier Than Truth: Fiction in the Age of Trump. (Manuel Gonzales, Helen Phillips, Angela Flournoy, Kelly Link, Marie-Helene Bertino) There’s an increasing movement to combat the turbulent political climate with nonfiction essays and personally revealing hot takes. However, fantasy worlds can act as society’s mirror just as acutely. Part of resisting can be frivolity and a refusal to eschew whimsy. In a post-fact world, the most equipped soldiers can be those who deal in making it up. Award-winning fiction writers will talk about why the “lie” of fiction matters now, and how fiction can be truthier than truth.
Friday, March 9, 2018
Kelly Link
11:00am to 11:30am
Signing: Small Beer Press booth, #406
Saturday, March 10, 2018
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
Ballroom D, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
S213. Monster Cultures. (Sofia Samatar, Theodora Goss, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Nancy Hightower) From cyborgs to serial killers, monsters work the territory where explosive opposites meet: fear and desire, criminality and victimhood. On this panel, five writers of the fantastic discuss the roles of monsters in their work and areas of interest. How do monsters function in contemporary literature, in environmental writing, in Afrofuturism? What concerns and breakthroughs come with using the monstrous to express marginalized racial and sexual identities? How do we write the ultimate Other?