Make Your AWP Legendary (David Intro) (02/01/2020)

How to Make Your AWP Legendary | The Weekly Atticus

February 01, 2020

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Introduction by David Olimpio.

That reason to put on pants and leave the house is back: the

— this year in San Antonio — is a little over a month away. I did some math, and it appears this will be my seventh conference. Lucky seven! It might mean there's a book deal coming my way at this one. So between now and next month I just need to write a book.

I'm excited that this one will be in my home state of Texas. When you grow up in Texas, you take "Texas History" as part of your basic curriculum, usually around 7th Grade. You learn all about Texas’s independence from Mexico and how the state was, for a brief time, its own country. Of course the Battle of the Alamo (and by extension San Antonio) plays a big part in this story (though San Jacinto, north of Houston, is where Texas Independence was actually won by an army of revolutionaries led by Sam Houston.) 

Well before 7th Grade, I was captivated by the mythology of The Alamo, of Davy Crockett and William Travis and Jim Bowie — that whole lot of larger-than-life characters. My mom took me to San Antonio as a kid and I know we went to the Alamo even though I don't recall much about it except that the building seemed ridiculously small and underwhelming in relation to how I had imagined it. I remember she bought me souvenir Texas currency from the 19th century, brown bills made of some kind of crinkly parchment paper.

The rest of my "memories" of San Antonio aren't really memories, but mental images of scenes from the movie

Cloak and Dagger

(1984) starring Dabney Coleman and Henry Thomas. I probably watched that movie at least a dozen times when it came out. I very much related to it. Henry Thomas's character was named "Davy," he lived in Texas, and he liked spy games. (I was named David, lived in Texas, and liked spy games.) His parents were divorced and he longed to spend more time with his dad. (My parents were divorced and I longed to spend more time with my dad.) While I almost certainly walked the Riverwalk when my mom and sister and I visited that time there years ago, the only mental images of it come from the scenes where Davy is being chased by enemy spies who want the secrets contained on a game cartridge he has in his possession. When I went there, I do remember trying to figure out which was the exact underpass where Jack Flack is shot in one of the final scenes of the movie.

All this is to say that I'm looking forward to returning to a city that feels somewhat magical to me, and holds a personal place in my heart, even though the memories from that place are pretty much based entirely on either romanticized historic mythology or Hollywood. It’ll be good to be there and form some actual real-world contemporary memories. And maybe some of them will still be mythical in nature.

Which brings me to this bit of AWP advice: If I’ve learned anything from my six previous AWPs, it’s that there is no right way to do AWP. The best things to come out of the conference, the things that can make it feel legendary, are the things you didn't plan at all. Getting a tattoo you thought about in the morning and had put on your wrist in the evening, then singing George Michael’s “Faith” at a crowded karaoke bar. Crashing an a-list writer party and enjoying their swanky buffet like you freakin’ belong there. Attending a rooftop hot-tub reading in your underwear with a group you only met hours before. (These are only some vague generic examples and in no way represent anything I’ve done.) 

The main thing is: Do not second guess. Go with your gut. Go ahead and map out a schedule ahead of time. (It's a good exercise, if nothing else, and will give you a kind of "structure.") Find panels you want to see, people you want to meet, parties you want to go to. It will be good to use that as a baseline you can reference. But be ready to deviate from it whenever something else that feels more interesting to you comes along (and it will).

But be sure you visit us at

T1969

on the bookfair floor. Don’t deviate from that important mission, no matter who’s chasing you. Among other things, we will have our latest Print Annual, Volume 3 for sale (more on that next next week.) 

Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.

David Olimpio

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

BOOK REVIEWPOETRY YOU CAN'T SIMPLY GLOSS OVERA Review of GLOSS by Wendy BarkerReview by George Drew"...exquisite imagery and metaphor..."GET THE BOOKREAD THE REVIEW

FICTIONSPACE ROCKSby Alexsandr Kanevskiy"She has disavowed her body now. It is no longer hers, but some formless thing she has been saddled with."READ ON

POETRY& Fieldby Katherine Fallon"Coach said puke, then get back / on the track, keep running. // Which we did. "READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONGAS FUMES LIKE PERFUMEby Craig Fishbane The latest in our Superunknown: Stories About Songs series."My world was mapped and memorized, a series of dreadful repetitions. It took the music of Nirvana to help me notice just how furious I was to be trapped in my own routines."READ ON

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