It took me almost 2 days to get through the AWP 2019 bookfair. It is enormous, but then everything about this conference is enormous: 15,000 attendees ant-crawling through the convention center, 30 concurrent talk tracks, the enormous lines, and the ensuing networking and camaraderie.

Among my bookfair finds is a collection of Tel Aviv noir; gemlike essays on obscure figures from the Age of Enlightenment written by a shy Midwestern poet I heard earlier that day; a volume of Californian eco-poetry, which includes my friend Caryn Davidson; latest issues of the famed Virginia Quarterly Review (#VQR), all but given away to lighten the publisher’s suitcase. (And now weighing down mine.)

#AWP19

#AWP2019