I’d heard a couple of things about the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference (better known as AWP) before attending for the first time earlier this month.

It’s overwhelming! With 10K folks in attendance, AWP is a firehose of panels, readings, happy hours, and hundreds of booths from MFA programs, small presses, and literary organizations. It can certainly provoke social anxiety as one ricochets from event to meal to drinks. Lots of drinks.
It’s fun! Everywhere you turn, there are books! and writers! The written word is celebrated and gloriously lifted up. And you may run into old friends and make some new ones. Also, drinks.

Both things turned out to be true for me. When I arrived in Baltimore and walked into the Book Fair, I was definitely overwhelmed. I walked through in a daze, not quite knowing what to look for or at. I stumbled out after a few minutes.

But AWP was also fun and inspiring. I benefited from a kind of “writerly hospitality.” For example, I met some kind writers via my agent, Jade, who let me crash their dinner in Baltimore’s Little Italy.

And I got to spend a few wonderful hours with my dear friend Sophie, co-author of The Jailhouse Lawyer, and she brought me along to dinner with her writing friends.

Despite the groovy lighting, we were not at a disco.

And I met two authors in particular and picked up their books:

Rosa Kwon Easton is the author of White Mulberry, a historical fiction novel set in Korea’s Japanese colonial era. We’d met online through Korean American Story’s Letters to My Hometown project, and it was so nice to meet in person. Her book came out last year, and she was very generous in sharing her experience with me.

Constance Squires wrote Low April Sun about people caught up in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. I met her over a plate of pierogi at the dinner above and was excited to dive into her novel.

What I’m reading

It took me much longer than usual to finish The End of August by Yu Miri because—to be frank—it was so unbearably sad. I could only read it in small doses. It’s an incredible work of art, though, and I’m truly glad to have read it. Think Morrison’s Beloved, but much longer and set in Korea between (roughly 1900-1960).
In Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer, a dying woman decides she’d rather have two female friends care for her while she’s in hospice, instead of her husband. I love how easy it is to describe the book’s premise and how clearly the reader can understand the inciting problem. Packer is a great writer and is especially good at noticing the small gestures between people that belie the complicated emotions underneath.
Low April Sun by Connie Squires (mentioned above) centers on the disappearance of Delaney, a woman who was in the Murrah building at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing but whose body was never recovered. The story is told through a cast of characters: her sister, her boyfriend, a conspiracy theorist, and a young man connected with Timothy McVeigh. Really good!
All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun is (interestingly) the second novel I read in a short time dealing with a national terrorist tragedy. This time, it’s 9/11. Three individuals find themselves on a cruise to Bermuda the week following this seminal event. How surreal to be on a cruise the week after September 11…but then, as this novel so beautifully shows…how surreal to ever be on a cruise, period.

Other recs

In a podcast conversation with Father Jame Martin, author Kathleen Norris describes “going to church” as the center of her spiritual life. This struck me, especially since the culture of churchgoing seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur, especially in the Bay Area. We often think of the spiritual life as abstract or esoteric, and I was struck by the truth of what Norris was saying: our spiritual life is embodied, communal, and often made up of a series of quotidian moments. Norris is working on a book on the desert mothers and fathers and I. can. not. wait.

Life, lately

Our younger daughter, Anna, is in town! On the way back from Yogurt Park on a balmy spring evening, we spotted this most Berkeley of scenes: a lady pushing a child in a wagon, while riding an electric unicycle. Her companion also rides a unicycle while simultaneously looking at his phone and smoking. Their little dog (out of frame) trots alongside them. Two of the four creatures in their cohort have tails. I love this town.