Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Texas on my horizon

Having returned from the land of snow, chickadees and Benedictines, my thoughts are now turning to the lone star state, where I'll be next week. My stress levels are rising in anticipation: having reviewed the schedule of the AWP conference in Austin, it seems there are far too many sessions to attend all at once, and far too much going on in Austin to cover in the three days we have to be tourists before the conference starts.

Such heart-rending choices: one particularly cruel morning's simultaneous sessions include (among others):
Crazy Women: Writers Defying Diagnosis;
That’s So Funny: Irony and Meaning in Contemporary American Poetry;
From Rejection to Publication: Becoming A Resilient Writer;
Women Small Press Publishers on Publishing;
Blogs, Boards & Online Journals: Salons for the 21st Century; and
Symbol, Glyph, or Gimmick?: Repunctuating Contemporary Fiction and Poetry.
An interesting debate on TripAdviser's Austin forum, about where in Austin do you find the best barbecue? A matter I intend to give serious thought to, my curiosity having been whetted by "The Whole Hog", Jeffrey Steingarten's account of judging a bbq competition in Memphis, in one of my favourite food books ever, The Man Who Ate Everything.

Labels: ,

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It sounds like you have a lot of tough choices ahead of you. I would be curious about the repunctuating workshop as that is something I am presently considering in my own work. Having been a non-punctuator (symbolically that is) up to this point, I am considering the value of the mark.
While you're in Austin struggling with which bbq to try and which workshop to attend, throw yourself also into the quandry of which music to listen to. I hear there's great selection.

12:10 p.m.  
Blogger Rhona McAdam said...

Yeah, no kidding about the music on offer! It seems Austin considers itself equal to Nashville for live music. Another impossibly conflicted session at the AWP conference is A Tribute in Words & Music to Townes Van Zandt, Texas’ Unofficial Poet Laureate. (That one's *only* up against three others I want to go to.)

12:22 p.m.  
Blogger Tracy Hamon said...

You must attend Blogs, Boards and Online Journals, if only to report back, on your blog.

Hmm, maybe blues/jazz music, bbq, and blogging?

3:56 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh dear, you must, must, must attend the session Women Small Press Publishers on Publishing; and report back to me, me, me!!!

B-)

7:03 p.m.  

Post a Comment

<< Home