Considering Inclusivity at the Nation's Largest Writerly Gathering

At LA Weekly, Jessica Langlois considers "how the national conversation on race, equity and inclusion in the media was reflected at the nation’s largest writerly gathering"--that's right, AWP. Langlois made the rounds, from the book fair to the Claudia Rankine keynote, to a reading of Voices of Our Nation, or VONA, a summer workshop series for writers of color. The year's focus was inclusivity, says Langlois.

Back at the Kaya Press booth — which was shared by Tia Chucha, a community center and publisher in Sylmar that Rodriguez founded — Neelanjana Banerjee told me that L.A.’s local presses have made a concerted effort to invite people of color to the conference.

“When we’re looking around at the community, it looks just like L.A.,” she said, casting her gaze out on the hundreds of booths in the sprawling book fair. “But I had a friend walk in — her first time at AWP — and she looked around and said it was so white.”

But Aya de Leon, another AWP first-timer who directs the Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley and was hanging out at the Kaya booth, told me the conference has been an incredible experience. She came to promote her forthcoming book, Uptown Thief, which she describes as an “intensely politicized book about feminism and wealth redistribution disguised as a fun beach read,” and has met many journalists and media influencers who could review or blurb it.

Christian Teresi, the director of conferences for AWP, told me this conference is one of the most inclusive literary events in the nation. “A full third of the conference for at least a decade has been dedicated to multicultural or diverse issues, or events and readings that have a diverse lineup of authors,” he said over the phone, adding that board members and trustees are continually working on making it even more inclusive.

One group who felt left out this year was writers with disabilities.

Jennifer Bartlett, poet and founder of Zoeglossia, an organization that advocates for writers with disabilities, initiated AWP’s first-ever disability caucus after last year’s conference.

She and many others were disappointed to learn that AWP hadn’t accepted any panels related to disability for this year’s conference (although it had had disability-themed panels in the past, and there were a number of writers with disabilities on other panels this year).

Keep reading at LA Weekly.