Kansas City, Missouri, may have been buzzing ahead of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win last week, but the real action was at the 2024 AWP Conference & Bookfair, where attendees sported less red and yellow but just as much enthusiasm. The annual conference is a gathering of literature lovers and writers of all genres, with attendees coming from across the United States and beyond. Instead of hosting a booth this year, Alta Journal editorial director Blaise Zerega and I opted to spend the week strolling through the bookfair, attending panels, and connecting with writers, publishers, literary organizations, and friends, new and old.
Highlights from the weekend included reconnecting with our friends at the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), attending panels on writing the American West and the state of book reviewing, and watching readings from bold poets including Sam Sax and Anastacia-Reneé. And of course, no AWP is complete without a lineup of offsite events. We spent our evenings exploring Kansas City’s nightlife in the company of peers from n+1, the Yale Review, McSweeney’s, Red Hen Press, UC Riverside’s Low-Residency MFA Program, and more.
Back at the convention center, we attended a panel organized by CLMP on collaboration among small presses, journals, and indie booksellers, featuring bookstore workers from Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Texas. Partnering with independent bookstores has become a central part of Alta’s mission in recent years, resulting in relationships with small businesses across the country and the development of our guide to bookstores in California and the West. To close out the conference, Alta supported the writers and editors of the Believer at an event where staff dissected what goes into their iconic interviews. And in between, we managed to squeeze in engaging conversations, worthy new reads, and some famous Kansas City barbecue.
Alta looks forward to connecting with more writers, publishers, and literary organizations at next year’s AWP a little closer to home, in Los Angeles. Until then, you can find Alta at the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute 2024 this week, at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April, and at the Bay Area Book Festival in June.•
