Past AWP fun with Books by Hippocampus author Rebecca Fish Ewan and founder/publisher Donna Talarico.
Hippocampus Magazine (and Books) and our annual conference, HippoCamp, is so proud to have been a home and community for so many amazing voices in the creative nonfiction world. Many of them will be part of AWP – The Association of Writers and Writing Programs – Annual Conference this year.
In this post, we share where you can find past Hippocampus contributors, HippoCamp conference speakers, and our volunteer team of editors and readers.
The conference takes place March 23-26, 2022, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The listings below, for ease on your eyes, just include the day of the week since the conference dates are given.
>>Learn more about the conference.
Hippocampus Magazine Official Events
We’ll have a presence throughout the conference at the Bookfair, at which we’ll also host a few author signings. We’re also participating in a joint reading with our CNF friends; see below.
Bookfair Booth – 668
We’ll be here throughout the whole conference with details about our magazine, submissions, conference, and books. We’ll also have books on sale from Books by Hippocampus (including the new Getting to the Truth!) as well as from the authors who will join us for signings. Stop by and say hi. We LOVE LOVE LOVE meeting our contributors and readers. Various members of our editorial, reading, and conference team will be staffing the table, including Donna Talarico, Rae Pagliarulo, Steph Auteri, Lara Lillibridge, and Kevin Beerman.
Bookfair Signings @ Our Booth
Friday, 11 a.m. to noon
Steph Auteri
author of A Dirty Word: How a Sex Writer Reclaimed Her Sexuality (and our essays editor)
Friday, 1 to 2 p.m.
Laurie Easter
author of All the Leavings (and past Hippocampus Magazine contributor)
Saturday, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Dorothy Rice
author of Gray is the New Black: A Memoir of Self Acceptance (and past contributor, reader, and HippoCamp presenter)
Saturday, 1 to 2:30 p.m.
Alexis Page
author of Work Hard, Not Smart: How to Make a Messy Literary Life (and contributor to Books by Hippocampus’ Getting to the Truth)
Bookfair Giveaways
We’ll be giving away two grand prizes of a $50 Bookshop gift card! Just stop by to grab a blank sign (either for why you write true stories, or if you’re a Hippo contributor, the title of one of your stories). Then, fill it in, snap a pic, post & tag us!
We’ll randomly pick winners on social media throughout the conference from among everyone who tagged us and then give away the grand prizes Saturday afternoon.
Offsite Event
Friday, 6 to 8 p.m. | Buffalo Billiards, 118 Chestnut St.
Joint Creative Nonfiction Reading with Fourth Genre, Hippocampus Magazine, RiverTeeth & Under the Gum Tree
Four creative nonfiction-focused lit mags join forces for this AWP tradition – view the Facebook event here. (And thanks to UTGT for spearheading this event!) Each magazine will feature two readers:
- Fourth Genre: Bethany Ericson & Cynthia Salter
- Hippocampus Magazine: Laurie Easter & Alexis Paige
- River Teeth: Jessica Johnson & Ira Sukrungruang
- Under the Gum Tree: Rikki Li & Susannah Pratt
Hippocampus Magazine staff and our guest readers after the joint CNF reading at AWP 2019 in Portland. Pictured, in order, Donna Talarico, Amy Fish, Rae Pagliarulo, Krystal Sital (one of our guest readers), Lara Lillibridge, and Allison K Williams (our other reader.)
Events Where You Can Find Our Friends
A logistical note about the listings below: Since this post is celebrating and highlighting our “alumni,” we’ve included their names first and then included their co-panelists and follow readers in parenthesis just for clarity.
Panels & Main Conference Hall Events
Check schedule for location and full description.
THURSDAY
9 a.m. (virtual)
Feral Turkeys & Dog Poop Bags: No Subject is Too Strange for Creative Nonfiction
Melissa Hart (with Tanya Ward Goodman, Merrill Feitell, Mike Copperman, and Jordan Rosenfeld)
12:10 p.m. | 115C, 100 Level
Not Another Male Orgasm: Using the Shapes of Meander, Spiral, Explode in CNF
Randon Billings Noble & Laura Laing (with Ellie Bozmarova and Kristina Gaddy)
3:20 p.m. (virtual)
Brutal or Traumatic Scenes in Creative Nonfiction: Is There a Veil?
Lara Lillibridge, Athena Dixon, Carol Smith & Krystal Sital (and Christine Hyung-Oak Lee)
FRIDAY
9 a.m. | 118A, 100 Level
Authentic Friendships Between Women in Literature & Life
Krystal Sital, Amy Jo Burns & Steph Auteri (and Dantiel Moniz, Alisson Wood)
1:45 p.m. | 115AB, 100 Level
Abracadabra!: Writers’ Most (and Least) Wanted Transformations
Anjali Enjeti (and Allison Kinney, Minda Honey, Edgar Gomez, Denne Michele Norris)
3:20 p.m. | Bookfair Stage
Unsolicited Press Author Reading
Lara Lillibridge (with Terry Tierney, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Ron Singer, and Suzanne S. Rancourt)
SATURDAY
9 a.m. | 109AB, 100 Level
Faith, Family & Fanaticism: Women Writing Religion
Anjali Enjeti (with Deidre Sugluchi, Liz Harmer, Sakinah Hofler, and Misha Cahnmann-Taylor)
9 a.m. | 115C, 100 Level
Where Every Voice Matters: Community College Literary Journal Showcase
Magin LaSov Gregg (with Lane Igoudin, Maria Brandt, Omar Figueras, and Joe Baumann)
10:35 a.m. (virtual)
Writing the Disturbed Essay: Memory & Identity in Creative Nonfiction
SJ Sindhu (with Katie Jean Shinkle, Monica Price, Danielle Pafunda, and Lily Hoang)
3:20 p.m. | 113 C, 100 Level
Strike a Chord: The Lyric Essay Forms of A Harp in the Stars
Randon Billings Noble & Laurie Easter (with Heidi Czerwiec, Angie Ghuang, and Sayantani Dasgupta)
Bookfair Signings
TBA – updating behind the scenes as we speak
Offsite Events
Thursday, 6 p.m. | A Novel Idea
Reading with Athena Dixon, Lily Dancyger, Jeannine Ouellette & Jayne Martin (and Gina Frangello)
Friday, 7 p.m. | Vox Populi Art Gallery
Split/Lip Press Reading – Athena Dixon (and others)
Are we missing something/someone? Let us know here so we can consider adding it!
Other Creative Nonfiction-Related Events of Note
It’d be an exhaustive list to include everything related to creative nonfiction in this single post, not to mention a duplication of efforts of the main AWP conference schedule, however, we couldn’t resist sharing a few other events relating to our favorite genre that we’re excited about:
PANELS
Thursday, 10:35 a.m. |
Myth & Monsters in Memoir: Using Folklore to Structure Personal Writing
Carmen Maria Machado, Jess Zimmerman, Sofia Samatar, Jami Nakamura Lin)
Thursday, 10:35 a.m. (virtual)
What’s Form Got to Do With It: Finding Shape in Memoir Projects
Sarah Fawn Mongomery, Tyrese Coleman, Marcos Gonsalez, and Krys Malcom Belc
Thursday, 1:45 p.m. | 124, 100 Level
More Interesting Than Monsters: Resisting the Urge to Villainize in Memoir
Ronit Plank, Lilly Dancyger, Allison Hong Merrill, Michelle Yang, and Michelle Filgate
Thursday, 3:20 p.m. (Virtual)
The Blended Memoir: When Memoir Isn’t Just Memoir
Melissa Febos, Marcos Gonsalez, Jeanna Kadlec, and Angela Chen
Thursday, 3:20 p.m. | 113A, 100 Level
A Misfit of Ghosts: How Haunted Memoir Rethinks the Real
Bruce Owens Grimm, Elissa Washuta, Steffan Triplett, Jami Nakamura Lin, and J-Nicole Jones
Friday, 9 a.m. | 123, 100 Level
Navigating Layered Identities in Creative Nonfiction
Liesel Hamilton, Silas Hanson, Alysia Sawchyn, Rajpreet Heir, and Robbie Maakestad
Friday, 12:10 p.m. (virtual)
Research & Reckoning: How Nonfiction Research Allows Us to Reckon With the Past
Nikki Lyssy, Julia Koets, Natalie Lima, Minda Honey, and LaTanya McQueen
Saturday, 10:35 a.m. (virtual)
Overexposure: How Memoirists Protect Their Privacy
Courtney Zoffness, Tomás Martin, T Kira Madden, and Gina Frangello)
OFFSITES
Wednesday, 7 p.m. | Head House Books
Memoir Monday Reading
Featuring Emily Maloney, Edward Gomez, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn and Kristen Keane; hosted by Lily Dancyger (Memoir Monday is a collaboration between Narratively, Catapult, Tin House, The Rumpus, Granta, Guerinca, and Longreads.)
