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By Simmons Buntin, January 20, 2011 11:35 pm

The largest conference for writers and publishers is just around the corner, and we hope you’ll join us in Washington, D.C. at one of the following events!

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs
Annual Conference and Bookfair
Washington, D.C. : February 2-5, 2011

Terrain.org / Hawk & Handsaw Booth at Bookfair
Booth 509

Meet Terrain.org editors Simmons Buntin, Joshua Foster, and Patrick Burns, as well as Hawk & Handsaw editor and Terrain.org editorial board member Kathryn Miles, and learn more about these award-winning journals that focus on culture, environment, and sustainability.

Panel
Recovery as Discovery: Rethinking Nature Writing

• Thursday, February 3 : 1:30 – 2:45 p.m.
• Palladian Ballroom, Omni Shoreham
• Terrain.org editorial board member Alison Hawthorne Deming joins Tom Montgomery-Fate, David Gessner, Gretchen Legler, John Price, and Kathleen Dean Moore

Panel
What Do Writers Do All Day? Articulating Our Work in the Profession

• Thursday, February 3 : 1:30 – 2:45 p.m.
• Coolidge, Marriott Wardman Park
• Terrain.org editorial board member Kathryn Miles joins James Engelhardt, Stephanie Vanderslice, Christine Stewart-Nunez, and J.D. Schraffenberger

Panel
The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World

• Thursday, February 3 : 4:30-5:45 p.m.
• Hampton Boardroom, Omni Shoreham
• Terrain.org editorial board member Lauret Savoy joins Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Fred Arroyo, Debra Kang Dean, and Nikky Finney

Panel
Who Makes the Best Student? Growing Your Program with Nontraditional Majors

• Friday, February 4 : Noon – 1:15 p.m.
• Coolidge, Marriott Wardman Park
• Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin joins Patricia Clark, Sean Prentiss, and Joe Wilkins

Panel
The Language of Conservation, sponsored by Poets House

• Friday, February 4 : 1:30 – 2:45 p.m.
• Regency Ballroom, Omni Shoreham
• Terrain.org editorial board member Alison Hawthorne Deming joins Mark Doty, Sandra Alcosser, Joseph Bruchac, and Pattiann Rogers

Panel
Environmental Writing in the Age of Global Climate Change, sponsored by the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment

• Friday, February 4 : 3 – 4:15 p.m.
• Virginia C, Marriott Wardman Park
• Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin joins Terrain.org editorial board member Kathryn Miles, plus Sheryl St. Germain, Paul Bogard, and Janine DeBaise

Reading
Salmon Poetry 30th Anniversary Reading and Book Launch

• Friday, February 4 : 8 – 10 p.m.
• Pigment Art Studio
  1848 Columbia Road Northwest
  Washington, D.C
• Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin joins fellow Salmon poets Andrea Cohen, Allan Peterson, Kevin Higgins, Susan Millar DuMars, Alan Jude Moore, Patrick Chapman, Drucilla Wall, Eamonn Wall, Mike Begnal, Patrick Hicks, Stephen Powers, Drew Blanchard, Philip Fried, and John Fitzgerald; hosted by Terrain.org editorial board member and Salmon Poetry publisher Jessie Lendennie

Book Signing
Bloom, by Simmons B. Buntin

• Friday, February 4 : 10 – 11 a.m.
• Bookfair, Salmon Poetry Table, E26

~~~

Check back, as we’ll add and update events as we learn about them!

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By Simmons Buntin, April 17, 2010 11:06 pm

The Tivoli at Auraria Campus, site of the Terrain.org / Hawk & Handsaw reading. Photo by Lisa O'Neil.

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) annual conference in Denver April 7-10 was, as expected, fantastic. Not only did the majority of Terrain.org’s editors get together (a rarity given their geographic ranges), but we also met many contributors (and hopefully future contributors) at the Terrain.org table at the AWP bookfair, and got to rub elbows with the good folks at Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability and The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts.

The highlight for us was the Terrain.org / Hawk & Handsaw “Wild Lives / Raucous Pens” reading at the Tivoli, a historic brewery near downtown. Many thanks to Jake Adam York, University of Colorado – Denver, and Copper Nickel for helping us with the space, which was a beautiful room with a wrought-iron balcony, exposed brick walls, large copper vats in the back, and a bank of windows overlooking downtown behind the readers.

We’ve posted a slideshow of 27 photos recapping our visit to Denver. Check it out at:

http://www.terrain.org/img/2010/awp/

And don’t forget about our inaugural contests in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with an August 1 deadline!

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By Simmons Buntin, April 5, 2010 11:55 am

Join Terrain.org at the nation’s largest literature conference: the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ annual conference and bookfair this week, April 8-10. AWP 2010 will be held in Denver, at the Colorado Convention Center, and you’ll be able to find us there, as well.

Here’s what’s going on for Terrain.org:

Table at Bookfair

Join us at Exhibit Hall A, H9 from Thursday through Saturday. We’ll be right next to the table for Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability, and we’re also dedicating a corner of the Terrain.org table to The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts.

Wild Lives / Raucous Pens: Readings from Terrain.org and Hawk & Handsaw

Join us Thursday evening, April 8, from 8 to 9:30 p.m. (reception with free beer/wine begins at 7:30 p.m.) for a joint reading held at the Tivoli at Auraria Campus (Adirondacks Room).  Facilitated by Hawk & Handsaw editor Kathryn Miles and Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin, the reading features Patrick Burns, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Scott Elliott, James Engelhardt, Suzanne Frischkorn, Andrew Gottlieb, Luisa Igloria, John T. Price, Ben Quick, Suzanne Roberts, Jeffrey Thomson, and Arianne Zwartjes. View flyer, with walking directions.

We hope to see you in Denver!

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By Simmons Buntin, February 28, 2010 12:44 pm

We’re just over a month away from the nation’s largest literature conference: the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ annual conference and bookfair, April 8-10. AWP 2010 will be held this year in Denver, at the Colorado Convention Center, and you’ll be able to find Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments there, as well.

Here’s what’s going on for us:

Table at Bookfair

Join us at Exhibit Hall A, H9 from Thursday through Saturday. We’ll be right next to the table for Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability, and we’re also dedicating a corner of the Terrain.org table to The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts, a great little literary bird journal that wasn’t able to get a table of its own.

Wild Lives / Raucous Pens: Readings from Terrain.org and Hawk & Handsaw

Join us Thursday evening, April 8, from 8 to 9:30 p.m. for a joint reading held at the Tivoli at Auraria Campus (Adirondacks Room).  Facilitated by Hawk & Handsaw editor Kathryn Miles and Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin, the reading features Patrick Burns, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Scott Elliott, James Engelhardt, Suzanne Frischkorn, Andrew Gottlieb, Luisa Igloria, John T. Price, Ben Quick, Suzanne Roberts, Jeffrey Thomson, and Arianne Zwartjes.

We hope to see you in Denver!

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By Simmons Buntin, November 21, 2009 4:49 am

I was asked recently to put together a brief comparison of sorts of writer’s conferences versus writing workshops around the idea of exposure to editors and publishers.  This is what I came up with:

The view from the Wildbranch Writing Workshop: Craftsbury Common.

It seems to me that there are really two types of writer’s events — writing workshops and conferences about writing, the latter usually including a bookfair, publishers’ exhibits, or the like.

The biggest and perhaps best known example of the conference about writing is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) annual conference and bookfair, which usually draws at least 5,000 people.  The panels cover a very wide range of writing topics.  For example, I chaired a panel at the NYC AWP conference in early 2008 on “the future of environmental essay.”  Large conferences such as these are excellent venues for attending panels of very well-known writers and visiting (and being overwhelmed by) publishers’ booths.  I can’t recall the number of exhibitors at the bookfair, but it must be well over 400, I bet.  In New York in 2008 and Denver in 2010, the journal I edit — Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments — did/will have a table.  Visiting tables/booths and talking with editorial staff (and sometimes contributors) is the best way to learn about the publication short of actually purchasing it (or, in our case, visiting it online).  Like smaller writer’s conferences, it’s not a venue for submitting work, but rather for identifying publications you’re interested in submitting your work to (whether individual literary journals or book publishers), talking with the editors to get a sense of what they’re interested in for upcoming issues, and rubbing elbows with other inquring writers.

Smaller conferences are not so overwhelming, and often provide a more intimate experience and opportunity for connecting even further with an editor.  I think of this summer’s Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) biennial conference in Victoria, BC.  With perhaps 400 attendees, the panels are smaller and last longer, the panels and events are tailored in this case to a specific set of literature — environmental literature and literary ecocriticism — and there are more opportunities for networking, especially with editors and contributors.  The exhibitor can be much smaller; there were perhaps ten or twelve exhibitors at ASLE, Terrain.org among them.

At both settings, readings are offered.  In the case of AWP, they’re offered both as part of the program and outside of the official event — dozens of them nightly, it seems.  For example, in Denver in April 2010, Terrain.org is teaming up with Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability and Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing to host a reading not affiliated with AWP but which, we hope, will draw fans of those publications and people interested in place-based literature — even as it will conflict with one of AWP’s big poetry readings.  At ASLE, on the other hand, it seemed appropriate not to schedule an off-site reading but rather to attend the two or three scheduled evening readings.

At the other end of the spectrum, though still related of course, are writing workshops.  Staying in the environmental literature genre, I think here of the Wildbranch Writing Workshop held over a week each summer in northern Vermont.  While one or two journals may be represented — Orion magazine (the Orion Society) is the primary sponsor, so always participates, and sometimes editors of other journals attend either as speakers or students (that was my experience in the summer of 2007) — there is little opportunity for editorial interaction unless it’s part of the workshop.  At Wildbranch, however, that opportunity is a distinct and important part of the overall workshop experience: the year I attended, Orion’s editor-in-chief Chip Blake agreed to read every participant’s submission and provide individual feedback.  That’s not common, I think, but is certainly valuable.  What also isn’t common except at workshops like Wildbranch is the ability for students to meet with and really hang out with the instructors.  I had the good fortune of spending time with Scott Russell Sanders and Sandra Steingraber, two writers/activists whose work I much admire.  I’ve kept in touch with both of them.  It’s true that as an editor myself I may have more opportunity to maintain our contact, but that the opportunity is there in the first place is pretty special.  I doubt you dine at every meal with your instructor and other participants, including sponsoring magazine editors, at most workshops.  But every writing workshop has some unique opportunity, I’d wager, and I suspect all of them develop a sense of community among the students that may continue well after the workshop.

So is there value in either or both of these approaches — the writer’s conference versus the writing workshop?  Definitely.  At the conference, the writer receives broad exposure to publications and access to an array of panels across genres but doesn’t receive instruction.  The opportunities to meet publishers at booths/tables are many.  At the workshop, the writer receives individual (small group, really) instruction and usually may sit on a few panels offered when the instructor-led workshops are not in session.  Exposure to publishers and editors is limited, though.  It’s really a question of what the writer is after.  For me personally, they all offer benefits, but I can only go to so many larger writer’s conferences like AWP, especially if I’m not one of the presenters.  And I could only attend a writing workshop (mainly due to cost and, at a full week often, time off) every now and then.  But Wildbranch for me was incredibly beneficial and affirming.  And the ASLE conference, held every other year, is an event I plan not to miss if I can help it.  I don’t feel much community at AWP because of its vast size, but I definitely do at ASLE and Wildbranch.

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By Simmons Buntin, January 27, 2008 9:18 pm

Terrain.org staff and contributors will be at the annual AWP conference and bookfair in New York City from January 31 to February 2. Join us at:

• Table #480 at the Hilton’s Americas Hall II, access from 3rd floor — we’ll have a laptop with a slideshow of the journal, Terrain.org e-News signup, handouts, and more.
• Terrain.org 10th Anniversary Reading on Thursday, Jan. 31, from 6-8 p.m. at the Cornelia Street Cafe. View flyer.
• Panel: “The Future of Environmental Essay,” moderated by Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin and including Alison Hawthorne Deming, David Gessner, David Rothenberg, and Lauret Savoy — from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 2, in the Sutton South, Hilton 2nd Floor
• Salmon Poetry Reading, featuring Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin and many other Salmon Publishing poets, at the Bowery Poetry Club: Saturday, Feb. 2, 10 p.m.

The AWP bookfair is open to the public on Saturday, so even if you’re not going to AWP but are in New York City, please consider stopping by. And if you’re already at AWP, then be sure to stop by!

An extra incentive: The first person at AWP to mention the Terrain.org Blog as the source of this information will receive a free, signed copy of Simmons Buntin’s book of poems, Riverfall (published by Salmon Poetry).

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By Simmons Buntin, January 4, 2008 6:22 pm

Terrain.org will be at the annual AWP conference and bookfair in New York City from January 31 to February 2. Join us at:

• Table #480 at the Hilton’s Americas Hall II, access from 3rd floor — we’ll have laptops with journal access and a slideshow plus handouts
• Terrain.org 10th Anniversary Reading on Thursday, Jan. 31, from 6-8 p.m. at the Cornelia Street Cafe. View flyer.
• Panel: “The Future of Environmental Essay,” moderated by Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin and including Alison Hawthorne Deming, David Gessner, David Rothenberg, and Lauret Savoy — from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Sutton South, Hilton 2nd Floor

If you’re at AWP or in New York during that time, please stop by to say howdy.

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By Simmons Buntin, June 28, 2007 5:05 am

Simmons Buntin, editor and publisher of Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments, will moderate a panel titled “The Future of Environmental Essay” at the 2008 AWP Conference in New York City, January 30 to February 2. Terrain.org will also have a table at the Bookfair.

The panel features writers/editors/teachers/scientists Alison Hawthorne Deming, David Gessner, David Rothenberg, and Lauret Savoy.

Panel Description:

Global warming, urbanization, deforestation—these are only a few of the global dilemmas that environmental writing attempts to tackle. Historically, environmental essay—beginning with writers like Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson—has taken a place-based, often spiritual approach to environmental issues. But what does the future of the environmental essay hold? Four prominent creative nonfiction writers and editors will provide insight, exploring environmental essay as both craft and motive.

If you’re at the AWP Conference, please plan to join us for what promises to be an exceptional panel.

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By Simmons Buntin, February 24, 2007 8:37 pm

Look for Terrain.org flyers at the annual AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, in Atlanta, Georgia, from March 1-3, 2007.

There you can also find Terrain.org’s editor, Simmons Buntin, who is leading the “What’s the Conversation Rate of Euros? Americans Publishing Abroad” panel on Saturday, March 3, from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. That’s at North Court East, 2nd Floor, Hilton Atlanta.

And check out the Tucson Literary Orgs “Tucson Heat: A Big Sexy Reading” on Thursday, March 1, from 8:00 to 10:30 p.m. at the Midtown Tavern, 554 Piedmont Avenue. Terrain.org editorial board member Deborah Fries is one of many poets who will read. Get more info at AWP Bookfair table #270.

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By Simmons Buntin, November 6, 2006 3:51 am

Mark your AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) 2007 Conference in Atlanta calendars now! Join me (Simmons Buntin, Terrain.org editor and author of Riverfall, a book of poems) and four fellow American poets and one American playwright for:

What’s the Conversion Rate for Euros? Americans Publishing Abroad
Saturday, March 3, 9:00-10:15 a.m.

I’ll be joined by Marck L. Beggs, Philip Fried, Michael Heffernan, John Hildebidle, and Laura Smith, all of whom like me have been published by Ireland’s Salmon Poetry.

If that spot’s free on your AWP schedule, please join us!

Next year we’ll shoot (again) for a Terrain.org anniversary reading. That one’s in New York City.