Wishes for AWP, my recommended sidetrips from the conference, and crash courses
While life is giving me a crash course in food allergies (anaphylaxis versus intolerance, IGE tests versus IGG – these phrases were a foreign language just a few months ago!) I’m thinking about the upcoming AWP and wishing I could see all your shining faces there next week! I’ve always had fun (exhausting fun, but still fun) at the AWPs I’ve gone to, and have missed it the last couple of years. I’m going for sure next year, and of course AWP 2014, but that’s small comfort this year.
So, in service to all of you AWP-goers, and as someone who used to know DC pretty well – I worked there for six months – make sure you make a few side-trips outside of the conference:
–Check out the Smithsonian; I personally love the Natural History stuff, but them I’m a lover of dinosaurs. And the Smithsonian’s free! Tax dollars at work, people.
–Some awesome art museums, including the National Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
–Go about fifteen miles into Northern Virginia to Great Falls National Park. It’s so beautiful, you can hardly believe it’s right outside the city. I stopped there all the time when I commuted to DC from Richmond.
–Some terrific food to be had in Georgetown, if you can manage the traffic. 1789 is (higher end) traditional DC done right, Cafe Bonaparte is all about wonderful French-ified brunches (crepes!) Just stopping by some place for coffee is fun. Wander around on foot if possible.
–One night, be sure you order gigantic room service sundaes. I don’t remember how it started but this was a tradition in our family when we visited DC for Dad’s business trips. So I just naturally associate DC with hot fudge and ice cream.
Most importantly, remember to blog about your adventures, especially the juicy stuff. Because I want to live vicariously!
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
