The Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins University is joining the National Book Critics Circle, the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and a number of other prominent organizations in sponsoring the 2013 Annual Conference & Bookfair of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP).
The conference will take place March 6-9 in Boston, highlighting over 1,900 authors, editors, teachers, and publishers and including 520 literary events. Eleven thousand people are expected to attend. Among the featured presenters are Nobel Laureates Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott, New York Times best-selling author Augusten Burroughs, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Don DeLillo, Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder, and many others.
“We have never before assembled such an impressive range of distinguished authors,” said AWP Executive Director David Fenza. “We are excited that AWP’s conference continues to grow in prestige while we provide a growing audience for writers and publishers.”
The Jackson Center is the sole sponsor of the AWP’s bookfair, an annual showcase of over 600 exhibitors and the nation’s largest marketplace for independent literary presses and journals, creative writing programs, writing conferences and centers, and literary arts organizations. The bookfair will run concurrent to the conference and is open to all registered conference attendees, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
The Jackson Center for Creative Writing is home to Hollins’ esteemed undergraduate and graduate writing programs, which have produced dozens of writers of national and international acclaim.
AWP’s mission is to foster literary achievement, advance the art of writing as essential to a good education, and serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing. Founded in 1967, AWP supports nearly 50,000 writers, over 500 college and university creative writing programs, and 125 writers’ conferences and centers.
