Bardsy Elite Voices: 2024 AWP Reflections

February 27, 2024: Publishing, Elite Voices
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Bardsy Elite Voices is a new feature where elite members will share thoughts and experiences from their writing journey. This week, Stacey Campbell shares how his perception of himself changed over the course of the 2024 AWP Conference.
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Stacey was a finalist in the Bardsy 2023 Summer First Chapter Anthology Contest. He has had articles and study guides published, including numerous film reviews. Currently, he is finishing his novel, Simon Sez.

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Bardsy Elite Voices: 2024 AWP Reflections

By Stacey Campbell
In her buttery, grandmotherly voice, the author finished reading her work and slowly sat down at the long table flanked by fellow presenters. I had almost been moved to tears. She had been reading a poem about what her compost bin revealed about her as a person. An odd, yet strikingly original premise. Why would this make such an impact on me, someone who struggles with seeing himself as a writer, who focuses on fiction, not poetry, and above all else, doesn't understand composting?
It was day two of the 2024 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in Kansas City. I sat in a large, nondescript, beige meeting room filled beyond capacity with writers. We were listening to the presenters speak about their experiences being published for the first time over the age of fifty. Being firmly planted in the middle of this decade (though I was positive I could pass for someone half my age on TV) meant that I had been writing for a long time, crafting new stories, completing several novels, and always revising, revising, revising. Yet never publishing, though not from a lack of trying on my part.
This lack of publication made it difficult to see myself as a writer. It felt pretentious to call myself something that had not yet been proven. And so I had shied away from identifying with that mythical breed of wordsmiths, having nothing to do with their annual gatherings at conventions to commiserate about their difficulties or to prop each other up with shallow platitudes. No, I was better than that. Or so I thought, sitting in a packed room surrounded by writers, feeling like an imposter, and listening to a published author read about composting.
Celeste, the leader of my writing group (which even joining was a huge step for me) through Bardsy encouraged me to attend this conference because she sensed I needed something more. So did my wife. I caved, paid the conference fee, booked a hotel, and drove nine hours to the middle of the country.
Before embarking on my journey, I chose which workshops to attend from the hundreds of options. The selection was a bit overwhelming, but with over 8,000 in attendance (and that was down from previous years), there needed to be that many, each covering a specific niche of writing or publishing. Some favorites—and my takeaways—were:
  • Debut Novelists on How to Debut "Persistence is key.”
  • What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Agents "Publishing has little to do with writing. It mostly has to do with timing and the marketplace."
  • Pathways to Success: Practical and Personal Tips for Getting Published "While querying agents or on submission, make sure you are working on your next project. Always keep moving forward."
  • Draft, Draft, Goose: The Thinking Behind Revising "Don't ask your reader to do emotional work you're not ready to do."
Being a bit of a pessimist (I prefer the term realist), I feared the conference would do little more than depress me, reinforcing my beliefs that I was neither a writer nor capable of being published. Or that any success stories required such a perfect alignment of sun, moon, stars, and luck that the last vestige of hope would be sucked from my being. Instead, the opposite happened. I didn't realize how good it would feel to hear other people's stories about writing—successes and difficulties. It wasn't a competition but a (at the risk of sounding corny) community of peers looking to support each other.
By its nature, writing is individualistic. It is done in isolation, in a way that separates you from other people. Yes, eventually, others are involved, but you start alone. When you are alone for long periods of time, it's easy to start believing distorted ideas about yourself, the world, and others. It's easy to create a benchmark of success that everything else is defined by, and if that level is not achieved, then feeling like a failure is the only option. So, every once in a while, it's good to get out around other folks and be reminded of the bigger picture. Reorientate the internal compass to what is true.
The AWP conference helped reignite my love for writing, pure and simple. It gave me hope beyond whether I ever get published or not. Let me be clear, I'm still going to work hard to get published and see this as a vital component of being a professional writer. But the conference helped me start grappling with the fact that I am a writer. Period. Okay, that still feels a little pretentious, but I promise I'm working on it. Publishing is important, but it's not the only validation.
If you've ever wondered about going to a writer's conference, I would encourage you to find one and go. It doesn't have to be this one; it could be smaller or closer to home. But if you go, be prepared for an experience that could change how you view your writing and yourself. Perhaps you'll encounter your own composting poet who will be a reminder that you are a writer at your core, and nothing can ever change that or stop you from stringing random words together into a cohesive idea.
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The AWP conference helped reignite my love for writing, pure and simple. - Stacey Campbell

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