AWP 2015 - Minneapolis, here we come!

The Edinburgh Napier MA Creative Writing programme team is getting ready for AWP 2015, which is in Minneapolis from April 9-11 - that's next week! What is AWP? Just the world's largest creative writing conference, attracting thirteen thousand people to more than 500 events. 

For the first time we're having our own stand at the AWP conference - Table 754 in the bookfair. Programme leader Sam Kelly and lecturer David Bishop will be happy to talk about our course and its unique approach to creative writing. [Spoilers: we love genre fiction, graphic novels, and creative non-fiction; we don't have a poetry option or any peer-review workshops.]

We'll be at Table 754 pretty much all three days, but if we're not around you can always contact us via Twitter - Sam Kelly is @portykelly while David Bishop is @davidbishop. Don't be shy, come and say hello - we don't bite!

David is also hosting one of the first panel discussions happening at AWP this year. It starts 9am - yes, really! - in Room 208 A and B on Level 2. "When worlds collide: how creative programs address popular fiction" will feature four speakers from different universities - three US, one UK - discussing how they approach writing and teaching genre fiction. Here's the pitch:

"Popular fiction and creative writing programs have long been worlds apart on both sides of the Atlantic. But what happens when students on such programs aspire to write popular fiction? This panel will discuss the challenges of opportunities of working with genre writing in an academic context, with speakers drawn from programs that tend to eschew popular fiction and those that embrace it."

Alongside David on the panel will be Nicole Peeler from Seton Hill University, Barbara Duffey from Dakota Wesleyan University, and Vicki Stiefel from Clark University. Should be a blast!