Official podcast of #AWP20 LIVE with Bloomsday Literary—Day 3

Fantastic advice from the authors, poets, & industry professionals at #AWP20. This is part one of a three-episode series featuring Bloomsday Literary’s partnership with #AWP20 to bring you all the literary goings-on from this year’s conference. Here’s Day Three!

Richard Z. Santos 1:22

Santos’ debut novel Trust Me came out on 3/31/20 from Arte Público Press. The main character is an “East Coast political hack” who moves from D.C. to Sante Fe and “stumbles into corruption and danger.” We talked multiple POVs, airport mottos (Sante Fe: Connecting You to the World!), and the similarities between teaching American high school students and working on political campaigns. Having his novel helpfully ‘shredded’ by Tim O’Brien led to a final draft, and after “50 encouraging rejection” letters from agents, Arte Público said a resounding YES. Working with them was a great experience. He has a finished draft of his second novel, and he’ll be planning the Writers, Agents, and Editors Conference for the Writers League of Texas that will hopefully still be happening in June. Follow him on Twitter @richardzsantos.

Yodassa Williams 12:26

Delightful cannot even begin to describe Yodassa Williams, whose beautiful debut YA fantasy novel, The Goddess Twins, comes out on May 19th. It follows identical sisters who discover they are goddesses when their mother goes missing - “in other words, true life.” As a teen, Williams spent a summer in London with cousins who encouraged her to explore her creative side. Inspired by these black magical girls (“literal black girl magic”), her book is a coming of age run through the Fantasy filter (her dad’s obsession with Dune had to figure in somehow!). In 2014, a revelation at Burning Man resulted in Williams leaving her industry fashion job and writing The Goddess Twins. Her advice for finding a publisher? Look for publishing contests and use contest dates as your deadline. She continues to tell stories through words and clothing. Follow her at @yodawill on Twitter and @yodawill12 on instagram.

Alia Volz 27:53

We speak with Alia Volz about her fascinating debut memoir, Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, And The Stoning Of San Francisco. A hybrid of heavy social issues and personal history, the book comes out, surprise, surprise, on 4/20. Volz’s folks ran the first high volume cannabis edibles business in San Francisco - underground, illegal, and very popular. After AIDS hit SF, the famous brownies “became part of the dawn of medical marijuana” and “the transition from party drug to panacea.” The book started out as an oral history: Volz started recording her mom and other people in the community, and even a SFPD police officer! She shopped that version in 2009 and it did not sell because publishers thought the market was “too niche.” Now, of course, that seems quaint and hilariously short-sighted since cannabis culture is so ubiquitous (and big business). Ultimately Volz became even more interested in the historical context and used the memoiristic voice as a way “into and through” the 70s and 80s in SF. A Macdowell Colony fellow -“transformative” for her - Volz called out fellow authors Bridgett M. Davis (The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers) and Tony Dokoupil (The Last Pirate). Follow her @aliavolz.

Sonia Hamer 42:00

On this special installment of the Blazer, Danial Peña interviews Hamer, a student in the University of Houston Creative Writing program. “A lot of different kinds of nerd,” she talks about wearing orange to scare away viruses (her fave virus are bacteriophages) and how “Bacteriophages” could be a cool D&D character who casts spells.

David Laidacker-Luna 45:12

Fiesta Youth LGBT is an organization for kids 12-18 years old that meets every Tuesday in San Antonio. Laidacker-Luna connected with the LGBT Writers Caucus who invited Fiesta Youth to AWP. It’s their first conference ever, and both Laidacker-Luna and the kids who were able to attend are bowled over by the welcoming and fun group at AWP. Austin is an established partner and Fiesta Youth has a sister organization in Corpus Christi. Recently, the McAllen AIDS council visited to learn about opening their own facility in South Texas - it’s all about partnerships and how accepting people can be. Follow @Fiesta_Youth on Twitter.

Chad Abushanab 55:13

Abushanab is the author of the poetry collection The Last Visit, which won the 2018 Donald Justice Prize judged by Jericho Brown and now out from Autumn House Press. The collection began as Abushanab’s dissertation project. He read “Halloween” for us (on page 31!) - a triptych of masculinity, violence, and addiction. He drafted the last poem, a Ghazal, initially as one poem, but he and Jericho Brown simultaneously had the idea to break it up throughout the book. Ghazals appeals to Chad because of his Middleastern heritage and the intrinsic musicality (meter, rhyme) of the form. He was afraid to show his poems to his mom, so he dedicated the book to her. His enviable collection of bylines is the result of both doing the work of creating memorable poems, and being extremely particular about where he submits. He only queries poetry journals he absolutely loves, so that his poems can join a known and beloved poetry community. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @chad_abushanab.

Viktoria Valenzuela 1:07:56

The Blazer with Daniel Peña speaks with Valenzuela, who’s wearing a 100,000 Poets for Change t-shirt. People around the world wear the shirt on the last Saturday of September to mourn and continue to call out BP for the oil spill. Valenzuela hails from Oswego (near Daniel’s beloved Ithaca) and is wearing a “Prince purple” Mayan design swirl depicting a person breathing a flower into the air (i.e. poetry). Victoria is currently shopping her poetry chapbook about motherhood, In Bed. Her activism is human rights for mothers, including the mothers separated from their children at the borders. Daniel quotes Caroryn Forché: “It is possible that we are not human beings to them.” According to her, Daniel is wearing the wrong Puma.  Follow all the things she’s doing for and about mothers @ViktoriaValenz.

Tori Cárdenas 1:17:55

We met at AWP last year in Portland, which makes us all old friends by now. Newly the Executive Editor of Skull + Wind Press - publisher of Leslie Contreras Schwartz’s new book WHO SPEAKS FOR US HERE - Cárdenas’ goal is to help all the different circles of writers in Albuquerque interact. The dream is to have a brick and mortar and a reading series. Their “sci-fi + green chili” podcast with a friend, Eminent Domain, will be recorded on set in Sante Fe, and they found an actor who sounds exactly like Cárdenas’ real life Grandpa: “I’ve sanded away my northern mountain Taos accent” so hearing it in this context is yet another reminder of how important both representation and language are, and how entwined the two are.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden 1:32:05

Winter Counts, a literary thriller-cum tale of identity set on the Rosebud Indian reservation, comes out from Echo Harper Collins in August 2020. A member of the Sicangu Lakota nation, David Heska Wanbli Weiden grew up in Denver and on Rosebud. The novel follows Virgil Wounded Horse, a so-called “enforcer,” who’s hired to dole out “justice” on the reservation. A law called the Major Crimes Act forbids native nations from prosecuting felonies that occur on the reservation. Since the FBI almost always declines to prosecute as well, someone like Virgil is hired to beat up the criminal. David’s agent, Michelle Brower of Aevitas, signed him on the spot at AWP 2018’s writer-to-agent program, and overall his journey was relatively smooth. Now he does everything he can to lift up marginalized voices as an AWP mentor. One of eight winners of the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowships, an academic, and a teacher of fiction (he recs the Save the Cat series for plot), Wanbli Weiden enjoys “marrying” different genres of writing. Up next: a nonfiction collection of essays about the mass incarceration of American Indians along with a sequel to Winter Counts. His children’s book Spotted Tail was just nominated for the Colorado Book award for Children's book for 2019. Follow him on Twitter @WanbliWeiden and on Instagram @wanbliweiden.

Annie Shepherd 1:40:52

The Blazer with Daniel Peña interviews Shepherd, a doctoral student in the UH creative writing PhD program, who writes about small towns in West Texas around Lubbock Buddy Holly’s “the island.” The verdict on Daniel’s fashion? Too monochrome: “Gotta get some contrast.” The friction between elements is essential, in clothes and fiction writing.