Liveblogging day two at the AWP Conference as one does.

10:28 – realized about one Metro stop away that I forgot my badge. When I got here saw all the signs that I either I missed yesterday or they just posted today that say do not lose your badge or you’ll have to create a new registration (that is re-register) and pay the full conference fee for a new one. I told the lady up front I left my badge at home and she asked if my home was here and then pointed to the sign and suggested kindly that I go get it. On the plus side, at least I remembered my lunch and snack this time, sigh.

11:45 – caught the tail end of a panel on BIPOC authors: Advocating for Your Story in YA as a BIPOC author.

12:24 – was going to try to go to panels without badge, kindly got escorted to help desk so now I’m headed home to get my badge. And no they would not just print me a new one. I even asked if they would reprint it for $25 or something like that and they said no. FULL ONSITE REGISTRATION FEE ($500+). We’ll see if I make it back. There is a panel I really want to go to at 3ish.

All I can say is someone out there is a walking syllabus clause for why they have this insane policy. Because it is INSANE.

But, you know, big ups to how well trained the staff is, I guess.

2:07 – decided to go back. I put my badge on this time.

2:27 – decide to use this extra time on the train to catch up on leaving SOL comments. Of course, it took me most of the time to realize my cellular data is off and by the time I get that sorted, I left maybe two comments. So, you know, I tried.

3:21 – made it back for the panel: Goin’ B(l)ack Home: Exploring Notions of Home, Migration & Return

time for intros. Sanderia Faye Smith is a sommelier, which gets an “ooh” from the crowd.

M Shelly Conner is the moderator and says like other moderators she is both mortified and awestruck to read her own bio. Conner is a professor and keeps making corny/punny jokes. I’m not saying it’s a hazard of the profession, but I am saying it’s funny.

Conner starts with a game and plugs the University of Central Arkansas’s MFA program, which is currently taking applications. She’s prepared for the game to fail “like a rough draft written with insomnia, bourbon, and despair.” The game is fill in the blank with answers from songs featuring “home.” She then says we just created a sense of home at the conference.

Smith talks about being a sommelier and how she now pairs wines with books. She grew up five miles from a penitentiary, which is the backdrop of her work in progress, set in Arkansas during 2017/18 when they planned to execute 8 men within 11 days because the execution drugs were set to expire.

Marci Blackman (they/them) – concerned with mental health, specifically what does it mean when the home of the mind is disrupted and then the place that’s called home.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan – starts by offering critical context of home from Audre Lorde (Zami) and Toni Morrison (Love), a place from which to escape and to dream of returning to

Deesha Philyaw – home as place but also people, never felt like Pittsburgh was home because she’s from Florida, and the weather was the thing that let her know she wasn’t home.

7:17 – headed home (again). KK and I went to dinner at the same place as yesterday, discussed possibly also going tomorrow for the wrap up. Our colleague SS says that makes sense because it’s basically like we’re visiting a far away land, which we agree to because the food is that good.

I am only slightly ashamed to say that I’m annoyed this train seems to be older because it doesn’t have the screen on the wall that tells me the next three stops so I actually have to pay attention, which is rude.

9:24 – home and settled in, so finishing up this post and then prepping for tomorrow.