IN PRAISE OF VIRTUAL

Like everybody else, I’ve gone through different phases during the lockdown—pandemic purging merging into home renovation, cooking resulting in the need to walk off miles worth of calories, and binge-watching Netflix to put myself into a hypnotic trance—but what’s really kept me going are the virtual readings and writing workshops that have sprung up across the country like a carpet of creative wildflowers.

Yes, I know we’re all sick of seeing those checkerboards of strangers’ faces popping up on our computers, but just imagine pandemic life without Zoom. As a writer with a full-time job, it’s never been easy for me to escape real life and journey to a distant city to lap up the hope and inspiration ladeled out at in-person writers conferences. There’s the expense, often thousands of dollars that I could otherwise spend on the mortgage or groceries, and also the time off from work.

But this year, thanks to the virtual, I’ve probably attended more writing events, conferences, and workshops than I have in my entire writing life. The readings from journals, presses, bookstores, and literary groups such as Zyzzyva, Red Hen Press, Skylight Books, and the Center for Fiction have kept me up to date on the latest releases from writers. Whereas in the days of fighting freeway traffic and driving vast distances to get to bookstores for readings, I had to be more choosey.

The workshops by organizations such as Authors Publish and Surprise the Line, and journals such as Longleaf Review and One Story, have enabled me to recommit to my craft and learn new things about writing and publishing. I’ve connected to writers from outside my own backyard—not only across the U.S. and Canada, but also outside the continent.Workshops and readings have also been a way to support literary journals and bookstores during the pandemic. And as more workshops popped up, I realized they were a way to help keep journals alive with an important revenue source and me alive with inspiration and community.

The latest was AWP. If I’d been attending in person, I’d have been sitting in an over-air-conditioned room at some convention center with the presenters tiny as postage stamps on a distant stage, struggling to find my way to the next session with just my dying phone and crumpled paper schedule for guidance. And I would have gotten tired of standing in lines for coffee, for the bathroom, for everything—and would have run out of steam after a couple of days’ worth of sessions.

But attending virtually, I could see the presenters’ faces close up, which made panels feel more intimate. There was no line for the bathroom. I could drink freely of Peet’s, not Starbucks. Search for snacks in the fridge when I wanted. And I could multitask—using two laptops and a phone to simultaneously listen to the presentations, research the presenters’ backgrounds and work, and even tweet my reactions and follow others’ reactions. Four days spent sitting at my computer(s) didn’t feel like a tedious chore. With the lively chat discussions, it felt like I was actually somewhere. Maybe not in Kansas City, where the conference was originally planned, but some pleasant, writer-filled netherworld of pixeled reality.

I came away exposed to a host of new and interesting writers (many of whose books I ordered via the book fair). I got up to speed on the latest concerns in academia and publishing (representation, the importance of telling untold stories, the drive for equity). And I was inspired by keynotes that are still reverberating in my head (Joy Harjo and her saxophone, Edwidge Danticott and Sarah M. Broome on the idea of home, Viet Thanh Nguyen on how to deal with the colonialist thoughts in your head). Putting on a five-day conference with more than 250 panels is a tremendous undertaking in the best of times. And I understand that the exhibitors usually carry the financial load. After halfheartedly holding the conference in-person at the beginning of the pandemic, AWP did an impressive job of delivering the event virtually this year. Or at least that’s the way it looked from the outside. There were few technical glitches, and although it only attracted half of its normal 12,000 attendees, and the bookfair was smaller, it provided a way for authors to get attention for new books and for writers and readers to stay up to date and get reinvigorated.

As we near the pandemic’s end, I’m starting to worry that everything will return to normal in-person and I’ll lose these chances to participate. I really hope things stay halfway virtual, and that event producers realize there’s a place for both.

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This is a generic blog article you can use for adding blog content / subjects on your website.

You can edit all of this text and replace it with anything you have to say on your blog. You can also change the title listed above and add new blog articles as well.
Edit your Blog articles from the Pages tab by clicking the edit button.

This is a generic blog article you can use for adding blog content / subjects on your website.
You can edit all of this text and replace it with anything you have to say on your blog. You can also change the title listed above and add new blog articles as well.

Edit your Blog articles from the Pages tab by clicking the edit button.