#PowerOfThePen at AWP

Hello, from the other side of AWP! It was a long and amazing weekend of running between panels, readings, off-site events and the Stillhouse Press booth at the Bookfair. The Stillhouse team is thrilled to have had the opportunity to connect with so many great writers, readers, publications, and organizations—not to mention all the opportunities we had to show off our authors and their books! (We’ll take this one last chance to say: if you missed your opportunity to snag a book at the Bookfair, you can order online.)

In honor of the 50th anniversary of AWP and its presence in the nation’s capital this year, we wanted to do something special. If you were at AWP and stopped by, you might have noticed us hanging out with a whiteboard and asking people to participate in our social media project. (Maybe you even stopped by!) We collected all the photos and selected our favorites. 

We asked, “What is writing’s role in 2017?”

Here’s what you had to say:

1. “To remember who we/you are, remember who we/you were.”

2. “Bear witness and document history.”  

3. “To remind us of the scientific facts!”

4. “RESIST.”

5. “To fight the tyranny of ignorance.”

6. “To tell the stories from the perspective of the lion. #resist #minorityrepresentation”

7. “Speaking truth to power.”

8. “Be ever-moving forward and amplify those that have been/will be silenced. #resist #queeraf”

9. “To be not alone.”

10. “‘To reflect the times’ - Nina Simone + speak out against the sh*t!”

 

11. “Truth and beauty as always, and now...more than ever the will and grace to fight for it.”

There were so many more folks who participated and gave us their two cents. You can check out the other photos on our Twitter page, @StillhousePress, or search #PowerOfThePen. We had a fantastic time talking with everyone who stopped by to tell us what they thought. As writers and poets, we all have a lot of work to do in 2017. And we at Stillhouse Press look forward to working alongside you.

Want to participate? It’s never too late! Tweet @StillhousePress with your answer or comment on this post!

Alexandria Petrassi is the editor of Moonshine Murmurs, a reader for Stillhouse Press, Phoebe, and So to Speak, the Lead Editor at Floodmark (a blog devoted to providing eclectic inspiration for writers), and a first-year poetry student in the MFA program at George Mason University. She also has a day job in health care, where she works in Digital Communications.