AWP Report: Why Writers Matter

I just returned from Chicago where I attended The Association of Writers & Writing Programs' annual conference (which is why I haven't posted in a week). According to their website, AWP aims to "foster literary talent and achievement, to advance the art of writing as essential to a good education, and to serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing."

Obviously, these are my kind of people.

But the conference didn't initially make me feel what I thought it would with its keynote address by Art Speigelman, a Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novelist; its featured reading by Charles Baxter, a brilliant short story writer; its panel with Ben Percy, a recent winner of the Pushcart Prize; and about a thousand other cool people.

Despite the masses of great artists at this conference, I was initially depressed by what was going on at the Chicago Hilton last week. At this conference, there were thousands of desperate fame-craving writers -- people who were there not to celebrate great writing, but to "be discovered."

There were masses of scraggly, unkempt poets. (In fact, I was told twice, "You must write fiction. You're too clean cut to be a poet.) There were hoards of turtelnecked short-story writers and mountains of mid-life-crisis-induced aspiring novelists. There was, to be honest, a component of this conference that was tragically sad. It reminded me of a poem by Charles Bukowski titled "poetry readings." It begins:

poetry readings have to be some of the saddest
things ever,
the gathering of the clansmen and clanladies,
week after week, month after month, year
after year,
getting old together,
reading on to tiny gatherings,
still hoping their genius will be
discovered.

Even worse, part of this conference (albeit a small part) was about wealth and elevating the individual (a few panels even had titles like "From Publication to Promotion: Capturing the Attention of the Media" and "How to Make Money Writing Right Now.")

All of this made me question why we even need contemporary writers (and you'd have a hard time finding a bigger fan of contemporary writing than me). If today's writers are just as wealth-obsessed and egocentric and impure as everyone else, do they really have anything more to offer us than Lindsey Lohan? Is their literature merely an elaborate ruse in which they feign sincerity, dupe the masses, and stuff their pockets?

So with the question, "Why do we need writers?" blazing in my ears, I settled into a reading of six writers (Charles Baxter, Barrie Jean Borich, C.J. Hribel, Scott Russell Sanders, Sun Yung Shin, and Wang Ping), and let me tell you -- I got my answer to this question. We need writers. We need them desperately.

Here's why:

1) We Need Writers Because Great Writers Understand Grace.

Despite the miles of greasy hair, the racks of homeless-style clothing, and the ragged appearances of so many conference attendees, not one successful writer I saw in Chicago -- not one -- looked inelegant or shoddy. Each one, male or female, moved with a grace and poise that seemed to come from an earlier era. But these graceful appearances were merely an extension of their work. Whether they were writing about the sublime (birth, grief, the nobility of Chinese peasantry, isolation) or the ridiculous (a man who shoots a gun at a nuclear reactor as a form of protest, giant pumpkins that get swept up in a tornado and become vegetative wrecking balls, a couple who get wedding pictures taken at Sears), each writer achieved a simple grace in expression. They used language expertly. They built word upon word to create raw emotion, and they did it with elegance and beauty. We need writers because grace in expression is sorely lacking in contemporary society, and great writers implicitly argue for it's return.

2) We Need Writers Because Great Writers Give Grace.

Here's an example. For years I've been a fan of Charles Baxter, and I hoped somehow I could get him to sign my copy of his book Harmony of the World, but I didn't know how to approach him. I hated the idea of thrusting a book and pen roughly in his face, and when he walked into the lecture hall where I was waiting to hear him read, a mass of fans descended upon him, and I decided it would be impossible for me to get my book signed. I do have a little dignity (very little), and it demanded that I refrain from acting like a groupie.

So I took an aisle seat towards the back, set Harmony of the World onto my lap, and waited for the reading.

A moment later, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"You have that old, old book of mine," a voice said. Obviously, it was Charles Baxter, who must have noticed my eagerness to meet him as well as my withdrawal from the crowd. And then, he made the perfect gesture. He half held out his hand, letting me know he'd sign my book if I liked but that he also wasn't presuming anything. We spoke for a moment, he signed my book, and he moved onto the stage for his reading.

So what does this have to do with grace?

Great writers, I think, give us things we simply can't get on our own.

Isn't that grace?

Baxter gave me his signature, and while that's an obviously small, silly thing, Baxter knew what I wanted and knew that certain things prevented me from getting it. So, he gave it to me.

And isn't a great book similar? Don't great books give us things we want but can't get on our own? Things like hope, strength, power, virtue, and peace?

So, to sum up:

The best writers, I've decided, understand grace -- both how to act with it and how to give it. The worst writers, who are all too often unkempt and scraggly, who spout profanity as if it's truly original, and who crave their names on book jackets more than they crave good stories, never will.