Preparing for AWP Panel: “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About War”

I am preparing my essay for the panel sponsored by CONSEQUENCE literary magazine at this year’s AWP Conference in Boston, MA.  As always, I struggle to nail down my process in writing about all that is not talked about when we talk about war.  My inspiration for Alice Bliss … which was more than inspiration, but a compulsion … to tell the stories we never hear, the stories we sweep under the rug, label “collateral damage,”  and the way our language twists and sways to make the horrific utterly banal. How do we lift that which we prefer to ignore into the spotlight and make it absolutely unforgettable?

Please join us at the Hynes Convention Center, Friday, March 8th, 9 – 10:15, Room 309.  I am honored to be appearing with fellow panelists and writers Catherine Parnell, George Kovach, Siobhan Fallon, and Bob Shacochis.

“When writers address the subject of war, they face tough choices about what material to include and how to give voice to the unspeakable. The writer’s job, then, is to examine what drives nations into war and terrorism, and to focus on atrocities that are ignored or under-reported. This panel will discuss the roles that research, experience, and reportage play. It will ask how the choice of genre impacts the topic of war and what literature can achieve that journalism cannot.”