VCFA at AWP 2025

A beloved event across genres, industries, and interests, the AWP Conference & Bookfair “is the essential gathering for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers.” AWP 2025 will take place from March 26 to March 29, 2025 in Los Angeles, California at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Members of our two VCFA writing programs—the MFA in Writing and the MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults—will be attending the conference and participating in select panels and readings. Plus, VCFA itself, and our literary magazine Hunger Mountain, will be at Table 1116 in the convention center. Stop by to say hello and connect with alumnx, faculty, and our program representatives! 

Read the list below to learn more about the events VCFA community members are involved in. If you’re a part of the VCFA community and would like your event displayed below, please fill out this form so that we can help share your AWP news.

 

AWP 2025

MARCH 26

Lexi Rosen (W ’24)
Book Fair/Booth: Silly Goose Press Book Fair Table
Start Time: March 26
End Time: March 29
Location: Table T919

 

MARCH 27

Leslie Ullman, MFA in Writing Faculty
Book Fair/Book Signing: A signing for Leslie Ullman’s recent full-length collection, Unruly Tree
Start Time: 10:00am
End Time: 10:30am
Location: Book Fair Table 618

Jeffrey Leong (W ’14)
Conference Panel: “Breaking Walls: Heirs of Angel Island Write Against the Anti-Chinese West”
Panelists: Teow Lim Goh, Paisley Rekdal, Tom Lin, Jeffrey Leong
Start Time: 10:30am
End Time: 11:50am
Location: Room 406AB, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

“Against the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which set the xenophobic tone of current US immigration policy, and the harsh detentions at Angel Island, five writers of Chinese descent grapple with personal and collective history. From different generational stances as immigrants and mixed-race persons, they employ multiple genres—poetry, fiction, memoir, essay, and translation—to interrogate injustice. They’ll discuss strategies for subverting racial tropes and engaging lyric language to true a past.” 

Leslie Ullman, MFA in Writing Faculty
Book Fair/Reading: A group reading by recently published Lily Review Press authors, featuring VCFA’s Leslie Ullman
Participating Press: Lily Review Press
Start Time: 1:40pm
End Time: 3:00pm
Location: Book Fair Stage, West Hall A, Level One

Rebecca Olander (W ’15)
Book Fair/Book Signing: A signing for Rebecca Olander’s debut poetry collection Uncertain Acrobats
Start Time: 2:00pm
End Time: 3:00pm
Location: Table 300 at the Book Fair 

Nora Shalaway Carpenter (WCYA ’12)
Conference Panel: “The Setting Gap: Deconstructing Patriarchal Environments Through Worldbuilding”
Panelists: Gloria Munoz, Nora Shalaway Carpenter, Alisa Alerin, Yuly Restrepo, Tyler Gillespie, Alex Villasante
Start Time: 3:20pm
End Time: 4:30pm
Location: Room 406AB, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

“Setting is more than vibes. For BIPOC, female-identifying, and queer writers, it’s a means of entering spaces that have been historically inaccessible and prohibitive. From the margins, setting is political, and literary canons and societal gender norms have perpetuated these delineations. Authors from across genres discuss ways they build environments—real and fantastic—to close the setting gap, code-switch, raise social questions, and reckon with the gendered politics of how worlds are built.” 

Rebecca Olander (W ’15)
Off-Site Reading/Event
Participating Presses: Perugia Press, SWWIM, MER, Cultivating Voices, Whale Road Review
Start Time: 5:30pm
End Time: 8:30pm
Location: MG Studio, 1319 W. 11th St. LA

“A collaborative offsite reading with five organizations that uplift the voices of women and nonbinary writers, including Perugia Press run by Publisher Rebecca Olander (W ‘15).” 

 

MARCH 28

Leslie Ullman, MFA in Writing Faculty
Book Fair/Booth Signing: A signing for Leslie Ullman’s recent chapbook, Self Portrait as Vanishing Act
Start Time: 9:00am
End Time: 10:00am
Location: Table 161

 

MARCH 29

Sue William Silverman, MFA in Writing Faculty
Conference Panel: “Writing Traumedy: How to Make Your Mother Cry at Your Life & Laugh at Your Death”
Panelists: Sue William Silverman, Jill Christman, Brooke Champagne, Ashley C. Ford, Brittany Means
Start Time: 12:10pm
End Time: 1:30pm
Location: Room 502A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

“It’s hard to be human. If you want to write the tough stuff—illness, trauma, loss, disaster, life—in a way that takes readers to the darkest places, but also brings them up for air and lets them laugh, join us as we marry tragedy with comedy to conceive the love-hate child named “Traumedy.” We’ll offer tips for using irony, irreverence, and gallows humor to bring levity to heartbreak and explore life’s sorrows traumedically. Morphing pain with pleasure is ideal for any sadomasochist—or writer.” 

Madeline Franklin (WCYA ’18) & Rocky Callen (WCYA ’19)
Conference Panel: “Outspoken: Accurately & Sensitively Representing Sexual Assault in YA Fiction”
Panelists: Annie Cardi, Kim DeRose, Madeline Claire Franklin, Rocky Callen, Sonia Patel
Start Time: 1:40pm
End Time: 3:00pm
Location: Los Angeles Convention Center, Room 407, Level Two

“In an era of book banning, it’s more important than ever to be outspoken about the difficult issues teens face, including sexual assault. But how do we write about it accurately and sensitively, making readers feel seen while simultaneously ensuring that the text isn’t unnecessarily triggering or gratuitous? These five writers will discuss how they each approached writing about sexual assault in their YA novels, why it’s so crucial, and the vital importance of centering the victim.”