AWP Conference & Bookfair 2011

Every year my work puts on a giant Conference & Bookfair: http://awpwriter.org/conference/. This is my fifth conference and after Atlanta, New York, Chicago, & Denver, I’m now ready for AWP goodness in… Washington, D.C.

That’s right, the conference is about 20 minutes away from my home this year. It felt strange to gather with my coworkers at the office yesterday (the giant fallen tree was removed from our parking lot over the weekend) to board a shuttle not to the airport but to the actual venue. And the hotel is gorgeous, let me tell you! It just feels strange to be staying in a hotel just miles from where I actually live, getting food and living out of a suitcase so close to home. I suppose it’s excellent practice for the BookCrossing Convention in April :-)

I just got room service breakfast for the very first time so that I could sleep in this morning and enjoy my last gasp at proper sleep before I work hard like a good little Hufflepuff to make this the best conference ever! (I had a snafu with the databases last night and went into panic mode but got it all straightened out and am feeling optimistic again, apart from the snowy forecasts that might make it hard for some of our attendees to get here).

We’ve got our tour of the venue in about half an hour and then we start setting up and I start threatening the DYMO printers with bodily harm to keep them working (that’s what it takes, people, don’t judge me). It’s likely I won’t have any more chances to go online during my “trip” here because there’s no free wireless in my room. But so far all is going well and I’m excited to make my fifth conference the best one yet. Welcome to Washington, DC, writers!