Woke up “kinda early” in order to have breakfast and head to the grocery store in enough time to get back before setup at 10:30.

Sam and I passed some nice art on the way back from Trader Joe’s (we went to the mart behind the hotel… it’s sketchy and I bought some Gatorade and candy, but I got proper food at Trader Joe’s too. We don’t get lunch breaks on Tuesday or Wednesday and I needed proper food to keep my blood sugar in the right place). Oh yeah. Here’s some of the neat art:

After that, AWP staff members spent hours setting up pre-registration and on-site registration. We’re expecting about 10,000 people (probably more, if you count the ones coming to the free events) so the more we do ahead of time, the better!

Then we ran upstairs and changed & showered in time to meet some of our board members and head over for a private tour of the Poetry Foundation’s new building (just opened last July). I’m not a poet, but the building was amazing. It’s a beautiful space for readings and for reading. They have their own podcast recording studio and listening booths, a beautiful library with a children’s poetry shelf, an office for whoever the current poet laureate is, the complete run of Poetry Magazine, and a whole lot more. It’s a gorgeous building that was designed to be welcoming and look like a poem :-) My favorite part was Thurber’s sketch that inspired the Poetry Foundation’s logo!

We returned to the hotel to find all our signs had been hung up! Here is on-site registration (unpaid registration), where I will be living for the next 4 days:

The staff and the board had dinner together across the street (in a snarf, aka, historic hotel). It was a great dinner; we’re all stuffed and ready to host a magnificent conference!