AWP needs a new copywriter
I really wanted to go to AWP this year. It’s in Austin. Friends and old colleagues will be there. The sessions (PDF warning) look great. My company usually attends, and with one of our regular attendees having taken another job, I would have been attending in her stead. But, sigh, for a number of reasons, we’re not going to AWP this year.
It occurred to me tonight that I’ve never actually become an AWP member. $59 for one year, not terrible. But in reading the persuasive copy for Individual Membership, I’m left wondering, what writer writes this stuff?
As a writer, you know how solitary the literary life can be. In pursuing a difficult and lonely art, you appreciate how encouraging and helpful it is to hear other writers discuss their own difficulties, strategies, and accomplishments.
Is this AWP’s answer to the Zoloft commercial with the sad little stone?
“We know how lonely you must be. This is why you’ve clicked on Individual Membership. But for just $59 . . .”
My suggestion would be, as an institution that supports writers, AWP shouldn’t tell potential members how much the life of a writer can stink. I think we’d rather feel like we belong to a super-awesome club.
After all, I like being a writer. I like the industry despite its faults. I love the people. Books are probably the best looking, best smelling inedible products we as humans have ever made. I want to pay money to celebrate my favorite professionals and products. Most writers live and write in the world, not in a hermitage. We’re happy, damnit!
