It's Okay If You Didn't Go to AWP

Really, it's no biggie. But if you need to get over that last hurdle of FOMO, look no further than writer Viet Thanh Nguyen's essay for Jacket Copy, written last week as more than 12,000 writers and publishers descended upon Los Angeles. After all, Nguyen wondered, in a world where writers are compelled to attend industry conferences: "For whom does the solitary writer write?"

...Being surrounded by more than 12,000 people of the same persuasion feels overwhelming rather than affirming to me, particularly because what I and many other writers do best is to be alone, the most essential condition for writing.

The book a reader consumes in a dozen hours has cost the writer hundreds and perhaps thousands of hours, time spent alone in the company of one's mind (except when distracted by the virtual reality of social media). A conference like AWP pushes the writer and her work out into the public, albeit a sympathetic, literary one. Such an encounter raises the question of audience. For whom does the solitary writer write?

During the decade of misery that I spent writing short stories, the anxiety of writing for others often struck me. I wondered if editors would accept my stories, if agents would contact me, if juries would bestow a prize, if famous writers would hail my words. For all that writing involved excavating ideas, feelings, images and insights from a depthless cave within myself, I could not shake the sense that the literary industry's judgment was as important as my own creative choices. AWP is the logical product of this literary industry, born into existence for the same reason that carmakers and pharmaceutical manufacturers gather together: to share the hottest products and trends, to form new networks and renew old bonds, and, most importantly, to affirm a shared identity and conviction. The distinction for writers is that their solitary trade and calling is at odds with the human need to gather in tribes.

Continue at Jacket Copy.