Setting Up

I'm not sure who decided that Mark Leahy (Fiction Editor) and I should take the 6:00 flight out of Indianapolis to get to AWP in Austin, but unfortunately, I think it was me. Luckily, everything ran fine. I'm a little paranoid about plane security, and I kept replaying a bizarre made-up scene in which I was pulled aside for a random search and the Sycamore Review postcards I had in my backpack (500 of them - we'll be giving them out for free!) would somehow match a terrorist criteria.

But the government in this country doesn't think literature is a threat...

After Barney Haney (Managing Editor) and his little brother Jeremiah rolled into town around 2:30, we went over to set up the bookfair table. If you're here at AWP, we're at table 245, if you're not, just imagine a gigantic conference center hall with concrete floors, rows and rows of blue-swathed tables, and about six mini-forklifts tooting their airhorns at every possible opportunity. We're all the way in the back left corner - I'm not sure yet whether this will be a blessing or a curse. But Barney and Mark both pointed out that The Paris Review is just a couple tables down from us, so our spot can't be too bad.

We're sharing our space with Parlor Press, which is based out of Purdue University, just like Sycamore is, and so about two-fifths of the table is covered in books I know nothing about (oops!), which makes me feel a little weird, gearing up for tomorrow's talk fest:

"What's this book about?"
"Dunno."
"What's this one about then?"
"..."

But the table looks pretty good. I bought four little metal book-holders back at Office Max in Indiana, and we're using them to hold open copies of the issue to some of the Dennis DiPasquale and Donald Bowers images. And Daryll-Lynne Evans (Editorial Assistant) showed her true colors as she skillfully designed a multi-height display of the postcards, flyers and issues.

Walking out of the Bookfair, I saw some pretty snazzy booths, and I think I'll take notes over the conference on what we can do diffferently next year in Hot-Lanta.

Tomorrow we'll be at the Bookfair starting at 8:00, and if we can catch some airwaves, we'll be blogging from our table. Stop by and we might take your picture and talk about you on the internet.