For those of you who don’t know, AWP stands for “The Association of Writers and Writing Programs.” They have a conference every year and everyone who’s ever written a short story or poem shows up (this year, the count was around 11,000), including yours truly(ies). Though many in the crowd are admittedly of the bookish, introverted, academic variety (overheard in crowded elevator: “What do you call an elevator full of writers?” Silence. “An anthology.” Polite snuffs, hrm hrm, hrm hum. Doors open, half the writers get out, including joke-teller. Doors close. “Guess we just made edits.” Less polite and louder snuffs, Har Hrm, Hur Har) there are plenty of people doing interesting things with words, making beautiful work, and being generally awesome. And so I’m going to do a bit of a run-down, in list forms, of things that are hot.

Hot Item #1: Ed McPherson. Writer, teacher, dashing man of wit and verve.

I have listed Ed as “Hot item #1” because, well, he’s totally hot. But also because he was kind enough to walk me around the completely overwhelming rabbit warren that was the AWP Bookfair and point me toward the things that were interesting. He appears to know everyone and everything related to writing, and constantly had to remind me when I oohed over design or ahhed over cover illustrations that “the stuff inside is pretty good too.” Also, Ed is so enthusiastic about the Idiots that he singlehandedly sold a stack or two of books to originally unwilling bystanders. So, thank you Ed.

Ed currently works for The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. I hesitate to post this photo because it seems to defy my previous statement that he is a “dashing man of wit and verve” but there you have it. Even dashing men of wit and verve have their bad photo ops (Ed on left).

The Loft is a great support and teaching program for anyone interested in writing or reading (that should cover just about everyone, no?). They host readings, provide mentoring programs for writers, award grants, and, best of all, offer online writing classes for adults and kids at incredibly reasonable prices. So if you’re a writer or want to be one, you can still do it without having to leave home (writers never go outside, right?).

And for those of you who are wondering how I got to know such a hot item, we went to school together, so it is entirely coincidence that we are currently moving in similar circles.

Hot Item #2: (Technically, I should have made The Loft Hot Item #2, but it flowed so naturally from Ed that I just lumped them together. Sorry, The Loft). Paper Darts Magazine and Press.

Fellow devotees of the combination of words and pictures, Paper Darts features lovely design, excellent illustrations (this feature on their website makes me red with envy), oh, right, and great writing too. They also featured three hot girls and a hot guy at their table, making them shoo-ins for the hot list.

It appears they know how to sell books.

Hot Item #3: Tuesday; An Art Project. A lovely collection of poems and photography in card form. The poems are printed on letterpress cards, and they’re all housed in a lovely letterpress envelope of yummy Mohawk heavyweight paper. Tuesday celebrates the tactile, the “place for the poem to rest”. They celebrate it in a very quiet and elegant way, with tea and biscuits and lace gloves rather than a five-layer cake with buttercream frosting and a photo of themselves airbrushed on top.

Hot Item #4: Cool mugs from The Rumpus. I first learned of The Rumpus when I clicked through some links that led me to their Dear Sugar advice column, in particular, the “Write Like A Motherfucker” post. Go read it, get out your typewriter, order your mug, and, yes, write like a motherfucker. (Apologies for the language, but seriously, sometimes it just doesn’t mean as much when it’s full of *&! and @#$’s.)

And, while you’re at it, sign up for Letters in the Mail, where you’ll get a letter from a real life writer in the mail on a weekly basis. We signed up a few months ago. Plus, it would make Isaac even more excited than he looks in the above photo (more envelopes for him to stuff!).

Hot Item #5: Motionpoems. Okay, so I’m a little biased – but everything gets better when you add pictures. Even poetry.

Hot Item #6: Illustrated Moby Dick by Matt Kish from Tin House. I couldn’t resist. I got the hardcover for Matthew (ha ha! for ME!). He was one of those people who had already read Moby Dick three times before it was assigned for class (the one class we took together as undergrads, back when I thought he was an overeager schoolboy in the front row, and he thought I was a first-rate slacker in the back – some things never change!). Luckily for Tin House, I was smitten from the moment I saw it, so booth-minder Cheston didn’t have to do a sales job. Because, well, he’s not very good at sales jobs.

Hot Item #7 (which should REALLY be Hot Item #1): Me in Edward Gorey‘s fur coat. YES, HOLY SHIT, I HAD IT DRAPED OVER MY VERY OWN SLUMPED AND TREMBLING SHOULDERS, thanks to A. N. Devers of Writers’ Houses. Devers wrote about acquiring the coat here in the Paris Review. (Aside: She also is a subscriber of ours. I did not realize this until just now, when I was looking up all of this information. I should have introduced myself. But then I would have run into the awkwardness of not knowing whether to call her “A” or “N” or “A. N.” or “Ms. Devers” or “Mrs. Devers” or “Miss Devers.” So maybe it was a good thing. Anyhoo…) Turns out Edward Gorey had a lot of fur coats. Here it is, with a picture of Edward Gorey on it, to prove that he was a man who wore fur coats.

And here I am, wearing it, standing next to the Writers’ Houses table, where they were selling some of their lovely screenprints of various, you guessed it, writers’ houses.

And, I’ll tell you, that fur coat was HOT. So hot I only wore it for two minutes and started sweating. So hot I was still sweating when I returned to our booth, 20 minutes later.

Hot hot hot.

Or maybe it was just my body acknowledging that it had just been standing very very close to the sun. Even though Edward Gorey isn’t still alive to profit from it, go out and buy all of his books right now. You will not regret it. He was a mad mad genius in a way that only crazy guys in fur coats who write about epileptic bicycles can be.

So that’s the round-up. Maybe I should have made it a nice round number, but 5 didn’t cover everything I wanted to talk about, and 10 seemed way too long to expect anyone to read and click through links (which I urge you to do – all of these are people who are dedicated to their (often thankless) work in a way that I totally admire. I’d love to send some of you readers their way, out of appreciation and bonhomie).

And now, back to the grind. We have a big exciting project in the works that will be unveiled soon. So hold on to your seats!