A Writing Conference That’s Nervous About Writers? Cool Cool Cool.

So let’s talk about the #AWP26 Terms and Conditions.

Buried in the fine print is language saying AWP “does not permit any disruption of its Conferences… including but not limited to protests, vigils, and demonstrations.” Which is honestly impressive, because nothing says “literary gathering” like pre-emptively telling writers not to act like… writers.

Here’s the thing: literature has never been quiet. Small presses, poets, essayists, zinesters, memoirists — we built entire movements by questioning power loudly and sometimes inconveniently. Antiwar readings. Feminist presses. Queer publishing collectives. None of that came from people being told to stay polite and color inside the lines.

And yet, here we are. AWP asking writers not to disrupt anything. The irony writes itself.

Many of us are still attending because flights are booked, tables are paid for, and indie presses don’t exactly have a magic refund button. But we’re attending under protest — and asking AWP leadership to rethink a policy that feels wildly out of step with the spirit of literary community.

Instead of staying quiet, we made three protest designs. And because protest without material support is just branding, all profits from these pieces will be donated to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center’s Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives Awareness work:

Because if literary spaces are going to get nervous about free expression, indie presses are going to do what we always do: make noise, make art, and redirect money toward people doing real work on the ground. No one is asking for chaos. We’re asking for consistency. You don’t get to celebrate writers for telling the truth and then panic when they actually do it. Writers don’t show up to AWP to be quiet spectators. We show up messy, opinionated, exhausted, brilliant, and occasionally inconvenient. That’s not a bug in literary culture. That’s the whole point.