AWP

I flew to Chicago this past week for the yearly conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, or AWP as everyone calls it.

AWP is an annual writing conference I've attended off and on for 25 years.  My first one was in 1984 in Savannah, and there were 1,500 writers there. The past two years, New York and Chicago, the throng of poets, fiction writers and essayists has topped 8,000.
 
In 1967 when AWP was formed it had only 13 member institutions. Today it has over 400.  In 1984 when I first attended the Savannah AWP conference there were 31 schools nationwide offering an MFA, the most common terminal degree for those who hope to teach creative writing. Today there are well over a hundred.

Even Spartanburg's liberal arts colleges have added to this growth in creative writing. In 1988 when I arrived at Wofford there was one creative writing course divided over two semesters. Today, there are eight courses available at the college. Choosing among those courses a student can either create a concentration within the English major, or construct a free-standing minor.