20 Something and Sublime

Today was the last full day of conference! We didn’t even try to make the 8:00 AM sessions. Last night, I set my alarm for 9:00 AM. Conference burn-out is real. I got up reluctantly, having stayed up so late the night before. We went to an interesting 9:30 AM session with panelists discussing literature’s connection to music through different lenses and with varied artifacts of literature: The Muppets, Chinese film, a novel titled Arabian Jazz , and two of Hozier’s songs. I really liked the panelist that analyzed Hozier’s songs through the lenses of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism—it was super interesting and also relevant to popular culture today.   After this, my roommate, Alexandra, presented her piece. She read a nonfiction piece she had written alongside two other panelists that did the same. They were all fabulous readings and featured writing that was vulnerable and strong, calling out the systems and/or attitudes in modern-day America that are hurting rather than help...

Today was a long (ish) day. I woke up to a dehydrated start of the day because of our little cocktail escapade the night before. As expected, we did not make the 8:00 AM session. I promptly hushed my alarm and re-set it for 9:00 AM.  When I did finally emerge from sleep, I put my hair up, good clothes on, and did my makeup in preparation of the session I was serving as chair for. I was able to greet and talk to all the panelists beforehand, and they were all very interesting and talented people. The moderator for the session was a very relatable, bright, and quite jovial woman, so I felt relaxed being the chair for this session. I introduced all of the presenters before they spoke and then asked appropriate questions during the allotted time for Q & A. The panel was poetry-centered and titled “What’s Beyond.” All the panelists read work that critiqued or confronted traditional religions in new ways that allowed them to inversely examine their own identities and how they derive...

 Happy Hump Day! Today was the third day of my trip here in Denver, but the first day with actual presenter panel sessions taking place. This morning, I woke up at 7:52 AM before the first session at 8:00 AM. My time management skills may need some work.  The 8:00 AM session was wonderful! We enjoyed learning to make a mini zine out of cut-outs from magazines, wrote Shakespearean sonnets, practiced an exercise called "writing without actually writing," and made mad lib poetry into pantoum poems. It was a good time, and the early morning creativity was much needed to distract me from being nervous before my own presentation.  After this, I went to a session called Editing Professionally and took some notes about some steps I could take to develop myself as a freelance or professional editor within the work force. I was only able to stay for about half of this before I left so I could get ready for my panel. By "getting ready," I mean finishing what I couldn't dur...