Virtual AWP is back with another fascinating conversation about the intersection of technology and creative writing. “Virtual AWP Pedagogy: Using AI in Creative Writing Practice” will dive into how creative writing educators can ethically utilize artificial intelligence as a constructive tool in their classrooms. This free event features authors and educators Rebecca Dunham, Jen Sammons, A. E. Osworth, and Elissa Washuta, with moderator Michele Morano, who serves on the AWP Board of Directors as the Midwest Council chair.

The premiere of this Virtual AWP event will also include a live Q&A on Youtube on Thursday, July 25, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. ET. Register online to receive a reminder and a direct link to this event, as well as updates on future events. Registration is free, and you do not have to be an AWP member to sign up. However, to participate in the live Q&A, you must be signed in on YouTube.

Panelist Bios

Rebecca Dunham is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Strike (New Issues Poetry & Prose) and Cold Pastoral (Milkweed Editions). Her work has appeared widely in literary journals such as FIELD, Prairie Schooner, and the Kenyon Review. She has received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, she is a professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

A. E. Osworth is a transgender novelist. Their debut, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and was longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and the Tournament of Books. Their next novel, Awakened, is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing in April 2025. They are a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing, where they teach fiction, interactive fiction, and new media.

Jen Sammons is a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at Miami University in Ohio. A queer writer, mother, and teacher, Sammons is the author of the forthcoming hybrid-form memoir For Those in Peril on the Sea (Mad Creek Books, 2025) and the chapbook Trisagion, nonfiction winner of the 2018 Gertrude Press chapbook contest. Sammons’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fourth Genre, Tahoma Literary Review, Intima, River Teeth, and elsewhere.

Elissa Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. Her essay collection White Magic was selected as a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award, longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and named among the best books of 2021 by Time, the New York Public Library, and NPR. She is the author of My Body Is a Book of Rules and Starvation Mode, and with Theresa Warburton, she coedited the anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. Washuta’s honors include a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, and the Artist Trust’s Arts Innovator Award. She is an associate professor at the Ohio State University, where she teaches in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing.

Moderator Bio

Michele Morano is a current AWP board member and the author of the travel memoir Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain and the memoir in essays Like Love. Her work has been published widely in literary journals and anthologies, including The Best American Essays, and has received honors and awards from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the American Association of University Women, the Illinois Arts Council, and other organizations. She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs at DePaul University in Chicago, where she lives.