What Personal Data We Collect & Why We Collect It

Each website user’s personal information can be accessed by logging into your My AWP Account. There, you will find your name, address, phone number, and any of the optional demographic data you have chosen to disclose. You can view and change the information you have given to AWP at any time.

Your Email Address

AWP uses your email address mainly to facilitate your purchases and your participation in AWP projects and services. Generally, AWP will not distribute your email address to third parties, but there are two exceptions to this general rule.

AWP will limit its distribution of your email address to two important services to you and the literary field:

1. AWP’s surveys of the literary and academic fields and surveys about the AWP Conference & Bookfair. We develop and deploy most of our surveys in-house, but for larger ones, we may share email addresses with survey consultants, who help us produce our surveys using third-party software solutions. Data from our surveys is used in the aggregate and is anonymous unless a survey respondent has chosen to disclose personal, identifying details such as an email address. SurveyMonkey’s Privacy Policy explains what information they collect.
2. Advocacy for public funding of the arts and arts education. We share email addresses with our partner, Americans for the Arts Action Fund, which advocates for public funding for the arts and arts education. If you prefer not to receive messages from Americans for the Arts Action Fund, you may opt out by going to My AWP Account and indicating your preference in your Personal Information settings.

AWP also shares your email address with two third-party applications in order to provide you with AWP services:

1. The Writer’s Chronicle digital app, developed by BlueToad, connects to the AWP website using an API. This app receives a user’s email address, encrypted password, and subscription status to determine if the user should receive free issues of The Writer’s Chronicle on the app.
2. MailChimp, the service we use to send out emails (including membership newsletters and membership/subscription renewal notices) to our website users, conference attendees, and members. See MailChimp’s Privacy Policy for more information. You can unsubscribe yourself from AWP’s email marketing campaigns. See the Your Account Options section at the bottom of the page for more information.

AWP will not distribute your email address to another individual or organization outside the purposes described in this policy.

Your Name & Street Address

We use your name and USPS address, when applicable, to fulfill your subscription to The Writer’s Chronicle and to solicit individual donations. From time to time, we make your mailing address available for rental to our peer literary organizations for postal mail solicitations. Please contact us at awp@awpwriter.org or (240) 696-7700 during business hours to exclude your address from any future list rental.

Your Phone Number

AWP uses your phone number to contact you if there is an issue with your account, such as a failed payment or an email address we can no longer send to. AWP will never distribute your phone number to another individual or organization.

Your Demographic Data

The optional demographic information we solicit in surveys, at the time of your user account registration, at the time of conference registration or bookfair exhibit purchase, and through conference proposal participation (age, gender, race/ethnicity, employment, role) helps us to tailor communications with our stakeholders and to understand our membership and conference audience. Specific information about any one user is never shared, given, or sold to any third party. The data is used by AWP to help us better understand our members and attendees. Only aggregate statistical data is shared with prospective sponsors, funders, and the public.

AWP sometimes conducts comprehensive surveys of our members in order to gather data on the well-being of creative writing as an academic discipline and the well-being of our teachers, program directors, students, and other literary professionals. Your individual responses are confidential. AWP publishes only totals from aggregate statistical data—average salaries of assistant professors, percentage of African American professors in creative writing, and average class size, for examples. These surveys are important in directing AWP’s future advocacy work for professional standards.

Your AWP Website Usage Data

Usage data collected by our website and email is not shared, given, or sold to any third party, and is used solely by AWP staff to analyze the website’s usage, calculate membership’s average usage of our email messages, enhance the user’s experience, and verify fair and appropriate use of the services AWP provides.

AWP uses Google Analytics for tracking website users and aggregating information about website traffic. Please refer to the Google Analytics Privacy Policy to learn about their site cookies and what information is captured.

Your IP Address

The AWP website only uses your IP address in combination with the version of your web browser to assign a session variable that keeps you logged into your AWP account while moving from one page of the site to the next. This data auto expires two years after your last login.

What We Do Not Collect

Your Credit Card Information

AWP does not “remember” or store credit card information on our website or servers. All payments through our online store are processed in a secure third-party gateway, Authorize.net. The Authorize.Net Privacy Statement describes the information they collect during a transaction. All donations made to AWP are done through the University System of Maryland Foundation’s website. The USM Foundation Privacy Policy describes how they handle your data.

AWP Website Information & Content

Cookies & Site Security

The AWP website uses cookies and/or session variables to keep you logged into your AWP account and to collect items in your shopping cart when using our online store. Blocking or turning off these cookies would prohibit your ability to access your AWP Account, members-only content, or to make purchases on our site.

The entire AWP site, not just the store, is protected by a secure socket layer. Sections of our website where personal information can be viewed, such as your AWP Account and order receipts, are blocked from robots and spiders.

Hosting Services & Development

The AWP web servers are hosted and managed by Amazon Web Services. The Amazon Web Services Privacy Policy is available. The current version of the AWP website was developed by ShiftEight. Consultants from this company continue to help troubleshoot and develop new functionality for users.

Embedded Content from Other Websites

We do not have embedded content in the form of advertisements. All advertisements (image and URL) are hosted directly on our server and do not collect user data with scripts or third-party software applications. We do have some embedded content in the form of videos from YouTube or a company we have contracted with to record our conference events. Refer to the YouTube Privacy Guidelines for more information.

Additional Third-Party Services

Email Campaigns

AWP’s email campaigns are sent using MailChimp. For each user, we choose to use only name, email address, and any pertinent information for the mailing (such as date membership expires, writing program name, or title of conference proposal). We do not use location/time zone information, mailing addresses, demographic data, or any other personal data within our mailings. Please see the “Your Account Options” section below for steps to help you unsubscribe from emails. Refer to the “Privacy for Contacts” section of MailChimp’s Privacy Policy for more information.

Submission Manager

AWP uses Submittable to manage submissions to our awards, our publications (print and digital), and other projects (such as Writer to Agent). View Submittable’s Privacy Policy for more information. 

Digital Apps

The Writer’s Chronicle digital app is published through BlueToad. Through an API, we are able to connect the app to our website so that the app knows who a member or subscriber is, and therefore who can see each issue of the Chronicle for free. The information that is sent through this API is: email address, AWP account password (hashed), and dates of membership or subscription. Refer to the BlueToad Privacy Policy for more information.

The AWP Conference & Bookfair uses Pathable for its virtual conference platform and mobile app. Through an API, we are able to connect Pathable to our website so registered conference attendees can create an attendee profile and access all virtual conference content. If an attendee does not wish to be public on the platform, or if they do not wish to be contacted by other attendees, they can make themselves invisible on the platform in the “Preference” tab of their attendee profile. Refer to the Pathable Privacy Policy for more information.

Social Media Platforms

AWP uses numerous social media platforms to inform and interact with followers. AWP does not share any user data with any of these platforms. The platforms use cookies and/or pixel tracking to serve ads to users. You can view their privacy policies for more information: Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

#AWP22 Health & Safety

Attendees of #AWP22 must be fully vaccinated with a CDC- or WHO-authorized COVID-19 vaccine. AWP will be using the company CrowdPass to verify vaccination status. Refer to the CrowdPass user agreement and privacy policy for more information.

Virtual Conference Events

The AWP Conference & Bookfair uses OnceHub to schedule recording sessions for prerecorded virtual conference events and to send automatic reminder emails for those scheduled recordings. Refer to the OnceHub Privacy Policy for more information.

Your Account Options

You may change your personal data any time at My AWP Account.

You may opt out of email marketing campaigns from AWP at any time by selecting “no” under your email preferences on the My Personal Information page of your AWP account. You may opt back into emails from AWP the same way. You can also contact us at awp@awpwriter.org or (240) 696-7700 during business hours, and AWP staff will change your email preferences for you. Please note that if you opt out of email campaigns, you will still receive emails from AWP regarding membership and subscription renewals, automated emails from our website (such as password resets, order receipts, or confirmation of conference panel proposal submissions), and notices whenever the website privacy policy has changed significantly.

You may opt yourself out of electronic arts advocacy mailings through the My AWP Account page as well, or you may contact awp@awpwriter.org to be opted out.

You may opt out of snail mail marketing campaigns by contacting awp@awpwriter.org. Please note that you will still receive issues of The Writer’s Chronicle if you are a member or subscriber, and you may still receive paper renewal notices.

To have your account removed entirely from AWP’s website, please contact awp@awpwriter.org.