Literary Pixie

For the first time ever, I attended the American Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference. Oh my! I had been wanting to attend since I interned at Red Hen Press in 2016. Now I have, and it was enlightening. To be honest, I didn’t really learn much about what’s going on in the writing world, but I did have deep realizations about my role in it.

This year was in Kansas City, Missouri one day before the Kansas City Chiefs took on the San Francisco Forty-Niners in the year that more people watched the Superbowl than the moon landing (thanks Taylor Swift) & three days before the Kansas City Superbowl Parade mass shooting committed by two teens (who could have been my students) where they killed one mother and injured twenty two people, mostly children despite having 800 police officers employed to keep everyone safe. I feel nauseous just writing this down. Something is deeply wrong in America for something like this to happen, and honestly keep happening. Again, and again, and again, and still nothing changes. There have already been over 60 mass shootings in 2024. It’s been less than two months. When is enough enough?!

At AWP, I realized that the dreams I had in 2016 just out of college when I interned at Red Hen and first set my eyes on attending AWP are no longer my dreams. The mass shooting confirms it.

• I no longer dream of creating a publishing house to complete with Penguin or Simon and Schuster or Harper Collins just like Sara Miller McCune (founder of SAGE).
• I no longer dream of writing a New York Times bestselling novel.
• I no longer dream of completing a MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry.
• I no longer dream of living in New York and attending parties hosted by Paris Review, New Directions, and NYU/Columbia.
• I no longer dream of dating a writer who wears flannels and reads Jack Kerouac and wants to live in a van and travel America.

While these are fun and brilliant dreams, they are not my dreams. Anymore. They definitely were, because aren’t they just so cool! They just aren’t mine.

At AWP, I found clarity in my new dreams. My new dreams are the answering and actualization of this question: what is a functional city in the 21st century and how do we create a system for one?

• I dream that in my lifetime I will be part of transforming LA into a functional city that meets the needs of 21st century using 21st century technology and wisdom.
• I dream of nurturing an education system that is sustainable and develops young minds into caring global citizens who care about their community and have the skills and relationships to live the highest quality of life possible in society.
• I dream of designing, implementing, and maintaining a system for society that is love-based, living-being centric (yes, plants & animals, too!), and community first where every living being can have their needs meet and create a life that they choose.
• I dream of being the Los Angeles Times best-selling author and being invited to parties hosted by the Los Angeles Review of Books, Rarebird, and UCLA/USC/Antioch/CalArts.

From my experiences, I think that Los Angeles is a dysfunctional city.

While LA has some incredible resources such as Tia Chucha, MOCA, and Netflix, our transportation system and size makes it impossible to access them, especially if you are low-income and can’t drive. LA County is over 4,000 square miles. We have 9.7 million people (while New York has 8.3 million) represented by 72 people. That’s almost 20 Malta’s! And Malta is it’s own country! That’s crazy! No wonder I feel invisible and powerless living here. We have enough people to have 20 different cultures and instead we have policies for one. SMH.

As much as my quality of life was better living in the United Kingdom, I feel called to stand by my family, friends, students, and community and bring Los Angeles into the 21st century.

This is my home, the place I love the most, the place I hate the most.

And anyone else who chooses to call it home (it is a choice, not a birthright) is my family, too.

We are in it together, during the flashfloods, during the forest fires, and during the earthquakes. Los Angeles, I’m yours.

Oh, and we had some fab times with a fab group of SoCal Poets! It was a time. Get ready for some cool events coming up!