After the Covid shutdown, The Word Works got back in the saddle and had a highly successful AWP in Seattle, Washington, March 8-11, 2023. This means we sold these new books and the authors came to help: Karren Alenier’s first volume of From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, Andrea Carter Brown’s September 12, Nikia Chaney’s to stir &, Christine Ham’s Gorilla, Ed Madden’s A pooka in Arkansas, Kevin McLellan’s in other words you/, Brad Richard’s Parasite Kingdom, Naomi Mulvihill’s The Knife Thrower’s Girl, Sharon Suzuki-Martinez’s The Loneliest Whales Blues, Cheryl Clark Vermeullen’s They Can Take It Out. Some books like Tara Betts’ Refuse to Disappear and Doug Ramspeck’s Blur sold themselves without the author being there. We were also grateful to these authors who were present and whose books were on the table: Chloe Martinez author of Ten Thousand Selves and Nil Michals author of Gembox. At our offsite reading, Karren Alenier, Lillo Way, and Carolyne Wright read their response poems From the Belly in their 6.5-minute presentation. The crowning glory of this Book Fair was a pussywillow and flower arch at our table which drew many curious book buyers.
