AWP and Recovering from Imposter Syndrome

            As I slipped the mask of the Swamp Ape over my head, the mild-mannered poet who says “Excuse me” in crowded bars, nervously checked Waze every five feet between the Air BnB and the Washington Convention Center, and smiled at each visitor who asked, “What the hell is a Swamp Ape?” at our book fair table – that person disappeared. For 15 minutes, I swaggered, photo-bombed, entered literary magazine raffles by signing “SWAMP APE” to the small yellow tickets, and sat down to lunch with strangers who tried not to appear startled at my swampish ghillie suit and gorilla mask.

            This is a convenient anecdote, because it also works as a metaphor for the transformative power large groups can have on an internal perspective. I would never don the Swamp Ape costume in my home (or admit it if I did), but with an audience, it seems natural. Similarly, writing alone can feel self-indulgent. If you write as I do, balancing your laptop on your ripped sweatpants at 2 p.m. with a piece of stale cake on the nightstand, you may see yourself from the outside and wonder if you’re delusional. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the hordes of literary magazines publishing work you admire and wonder whether anyone needs your voice.

The imposter syndrome is common and shared. Thousands of writers, who are stereotyped as being highly sensitive, solitary creatures, trekked again this year to AWP to brave crowded terminals where there are never enough free phone chargers, planes where free snacks are no longer complimentary and one can catch a virus from just unbuckling the seatbelt, trains that make too many stops, Ubers, too-small hotels - these writers walked half a mile through the chilly and strange streets of DC to a convention center full of strangers and projectors that fail just before each panel presentation begins.

            But we went anyway. We went because walking by the brick buildings and art galleries of DC reminded us what it’s like to be in the honeymoon phase of a romance with a city. And we went to the mixer because while writers are terrible dancers, the lack of inhibition by the flailers on the dance floor was inspiring. We saw that thousands of other writers also prioritized their writing enough to make the same trek and don a lanyard.

AWP was a reminder that while the fact that so many writers exist means the market is flooded, it also gives us permission to value writing in our own lives as well. It’s both humbling and energizing to realize that writing, while done in isolation, can also take place in a larger community. And so, though I will likely not don the Swamp Ape costume again, when feeling inadequate or foolish, I can put on the metaphorical costume of a writer making the awkward trek to AWP, remember that far away, others are doing the same with their lanyards tucked in drawers, and for a moment, it seems we do this together.

Kathleen Martin is a second-year MFA and is on staff at Swamp Ape Review. Her digital literacy creation, Between Memories (betweenmemories.com), explores the relationship between memory and memory loss through interviews, surveys, art, and erasure poetry.

Swamp Ape Review: What It Means, How We Got Here, and the Narrative that We Hunt

I’m a nonnative Floridian. Like many of us here in the MFA (and many Florida-dwellers overall), I transplanted in favor of a great writing program, sunny skies, and sandy beaches. Part of that process involves what I think of as Florida initiation moments—key experiences where I learn a true quirk of Florida culture (e.g., the uncanny campus presence of iguanas in place of squirrels, hand-sized banana spiders next to walkways, hurricane season, the known-only-to-locals meaning of just “season,” unpredictable appearances of the word “y’all,” etc.) One such experience was my first encounter with the mythological Swamp Ape. Over a cold glass of beer, an MFA colleague enlightened me with the long-loved mystery of the Swamp Ape—a Florida-dwelling being that sustains an enigmatic and elusive existence in the Florida Everglades.

The myth of the Swamp Ape is what inspired the name of Florida Atlantic University’s first national online literary journal, founded and produced by students in the MFA at FAU. As the Managing Editor, I have the privilege of bringing the Swamp Ape legacy into a new format, and directing its embodiment in our inaugural issue, appearing January 2017.

Needless to say, this year has been a busy one for us. Our challenge was to take a vision for hybrid works (see more on this at our website, www.swampapereview.com), and work it into existence with sweat, potlucks, and a pile of agendas and task calendars. Since January, we’ve been tackling all the practical business of running a journal: creating a temp logo and website, printing marketing materials for our submissions launch at AWP, outreach to artist markets and MFA programs soliciting their very best work, outlining staff responsibilities, reading more than 800 submissions (!), planning a launch party with big-name Skype-in readers… I may be biased (I likely am), but it’s been more fun than I ever imagined.

I’d like to credit the FAU MFA culture for that, as well as the drive we all have to create something new—something strange, exceptional, and alluring. Because we’re committed to our mission statement and niche, our hope is to build a community of artists—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, visual art, and “swamp” artists whose work defies a traditional genre—who are the best in their class and strive to capture that which we can’t explain. We are hunting a narrative as Floridians hunt the Swamp Ape; we want art that unsettles our assumptions of what is possible.

This month, we’re finalizing our decisions about what will be included in our inaugural issue. In upcoming months, we’ll be editing book reviews, hosting and interviewing top talent like Justin Torres, Ira Sukrungruang, Rebecca Makkai, Jennifer Egan, Victoria Fedden (an FAU MFA alumna), Elizabeth Powell, and Jensen Beach (who we also plan to take to the sandier-but-equally-mesmerizing Jensen Beach of the Florida coast).

For those of you who now (appropriately) want to get involved, we have options for you:

·         If you’re an FAU MFA student, attend our weekly meetings.

·         If you’re a writer/artist, watch for our submissions reopening in spring 2017.

·         If you’re attending AWP in February, stop by our table.

·         If you’re in another MFA program, watch your halls for our launch and submissions flyer, coming to a wall near you.

·         If you’re the social sort, follow us on Facebook (/SwampApeReview), Instagram or Twitter (@SwampApeReview).

·         If you’re just curious, check out our website and watch for our first issue at www.SwampApeReview.com.

It’s a good year to be a lit journal at FAU.

Natalie Rowland is an MFA candidate at Florida Atlantic University and the current Managing Editor of Swamp Ape Review (www.swampapereview.com).