The best thing I saw at #AWP15

I got to go the Association of Writers Program conference in Minneapolis this past weekend, thank you Workplace Pro Growth account! It was the best carnival of all for a writer, a smorgasboard of publishing goodies and a veritable Main Street USA of connections, all overstimulating and whipping one around at full-tilt. Also, I am now in possession of 45 bookmarks and 8,000 pens.

It's easy to fall prey to AWP overwhelm and to just want to stand bowlegged in a corner and hope someone is going to shout, Red Rover Red Rover, Girl with the manuscript come over. But one is better off wading into the book fair looking as though one has a plan. And waiting for something shiny to call out.

Which is why the BatCat Press was my absolute favorite booth. How darling are these girls? They were all shiny dappled cheeks and information and I was all standing stun-gunned, trying to get past the fact that they are in high school and cranking out professional books and hand-marbling pages and all kinds of other ridiculousness. They attend a high school called Lincoln Park in Pennsylvania, which I hope it's okay if I'm posting their pics here, because they're kind of a big deal. They operate the only press in the U.S. run by high school students.

This is the part where I tell you how I spent my high school years: shoving cup after cup of Reese's pieces into my wide open maw while I stood in the walk-in cooler at the Dairy Queen where I (supposedly) worked.

These girls make books. With their hands and their brains and probably some hipster pixie dust.

And here is their teacher, perhaps the most charming teacher I've ever snuck a picture of at AWP.

Shout-out to BatCat Press. Press on.....