AWP (Associated Writers Programs) is the largest writers conference in the world, having registered 12,000 attendees at the last conference in Boston. For the very first time in the history of the AWP conference, there will be a Portuguese American panel in the program at the 2014 conference in Seattle.

TITLE: Beyond Pessoa, the New Landscape of Portuguese-American Literature

DESCRIPTION: In recent years there has been a surge in the visibility of Portuguese-American literature. From early immigrant tales of fishermen, whalers, carpenters and factory workers, to modern day poetry and fiction about ethnicity, politics, and identity, this panel will discuss the landscape of Portuguese-American writing in the 21st century.

MERIT:  In 2011/12, there were over thirty new books by Portuguese-American writers, including two seminal anthologies published by Rutgers UP and Gavea-Brown, setting in motion the components for the start of a true new wave in ethnic literature in the United States and globally.  

The panel was proposed by our esteemed Board member Millicent Borges Accardi,  a Portuguese-American poet who has received literary fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), CantoMundo, the California Arts Council, Barbara Deming Foundation, and Formby Special Collections at Texas Tech University for research on the writer/activist Key Boyle. Her full-length poetry collection Injuring Eternity is with World Nouveau (Mischievous Muse Press), and a second collection, Only More So is forthcoming. She also has a chapbook, Woman on a Shaky Bridge with Finishing Line Press.

We recognize and congratulate Millicent on her effort to bring Portuguese-American writers to the forefront of American literature, at such a reputable forum.

Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, Inc. is a non-profit organization, created to research, preserve and disseminate vanishing memories and current relevant events about the Portuguese presence in California, for educational purposes.

For more information about Portuguese Heritage Publications and its published works, please visit: www.PortugueseBooks.Org