(See what I did there?  In the title?  It’s a pun.  About space.  It’s a space pun.)

If you enjoy awkward puns like the pun above, and if you enjoy people even more awkwardly over-explaining their already awkward puns, then you might be excited to learn that soon, very soon, depending upon your geographical location, you may in fact be able to see me a.) make awkward puns and b.) awkwardly over-explain my awkward puns in person.

I am proud, humbled, honored, super-nervous, and super-exciting to say that I’ll be part of Writers Week Symposium at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.  I am all of those adjectives largely because Writers Week was one of my very most favorite things about the MFA program at UNCW, which makes me even more proud and humbled and honored and super-nervous and super-excited.  You can find the entire schedule here, along with a list of presenters.  I’m still not sure how I’m on that list, and I feel a little bit like it’s an elaborate version of that One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other skit from Sesame Street (in case you follow that link, as you probably should, I am the big bowl of bird seed that has Big Bird so confused).  I’ll be giving a reading from Maleficae with several of my favorite fellow alums — Xhenet Aliu, Yvette Neisser Moreno, and Kate Sweeney — on Friday at 2:00.  I’ll also be speaking about life and writing and teaching and watching ANTM marathons and writing some more after graduation at 3:30.  I can’t promise a Miley Cyrus karaoke session, but, given my other choices when I was at UNCW as a graduate student (those pink-and-magenta-striped spiked heel ankle boots, that homemade Sifl and Olly t-shirt, that weird phase when I dressed like an extra from Valley of the Dolls), anything is possible.

And the excitement doesn’t stop there!  If you’re in the greater Statesboro area, then you should know that the third annual The Write Place Festival takes place next week.  I am especially excited for the main event, which takes place on Thursday, November 14th, at 7 PM in the Emma Kelly Theatre.  This year, six incredible local writers will be reading their work in the Festival.  Readers include GSU faculty member and fiction writer Sarah Domet; GSU faculty member and poet Christina Olson; GSU alum, faculty member, and poet Zach Bush; GSU alum and novelist Jordan Fennell; and Maya Van Wagenen, a local fifteen year old and multi-category winner of last year’s Write Place high school literary awards competition, whose first book is coming out in 2014: Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek (you may be thinking to yourself, oh, how cute, she’s fifteen, but really you should be thinking to yourself, oh my God, she’s fifteen and she’s an absolute firecracker of a writer with a dynamic and original voice and just wow).  I’ll be signing books after the reading, and am again proud and humbled and honored and all of the other adjectives to be part of this wonderful event and included in this group of writers, big bowl of birdseed or not.  You can find more information about the Festival and see the dates and times for the full schedule of events here.