Stretch AWP

by Amy Cipolla Barnes

Timo Volz

My sister and I shared a Stretch Armstrong figurine as kids. He came with bandages in case we accidentally cut him and he oozed red goop. And he did. Often. Kind of like our perpetually-scraped knees covered in Mercurochrome. He was supposed to be indestructible but we were siblings sharing a stretchy man that smelled of syrup and vinyl. And so he stretched and stretched and bled and bled until he was a gelatinous, stretched-out heap forgotten in one of our closets.

I was recently reminded of Stretch Armstrong with someone’s nostalgic Instagram post, but also in an ad for stretching therapy. I learned I can pay someone to “stretch” me. It sounds only a step less painful than what my sister and I put our good old Stretch doll through. Note: I also found out a not-stretched out Stretch Armstrong would be worth a lot of money today. If only that were true for aging writers.

When I came back from AWP 2022 (my very first time to attend), I felt like my childhood stretchy doll: a heap of stretched-out-me. I was stretched in many ways that week. My introvert self stretched to be around nearly 10,000 people. I had to get over feeling like everyone around me potentially had Covid. I hid in my hotel room a few times with a Philly pretzel as big as my arm. Stretching to make eye contact over nametags that wouldn’t stay flat was mandatory. I further stretched my legs by traipsing through Philadelphia to the Mutter Museum, textile museum, a sculpture garden, and of course the Barnes Museum.

I was stretched time-wise to even get to AWP. I snuck the conference in between kid schedule events and my own assigned writing. I stretched my middle-aged joints way beyond their limits. It was definitely a money stretch even though a journal paid for my registration and I used the last of my husband’s air miles.

However, I was also stretched in so many good ways. I got to sell my fiction collections to real people. I met people I had only encountered on Twitter. It was my first AWP ever, a big middle-aged stretch. I came home and wrote more words.

As AWP approaches and the posts begin, I’m finding a different kind of stretching. I have FOMOS (Fear Of Missing Out On Stretching) but I could not stretch into AWP this year. It’s just too far and too much time and too much money — and just too much. There aren’t enough tiny bandages or Ben Gay to cover the over-stretching it would require for me to go.

As I sit unstretched across the country from all the wonderful AWP-ers, I’ve been repeating my reverse-stretching at-home, not at-AWP exercises.

You do not have to go to AWP. Or any conference.

You do not have to be on a panel or a reader.

You do not have to do a fake AWP at home.

You do not have to write more than usual to make up for not going to AWP.

You can be jealous of AWP attendees and still realistically know it’s not feasible for you to go.

You can go walk your local mall and Barnes & Noble and pretend you’re at AWP. I plan on getting an Auntie Anne’s pretzel and reliving my Philadelphia experience.

You are NOT the only one who is NOT at AWP. It may feel like that in the next three weeks. It may feel like that now.

People at AWP are not all having fun or attending glamorous readings or having an entourage of literary groupies following them around. Some of them are overwhelmed or feeling sick or sitting in their hotel rooms face-timing their toddlers or their teenagers.

You can do all of those things but it’s okay if you don’t. Read some extra books. Order more. We all have our own individual limits. We can only stretch so far. There’s only so many days in the week. I know stretch goals are a thing but our bodies and our minds and our writer selves do have a breaking point. It doesn’t matter what I do — I will never be stretched out enough to run a five-and-a-half minute mile like my stretchy teenager self. I’m too stretched with life to sit down and write a novel in a week or a month.

I think of my 2022 stretching days at AWP fondly. My suitcase was stretched with so many books from my writer friends that I had to ship them back. My belly was stretched with a Philly sandwich and shepherd’s pie and a chicken curry that I’ll never forget. My heart was stretched with all the wonderful conversations and shared meals and air hugs and fist bumps. I got to sign my books, in person, for the first time.

I’m on the hunt for a vintage Stretch Armstrong doll now. Will I be at AWP in 2024? I just might visit the stretching people and make it happen but even Stretch Armstrong had his limits. Stretch Amy definitely does too.