Last week, thousands of writers traveled to a convention center in Washington, D.C., to “do a reading” or “go to a panel” or “meet internet friends IRL”—yes, I’m referring to AWP, the annual event so difficult to explain that it’s best to not bother telling anyone in the “real world” you even went. At the end of the week, I did a reading on the largest escalator in the Western hemisphere (which is located in the Wheaton metro stop in Silver Spring, Maryland), along with Jordan Castro, Juliet Escoria, David Fishkind, Zachary German, Emma Heldman, Precious Okoyomon, and Nicolette Polek.

Jordan brought the microphone and the Union Jack mini-amplifier (he intended to return it after the reading, but he left the empty packaging at the bottom of the escalator and someone took it while we were reading, so I guess he has it forever now), Zachary determined our reading order by rolling two dice that he keeps in his pocket, Juliet brought glitter, Joey Grantham filmed this video, and I filmed everyone else’s readings and posted that here.

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Chelsea Hodson is the author of Pity the Animal, she is a graduate of the MFA program at Bennington College and she is the Managing Editor of Bennington Review. She lives in Brooklyn.

Author photo by Daniel Shea