Event Title: Writers Who Change the World, with Richard Bausch, Percival Everett, and Mona Simpson, Sponsored by Red Hen Press
Description: "I long to hear the story of your life, which must captivate the ear strangely." Red Hen Press presents three unique voices recreating what story is in American culture. These writers do write strangely, and always tilting against windmills.
Participants: Richard Bausch, Shonda Buchanana, Percival Everett, and Mona Simpson
Date & Time: Saturday, April 2, 2016, 3:00pm – 4:15pm            
 

Q: What are some of the conference events (besides your own) and/or bookfair exhibitors you are most excited to see?
A: Melissa Stein's panel on writer's block

Q: What book or books that you’ve read over the last year would you most highly recommend?
A: My brother Robert's novel, Far as the Eye Can See, a visionary portrait of a life in the middle of the Indian wars. Stephen Goodwin's novel Kin, which was published in 1975 and is as fresh and rich and good as it was then.

Q: Given how much time writers spend alone to practice their craft, what do you think are the advantages of creating the large community that exists at the AWP conference? 
A: Almost all the writers I know are outlandishly gregarious people who love to tell stories and gather to do so. Given this fact, the conference makes perfect sense to me. I go to it each year to see pals I don't get to see as often as I'd like. I'm thankful for the chance to do that.

Q: What question that you’ve never been asked before would you like to ask yourself? And how would you answer that question?
A: This particular question always leaves me completely blank. I do not entertain thoughts about what questions I would like to be asked, beyond would you like to try this amazing wine, or do you want to go to bed, darling.

Richard Bausch is the author of eleven novels and eight collections of stories, including The Last Good Time, which was made into a feature-length motion picture, and Peace, which was awarded the 2010 Dayton International Literary Peace Prize. His work has been published and anthologized widely, and he is the recipient of two National Magazine Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2004 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, among others. He is editor of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and a professor at Chapman University in Orange, California. (Photo credit: Jebb Harris)