Haunted and haggard: AWP 2024
If you’re going to Kansas City for a big writers conference, have I got the most cursed AirBnb for you!
(Teaching journal will return next week)
It’s a dark night in Kansas City. Or maybe it’s because I’m from Southern California that it seems so dark. Only the brightest stars are visible at night in San Diego. Night out here in the midwest seems vast and large and empty. Can’t say it isn’t a little spooky.
The plane arrives late, so by the time I gather the luggage, rent the car, and find my destination, the time is 10:30 p.m. On a weeknight. For a high school teacher, might as well be the middle of the night.
I drive to the address provided for my AirBnb. Doesn’t seem correct. Nowhere in the listing did it say it was a haunted fucking house, but here I am, on a darkened, abandoned street somewhere in industrial Kansas City, staring down the single structure. It’s square, brick, monolithic, and surrounded by skeleton trees. Sectioned off into four units, the building looks like old-school living quarters for the criminally insane. Straight out of Poe or Lovecraft.
I double check the address. Yes, I’m at the correct place. A shiver runs across the back of my neck. I stare at the four units and wonder which one holds my destiny. I open up the messages from the AirBnb’s owner and carefully read the instructions. Turns out that the unit I’m renting is on the backside of the building, which I can only access by descending a massive gravel pit. Only halfway down do I realize that the room I rented is in the basement of this Gothic manor.
Cool. I’m in the movie Barbarian.
The house will swallow me. It’ll be the last time anyone has ever seen the likes of Ryan Bradford. And all because I wanted to be some serious writer.
*
A few days prior, I texted a friend to ask him if he was going to AWP, aka the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference.
“No,” he said.
“Oh I am.”
His response: “Why?”
Writers love to hate on AWP, and this is a pretty typical response from people who’ve been in the game for a while. And their gripes are valid: The annual conference is a beacon for desperate, sad people. It’s not uncommon to introduce yourself to someone and they’ll look over your shoulder to see if you’re with someone more famous.
AWP is also rife with privilege, nepotism, and a fervent need for recognition—not to mention constant dick measuring (figuratively). I’ve never been to a Hollywood party, but I assume AWP is similar, except that no writer is making any money.
So why am I here?
I have not felt like a writer in a long time. I have not been to an AWP since Covid, and that’s about the last time I’ve produced any fiction that I’ve been proud of. In fact, it takes every ounce of self determination just to call myself a writer without feeling self-conscious. Since Twitter is essentially useless now, I feel like I’ve lost a lot of connections with the online writing community.
So I’m at AWP to get my groove back. To find that spark. To reconnect with a scene that I have felt so disconnected from since the beginning of Covid.
Also, despite all the negative shit I said about AWP, it’s a celebration. Writing is such a lonely artform, mired in self-doubt and disappointment. The return of investment is never great when you’re a writer. AWP is one of the very few occasions that you can celebrate this cursed life with other cursed souls.
*
Hotels in downtown Kansas City run $300-$400 a night. What the fuck?
I mean, nothing against Kansas City, but what the fuck.
Hence me booking the Barbarian house.
My good friend—and the funniest writer I know—Kevin Maloney is staying with me, so if we’re murdered, at least it won’t be a lonesome death. He was the first to check into the cursed rental. “AirBnb is great!” he had texted. Did you even go to the correct place? I think.
But when I enter, the AirBnb is… nice? Not at all like the pit of hell I anticipated. There’s a large assortment of Nature Valley bars, a modern bathroom with the most complex shower I’ve ever seen (12 valves?), and a bag of gourmet coffee. I was probably being overdramatic with the Barbarian stuff, but then I open the fridge and find a single jar of pickled asparagus with a note that reads “Food for you!” So yeah. Still a high chance that this place is cursed.
I leave my bags and drive downtown to find friend and horror writer extraordinaire, Adrian Van Young, at the bar in the Marriott adjacent to the convention center.
The Marriott bar is overrun with people with beards and glasses. I order a Bud Light and the bartender tells me that it’s last call, so I order two Bud Lights. The total comes to $18. I thought people came out here to escape California prices.
When Adrian shows up, he’s very receptive to the idea of a haunted Airbnb.
“Do you think it’s a witch’s house?” My mind goes back to the jar of asparagus, and yes, there can be no other explanation.
We drink, catch up, and before I know it, it’s 1 a.m. On the way back to the house, I stop at Town-Topic Hamburgers, the only 24-hour joint close by. There’s a crowd standing around, even that late at night. Good sign. I order a plain cheeseburger and fries. While I’m waiting for my food, three drunken middle aged bros pick up their order and then whisk away on Bird scooters. They look like bowling pins, slowly drifting away in the night.
Kevin Maloney is semi-conscious on a couch when I get back. I take my food to bed. It’s one of the best burgers I’ve ever had, but really, it just feels good to have someone with me in the witch basement. I wipe my greasy hands on the blanket, fall asleep, and dream of nothing.
*
The next morning, a slightly hungover Kevin Maloney tells me about the blackbirds.
“Hundreds of them swarm around this place and perch in the trees,” he says. “At sundown.”
Sundown, I think. Only the most ominous experiences are untethered from the standard 12-hour clock, and “sundown” is as ominous as it gets.
“Oh, and also up the hill,” Kevin says, “There’s an abandoned Children’s Hospital.”
I can’t believe my ears. Here we are, in the Barbarian house, under the shadow of an abandoned children’s hospital? And also the birds return at sundown? It’s like the universe is saying, “Hey, remember all those horror movies you watch? Maybe look around.” Let’s not forget the asparagus in the fridge.
“I knew, of course, you would book the most haunted AirBnb possible,” Kevin says.
Yeah, I get it. I am the spooky guy. Ryan Bradford: lover of horror movies, writer of horror stories. But I swear to fucking god, I had no idea that this was what we were getting into. AirBnb does not list “Cursed features” on their website.
Kevin and I drive down to the convention center, a five-minute drive from our haunted abode. We blast Mötley Crüe because we are two middle-age men trying our best to hold onto some youth.
Parking in Kansas City is very easy, and I’m thankful for our Airbnb host for recommending I rent a car (which I rented on points from my credit card, so [blink-182 voice] I guess this is growing up). Kevin and I go our separate ways. He’s on the journey to find some allergy medicine. I want to see my agent, who’s on a panel about ethics in book agenting.
Apart from a brief introduction back at AWP 2016, I’ve never met my literary agent in person, and I’m not even sure if she still is my agent. The whole writer/agent relationship is so mysterious to me. We worked together seven years ago to sell a book that never sold. This was no fault of hers—just the way things go.
And then I wrote another novel that I hated writing, but still sent it to her. She rightfully said it wasn’t a good fit, which...yeah. Good call. You don’t want an agent advocating for your book if they don’t believe in it.
But still, that was the last formal interaction that we’ve had. We haven’t spoken or emailed in years. What, exactly, is our relationship? Is she still my agent? Is she still interested in my writing?
I go to her panel, and she’s great even when an insufferable guy negs her during the Q&A session. The patience and composure she has while interacting with this shithead is very reassuring.
But it’s clear that my paranoia and undermining self-tendencies were for nothing. After the panel is finished, she comes up to me, we hug, and she says it’s nice to see a familiar face.
If that’s all I come to AWP for—an opportunity to deflate my insecurities—then it’s worth the thousands of dollars I spent getting here.
Before I fuck things up by bringing up books or business, I excuse myself and retreat to a solo lunch at The Yard House, three blocks away from the convention center, where I drink a 22 oz hazy IPA and eat a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato bisque. Ahh, tastes like San Diego, I think, sucking down that sweet hazy. Eating the better-than-mediocre food gives me a feeling of superiority to all the suckers eating the slop at the convention center. If anyone is looking for a good Yard House in Kansas City, hmu.
At the book fair, I find Adrian at the Black Lawrence Press table. He’s signing copies of his new story collection, Midnight Self, which was one of my favorite books last year, and he’s reading tonight at a Black Lawrence event.
Once he finishes signing, we walk around and look at the slew of presses and micropresses that are hocking wares at the convention. I have not heard of many of them. Another symptom of my dissociation from the scene.
I text Kevin and tell him that I’m planning to head back to our place for a nap before Adrian’s reading. Kevin thinks that’s a great idea. By now, we’ve fallen in love with our little spooky abode.
Once there, I look up Adrian’s reading and Google maps tells me that it’s 900 feet away from our Airbnb. Turns out that there is an art gallery just beyond the abandoned children’s hospital. You know what they say about art galleries: location, location, location.
I doze and then wake to the sound of squawking. Must be sundown.
I step outside and behold hundreds of blackbirds settling into the trees around the property. As I’m looking at these monstrous birds, I see a lone tall man in a black hoodie climbing the hill toward us. Adrian. If there is a better way for a Goth horror author to arrive at a reading, I can’t think of it. It’s like the birds are announcing him. He looks evil as fuck. It’s so badass.
We walk to the gallery. There’s free pizza. And free wine.
Did I mention free wine? And pizza?
Any worthwhile literary event will definitely have free drinks, but free pizza? This raises it to a whole other level.
Adrian reads a story that drips with potential hammer violence, and we’re all rapt. But then there are eight more readers left.They’re all good, but I’m of the opinion that no literary event should last more than an hour. Even the most astute audience doesn’t have the attention span to listen to words for longer than that. Not to mention that in a bar—where lit events are often held—you can escape, order drinks, go to the bathroom. At an art gallery, you can’t really leave without looking like an asshole.
After the reading, Kevin and I book it to a downtown speakeasy bar for another event. We meet up with Aaron Burch, editor of the lit journals HAD and Short Story, Long, as well as an author of a number of books.
When I first started getting into internet lit and reading small presses, Aaron’s name was one of the first I encountered. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, but at the risk of inflating his ego (I mean, more than it already is), I still feel a little fanboy-ish when I see him.
He’s also inspiring because he’s just so enthusiastic about all the work he publishes, his own writing, and his friendships. Aaron is a dude who likes to write and live and make spaces for other people to be their best.
At the speakeasy bar, I ordered two shots and two beers. Aaron nods approvingly. “There it is,” he says, and now I feel like my AWP has officially begun.
The reading at the bar is put on by a few publishing houses, one of which is called Autofocus. I’m a big fan of Autofocus and their dedication to creating tiny-yet-emotionally-driven, vulnerable books. One of the readers tonight is Emily Costa, who wrote a devastating, unputdownable book called Until It Feels Right about living through Covid and motherhood with OCD.
Emily is hanging out with her own gang—Aubri, Lauren, and Terri from Icebreakers Lit. It doesn’t take long before our groups merge.
The reading ends, and the writing crowd leaves the bar, replaced by a crowd of cheer moms. Supposedly, there’s a cheer conference going on at the same time as AWP. I know I’m drunk because I’m suddenly talking to two cheer moms, asking what their kids are doing while the moms are at the bar.
The two women look at each other and laugh. “They’re back at the hotel?” It sounds like a question. “It’s vacation for moms, too.”
At some point, Aaron says we should go to a casino, and pretty sure I’ve never heard a better plan. We pile into Ubers and head over to Bally’s—not the saddest casino I’ve been in, but then again, I’ve casino’d in Yuma.
Everyone crowds around the craps table, all holding a novelty, barbell-shaped tube of piña colada. I can’t really see straight, this is the worst idea, I think, downing my own barbell.
We move to the blackjack table, and I stand over Aaron’s shoulder, whispering hit, stand, double down, and many other things that I’m not qualified to say. In my mind, I’m this powerful demon, playing the game through Aaron’s hand, but in reality it’s just me swaying, whispering like a pervert.
Somehow it becomes 3 a.m. Outside, Aaron vomits. And it’s a very tidy puke, more of a maintenance puke, if you will.
*
I wake up the next morning feeling great. Only when the shower is too complicated for me to operate that I realize I’m still drunk.
Over the next hour, the hangover kicks in, and you might as well just kill me.
I decide to walk the two miles from our Airbnb to the convention center. I figure maybe some activity will do me good. I walk through abandoned warehouse districts and industrial zones and suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m Bruce Springsteen? Middle America core.
I spend the last day of the conference milling about the bookfair. My face feels heavy with last night’s activities. I look very intelligent with my bloodshot eyes and fish-gape mouth. A few people say they’ve seen pictures from casino night, which seems to have already grown into something legendary. File “Casino night” into the book of AWP lore. Everybody is asking if Aaron is still alive. I’m like fuck if I know, but if my last image of him is throwing up outside the Bally’s casino, it’ll just be a reminder that life can be beautiful.
That evening Kevin and I shove our faces with barbecue at a place called Q39. It’s been a long time since food has revived me so thoroughly. I’m finally feeling human again. As we’re eating, Kevin tells me that, earlier that morning, he was just waiting for me to leave so he could use the toilet to throw up, and at one point got kind of pissed when I came back when I forgot something. “I just wanted to vomit in peace.”
By the way, we’re all 40-something-year-old men.
That night, we go to a sports bar that’s hosting a reading by Clash Books. Readers tear through their 4-minute time limits, and even though we’ve all had just about enough literary shit for the next few weeks, the running-on-empty energy is invigorating. I eat a basket of soggy fries and barely fried chicken tenders. Against my better judgment. I order whiskey. Yolo.
There’s a half-hearted attempt to rally people to another bar, but nobody’s having it. We’re all old. It’s also the night before the Super Bowl, and frankly, the Chief’s fans are getting scary. I witness so many reckless drivers on the way back home.
Kevin and I try to finish all the beers that we bought. I take a 10 mg edible and we talk for what seems like hours. We discuss the state of writing, the literary scene, our pets, literary drama. Suddenly I can no longer make any sense, or I am making too much sense??
We wake up early. As we check out of the Airbnb we climb the gravel that we’ve walked on numerous times before, only this time, we finally notice that on the side door of the building, there’s a plaque that reads “Allen County Morgue.”
Cool.
On our way to the airport, we both agree that it's the best AirBnb we’ve ever stayed in. We will both return to our respective homes, inspired, haggard, and maybe a little haunted.
So, basically, we’re coming home as writers.
Got a tip or wanna say hi? Email me at ryancraigbradford@gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter @theryanbradford. And if you like what you’ve just read, please hit that little heart icon at the end of the post.
Don’t let me miss the next one 🥲