The 2010 Reggie Award

Ladies and Gentlemen of AWP Denver 2010,

In 2007, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Annual Conference & Bookfair was held in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference, while a success in regards to branching out to a new section of the United States and for paying honor to the South's great literary tradition was not an ideal location, as the conference center and Hotel Hilton were located in downtown Atlanta, which is a financial district and therefore the bars were limited to the Tiki Bar in the basement of the Hilton and a terrible Irish pub located in the basement of a mall.

Of course, there was little else to do but drink, and so myself and my crew found ourselves drinking heavily until late in the morning where we would scour the streets in hopes of finding someplace to eat before we returned to our hotel room, which, I may add, was upgraded to the Ambassador's Suite for reasons unknown.

We often found ourselves at the Metro Diner, a brand new establishment that was decorated in a retro-deco style and was open 24 hours. Naturally, as with a new restaurant, it was not entirely prepared to have drunken writers staggering in at every moment of the morning with their faces desperate to have waffles shoved in them.

And so, after a marathon night of drinking $3 gin and tonics, we found ourselves at the Metro Diner at about 3 o'clock in the morning desperate for breakfast food and anxious to try what legends refer to as 'The Hobo Banquet' with its tagline of 'We Invented This One!'

Our server, a young man named Reggie, had to deal with our drunken stupor and demands for ketchup and eggs served certain ways, knocked over water glasses, and our general rowdyness, which included one friend asking another friend if he could bring a prostitute back to the shared room, as well as a few declarative statements of 'I'm having her baby,' a sentence that made little sense then and makes less sense now.

Despite our terribleness, we were certainly aware of our terribleness; therefore we were very gracious and kind to Reggie in the face of such adversity. Many a time we uttered 'Reggie...thank you. Seriously, Reggie. Thank you. Seriously...seriously...seriously. Thank you.'

And so, we named the Reggie Award in his honor--showing extreme patience in times of chaos and disarray, dealing with our shortcomings with a smile, and for filling a void inside of us that we did not know needed filling.

Therefore, it is with great honor I present the 2010 Reggie Award to Harry Axeman.

Harry Axeman, as we came to know and love him, was the 12-13 year old kid with a half-mullet haircut running through the bookfair, occasionally handing out colored flyers to people walking by before jetting off someplace magical, someplace wondrous. His namesake comes from the fact he wore a Harry Potter t-shirt two out of the three days at the conference and was often found with a large yellow inflatable guitar to which he commonly rocked out on as he ran in between the booths occasionally screaming out guitar riffs: jamming, always jamming.

Harry Axeman, you do not get to choose your parents. You did not ask for your mother or father, or perhaps both mother AND father to be writers. You probably wished for them to be great rock musicians, football players, astronauts. Instead, this is the card that you were dealt. And when your family told you that you would be going to Denver for a Writers Conference, you probably were hesitant: certainly, you would be getting out of school for a couple of days, and your parents promised you that they would take you to Casa Bonita, but still, spending the majority of your days at a bookfair or listening to dying writers tell their stories did not seem like the vacation of a lifetime.

Yet, there you were, with your sweet t-shirt and your guitar, darting around the bookfair, occasionally stopping to look at grotesque covers of literary magazines, perhaps hoping that Fence would have that pornstar-looking cover yet again, that some hip girl's skirt would be too short, that some journal might slip you a few extra Hershey's Kisses, that there was something, anything in this bookfair for you to enjoy instead of relying on your own awesome company and your rock and roll.

And so, with great honor, we present you this award. One day you might become bitter and jaded about your time spent in conferences and pedagogic panels, but take heart in that your cheerful disposition and dedication to your craft did not go unnoticed.

We salute you, Harry Axeman. If anyone with questionable sideburns and tight jeans tries to tell you that Harry Potter is trash and that AC/DC is not awesome, you have carte blanche to punch them wherever you see fit. God bless.