Thank you for your amazing support of our open letter to AWP. In just a few days we've gathered over 650 signatures, and more are coming in as we send this! 

AWP has already shifted their position in response to our open letter: they now say they “strongly recommend” masks at the conference. Previously they had no statement recommending masks at all. This is a welcome shift in rhetoric, but not yet a policy change.

Let’s keep up the pressure until they require masks for all in attendance! Please keep sharing the petition and encouraging others to sign. Use the official conference hashtag, #AWP23, when forwarding the petition on social media, or tag @awpwriter, to make sure AWP notices your posts. 

You can also contact AWP directly, by phone at (240) 696-7700, or by email at awp@awpwriter.org. The direct email for Colleen Cable, AWP Director of Conferences, is colleen@awpwriter.org. 

Feel free to use any of the talking points in the open letter, or to draw from the personal stories you have been sharing so eloquently in the petition comments. You might also point out that, as several signers have noted, the Sakura-con anime fest, which will be take place in the same convention center, not only requires masks but has a stringent COVID safety policy. There is no reason that AWP can’t amend their policy immediately to require masks for everyone in attendance.

AWP should take the needs of everyone into account—at the conference, and beyond. We are requesting that they shift their policy immediately to require masks for all in attendance, and that they make this statement clearly and prominently. Thanks again for your continuing support of this petition and communal care.