An Ambivert Walks Into A Writing Conference...

Photo by Cara Lopez Lee

Fifteen thousand people at one writing conference are enough to bring out my inner introvert. That’s what I learned at my second springtime leap into the swarms of the annual AWP Conference, this time in Los Angeles. (AWP stands for Association of Writers and Writing Programs, so can anyone tell me why it’s not AWWP?) People often talk about creative writing and introversion as if they’re inseparable, but thanks to writing’s dual requirements of solitude and communication, I believe it attracts a spectrum of introverts and extroverts.

I’m an ambivert: exhibiting qualities of extroversion and introversion in almost equal measure. In Myers-Briggs personality tests, I typically score 51% extrovert/49% introvert. I’ll bet if the tests were not designed for bilateral results, I’d test 50-50.

Non-writers often seem surprised to meet an extroverted writer. Meanwhile, writers who know me seem surprised to learn I’m half-introvert. “But you’re so social!” That’s what an author friend told me when I attended her reading at one of the pop-up events that are my favorite part of any conference.

With that, we both fell into mutual confession, admitting that, although we enjoy such events—typical for extroverts—we feel drained afterward—typical for introverts. She said something like, “I enjoy readings, but I spend most of the time leading up to them dreading it, and most of the time afterward going over every dumb thing I said.”

Without prompting, she volunteered that on Myers-Briggs, she scores 51% introvert/49% extrovert. We laughed over our identical but flipped numbers. I drew an imaginary bubble around us with my hands and said, “We’re both safe here.”

She and I don’t know each other intimately, but I like to believe that for a few minutes after that we both relaxed, eager to get better acquainted with each other, without the pressure of meeting strangers. Then a third author, a stranger, joined us. She was smart, funny, and apparently extroverted. The tension rose, but I enjoyed the conversation. I’m comfortable with being uncomfortable. Still, I missed the one-on-one.

I expected to join a close friend—an introvert—at that event, but she never saw my text confirming our plans. She later texted that she feared being alone so went to another event in hope of finding friends, which is how she ended up alone. It struck me as the classic approach-avoidance conundrum writers face at conferences, the simultaneous desire and fear surrounding social contact.

To write well, we don’t shy from sharing ideas that scare us. How can we ask less of ourselves in a roomful of writers? Yet how will we broach such frank talk with strangers?

I’m convinced that extroverts and introverts are often equally overwhelmed by writing conferences, though perhaps for different reasons. Something like:

Introvert: Why is this person talking to me? Why is she so excitable? Why does she keep talking about herself? Why is she asking me so many questions?

Extrovert: Why won’t this person talk to me? Why is she so disengaged? Why won’t she tell me about herself? Why is she making me do all the talking?

Exhausting. Still, I crave intimate dialogue. That’s one reason I write: the intimate relationship between writer and reader.

In that vein, I prefer events where the halls don’t feel like a pedestrian freeway at rush hour; where presentations are not one-sided, with an invisible boundary between presenter and audience; where I don’t feel lost in a crowd.

At AWP, many fellow-writers and I exchanged the same confession: “This is overwhelming.” A few of us shared ways we deal with that. Here are mine:

1) I only attend two or three classes a day.

2) I spend mornings or afternoons writing in my room.

3) I often choose to eat in solitude.

4) I emphasize offsite events and don’t struggle to meet people. If I do, great. If I don’t, I watch and listen.

5) I don’t feel compelled to go to that thing where “everyone is going,” unless I’m dying to go.

6) I typically attend smaller conferences, seminars, workshops, and retreats, especially where I can spend time with a single group of maybe a dozen.

Those approaches still challenge both my inner introvert and outer extrovert, but I find it worthwhile: reaching within for questions and answers, reaching out to share questions and answers, and synthesizing it all into an improved ability to create and communicate. Introverts or extroverts, we’re writers, and until we share our words we have not completed our purpose.

Cara Lopez Lee is the author of the memoir They Only Eat Their Husbands. Her stories have appeared in such publications as The Los Angeles Times, Denver Post, Connotation Press, Rivet Journal, and Pangyrus. She’s a book editor and writing coach. She was a faculty member at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, a journalist in Alaska and North Carolina, and a writer for HGTV and Food Network. An avid traveler, she has explored twenty countries and most of the fifty United States. She and her husband live in Ventura, California.