AWP and The Writer’s Chronicle are excited to bring you our first TWC Live! conversation, on March 12 at 7:00 p.m. ET! Join authors Ilana Masad, Maris Kreizman, Lily Meyer, and Daniel Felsenthal for a deep and honest conversation about making a living as a freelance writer and book critic. According to data collected by the Freelance Solidarity Project, the digital media wing of the National Writers Union, the median hourly pay for book critics is less than $17. Learn what these writers and others are doing to improve freelance working conditions in a world where venues continue to shrink book coverage.
Be part of the live audience for this vital discussion about the intersection of labor, art, and money, and stick around to ask the panelists about their experiences and the future of freelance book criticism.
Please join us for this live conversation on YouTube on Wednesday, March 12, at 7:00 p.m. ET. This programming is free and available to both AWP members and nonmembers.
Join us on Wednesday, March 12, at 7:00 p.m. ET for this free live event.
Participant Bios
Daniel Felsenthal is a writer, critic, poet, and experimental DJ whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, and The Village Voice, among many other publications. He teaches creative writing at Columbia University and is an assistant editor at NOON.
Maris Kreizman is a columnist for Lit Hub. Her work has appeared in New York Magazine, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Esquire, The New Republic, and more. Her newsletter is called The Maris Review. Her essay collection, I Want to Burn This Place Down, will be published on July 1, 2025.
Ilana Masad is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, and many more. She holds a doctorate from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and is the author of the novel All My Mother’s Lovers and a coeditor of the forthcoming anthology Here for All the Reasons: #BachelorNation’s Franchise Fascination. Her second novel, Beings, comes out September 23, 2025, with Bloomsbury.
Lily Meyer is a translator, critic, and author of the novel Short War. A contributing writer at The Atlantic, her translations include Claudia Ulloa Donoso’s story collections Little Bird and Ice for Martians. Her novel The End of Romance is forthcoming from Viking.