This year the annual AWP conference was in Vancouver, British Columbia. The conferences are held once a year in a swank downtown locale. This was Beth’s last conference with the association, so next year she won’t go to Austin, but she is on to better pastures at the Nature Conservancy. Vancouver is the warmest place in Canada, although it ain’t exactly the Riviera or surf country. Located right across from Seattle, it’s more of a cool rainforest, where it can get chilly but doesn’t snow. The city is the hometown of Douglass Coupland and has its own hipster downtown scene.