56th Annual UND Writers Conference is March 19-21 at Memorial Union

March 11, 2025

Published in: College of Arts & Sciences, Learning

‘Makers & Machines’ theme: Authors, artists describe how they use 3D printing, AI and other technologies in their work

Writers conference logo

The University of North Dakota’s 56th Annual Writers Conference, titled “Makers & Machines,” will be held from March 19 to 21 at the Memorial Union.

All events are free and open to the public. Virtual attendance is available for several panels and reading sessions.

Founded by the late Professor John Little in 1970, the UND Writers Conference has earned a national reputation among writers while being organized by UND faculty, staff and students each year.

This year features more opportunities than ever for attendees to write alongside their peers and invited conference guests, as well as a 6 p.m. showcase on March 20 for Floodwall, UND’s student-run literary magazine.

Six authors and artists will be on campus to participate in workshops, panels and readings over the three-day event.

Visit the conference schedule website for the latest listings and virtual registration links for Writers Conference activities.

About “Makers & Machines” and the 56th Annual Writers Conference

“In the twenty-first century, the rapid transformation of technology has opened artistry and craftwork to new generations of writers, artists, sculptors, and creators. In the last few decades, the maker movement has modeled this through fairs and makerspaces, which platform working creators, amateurs, and hobbyists. YouTube channels and TikTok feeds allow anyone with a smartphone to watch projects unfold. Basements and boardrooms, kitchen tables and community centers — with access to tech like 3D printers and portable computing and AI, anywhere can be a makerspace.

“That’s true for storytellers and poets, craftspeople who have always found ways to blend art forms through setting words to music or images or sculptures — and more! Indeed, the maker spirit has always been an intrinsic part of the literary arts. The Greek word techne gives us the terms technology and technique — a very clear overlap of tools and craftsmanship. The modern maker mindset in the literary arts has a number of precedents, from the printers of broadsheets in the early modern era and to the underground literary movements that ran zines off Xerox machines in the 1970s and ’80s. Always, though, the intention is to make art that takes risks, art that dares to explore and probe this world.

“This is what this year’s UND Writers Conference, ‘Makers & Machines’ will explore: how writers and artists make use of old and new technologies alike, with the aim of crafting work that reaches — and speaks for — their communities.”

— Patrick Henry, conference director and assistant professor of English

Authors

Lisa Ko is a novelist and essayist whose writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s and The Believer. Ko’s nationally bestselling novel, “The Leavers,” was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Her latest book is “Memory Piece,” a novel.

Kristen Radtke is a memoirist, graphic novelist and artist who currently serves as creative director of The Verge. Radtke is the author of “Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness,” which was the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and “Imagine Wanting Only This,” a memoir. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, The Guardian, GQ and in several other publications. Radtke lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Photo by Adrienne Mathiowetz

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is a poet, artist and an associate professor of English and director of the MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland. Bertram has published poetry, prose, and essays in numerous journals with honors including a 2017 Harvard University Woodberry Poetry Room Creative Grant, a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and a finalist nomination for the 2013 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, among other fellowships.

Bertram recently co-edited “Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953-2023,” and published the AI-generated chapbook “A Black Story May Contain Sensitive Content.” They are also the author of poetry collection “Negative Money,” and the poetry collection “Travesty Generator,” winner of the 2018 Noemi Press Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry Series.

Eugene Lim is a novelist, librarian and publisher of Ellipsis Press whose writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Believer, The Baffler, Granta, Dazed, The Brooklyn Rail and elsewhere. His novels include “Fog & Car,” “The Strangers,” “Dear Cyborgs,” “Search History,” and the forthcoming “Space Bar.”

Lim has taught at Columbia University, Long Island University and Queens College. Currently living in Queens, N.Y., he is the librarian at Hunter College High School.

Kenzie Allen is a Haudenosaunee poet, literary cartographer and multimodal artist currently serving as an assistant professor of English at York University. Her research centers on documentary and visual poetics, literary cartography and the enactment of Indigenous sovereignties through creative works.

Allen is the author of “Cloud Missives,” which is described as a multimodal book of poetry and creative ethnography that brings in intergenerational histories and diasporic movements as well as Haudenosaunee traditions and archival materials from the Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Carlisle, Penn.

She is the recipient of a 92NY Discovery Prize, an inaugural James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets and the 49^th Parallel Award in poetry, among other prizes. Allen’s work has appeared in several publications including Poetry, Boston Review, Narrative and Poets.org. She is a first-generation descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.

KT Duffy is a new media artist, designer, developer and arts organizer from Chicago’s southwest side who is currently an assistant professor in Art, Technology and Culture at the University of Oklahoma.

Duffy conjures entities into existence via technology and collaboration. As a neurodivergent and nonbinary person, the normative modalities of learning and making were not designed for them. They glitched and patched through such structures, resulting in visual outputs and curatorial presentations that manifest infinite possibilities – ones that translate immeasurable connections and examine the impending demise of binary systems.

Duffy’s work has been widely exhibited and screened at museums and galleries across the country. Duffy is also engaged in several collaborative efforts expanding dialogues around art, technology and the dismantling of normative frameworks.

Schedule

All events at the UND Writers Conference are free and open to the public. In-person events will be held in the Memorial Union, unless indicated otherwise.

The 12 p.m. panels and author readings at 4 and 8 p.m. will be held in-person and simultaneously livestreamed via Zoom. Zoom registration is open on the conference’s website.

Wednesday, March 19

Noon: Panel, “Makers & Movements,” Lisa Ko, Kristen Radtke, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, and KT Duffy. Moderated by Vitoria Faccin-Herman.
2 p.m.: Community Craft Session, KT Duffy on creative coding/break the internet; Community Craft Session, Casey Fuller on poetry (in-person only, registration required).
2 p.m.: North Dakota Museum of Art Exhibit Tour led by curator Anna Arnar (in-person only, registration required).
4 p.m.: Artist’s Talk, KT Duffy
6 p.m.: Community Open Mic Night
8 p.m.: Reading, Lisa Ko

Thursday, March 20

Noon: Panel, “Makers, Machines & the Literary Arts,” Kristen Radtke, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Kenzie Allen, and Eugene Lim. Moderated by Anna Kinney.
2 p.m.: Community Craft Session, Kenize Allen on poetry; Community Craft Session, Patrick Thomas Henry on microfiction (in-person only, registration required).
2 p.m.: North Dakota Museum of Art Exhibit Tour led by curator Anna Arnar (in-person only, registration required).
4 p.m.: Reading, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
6 p.m.: UND Writing, Editing, & Publishing Showcase hosted by Floodwall, UND’s student-run literary magazine.
8 p.m.: Reading, Kristen Radtke

Friday, March 21

Noon: Panel, “Makers & Machines, Now & Beyond,” Kenzie Allen, Eugene Lim, and KT Duffy. Moderated by Lucian Stone.
2 p.m.: Community Craft Session, Eugene Lim on fiction; Community Craft Session, Courtney Kersten on creative nonfiction and writing the self (in-person only, registration required).
2 p.m.: Print-Making Workshop at Hughes Fine Arts Center (in-person only, registration required).
4 p.m.: Reading, Kenzie Allen
6 p.m.: Community Open Mic Night
8 p.m.: Reading, Eugene Lim