{"id":40643,"date":"2025-03-11T18:39:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T23:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/und-today\/?p=40643"},"modified":"2025-03-11T18:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T23:39:14","slug":"56th-annual-und-writers-conference-is-march-19-21-at-memorial-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/und-today\/2025\/03\/56th-annual-und-writers-conference-is-march-19-21-at-memorial-union\/","title":{"rendered":"56th Annual UND Writers Conference is March 19-21 at Memorial Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Makers & Machines\u2019 theme: Authors, artists describe how they use 3D printing, AI and other technologies in their work<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Writers<\/p>\n

The\u00a0University of North Dakota\u2019s 56th Annual Writers Conference, titled \u201cMakers & Machines,\u201d<\/a><\/strong> will be held from March 19 to 21 at the Memorial Union.<\/p>\n

All events are free and open to the public. Virtual attendance is available for several panels and reading sessions.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, UND\u2019s student-run literary magazine.<\/p>\n

Six authors and artists will be on campus to participate in workshops, panels and readings over the three-day event.<\/p>\n

Visit the\u00a0conference schedule website<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for the latest listings and virtual registration links for Writers Conference activities.<\/p>\n

About \u201cMakers & Machines\u201d and the 56th Annual Writers Conference<\/h2>\n

\u201cIn 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 \u2014 with access to tech like 3D printers and portable computing and AI, anywhere can be a makerspace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s true for storytellers and poets, craftspeople who have always found ways to blend art forms through setting words to music or images or sculptures \u2014 and more! Indeed, the maker spirit has always been an intrinsic part of the literary arts. The Greek word techne\u00a0<\/em>gives us the terms\u00a0technology\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0technique <\/em>\u2014 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 \u201980s. Always, though, the intention is to make art that takes risks, art that dares to explore and probe this world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what this year\u2019s UND Writers Conference, \u2018Makers & Machines\u2019 will explore: how writers and artists make use of old and new technologies alike, with the aim of crafting work that reaches \u2014 and speaks for \u2014 their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Patrick Henry, conference director and assistant professor of English<\/p>\n

Authors<\/h2>\n
\"Lisa
Photo by Juliana Sohn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lisa Ko<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a novelist and essayist whose writing has appeared in\u00a0Best American Short Stories<\/em>,\u00a0McSweeney\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Believer<\/em>. Ko\u2019s nationally bestselling novel, \u201cThe Leavers,\u201d 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 \u201cMemory Piece,\u201d a novel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Kristen
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kristen Radtke<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a memoirist, graphic novelist and artist who currently serves as creative director of\u00a0The Verge<\/em>. Radtke is the author of \u201cSeek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness,\u201d which was the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and \u201cImagine Wanting Only This,\u201d a memoir. Her work has appeared in\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0Marie Claire<\/em>,\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>,\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>,\u00a0GQ<\/em>\u00a0and in several other publications. Radtke lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Lillian-Yvonne
Photo by Adrienne Mathiowetz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is 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.<\/p>\n

Bertram recently co-edited \u201cOutput: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953-2023,\u201d and published the AI-generated chapbook \u201cA Black Story May Contain Sensitive Content.\u201d They are also the author of poetry collection \u201cNegative Money,\u201d and the poetry collection \u201cTravesty Generator,\u201d winner of the 2018 Noemi Press Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry Series.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Eugene
Photo by Ning Li<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eugene Lim<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a novelist, librarian and publisher of Ellipsis Press whose writings have appeared in\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>,\u00a0The Believer<\/em>,\u00a0The Baffler<\/em>,\u00a0Granta<\/em>,\u00a0Dazed<\/em>,\u00a0The Brooklyn Rail\u00a0<\/em>and elsewhere. His novels include \u201cFog & Car,\u201d \u201cThe Strangers,\u201d \u201cDear Cyborgs,\u201d \u201cSearch History,\u201d and the forthcoming \u201cSpace Bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"KenzieKenzie Allen<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is 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.<\/p>\n

Allen is the author of \u201cCloud Missives,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

She is the recipient of a 92NY Discovery Prize, an inaugural James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets and the 49th<\/sup>\u00a0Parallel Award in poetry, among other prizes. Allen\u2019s work has appeared in several publications including\u00a0Poetry<\/em>,\u00a0Boston Review<\/em>,\u00a0Narrative<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Poets.org<\/em>. She is a first-generation descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"KTKT Duffy<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a new media artist, designer, developer and arts organizer from Chicago\u2019s southwest side who is currently an assistant professor in Art, Technology and Culture at the University of Oklahoma.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 ones that translate immeasurable connections and examine the impending demise of binary systems.<\/p>\n

Duffy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Schedule<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The 12 p.m. panels and author readings at 4 and 8 p.m. will be held in-person and simultaneously livestreamed via Zoom.\u00a0Zoom registration is open on the conference\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wednesday, March 19<\/strong><\/p>\n