2020 Conference Information
Save the Date
November 7, 2020
Due to our commitment to establishing a safe and welcoming environment for our participants, we've decided to hold the C.D. Wright Women Writers Conference virtually this fall.
As we have more information, it will be posted here.
2020 Conference Information
NOVEMBER 5-7, 2020
Photo by Marley Cash-Powell
Nan Snow Emerging Writer Award
As part of its mission to promote the work and careers of women-identifying writers, the conference sponsors the Nan Snow Emerging Writer Award, which celebrates conference attendees whose writing shows considerable promise. The deadline to submit is August 15, 2020, and information can be found here. http://www.cdwrightconference.org/2020-contest-information.html
Editorial Consultations
In order to help our attendees better understand the publishing industry and gain access to publishing opportunities, conference participants can, at a cost of $35, register for virtual, twenty-minute editorial consultations with visiting editors. Participants will submit 3-5 pages of poetry, 10-15 pages of prose (novel/memoir excerpts, essays, or stories), a query letter, a grant application, or 5-15 pages of a book proposal prior to the conference, and then meet with an editor and receive astute feedback during a virtual (online) one-on-one conversation on Friday afternoon, 11/6/2020, (a few slots will also be available on Saturday, 11/7/2020).
If you are interested in participating in a consultation, please email Dr. Jennie Case at jcase@uca.edu with your preferred editor and genre. Dr. Case will let you know the availability of editors and the procedure for making payment. Payment must be received by the time you submit your manuscript pages. Cancellation with a full refund is available until Monday, October 12, 2020. After this date, there will be no refunds.
Current list of participating editors (updated 8/6/2020):
In order to help our attendees better understand the publishing industry and gain access to publishing opportunities, conference participants can, at a cost of $35, register for virtual, twenty-minute editorial consultations with visiting editors. Participants will submit 3-5 pages of poetry, 10-15 pages of prose (novel/memoir excerpts, essays, or stories), a query letter, a grant application, or 5-15 pages of a book proposal prior to the conference, and then meet with an editor and receive astute feedback during a virtual (online) one-on-one conversation on Friday afternoon, 11/6/2020, (a few slots will also be available on Saturday, 11/7/2020).
If you are interested in participating in a consultation, please email Dr. Jennie Case at jcase@uca.edu with your preferred editor and genre. Dr. Case will let you know the availability of editors and the procedure for making payment. Payment must be received by the time you submit your manuscript pages. Cancellation with a full refund is available until Monday, October 12, 2020. After this date, there will be no refunds.
Current list of participating editors (updated 8/6/2020):
- Kim Brown, Founder and Editor of Minerva Rising Press (fiction or memoir)
- Sara Lewis, Associate Editor of the Oxford American (fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, book proposals, pitches for magazine essays, or grant applications)
- Jenny Molberg, Director of Pleiades Press (poetry, including book proposals)
- Melanie Palmer, President of the Grant Professionals Assoc., Arkansas Chapter, and owner of M. Palmer Consulting (grant application materials)
- Rhett Iseman Trull, Founder and Editor of Cave Wall Press (poetry)
- Erin Wood, Founder and Director of Et Alia Press (creative nonfiction and memoir, essays or book proposals)
Schedule (In Progress)
All events will be held online. Unless noted otherwise, events are free and open to the public.
2020 Keynote Speakers
Carmen Giménez Smith, Thursday, 11/5/2020
Giménez Smith holds a BA in English from San Jose State University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa's Writer Workshop. She is now a Professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, VA. Giménez Smith is also the co-director for CantoMundo, which is an American literary organization that strives to support Latino/a poets and Latino/a poetry. She is the co-editor of The Nation’s poetry section as well as the publisher of Noemi Press. Her latest book of poetry, Be Recorder, was published by Graywolf Press in the Fall 2019.
Giménez Smith was born in New York, daughter to two South American Immigrants. This has inspired her to use her work to speak about the lives of Latinas. On the Academy of American Poets website, Giménez Smith is quoted as saying, “I think that the canon privileges male histories, both political and private, whereas women’s same histories are seen as domestic trifles. So I intend to go as deep as possible into those trifles.” Our conference is proud to have Giménez Smith and her mission to promote the female voice in literature along with us on this journey of recognizing, promoting, and encouraging women-identifying writers to use their voices in order to make a difference.
Regina Porter, Saturday, 11/7/2020
Porter is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. In 2019 she published her first novel, The Travelers. She is the recipient of a 2017-2018 Rae Armour West Postgraduate Scholarship. She is also a 2017 Tin House Scholar. Her fiction has been published in The Harvard Review. An award-winning writer with a background in playwriting, Porter has worked with Playwrights Horizons, the Joseph Papp Theater, New York Stage and Film, the Women's Project, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Horizon Theatre Company. She has been anthologized in Plays from Woolly Mammoth by Broadway Play Services and Heinemann's Scenes for Women by Women. She has also been profiled in Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in History and Criticism from the University of Alabama Press. Porter was born in Savannah, Georgia, and lives in Brooklyn.
2020 Panels and Readings, Saturday, 11/7/2020
Invisible Labor: Anticipating Audience Critique in Poetry & Nonfiction on Race
Marianne Chan, Su Cho, Lisa Low
Considering your audience as a writer of color, particularly when writing about race, is fraught, and the labor of doing so is invisible. This panel is rooted in the idea of prolepsis: “anticipating a possible objection or counter-argument in order to answer or discount it” (OED). Our discussion will explore how we and other poets and prose writers of color anticipate audience resistance and white fragility. Topics will include writer ethos, vulnerability, silence, and myth-making. Led by three Asian American women writers, the panel will look at proleptic strategies that critique whiteness and make space for marginalized experiences.
Is Anyone Out There? Fostering Community in Rural Places
Jacque Boucher, Traci Brimhall, Luisa Muradyan, Mawi Sonna, Winniebell Zong
Living in a rural place can make it hard to connect with other writers. Despite these challenges our panelists have run reading series, book clubs, created literary non-profits, edited journals, started writing groups, and found ways to foster genuine connection online. Our panel will discuss tips and tricks we’ve learned through both our successes and failures.
*With current social isolation as the rule, this panel will be helpful to many of us regardless of our rural or urban settings.
A Reading by the Winners of the Nan Snow Emerging Writer Award
Winners to be Announced
The conference demonstrates its commitment to promising new women-identifying writers by sponsoring the Nan Snow Emerging Writer Award. This session draws attention to our 2020 winners as they read from their work.
Editorial Consultations, Friday, 11/6/2020, and Saturday, 11/7/2020
In order to help our attendees better understand the publishing industry and gain access to publishing opportunities, conference participants can, at a cost of $35, register for virtual, twenty-minute editorial consultations with visiting editors. More information is available above.
Peer Workshops, Friday, 11/6/2020, and Saturday, 11/7/2020
Workshop descriptions and instructions currently under development. Stay tuned.
Social Hours, Friday, 11/6/2020, and Saturday, 11/7/2020
Both Friday and Saturday evenings, we will host virtual social hours. Watch for more details.
Schedule last updated on 8/6/2020
All events will be held online. Unless noted otherwise, events are free and open to the public.
2020 Keynote Speakers
Carmen Giménez Smith, Thursday, 11/5/2020
Giménez Smith holds a BA in English from San Jose State University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa's Writer Workshop. She is now a Professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, VA. Giménez Smith is also the co-director for CantoMundo, which is an American literary organization that strives to support Latino/a poets and Latino/a poetry. She is the co-editor of The Nation’s poetry section as well as the publisher of Noemi Press. Her latest book of poetry, Be Recorder, was published by Graywolf Press in the Fall 2019.
Giménez Smith was born in New York, daughter to two South American Immigrants. This has inspired her to use her work to speak about the lives of Latinas. On the Academy of American Poets website, Giménez Smith is quoted as saying, “I think that the canon privileges male histories, both political and private, whereas women’s same histories are seen as domestic trifles. So I intend to go as deep as possible into those trifles.” Our conference is proud to have Giménez Smith and her mission to promote the female voice in literature along with us on this journey of recognizing, promoting, and encouraging women-identifying writers to use their voices in order to make a difference.
Regina Porter, Saturday, 11/7/2020
Porter is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. In 2019 she published her first novel, The Travelers. She is the recipient of a 2017-2018 Rae Armour West Postgraduate Scholarship. She is also a 2017 Tin House Scholar. Her fiction has been published in The Harvard Review. An award-winning writer with a background in playwriting, Porter has worked with Playwrights Horizons, the Joseph Papp Theater, New York Stage and Film, the Women's Project, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Horizon Theatre Company. She has been anthologized in Plays from Woolly Mammoth by Broadway Play Services and Heinemann's Scenes for Women by Women. She has also been profiled in Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in History and Criticism from the University of Alabama Press. Porter was born in Savannah, Georgia, and lives in Brooklyn.
2020 Panels and Readings, Saturday, 11/7/2020
Invisible Labor: Anticipating Audience Critique in Poetry & Nonfiction on Race
Marianne Chan, Su Cho, Lisa Low
Considering your audience as a writer of color, particularly when writing about race, is fraught, and the labor of doing so is invisible. This panel is rooted in the idea of prolepsis: “anticipating a possible objection or counter-argument in order to answer or discount it” (OED). Our discussion will explore how we and other poets and prose writers of color anticipate audience resistance and white fragility. Topics will include writer ethos, vulnerability, silence, and myth-making. Led by three Asian American women writers, the panel will look at proleptic strategies that critique whiteness and make space for marginalized experiences.
Is Anyone Out There? Fostering Community in Rural Places
Jacque Boucher, Traci Brimhall, Luisa Muradyan, Mawi Sonna, Winniebell Zong
Living in a rural place can make it hard to connect with other writers. Despite these challenges our panelists have run reading series, book clubs, created literary non-profits, edited journals, started writing groups, and found ways to foster genuine connection online. Our panel will discuss tips and tricks we’ve learned through both our successes and failures.
*With current social isolation as the rule, this panel will be helpful to many of us regardless of our rural or urban settings.
A Reading by the Winners of the Nan Snow Emerging Writer Award
Winners to be Announced
The conference demonstrates its commitment to promising new women-identifying writers by sponsoring the Nan Snow Emerging Writer Award. This session draws attention to our 2020 winners as they read from their work.
Editorial Consultations, Friday, 11/6/2020, and Saturday, 11/7/2020
In order to help our attendees better understand the publishing industry and gain access to publishing opportunities, conference participants can, at a cost of $35, register for virtual, twenty-minute editorial consultations with visiting editors. More information is available above.
Peer Workshops, Friday, 11/6/2020, and Saturday, 11/7/2020
Workshop descriptions and instructions currently under development. Stay tuned.
Social Hours, Friday, 11/6/2020, and Saturday, 11/7/2020
Both Friday and Saturday evenings, we will host virtual social hours. Watch for more details.
Schedule last updated on 8/6/2020