NonfictioNow Conference

Any essayist within 500 miles of the Hawkeye State should drive on over to Iowa City for the biennial NonfictioNow Conference, which kicks off Thursday, November 4 at the University of Iowa. For three days, we’ll be celebrating nonfiction in all of its forms, from the video essay, documentary, and graphic essay to the memoir, lyric essay, and literary journalism. I am especially psyched about:

* Keynotes by Rebecca Solnit (Wanderlust: A History of Walking and A Paradise Built in Hell), Alison Bechdel (Dykes To Watch Out For), and John Edgar Wideman (Brothers and Keepers and Fatheralong)

* My own panel, “Wayward Women: Gender in Travel Writing,” with Faith Adiele (Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun), Michele Morano (Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain), and Mary Morris (Nothing to Declare and Wall to Wall)

* “The Reluctant Memoirist: Sins of Omission?” with Sonya Huber, Bob Cowser, David Shields

* “When The World Changed” with Xu Xi, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Philip Graham, Sue William Silverman, Lawrence Sutin

* “The Writer in Foreign Territory” with Jennifer McClanaghan, Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Jacki Lyden, Josh McCall, Susan McCallum-Smith, Bob Shacochis

* “Literary Journalism and History: Nonfiction Twins Separated at Birth” with Norman Sims, David Abrahamson, Bill Reynolds, Kathy Roberts Forde, Josh Roiland, Chuck Whitney

* “Farthest North Nonfiction: Alaskan Writers Read” with Peggy Shumaker, Jennifer Brice, Nancy Lord, Sherry Simpson