Gracious, generous teachers and writers with a passion for community

Featuring over 40 award-winning writers, editors, agents, educators, and other internationally recognized creative writing professionals, our faculty are here to do more than expand your skill set or open new ways of thinking about your work. They're here to share their experiences, answer questions, and spend time connecting with conference attendees.

Our 2023 keynote speaker is internationally renowned poet Joy Harjo who served three terms at the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Joy Harjo left home to attend high school at the innovative Institute of American Indian Arts, which was then a Bureau of Indian Affairs school. Harjo went on to earn her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teach English, Creative Writing, and American Indian Studies at University of California-Los Angeles, University of New Mexico, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, University of Illinois, University of Colorado, University of Hawai’i, Institute of American Indian Arts, and University of Tennessee, while performing music and poetry nationally and internationally.

Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry, including her most recent, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years (2022) and the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise (2019).