The Memorial Union hosted the 55th Annual UND Writers Conference last week, with events running from March 20 to 22. Each day began with a Q&A panel at 12 p.m., featuring the esteemed authors and artists presenting this year. Various community workshops and public readings followed the panel each day, allowing the students and broader community in attendance to engage in hands-on experiences and one-on-one conversations with this year’s guest speakers. The theme of the conference this year was “Horizons of Knowledge.”   

The University of North Dakota’s English Department has been coordinating this event since its inception in 1970. It has featured some of the biggest names in writing over its history, including Tony Cushner, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Colson Whitehead, all Pulitzer Prize winners. Because of numerous and generous donations throughout the years, the Annual Writer’s Conference has always been free for students and members of the Greater Grand Forks Community to attend. Indeed, with the advent of livestreaming, the event has been made available to an even broader audience in recent years.   

“Community access is our number one priority,” Crystal Alberts, UND English Professor and co-director of the conference, said. “We started incorporating at least one artist on the panel in 2010 and have continued since. It’s always changing. We’re always trying to keep it current and keep the community engaged.”   

Alberts also noted that keeping it open to the public is a core value of the conference.   

“We want to make sure this is shared with the community, not kept hidden by academics,” she said. “We get a lot of alumni coming back year after year for this.”  

Alberts was aided in organizing the event by fellow co-director and English professor, Patrick Henry. She pointed out with passion that the Writers Conference would be impossible without the support and volunteer efforts of countless people over the years.   

This year’s featured authors and artists were heavy hitters in the literary and multimedia spheres, and among them was one of UND’s own; Ariann Rousu was a graduate of the class of 2022 and 3D technician in the Computational Research Center. Rousu is a photographer, painter, and videogame designer. Her incredible digital design work can be seen in the “Native Dancer Project,” currently featured in the Memorial Union Gallery. The “Native Dancer Project” is an interactive software that implements a virtual environment in which multiple users can engage in competitive powwow dancing.   

Other special guests this year included poet Terrance Hayes, author and journalist Ava Chin, author Marie Myung-Ok Lee, writer and translator Laura Marris, and writer Sterling HolyWhiteMountain. The talents took turns reading excerpts of their work throughout the conference and answering questions about their careers and experiences, and in Rousu’s case, a visual demonstration was necessary. All were exceedingly courteous and generous with their expertise. In fact, in a statement on the first day, Laura Marris, who admitted she had never been to North Dakota before, commented that the audience was “very warm and welcoming.”   

With yet another successful Writers Conference in the books, the English Department has good reason to be proud, and the students and community have good reason to look forward to the 56th Annual UND Writers Conference. 

Quindelynne Davis is a Dakota Student General Reporter. She can be reached at [email protected].