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The 6th Annual Mayborn
Literary Nonfiction Conference
Sponsored by the
Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism
at the
University of North Texas
July 23-25, 2010
Grapevine, Texas
Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center
The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference appreciates its many sponsors who assist the Mayborn tribe in gathering each year in North Texas.
The Mayborn Tribe
Ira Glass, the rock star of National Public Radio, harbored grave reservations about speaking at the 2009 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. A week before arriving in Grapevine, he told a Dallas Morning News reporter he had an awful time at Harvard’s Nieman Conference, finding it both “pious” and “pretentious.” And the words “literary nonfiction,” he told the reporter, conjures up images of schoolroom boredom.
But after hanging out at with the Mayborn Tribe of storytellers, Ira had a change of heart that’s now enshrined in my copy of his book, The New Kings of Nonfiction. Ira wrote, “Hey George, I’m so glad you talked me into coming out to your great conference.”
Thanks to Ira, travel writer extraordinaire Paul Theroux and our other speakers, the 2009 Mayborn Conference was more like a literary rock concert than a somber gathering of serious-minded journalists. This summer holds the same promise. With such literary stars as Mark Bowden, Mary Karr, Gary Smith, Madalit del Barco, Bryan Burrough, Hampton Sides, David Grann, Amanda Bennett, Kevin Fedarko, Paula Butturini, Hannah Allam and many others arriving at the Austin Ranch in Grapevine on July 23 – I have no doubt they’ll be greeted by the most whooped up tribe of storytellers they’ve ever encountered.
If our 2009 conference is any guide, our conferees should get ready to rumble.
Click here to read the rest of the essay by our writer-in-residence, George Getschow.
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