7th annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium, “The Border and Its Meaning: Forgotten Stories,” featuring Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami, will take place April 25, 2018, on the University of Oregon campus and at the downtown Eugene Public Library.
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women in Society, in cooperation with the Eugene Public Library. Cosponsored by the Oregon Humanities Center’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities; UO Libraries; CAS Humanities; Departments of English and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; School of Journalism and Communication; Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies; and the Wayne Morse Center for Law & Politics.
History of the CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium
The Northwest Women Writers Symposium (NWWS) program began as a CSWS Research Interest Group in 2011. It was so successful that it migrated into CSWS Special Project status as the Women Writers Project in 2012, and became integrated into CSWS as an internal program in spring 2014.
The NWWS and Women Writers Program seeks to foster and enhance opportunities for women writers on campus, in the community, and throughout the Pacific Northwest; to bring distinct voices of published women writers to campus; and to support the work of creative writing by bringing together writers from different disciplines. This program is aimed toward exploring local, regional, and university collaborations, most notably through an evolving annual women writers conference. In 2013, CSWS began collaborating with Eugene Public Library to host a portion of the symposium in its downtown facility.
Past Symposiums
- 6th annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium “Women and Work: Stories of the Great Migration,” featuring Ayana Mathis. Full Details for NWWS 2017: http://csws.uoregon.edu/nwws2017/
- 5th annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium: “Crossing Borders: Women’s Stories of Immigration, Migration, and Transition,” May 6 – 8, 2016, featured Reyna Grande as keynote.
- 4th annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium:“Our Daily Bread: Women’s Stories of Food and Resilience,” held May 7 – 9, 2015, featured Diana Abu-Jaber as keynote.
- The 3rd annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium — “Family, Animal, Story,” held May 1 – 3, 2014, featured Karen Joy Fowler as keynote. About 275 people attended events over this three-day period.
- 2nd annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium — Common Ground: Land, Language, Story — was held May 9 – 11, 2013, and featured Ruth Ozeki as keynote. More than 250 people attended this series of events, which took place over three days on the University of Oregon campus and at the Eugene Downtown Library.
- MemoirFest, the first annual CSWS Northwest Women Writers Symposium, held May 12, 2012 was attended by about 100 women and men.