The Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning Invites Proposals for Interactive Workshops for its Summer 2004 Conference

The Tenth Annual AEPL Conference will center on exploring creative nonfiction from its center to its margins—and possibly beyond. The boundaries of nonfiction, as malleable as they are uncertain, enclose overlapping landscapes: essays, memoirs, meditations, literary journalism, expressive academic discourse, personal cultural criticism. Sometimes thought to be coterminous with composition or circumscribed by creative writing, nonfiction is simultaneously familiar turf and terra incognita, marking an invigorating return to writing fundamentals and an exciting and evolving genre. Writers and teachers need the opportunity to map this terrain, explore its boundaries, and wander off well-worn paths into new territory. We will come away from the conference with a better understanding of the motives for using nonfiction, the flexibility of its forms, the role of voice, the relevance of place, the connections to community, the possibilities of moving beyond boundaries of subject or genre or rhetorical situation; we will be inspired by a new sense of the terrain of nonfiction.

Through interactive activities, we will place ourselves in nonfiction's practices, place its forms in the field of writing, and explore place as a theme for nonfiction. At keynote talks we will hear from established writers, teachers, and scholars in nonfiction; in interactive workshops we will engage in hands-on approaches that inspire in us, both as writers and as teachers, a better understanding of and greater comfort in using nonfiction. Some workshops will integrate the natural terrain of the Rocky Mountains conference site into writing activities. In a writing fair session we will share compositions written on-site and observe the range of possibilities in form through our own experiments with mapping nonfiction.

Keynote Speakers

Elizabeth Dodd, Kansas State University, essayist, poet, author of Prospect: Journeys and Landscapes
Robert L. Root Jr., Central Michigan University, essayist, memoirist, author of Recovering Ruth and coeditor of The Fourth Genre
Reg Saner, essayist, poet, author of The Four-Cornered Falcon and Reaching Keet Seel

Conference Organizers

Robert L. Root Jr., professor at Central Michigan University since 1976, is one of the keynote speakers.
Susan A. Schiller, professor at Central Michigan University since 1990, is a charter member of the AEPL.

Call for Proposals

We invite proposals for 75-minute interactive workshops that engage participants in nonfiction writing and lead them to better understand and more comfortably use this genre. In addition, proposals for three-hour workshops that integrate the natural terrain of the conference site are encouraged. Proposals should include a title, a 100-200-word description, and a 25-word abstract. Please send them in duplicate, along with your mailing and e-mail addresses, to

Robert L. Root Jr. and Susan A. Schiller
Department of English Language and Literature
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859

Or e-mail proposals to both schil1sa@cmich.edu and root1rl@cmich.edu. The deadline for receiving proposals is 1 December 2003.

NCTE Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The AEPL, an official assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English, is open to all who are interested in extending the frontiers of teaching and learning beyond traditional disciplines and methodologies.

Estes Park Center

The YMCA of the Rockies Estes Park Center is nestled on 860 acres in the heart of Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, a hour away from Boulder. The mountains provide the perfect environment for refreshing your spirit and allowing you to enjoy the natural beauty of the outdoors. The center offers comfortable lodge-type accommodations featuring rustic wood-and-stone architecture. All rooms are smoke-free and have private baths. Meals are served cafeteria-style. For more information please go to www.ymcarockies.org.