Our 2021 PAMLA Conference was held in-person at the Sahara Las Vegas Hotel and Conference Center as well as virtually through our Whova virtual conferencing platform between Thursday, November 11 and Sunday, November 14!
The theme for the 118th Annual PAMLA Conference was “City of God, City of Destruction,” in honor of sin city itself. As we did in 2019, we unveiled our PAMLA 2021 theme artwork, designed by Nanette Hilton (University of Nevada, Las Vegas). Since this was our very first hybrid conference, we were also able to present our favorite creative spotlights and guest speakers in-person and live through our YouTube page, including special talks on the theme in our presidential and plenary address, comic book discussions of creative destruction, a conversation with John Bowers on Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer, creative writing workshops, readings by creative writers including Oksana Marafioti, Nicole Minton, Nicholas Russell, and Heather Lang-Cassera, a magical event with Edinburgh-born Las Vegas mentalist Colin Cloud, an incredible two-part event on Las Vegas history, and our exciting PAMLA 2021 Forum. We also debuted our first ever PAMLA Arts Matter Gallery, and were able to launch both our PAMLevents and PAMLA Merch Store in 2021. The conference was full of so many fabulous activities online and in-person, and we were so happy to see so many of you.
We want to thank our sponsoring university partners, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the English Department at University of Texas – Austin for all of their support and help with organizing the 2021 conference!
