Writers Conference and Contest for Literary Nonfiction

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If you're writing memoir, true crime, sports stories or other journalistic nonfiction, you may want to check out The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. This year's conference is July 18-20, 2008 in Grapevine, Texas and past conferences have already attracted a lot of attention and powerhouse speakers.

Some of this year's speakers include:
N. Scott Momaday-1969 Pulitzer Prize Winner
Bob Shacochis, National Book Award Winner
Candice Millard, River of Doubt
John Burnett, NPR correspondent
Stella Chavez, writer, The Dallas Morning News
Susannah Charleson, The Scent of the Missing
Pam Colloff, writer, Texas Monthly
Lee Hancock, enterprise reporter, The Dallas Morning News
Nick Heil, The Dark Summit
Tim Madigan, writer, The Star-Telegram
Cathleen Medwick, contributing editor at O, the Oprah Magazine
Paul Meyer, writer, The Dallas Morning News
Ben Montgomery, writer, St. Petersburg Times
David Patterson, senior editor, Henry Holt & Co.
Brian Sweany, articles editor, Texas Monthly
Wright Thompson, ESPN.com
Andy Van De Voorde, Village Voice Media
Ken Wells, senior editor, Portfolio magazine
Alexandra Wolfe, writer, Portfolio magazine

You can find out more in their description of the conference. Their contest includes a $3000 first place prize for best manuscript and $12,000 in prizes for essay contest prizes (there are entry fees). Submissions for the Writing Contest and Workshops are due by June 13, 2008.

Last year's manuscript contest winner ended up with a six-figure advance from Houghton-Mifflin.