The annual meeting of the Association for Mormon Letters will take place 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, at the library at Utah Valley University in Orem. Attendance is free — although if you want to attend the luncheon, it’ll cost you $12 and you should either R.S.V.P. today if you want to pay at the door or (no deadline given, but I’d imagine the sooner the better so they can get a count to the food service provider).
Terryl Givens will be the keynote speaker. Several people have asked in different venues* what time he is going to speak, perhaps suggesting that there may be a coterie of Givens admires out there who will show up for his keynote and then ditch the rest of the day. Please don’t. I know Saturdays are precious, but it’s always lame when people show up for the main event and then ditch out on the other presenters. Part of the point of a big draw is provide energy to the rest of the day.**
Also: Who is planning on attending? Unsurprisingly, I won’t be there. I promise, though, that if I ever do make it, I will announce it here weeks in advance and that there will be some sort of Grand Tour, and that I will be asking for places to crash and chauffeurs and free meals and all that.
* I’m not accusing any of those who have asked of anything — but the fact of asking raised the suspicion in my mind that some folks might have ditching inclinations.
** My apologies to the AML for this post. They’re a gracious bunch, and I’m sure they’ll welcome everyone — even those who can’t stay. And really, it’s best to ignore a rabble rouser, layabout and blogger like me.
A Motley Vision 
I probably will be going, but I wish it would be planned a little more in advance so we know what the other presenters are doing.
And anytime you’re in town, you’re welcome to crash at my place.
The deadline for proposals was Feb. 15 because the AML thought that it was going to take place in March, but then they bumped it up so they could secure Terryl Givens’ participation.
And: cool. I’m sure I’ll be able to scrape up airfare one of these years.
I’m going.
I wish I was going.
Hey, did anyone go to the BYU sf&f symposium this past week? My son helped run it…
I’m going, and I’ll be presenting a paper called “With Desire Have I Desired to Wrestle This Wrestle.” It starts with the comment, “Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read,” Groucho Marx, then continues, “Wasatch Elementary is shaped like a stick-figure dog,” and of course there is a boy reading inside the dog, and his 50-year-old self watching him and thinking about how often he uses the ninth letter of the alphabet in his personal essays.
IF all goes well, I’ll be there.
But that’s a big IF.
.
If I were within a couple hours I would. Thirteen is too much to ask. I’ll probably be at the Sunstone symposium in Cupertino next month, though. Can I get half credit?
I’ld really like to meet Mr Givens though…..
I’ll be attending at least the last couple of hours, since I am presenting at 3:30 (reading my introduction to Mormon Drama for the upcoming “Saints On Stage: An Anthology for Mormon Drama.” Before that, however, I’m attending a workshop about marketing yourself as an artist (also at UVU), so I’ll probably miss Mr. Givens speech and most of the conference. I’m so bummed about that, I thought his “By The Hand of Mormon” was brilliant. Sigh.
Can I apologize for the short notice? Once again, it was due to circumstances beyond our control. We are haunted by bad luck. I haven’t given up hope, though. Boyd Petersen is going to make a hope-resurrecting (and, if I believed in using the word “awesome,” I would say it here–but I don’t) president. There may still be a future for AML yet.
It looks like both Katherine and Mahonri will be presenting and that Givens will be speaking at 11 a.m.
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AMV is well represented. Incidentally, if anyone’s near San Jose March 28, I’ll be presenting the paper I wrote for Reading Until Dawn at Sunstone West. (And they’ve given me a whole hour, so if you know any good jokes…..)