The 120th Annual PAMLA Conference

The PAMLA 2023 Conference will be held at the Hilton Portland Downtown in Portland, Oregon between October 26-29, 2023.

The 2023 PAMLA Conference is being held entirely in-person. We won’t be having any virtual or hybrid sessions or papers.

Our CFP List and Paper Proposal System is open. We are now in the PAMLA Summer Sessions (first-come-first-served) deadline period which will end on July 20. Do not delay proposing: during this period, sessions will close when filled.

PAMLA, founded as the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast in 1899, and the western affiliate of the Modern Language Association, is dedicated to the creation, advancement, and diffusion of the aesthetic practices and knowledge of ancient and modern languages, literatures, cultures, and the arts.

For our Panel / Workshop about Historical Fiction:

Occasionally, writers who are brilliant researchers get so passionate about the time period or the world they write about that they drown their fiction with unnecessary details. This workshop addresses that issue by answering the question which emerged last year in one of our PAMLA sessions: “how do we know how much detail to include in our fiction?” We explore how adding details can push plot forward while developing characters and setting.

Panelists will submit a short excerpt of a creative historical fiction piece, along with a brief description of their research process. Panelists will discuss their research and then read aloud an excerpt of their work. Then, we will have a discussion centered on shaping and utilizing research in a fiction piece. Go In the Abstract spot, please submit a brief description of your research. In the Description spot, please include an excerpt of your creative work. If you'd like to include a longer excerpt of your work, please email me at mherrer8@ucsc.edu /piratceci1819@gmail.