Vermillion Writing and Literature Conference at University of South Dakota

Boundaries: Preserving and Creating Space (October 9–11, 2025)

University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD)

Featured Readers: Laird Hunt and Eleni Sikelianos

Call for Papers

How does your creative work and/or scholarship engage with boundaries? Which boundaries mark its edges? How extensive are its stakes? What limits—aesthetic, geographical, social, political, ethical—does your work challenge, secure, or redraw? What spaces do you seek to preserve? What spaces need creating—and for whom? And how porous will their boundaries be?

Join us 9-11 October 2025 for the second biennial Vermillion Writing and Literature Conference at University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD). The 2025 theme, “Boundaries: Preserving and Creating Space,” encourages creative and/or scholarly submissions that engage with questions like those above (by no means exhaustive) from a variety of perspectives (a few listed below). We look forward to readings, presentations, and discussions that test boundaries while also remaining open to what boundaries might be necessary—even if they haven’t yet been drawn.

We invite proposals for creative and/or scholarly panels, roundtables, or workshops as well as individual submissions engaging with the exploration of our conference theme. Possible areas of focus and approaches include, but are not limited to:

• Indigenous and Native American literature, history, and culture;
• hybrid texts, blurred genres, autotheory, and/or other experimental forms; 
• teaching literature, creative writing, etc.;
• discourses of marginalization, including race, ethnicity, multiculturalism, or ability; 
• women, gender, and/or sexuality;  
• representations of disability or mental illness in literature and/or popular culture; 
• postcolonial literature and/or theory; 
• western American literature, history, and culture; 
• media studies or pop culture studies; 
• the relationship between specific boundaries/spaces and forms of identity; 
• writing’s ability to question/challenge spatial aspects of gender, race, or ability; and
• relationships between what texts represent and what they do.

Deadline for submissions: 15 March 2025. Please send to VermillionConference@usd.edu.

Submission Guidelines:

Scholarly Proposals: if you intend to present scholarly work, please submit a 250-word abstract, along with a 50-word biographical note, by 15 MARCH 2025. While scholarship that explicitly engages with the conference theme is especially welcome, we will gladly consider all types of scholarly work—even if it is only tangentially related to the theme.

Creative Proposals: if you intend to present creative work, please provide 5 pages (maximum) of creative work along with a 50-word biographical note, by 15 MARCH 2025. While creative work that explicitly or implicitly engages with the conference theme is especially welcome, we will gladly consider all types of creative work on any theme and in any style for readings at the conference’s creative writing panels.

Panel/Roundtable Proposals: we welcome proposals for scholarly and/or creative panels (3-4 presenters) or roundtables (5-6 presenters). These proposals should include 50-word biographical notes for all presenters and a 400-word (maximum) description of the session and its papers. (Note: individual panel/roundtable proposals may include both scholarly and creative work.)

For more information, write to VermillionConference@usd.edu.