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2026 Literary Conference
August 7-9, 2026
Join us via Zoom Events
All events scheduled MDT (Denver, CO)
![2026 [margins.] Conference Schedule (4).png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/be9b7a_9077995c1015436f9ac703b971be1ccb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_467,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/2026%20%5Bmargins_%5D%20Conference%20Schedule%20(4).png)
Friday, August 7th​
*All times in Denver MT​
5:00p - 6:00p
​Opening Mixer
Join us to connect with fellow [margins.] attendees, to share in some time for opening new friendships, setting intentions, and sharing goals.
6:00p - 7:30p
Now is the Time: Open Mic & Reading
The strength of [margins.] is the community that shows up to bring it to life. To celebrate this, we’re starting with the first of two Open Mic sessions. The session will begin with a reading from recently named Colorado Poet Laureate and [margins.] veteran Cristoso Apache. Crisosto will help ground us in our call to “go to work”, drawing from their own goal of “amplifying the voices of those whose stories are rooted in the soil and sky, so that our words become not an ornament but a shared language of presence and possibility.”
Presenter: Cristoso Apache
Saturday, August 8th
*All times in Denver MT
10:30a - 11:30a
Opening - But First Let's Cry
Before we jump into “doing the work,” we want to take a beat to recognize the fatigue, stress, and sorrow of the moment before embarking on the call to action that brought you to this space. Responding to the moment includes acknowledging your body’s call to rest; we will not ask ourselves to separate the necessity of rest from the strength of action.
Moderator: Cristina Aguilar
11:30a - 11:45a
Break
11:45a - 12:45p
Publishing Track Panel: Writing Your Joy—Don't Ask the Pub World for Permission
Too often, the publishing industry has asked, even expected, members of historically excluded groups to mine the more traumatic stories of our lives in the name of “authenticity.” What room does that lens leave for the stories we need most? In this panel, writers and publishing pros will explore broadening the view of our lives, and our stories, to deliver the true dynamism of our experiences.
*Information on panelists coming soon
Publishing Track Roundtable: Demystifying the Query Process
Getting ready to query agents, or finding your current querying process more challenging than expected? Join this roundtable discussion to break down the challenges of the process and remake them as opportunities.
Panelist: Jackie Garcia-Morales, Monika Gupta, and Chital Mehta
Community Session: LGBTQIA2S+ Cohort Group
Join this small group gathering to connect with fellow writers identifying as LGBTQ1A2S+
12:45p - 2:00p
Lunch
2:00p - 3:30p
Writing Craft Track Workshop: The Radical 4-Act Eastern Storytelling Structure
Discussions in the West around diversity in the arts often focus on the identities of characters and creators. However, true diversity is about more than just plopping different faces into stories that are 100 percent Western in spirit; it can―and should―encompass diverse structures, themes, and values. The program explores how storytelling staples in the West, such as the three-act structure and themes of empowerment and change, are far from universal. It introduces writers to the East Asian four-act story structure and explains how Eastern value systems such as collectivism can dictate form.
Host: Henry Lien
Community Track Workshop: Who Taught You to Be Quiet
Many marginalized storytellers don’t struggle because they lack talent, discipline, or vision. They struggle because they’ve learned to be careful. Careful about visibility, truth, and how much space they're allowed to take up. In creative industries shaped by exclusion, and in a broader cultural moment marked by rising authoritarianism, fear and self-doubt are not personal flaws for BIPOC, queer, disabled, and neurodivergent creators—they're learned survival responses. These external narratives become internal rules that govern when, how, and whether they share their stories at all.
This interactive workshop reframes storytelling as power, and sovereignty as an internal structure that is intentionally built. Drawing from lived experience, coaching practice, and narrative strategy, the host will guide participants through a practical framework to identify and dismantle internalized oppressive beliefs and interrupt fear-based survival responses. Small group activities bring participants into community as they redesign their relationship to power, voice, and story so they can show up, speak out, and create unapologetically.
Host: Kristin Iris Johnson
Community Session: Black Cohort Group
Join this small group gathering to connect with fellow Black writers.
3:30p - 3:45p
Break
3:45p - 4:45p
Community Track Panel: Feeling the City Breathing - Poets and Their Cities
Poets are often intrigued and informed by place. Some poets almost become synonymous with a city they call home. Whether a poet becomes the Poet Laureate of a city or their work speaks to a city's history, landmarks, and overall energy. In this panel, the panelists talk about how poets and their poems reflect and represent cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago, among others. Also, they'll be considering what the work may need to consider more deeply for the futures of these places.
Panelist: Tara Betts; additional panelist information coming soon
Community Session: Disabled/Neurodiverse Cohort Group
Join this small group gathering to connect with fellow writers identifying with a disability and/or neurodiversity.
Writing Craft Track Roundtable: Writing with the Demon in the Room
A facilitated conversation about the uncomfortable impulses that generate our most honest work. Rather than editing out anger, shame, desire, contradiction, or moral ambiguity, this session invites writers to consider what becomes possible when those forces are allowed to remain present. The format includes brief reflections, optional private writing, and collective conversation centered on permission, process, and resisting self-sanitization.
Host: Jason Masino
4:45p - 5:00p
Break
5:00p - 6:00p
In Conversation: Editor-Writer Mentees Reflect on Their Journeys
Authors Samuel Kolawole (The Road to the Salt Sea), Charlotte Yeong (Isabel and the Magic Bird), and Alyssa Reynoso-Morris (Platanos are Love) are all graduates of The Word’s Editor-Writer Mentorship following very different paths in the literary world. In a conversation moderated by Alyssa, they’ll reflect on their entry points, goals, and sustaining processes. We’re all here in community together, and through this discussion we’ll explore how shared community strengthens unique journeys.
Panelist: Samuel Kolawole, Charlotte Yeong, and Alyssa Reynoso-Morris
6:00p - 6:15p
Break
6:15p - 7:15p
Community Open Mic
We can't wait to hear your words - share with your [margins.] community, read in the Open Mic or get inspired by your fellow attendees!
Sunday, August 9th
*All times in Denver MT
10:00a - 11:30a
Writing Craft Track Workshop: Slow Creativity to Build Hope
In 1990, Upasna Kakroo's family was internally displaced in a terrorism-led conflict that she still has recurring dreams of. As a child, Salma Hussain lived on the fringes of the Gulf War. As immigrants and parents, both have faced health issues, and experienced the transitions from traditional corporate lives to storytellers. In a time where conflict is everywhere, they're coming together to talk about "slow creativity" as a path toward resilience and healing. They'll share their own projects, experiences, and challenges that have inspired them to move from survival-mode to meaningful work. While not perfect or "arrived" themselves, they'll hope to show participants how sustainable creativity is not about the last review for your books but a story of falling in love with the process. They'll invite you to find validation in the act of choosing to be curious and creative everyday. Through storytelling, practical examples, and hands-on exercises, you will leave with tools and a sense of creative agency.
Host: Upasna Kakroo and Salma Hussain
Community Session: Indigenous Cohort Group
Join this small group gathering to connect with fellow Indigenous writers.
Writing Craft Roundtable: Hot Script, Cold Read
Are you ready to challenge yourself as a writer? Join us for Hot Script, Cold Read, the ultimate writing game show where you get to write a short scene in a play-format (5 pages max) and submit it to a team of 4 people and 1 narrator to cold read your script. Afterwards the team and fellow writers will be able to share ideas and feedback to help you continue the story.
Host: David (D.J.) Bond
11:30a - 11:45a
Break
11:45a - 12:45p
Publishing Track Panel: Next Paths
As we witness the shrinking of corporate publishing, evolving invasive tech, and unstable governance, it can be daunting to think about what possibilities storytelling and publishing may still hold. In this discussion, writers and publishing pros will help ground us in the next paths they see opening as spaces and opportunities seemingly shrink.
*Information on panelists coming soon
Community Session: Latinx Cohort Group
Join this small group gathering to connect with fellow Latinx writers.
Publishing Track Roundtable: Promoting Yourself as an Author
Authors Khadijah VanBrakle, Loretta Chefchaouni, and Riley Odell share tips on making connections as an author through the lens of extrovert and introvert personality types and neurodiversity.
Panelist: Khadijah VanBrakle, Loretta Chefchaouni, and Riley Odell
12:45p - 2:00p
Lunch
2:00p - 3:30p
Writing Craft Track Workshop: Poetry in Motion - Erotic Movement as Rebellion
As poets, we are often tasked with excavating the immovable. We turn to forms for structure while we write what refuses to be structured. We need to be able to see the movement in each word and understand how to arrange a collection of motion that yields meaning. Poetry asks us to break form while using formalization to contrast itself. We know what a stanza is because we know what a sentence is. Like poetry, erotic movement is the playground for breakage. Social norms are re-tooled by the body through simulating movements that destabilize what it contrasts. In this workshop, you will be given a framework informed by my experience as a pole dancer and a poet, and with this framework you will be invited to write a few prompts that will help you link the power and purpose of erotic movement with poetry as two complimentary forms.
Host: Pınar Banu Yaşar
Community Session: AAPI Cohort Group
Join this small group gathering to connect with fellow AAPI writers.
Community Track Panel: Activism in Art
Now is definitely the time. Exploring the main theme of this year's conference, we look at the many ways in which showing up as an artist is an act of resistance, is an act of fighting for change.
Panelist: Assétou Xango, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, Roohi Choudhry, Zoe Brook Wright
3:30p - 3:45p
Break
3:45p - 4:45p
Closing Author Keynote: Take it From Me with Alia Hanna Habib
Agent Alia Hanna Habib is the author of Take It from Me: An Agent's Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career from Scratch. Her talk will explore practical guidance for aspiring and working writers across genres, demystifying the publishing world with expert advice, real-life examples of successful proposals and query letters, and templates for pitching and promotion. We close with an inspiring springboard to launch you to “get to work” with all that you’ve learned during this [margins.] journey.
Panelist: Alia Hanna Habib
Monday, August 10​
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Agent One-on-One Sessions
Meet with an agent for a 10-minute one-on-one to make your pitch, get advice & feedback, or learn more about the querying and publishing processes!
Participating Agents:
Amanda Orozco
Eric Smith
Kaitlyn Sanchez
Sam Hiyate
Sign-up information and meeting times will be provided to registered attendees.
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