The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference

Thank you for attending the 2023 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference! It was wonderful to be back, fully in-person, to mingle and mix it up at a new location, the Four Corners Brewery event space in Dallas, Texas. The 2023 event, The Mayborn on Tap: Craft Storytelling, held October 13-14, was one for the books!

Read more about the 2023 Conference:

This year we're placing a heavy emphasis on the craft of narrative nonfiction, but we're also expanding our horizons, including storytellers who work across multimedia platforms, including radio, film, newspapers, magazines and books. 

Keynote speaker, Beth Macy, will talk about the journey of her book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America, from shoe-leather reporting to page to screen, to the further trajectory of the characters in her 2022 follow-up book, Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis

Our conference will open on Friday evening with a screening of Bad Press, a Sundance award-winning documentary film which traces the heroic efforts of Angel Ellis to defend a free press in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Ellis and the two filmmakers, Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler, will engage with the audience after the screening. The first 100 registrants will be guaranteed attendance to the Friday night event.

Saturday will be packed, as usual, with panel discussions featuring narrative nonfiction storytellers reaching creative heights in radio, podcasting, newspaper, magazine, and books, concluding with dinner and our keynote presentation. 

Theme for 2023:

2023 Conference Logo


Beth MacyFeaturing Beth Macy

Beth Macy is a Virginia-based journalist, the author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America, and an executive producer and cowriter on Hulu’s Peabody Award-winning “Dopesick” series.

Photo credit: Josh Meltzer