12th Annual Conference

Our 12th annual conference will be held on
October 20, 21, 22, 2006
at the Wyndham Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado

2004 Conference Recap

WILLA Winners 2005Conference ’04 Honors Willa, Marked Our 10th Year

WWW Conference 2004 — Celebrating a Decade of Writing, A Century of Willa Cather — is all over but the shoutin’ now, but the memories of Albuquerque linger on. Smiling faces, heartfelt hugs of greeting, poignant farewells. There’s never enough time for good friends.

We honored our WILLA winners at the Saturday evening banquet and Keynote Speaker — one of our own, Pam Muñoz Ryan — had us hanging on every word. Likewise, we recognized our WILLA finalists at the Saturday luncheon. Shirley Raye Redmond, also one of our own, was our guest speaker.
Special guests at the banquet were three librarians from New Mexico who helped judge the 2004 WILLA competition: Daria Labinsky, Nonfiction; Gayle A. Travis, Children’s/YA; and Pamela Smith, Historical Fiction.WILLA Finalists 2005

Our first-ever raffle stole the show, all thanks to our Raffle Queen Extraordinaire, Gwyn Ramsey. That she hustled her bustle for the cause of WWW and the WILLAs is a known quantity. Her efforts, ultimately, garnered $1155 for the WILLA Fund.

Treasurer Jacque Boyd and her assistants aptly handled registration so that it went off without a hitch. She reports 59 pre-registered, with 3 or 4 walk-ins on Saturday. We had 65 present for the networking dinner on Friday night; 70 for lunch on Saturday; and a whopping 85 at the banquet. In our midst were three guest agents, three guest editors, and 12 WWW members who served as speakers or panel presenters. A special thanks to members who served as panel moderators — particularly those who were pressed into service at the last minute — some for the first time. GREAT JOB GALS!WWW Conference Registration

Alice Trego, our VP conference, THANK YOU FOR A JOB WELL DONE! And to your significant lover — uh, correct that to read lugger — Jim, otherwise known as Mr. Carryall, our gratitude and appreciative pats on the back.WWW Panel Members

And giving Alice the last word: “I am as pleased with this year’s conference as the attendees were. My committee and I implemented a few new ideas that garnered positive responses, and these ideas might well be the beginning of new traditions for future Women Writing the West conferences.”
WWW incoming and outgoing presidents 2005 We did Willa proud!

— Sarah Byrn Rickman, 2004 Newsletter Editor, WWW President for 2005