cfp: 9th ISLJ conference, Youth Writers and Their Worlds

The Ninth International Society of Literary Juvenilia Conference invites scholars to explore how youth writers imagine, question, and reshape the worlds around them. What can youth-authored creations—whether published, private, unfinished, or visual— teach us about the histories and futures of the “worlds” they engage?

We seek proposals that explore the rich and varied worlds youth writers create, contest, and leave behind. Submissions may take traditional or experimental approaches to juvenilia, with inquiries ranging across the material conditions, social networks, and cultural frameworks that shape youth authorship.

Youth Writers and Their Worlds aims to create an interdisciplinary space for scholars to reflect on the vibrancy and complexity of writing by young people. We invite proposals for individual papers (20 minutes in length) and/or full panels of three speakers and a chair on any aspect of youth writing. While all topics related to youth authorship are welcome, we particularly encourage submissions engaging with our conference theme. Possible topics and panel themes might include (but are not limited to):

• Children in Print – How do child-authored texts circulate, and how are they framed by adult editors, institutions, or markets? How are these works read in their own time—and in ours?
• Writing on the Margins – What do diaries, letters, zines, schoolwork, and other under-studied forms reveal about youth creativity and the boundaries of literary value?
• Beyond Biography – How can we read child authors on their own terms, rather than as precursors of their adult selves or as mere curiosities?
• Recollections and Self-Making – How do memoirs, autobiographies, and other retrospective works engage with or reframe childhood creativity and early writing?
• Defining and Contesting Childhood – In what ways do child writers reflect, reinforce, or resist adult definitions of what it means to be a child?
• Visual Cultures of Childhood – How do drawings, scrapbooks, annotated books, and other hybrid or visual forms shape the imaginative worlds of child authors?

Keynote Speaker: Karen Sánchez-Eppler, L. Stanton Williams 1941 Professor of American Studies and English at Amherst College.

Featured Panel: Andrea Immel, Curator of the Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University, and Laura Wasowicz, Curator of Children’s Literature, American Antiquarian Society–learn about ground-breaking digital and print initiatives to expand archives of writing by and about young people.

Propose a Paper or Panel: Please send your proposal (300 words or less), accompanied with a brief 2-page cv, to ISLJConference2026@valpo.edu by November 1, 2025. Proposals for full panels should include a separate proposal and bio for each paper, as well as a brief overview of the panel. Participants will also be invited to submit papers based on their presentations to the Journal of Juvenilia Studies, which will publish a Special Issue on the conference topic, guest edited by Sara Danger and Emily Gowan. 

Co-Chairs: Sara Danger, Valparaiso University Emily Gowen, Harvard University

Contact:      ISLJConference2026@valpo.edu

Event Page: https://www.valpo.edu/event/youth-writers-and-their-worlds-international-conference-on-literary-juvenilia/