The editor of Texas Monthly dubbed it the “Comic-Con for nonfiction writers”. During the nationally acclaimed Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference, writers from all over the country converged to hear from the best of the best, attending multiple workshops and sessions throughout the weekend.

The Dallas Morning News is one of the sponsors of the event and was well represented. Tom Huang, Sunday and enterpriser editor at DMN, spoke about finding the untold stores in our communities, and he led a clinic for those who submitted work to the writing competition.

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Speaking of which, the Advocate is proud to say that its own managing editor Christina Hughes-Babb took home the first-place award for her personal essay. It’s a big deal in the nonfiction world. Advocate columnist Ellen Raff won the second-place award for reported narrative. Both stories will be published in next year’s 10 Spurs collection, a literary nonfiction journal published by the Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism.

At the conference, attendees rubbed elbows with nonfiction geniuses such as Gene Weingarten, Ted Conover and Diane Ackerman. Other speakers included Mike Benoist, editor of GQ; Jake Silverstein, editor of Texas Monthly; and Susan Casey, editor of O Magazine just to name a few.