2016 DFWCON Conference Director
Writers are the soldiers of truth and fiction, and with our position as the voices of our age, it’s important that we are aware of our 
social responsibility. What we have to say and the manner in which we say it can make the world better or destroy it one word at a time.
There has been heated debate over the past 5 years about the state of publishing and the importance of reading as a leisure activity. In education, there is constant conversation about literacy and what knowledge is relevant in modern literacy. Our seats are front and center to an intellectual and cultural transformation, and we can be the drivers of destiny. So where will we drive Miss Destiny?
Perhaps you sense that your writing is solely for entertainment. Maybe you write about lust, greed, two-eyed cunning space monsters with bad breath, or women who juggle harmonicas, and you just feel that things are going too hippy-dippy. I’m not suggesting that you shift your paradigm completely. But ask yourself HOW you’re writing about women. Is your writing an accurate portrayal, or is it some easy facsimile of the more complicated person? Are you using phraseology to present the two-eyed, bad-breathed space monster in a way that lends dignity to your work? So many writers don’t even realize that they have inadvertently been offensive, misinformed, or clueless, and their work languishes unread.
This year’s DFW Writers Conference theme, “Writing for a Better World” is about writing with awareness of the age in which you live and the people and creatures who share the planet with you. With awareness, you have the power to influence others and make a profound impact, no matter what you write. With awareness you are master of your words instead of a slave to them. With awareness you’re in the driver’s seat and the future is wide, wide open.
If you haven’t already, get your tickets for the DFW Writers Conference. This year the conference classes embrace these ideas of diversity and awareness. Special guest speaker and New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden chose to attend in 2016 because he wanted to talk about these themes and how they’ve impacted his own writing. Our two other special guests Thomas Kunkel and Tara McKelvey have incited changes in thinking with their work. Kunkel’s non-fiction work Man in Profile: Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker has been controversial and enlightening, and McKelvey’s Monstering: Inside America's Policy on Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War gives us an inside look at the politics of the war on terror. These are exciting times to be a writer.
Prepare to make a difference and learn from those who are already changing the way we think.