The 123rd Annual PAMLA Conference
Hyatt Regency Seattle
808 Howell St.
Seattle, Washington, 98101
206-973-1234
The PAMLA 2026 Conference is being held at the lovely Hyatt Regency Seattle Hotel in Seattle, Washington, beginning on Thursday morning, November 12 and continuing through Sunday afternoon, November 15 (with a fun Welcome Event on Wednesday evening, November 11).
PAMLA 2026 Schedule is Live!
For more information about special PAMLA room rates and to make a reservation at the Hyatt Regency Seattle and the inexpensive PAMLA overflow Hotel Max, visit:
PAMLA 2026 Hotel Guide page for more details
The 2026 PAMLA Conference is being held entirely in-person at the Hyatt Regency Seattle. There will be no virtual or hybrid sessions or papers: the entire conference is being held in-person. So, please join us for a warm, welcoming, fun, intellectual, cultural, and social experience in the heart of one of the loveliest and most vibrant of cities: Seattle. It is an intellectual vacation, a celebration of literature, culture, art, and the Humanities, an invigorating weekend for the soul!
Must-Knows for PAMLA 2026
- Scheduling Requests & Availability: Panels may be scheduled anytime between Thursday morning and Sunday around 3pm. We do not accept scheduling requests, except for religious observations and major life events.
- Schedule Release: The tentative conference schedule is now available at https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Webforms/Schedule.aspx
- Don’t Miss Out In Person: With PAMLA 2027 planned as a fully virtual conference, PAMLA 2026 in Seattle (Nov 12–15) is your primary opportunity for face-to-face academic exchange before 2028!
For more details, visit our FAQ page.
Do you want some useful advice about how to conference successfully? If so, check out our PAMLA Conference Survival Guide and First-Timer Handbook
What’s On for PAMLA 2026?
The 2026 PAMLA Conference is being held entirely in-person at the Hyatt Regency Seattle. There will be no virtual or hybrid sessions or papers: the entire conference is being held in-person. So, please join us for a warm, welcoming, fun, intellectual, cultural, and social experience in the heart of one of the loveliest and most vibrant of cities: Seattle. It is an intellectual vacation, a celebration of literature, culture, art, and the Humanities, a Chautauqua weekend for the soul!
We are thrilled to announce a few of our featured speakers for 2026:
- Plenary Speaker: Renowned scholar and past MLA president Michael Bérubé (Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature, Penn State), author of The Ex-Human: Science Fiction and the State of Our Species, It’s Not Free Speech (with Jennifer Ruth), and The Secret Life of Stories. He will be presenting the Plenary Address: “A Post-Cultural Gilded Age”.
- Arts Keynote: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rae Armantrout, author of Versed, Safe Rooms, Conjure, and Go Figure.
- Arts Keynote: Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize-winning poet Marilyn Chin, author of Sage, A Portrait of the Self as Nation, and Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen.
- Theme Keynote: James Hynes, author of the novel Sparrow, to be interviewed by Sarah Levin-Richardson (Classics, University of Washington), an expert on the embodied experiences of slaves and sexuality in Roman Italy and the provinces.
- Theme Keynote: Jeffrey Gray, scholar, poet, and translator, and author of Mastery’s End: Travel and Postwar American Poetry.
- Arts Keynote: Sonora Jha, author of the novels Intemperance, Foreign, and The Laughter, and the memoir How to Raise a Feminist Son.
- Presidential Addresses: PAMLA President John Schwetman will deliver his Presidential Address, “‘Everything I’ve Done in My Life, I’ve Done for My Children’: Succession and Class Satire in Gilded Age 2.0″ and PAMLA Past-President Peter Schulman will deliver his Past-Presidential Address, “Palimpsests of Melancholy: Paris, New York, Norfolk, and the Resistance to Speed.”
- We will have a terrific PAMLA Welcome Event on Wednesday evening, November 11: The Pop-Poetry Music Project! Please try to join us for this fun, special event—it was a huge success last year!
PAMLA Conference Expectations
- We expect that everyone all conference participants will be polite and kind to one another. See our Code of Conduct here.
- All PAMLA members must pay their membership immediately and their conference fee by August 31.
- PAMLA allows no virtual or hybrid sessions or papers.
Join PAMLA in 2026
- Membership for 2026 is open. PAMLA members receive our terrific journal, Pacific Coast Philology.
- PAMLA membership is typically not refundable.
- Unlike conference registration, membership is an annual standing with the association that provides year-round benefits independent of conference attendance. As a 2026 member, you receive the print edition of our journal, Pacific Coast Philology, as well as full digital access to our current and past journal issues through our pamla.ballastacademic.com website, voting rights, and access to our member network.
- Your membership ensures that PAMLA can continue supporting conferences, scholarships, publications, and artistic collaborations that make our associations thrive.
- PAMLA 2026 memberships expire on December 31, 2026, regardless of date of purchase.
PAMLA 2026 Health Policy
PAMLA expects its members to take care with their and their colleagues’ health. Since we cannot predict when a pandemic might return, and since the conference takes place during flu season, we encourage participants to be fully vaccinated and to monitor their health so as not to spread any communicable diseases. Those who test positive for Covid must cancel their conference participation. If you have any questions, please contact PAMLA Executive Director Craig Svonkin: 626-354-7526 or director@pamla.org.