Mitch Ogden had arranged for an army of undergrads from UW-Stout’s Journalism and Digital Humanities programs to attend the UMD Conference on Publishing. At 6 a.m. we called the bus dispatcher to tell them to turn around. But the dispatcher crossed wires with the bus, and so three hours later, the students were here.

Luckily, this is an awesome town for media of its size, and the students got a tour of the older printing facility at the DNT (the new one is not yet up and running) and got to spend an hour with Robin Washington, the editor. Robin also spent some time with English Graduate Student Association students via Facebook. The fruits of all these conversations can be found here.

The next day, Roy C. Booth gave a presentation to a modest crowd at the new Underground space in the Depot. Formerly occupied by the Duluth Children’s Museum in the spaces between the Great Hall and the Railroad Museum, the Underground will be a theater in the round, a gather spot, and the site of Nerd Nites to come. (We also got a sneak peak at the set for Godspell, and wow, it looks awesome.

I was only able to record a slice of Roy’s talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fMoAFM3nBs  

I look forward to bringing Roy back to Duluth for lectures and presentations, and I really would love to see some of his theatrical work produced in this community.

Reminder:  Monday AM in Kirby Student Center 268, you can see the last moments of this conference that wasn’t, as David Wong addresses his careers both as a graphic novelist and as an urban ecologist and sustainability architect.