Memories & Dreams: Exploring Perspectives on Past, Future and Possibility in Materials for Young People

conference
Written By Halle Singh

"Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open" - Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia.

Children’s literature has long served as a space where memory and imagination converge. Where stories not only reflect the lived experiences of childhood but shape how childhood itself is remembered, (re)imagined, and dreamed into being. Memory in particular plays a central role in children’s texts, whether as personal recollection, historical reckoning, or the tension between what is remembered and what is forgotten. It can bear witness, communicate culture, and resist erasure. At the same time, dreams, both literal and metaphorical, invite speculation about the future and the not-yet-possible. Children’s and young adult literature frequently explores dystopian and utopian futures, reimagined histories, and fantastic worlds that reflect on our own. The literature of childhood often exists in a space where dreams and memories work in tandem to shape identity, belonging, and imagination.

 

UBC's 2026 graduate student conference on children's literature and media will explore how children’s texts engage with personal, cultural, ecological, and ancestral conceptions of memory and dream, and how they envision futures shaped by hope, uncertainty, and resistance. Our theme, ‘Memories and Dreams,’ aims to explore how literature for children and young adults looks forward and backward, how it remembers, how it dreams, and how it helps young people make meaning in a world shaped by inherited histories and possible futures. 

 

In gathering on the unceded ancestral territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people, we recognize the importance of land in shaping memory and dreaming. We particularly welcome submissions that foreground Indigenous knowledges, intergenerational stories, and the ways that childhood and narrative intersect with place. We welcome an abundance of voices, formats and disciplines and hope to create an inclusive space to reflect on the stories we are brought up with, the ones we pass on, and the dreams we dare to share.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Politics of memory and the persistence of cultural narratives

  • Indigenous storytelling and ways of remembering

  • Revisiting and reinterpreting the canon of children’s literature through a modern lens

  • How young people’s dreams are shaped by storytelling, media and structural forces

  • Diaries and epistolary texts

  • Psychoanalysis and dreams

  • Rethinking approaches to teaching history and alternate histories

  • Historical fiction for young readers

  • Critical re-readings of classic and contemporary texts for children and young adults

  • Dreams, futurism and speculative worldbuilding

  • Different cultural understandings of dreaming and memory

  • Intersections of trauma, anxiety and nightmares in horror texts for children and young adults

  • Dreams as portals to imagined realities

  • The function of dream logic in illustrated texts

  • Deconstructing grand narratives and collective memory in children’s literature

  • Memory studies

  • Possibility in multimodal adaptations 

 

Please note these topics are suggestions. We are open to proposals on any aspect of memories and dreams within the world of children's literature and young adult literature. 

We welcome submissions for in-person presentations from graduate students, research scholars, and practitioners from a variety of disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies, childhood studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, media studies, and others. Alternatively, we are accepting proposals for pre-recorded video presentations or poster submissions.

 

Academic Proposals

Please send a 250-word abstract and a maximum 15-word title of your paper, along with 5-8 keywords, and 3-5 academic, bibliographic references. Your name should not appear on the proposal. Please attach a separate 50-word biography, including your name, preferred pronouns, student status, university affiliation, home country, and email address. Save the proposal and the biography as two separate Word files (.DOC or .DOCX) and use the format “Academic_Name_PaperTitle” in the email subject line.

Creative Writing Proposals 

All creative writing genres and forms are welcome, including novel chapters, poetry, picture books, graphic novels, scripts, amongst others. Please send a sample of your work that is no more than 12 pages long, double-spaced. Include the title, a list of references (if applicable), and a 150-word description identifying the topic, genre, targeted age group, and relevance to the conference themes. Your name should not appear on the sample. Please attach a separate 50-word biography, including your name, student status, preferred pronouns, university affiliation, home country, and email address. 

Save the sample and description as one Word file and the biography as a separate Word file (.DOC or .DOCX). Use this format “Creative_Name_SampleTitle” for the email subject line.

NOTE: Participants are welcome to submit both academic and creative proposals. Each proposal will be adjudicated separately, and you may be accepted for one or both streams. Please follow the guidelines for both submissions above and submit them via separate emails. Also please note that proposals falling outside of traditional academic or creative presentations (e.g., workshops or other forms of engagement) are also encouraged and will be considered equally amongst other submissions. 

Deadline for proposal submission: January 30, 2026. A notification of acceptance will be sent by early May 2026. All submissions will be blind reviewed by members of the Review Committee.

Contact Us

 About Us

The Master of Arts in Children’s Literature (MACL) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) is the only graduate program in children’s literature in Canada and one of the most multi-disciplinary children’s literature programs in the world. It is jointly offered by the UBC School of Information, the Department of English Language and Literatures, the Department of Language and Literacy Education, and the School of Creative Writing. As one of the few venues in Canada that showcases emerging scholarship in children’s and young adult literature, this conference provides a platform for new scholars and writers from diverse backgrounds, especially for graduate and upper-division undergraduate students, and creates cross-disciplinary associations that may inspire new and innovative connections to support writing and research in this area. 

About the Conference

The first Graduate Student Conference in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, Media and Culture took place in 2008. Featured keynote speakers from past conferences include Maria Tatar, Philip Nel, Elizabeth Marshall, S.R. Toliver, Angel Matos, Elaine Graham, Naomi Hamer and best-selling authors Rachel Hartman, Richard Van Camp and Nafisa Azad. This year, students from the Master of Arts in Children’s Literature Program will come together for the twelfth time to host the event. 

 

We look forward to hearing from you!

deadline for submissions: 

January 30, 2026

full name / name of organization: 

Master of Arts in Children’s Literature at the University of British Columbia

contact email: 

macl.gradconference@gmail.com

Halle Singh
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