Arriving in AAN members’ mailboxes this week are registration materials announcing the speakers and events for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ two staff training conferences, AAN West and AAN East.
Among the editorial track speakers at AAN West are Dan Baum and Margaret Knox, a husband-and-wife writing team whose stories in The New Yorker poignantly describe the consequences of the war in Iraq on American soldiers. At AAN East, investigative reporter Bill Moushey, who is an expert on prosecutorial misconduct and the federal witness protection program, will teach writers how to report on convicts’ claims of innocence.
Kelly Wirges, the highest-rated advertising-stream speaker from the 2004 annual convention in San Antonio, is scheduled for two sessions at each of the conferences. For AAN members in the retail advertising track, Wirges will lead a session focusing on intermediate and advanced selling skills called “Maximum Sales Success.” For members in the classified advertising track, she will lead an advanced session called “Classified Sales Strategies.”
Members in the classified advertising track can also look forward to a session by Margo Berman of the ad and PR agency Global Impact, who is scheduled for both conferences. Berman’s session, “Proposal Polishing,” will focus on how to make proposals more persuasive.
At both AAN East and AAN West, Russell Viers, the star of the Internet’s DiGiVersity TV, will teach a six-hour session on the perils of PDF production and related topics. Design and Production workers will also have a chance to exchange success stories with each other and to learn from attorneys about fair use in the age of Internet downloading.
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is hosting a cocktail party for AAN West delegates on the closing day of the conference, while AAN East delegates will have another opportunity to Eat With Your Own Kind on the final evening.
AAN West will be held in San Francisco on Jan. 28-29. AAN East will be held in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 18-19. Information from the brochures is also available online at the AAN West and AAN East Web pages.