Since 1995, graduate students from UAA's English Department have collaborated annually with faculty and staff to host the conference, traditionally held in the spring, and to bring up local, national, and international keynote speakers.  In the past, special panels have centered on local Alaskan history and literature, geography and science, theater, nature writing, and media and literature in the classroom.  From 1999 onwards, the graduate student directors have chosen themes around which to coordinate presentations:

• 2007: Shakespeare in the Bush
• 2006: Technology, Humanity, and Change
• 2005: Ethics Beauty Environment: the Wilderness of Signs
• 2004: Laws Without Outlaws: Territory / Utopia / Transgression
• 2003: History & Mystery: Investigation, Interrogation, Interpretation
• 2002: Expanding the Text, Imagining the Future
• 2001: Locating the Story: Origins and Destinations
• 2000: Telling Images, Revealing Words
• 1999: Telling Stories, Writing Histories, Shaping Identities