Author Rachel Louise Snyder to Speak at 2024 Northern Utah Conference to End Violence

Author, journalist and domestic violence advocate Rachel Louise Snyder will be the keynote speaker at the Northern Utah Conference to End Violence in May.

The free conference, a collaboration between Utah State University and the local nonprofit CAPSA, will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on May 29 in the Eccles Conference Center on the USU Logan campus.

The conference has been organized with both practitioners and community leaders in mind, building on the theme "A Call for Collaborative Leadership." Research shows that survivors experience the best outcomes when there's strong collaboration among law enforcement, advocates and others to address relationship and sexual violence, and the conference's breakout sessions have been designed to promote that collaboration.

Anyone is welcome to attend, particularly law enforcement and those involved in the criminal process, advocates, counselors, educators, faith leaders and elected officials.

Snyder is considered one of the nation's top experts on domestic violence. As a correspondent for the public radio program Marketplace, she has traveled the world, documenting the economic and human costs of natural disasters, gender-based violence, human rights violations and war. Her work has been featured in This American Life, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic and more.

Snyder's books include:

• Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade.
• The novel What We’ve Lost is Nothing.
• The creative nonfiction work No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us.
• The memoir Women We Buried, Women We Burned.

Snyder was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2020-2021 and is currently a professor of literature at American University in Washington D.C. Originally from Chicago, she earned a bachelor's in English and history from North Central College and a master's in creative writing from Emerson College.

The Northern Utah Conference to End Violence began in 2022. This year's conference will begin with a keynote, end with a survivor panel, and feature several breakout sessions in between. Breakout session topics include violence prevention, survivor care, dealing with burnout, LGBTQ+ support, cultural competency and more.

The conference is free to attend. For the complete schedule and to register, visit nucev.usu.edu. Free social work continuing education unit credits are available for participants, and law enforcement personnel can earn in-service training hours for attending.