“Mom, they made a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here. They didn't even read my paper…they were just looking to fill up all of the slots!” Flustered, I threw my binder down onto the hotel bed and nervously ran my hands through my hair. I had just attended my first session of presentations at the 2011 Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language, and Media hosted by Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, and had discovered that I was the youngest presenter by at least two years.
