Our first conference was held August 26-28, 2011 at the University Hotel & Conference Center at Portland State University in downtown Portland. We held the first conference in the city the organizers reside in for practicality’s sake! Don’t be surprised if we take it on the road for Spring 2013.
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Who’s behind Vida Vegan Con, anyhow?
Event Directors & Co-Founders
Janessa Philemon-Kerp is a native Oregonian whose wandering feet keep taking her out of Portland but whose heart keeps leading her back. She has lived in Portland for the last seven years, minus a questionable short stint in Australia, and has a wonderful day job that keeps her busy, happy, and surrounded by beer. Her background is in writing, restaurant management, and event planning. Raised vegetarian, Janessa grew up eating nutritional yeast and alfalfa sprouts, and is the blogger behind Epicurious Vegan. In addition to planning the annual fashion show fundraiser Modified Style, she keeps busy outside work with reading, drinking champagne cocktails, adventuring, bike-riding, taking photos, and trying to practice restraint in buying international plane tickets. @janessapk
Michele Truty is the author of Vegtastic Voyage (and a bunch of stuff securely locked away on assorted flash drives and not-so-securely stuffed into assorted notebooks). She’s been vegan for about 5 years, after a long journey since her last hotdog 26 years ago. A Chicago native, Michele’s been moving around the country (New York, Los Angeles, and now Portland) with her vegan pal Tom and their cat pal Mädchen. When she’s not getting in trouble with companies for bad-mouthin’ their products, she’s usually reading, editing, listening to records, or helping spread Vegan Iron Chef love. @vegtasticvoyage
Jess Scone rarely admits these things, but she does have a last name and a day job in finance. Jess has been writing Get Sconed! about her everyday culinary adventures in Portland since 2005. She’s the co-author of Stumptown Vegans, a restaurant reviews website, along with its sporadic podcasts. Jess helps organize Vegan Iron Chef, Vegans Proms, Fakin’ Fests, and more things she’s forgetting. She really likes cats, snowflakes, Muppets, zombie fiction, and visiting farmers markets. Jess is originally from that fish-shaped island in New York and decided to stop eating animals when she was 10. @getsconed
Creative Director
Elizabeth Miller is a User Experience designer and artist living in unsunny–but still rad–Portland. She likes reading, writing, and arithmetic, but more so red wine, good design, and popcorn. She is partial to the number 3. Portfolio: InnerState.Org
Our full list of Speakers is here.
CONTACT US
Email: VidaVeganConference AT gmail.com
Twitter @VidaVeganCon
Follow on Facebook
Woot! This sounds great! We’ll be signing up when registration is possible.
i would love to make this my first trip to portland! so excited about this event… please add me to whatever list you might have!
i forgot to leave my email: bakery.manis[at]gmail.com!
and! i live in maui but i would definitely like to help with some online organization if you need it (keeping track of registrations, etc). please let me know if y’all need some help
awesome guys, stay tuned for updates for the time being!
Staying tuned… staying tuned… staying tuned…
This sounds wonderful! I live near Seattle, WA so it would be an easy trip for me. Please let me know when/how to sign up when the time comes, and I will be there!
we’re so very close! you can subscribe here, like us on facebook or follow us on twitter and you’ll know the very minute registration opens.
and we’ll see you next year!
Rebekah – nice to meet another Seattle-area vegan blogger – nice blog by the way!!
you guys always have the neatest ideas, and the know-how to see it through to the finish.
Carrie, you are so kind! We try. We’d love to have you involved!
if only i wasn’t an east coaster. heh.
i’m afraid last year’s visit to the pacific NW will be the last in quite a while. oh the sadness of being indebted to creditors up to the eyeballs.
we have a couple ideas brimming for folks who can’t make it that we’d be thrilled to have involved, even if minimally – I’ll keep you posted, if you like! : )
yes, please!
[...] hey! How’s it going everybody? Guess what? There’s a pretty exciting and awesome conference happening in Portland next year! Have you [...]
So excited I think I just peed my pants!
~S
This is awesome. I love Portland! Am always looking for reasons to go back. I am a Mexican vegan blogger . . so my blog is in Spanish. I am relatively new at this, and I think this is a wonderful idea!
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This event sounds exciting & wonderful & educational. I would love to see it, someday, be more available financially & be more inclusive by having it set up more like trade shows, etc. It could then be visited by more people & a broader section of the population so that it’s just not tailored to the “already there” vegans, but open to educate & even support those who are exploring & questioning.
Best wishes for a very successful conference!
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Wish I knew about this before now! Please put me on the list for next year. I would love to attend.
Please subscribe and we’ll post when we open sign up for Spring 2013 : )
[...] am still reeling over my amazing weekend, and will recap every detail soon. I’m still on a plant-based high with a goofy grin, and [...]
[...] breakfast we received another welcome from the Vida Vegan Founders and listened to a moving and hilarious speech from Laura Beck of Vegansaurus. After getting our [...]
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