The annual conference of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA) will be held at the Embassy Suites in downtown Orlando, Florida, on August 4-7. I’m a proud member of VASTA and would encourage you to attend if you are an actor, singer or voiceover artist, or if you are simply interested in the spoken word, voice and speech training, linguists, or dialects and accents.

If you are a member of VASTA, the conference costs $350. For non-members, it’s $450. If you are a student or retiree, the rate is $225. One-day passes (for August 5 and 6) are also offered for $150.

I became a member of VASTA because of my involvement with the International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA), for which I serve as executive editor. VASTA and IDEA are closely linked, and several IDEA editors will be presenting at this year’s conference.

For more information, visit Vasta.org/Orlando.

Also of interest to those in the performing arts, the annual conference for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) will also be held in Orlando, right after the VASTA conference. It will be August 7-11 at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, adjacent to Walt Disney World. For more information on the ATHE conference, see ATHE.org/page/19conf_home.