It was so named because Knight, Judith Merril, and James Blish lived in Milford when it was founded.
Judith Merril, James Blish, and Damon Knight founded the Milford Writer's Conference in 1956.
[2] It is both a residential workshop and a writers' conference in which published science fiction writers convene over the course of a week to intensively critique stories and samples from novels (usually works in progress) and to workshop ideas on all aspects of SF writing.
Since then it has been held in various locations, latterly Devon until 2001, York in 2002 and 2003, and (since 2004) at Trigonos Conference Centre in North Wales, usually in mid September.
Etiquette precludes participants from discussing the manuscripts beforehand either with the author or other members of the critique group.