Hats Off! to Chuck Thurston, whose guest column "Living the Pond Life" appeared recently in the Salisbury Post.

Hats Off! to Danny Bernstein whose book, The Mountains-to-Sea Across North Carolina, was featured in the Asheville Citizen-Times.

Hats Off! to Marilynn Barner Anselmi, whose play Becoming IT is a finalist for the Susan Nims Distinguished Playwriting Award. Becoming IT will be presented at The Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, in May, 2013.

Hats Off! to Joan Leotta, whose short story "Voice of an Angel" has won First Place in the 2013 Charlotte Writers' Club Contest!

Hats Off! to NCWN Regional Rep Betty Dotson-Lewis, whose book Sago Mine Disaster (Featured Story) Appalachian Coalfield Stories is listed with synopsis in Goldenseal magazine's spring Edition 2013, page 63. Goldenseal is a quarterly magazine devoted to West Virginia traditional life, published by the State of West Virginia, Division of Culture and History.

Hats Off! to Susan Rochette, whose short story "Kewpie" was published in _Short Story_, an academic journal of short fictions and essays/reviews on short fiction.

Hats Off! to Heather Bell Adams of Raleigh. Her story "Butler Road" won the Fifth Photogene Contest sponsored by Sundog Lit.

Hats Off! to Ruth Ilg, whose poem "March 20th" won The Pegasus Prize from the Poetry Society of South Carolina in Charleston, SC.

Hats Off! to Scott Owens, whose poetry collections For One Who Knows How to Own Land and Something Knows the Moment were reviewed in the North Carolina Literary Review by Karen K. Mason alongside two of Robert Morgan's books in a review called "The Regional Poet and the World."

Hats Off! to Joseph Bathanti, who will receive the 2013 Mary Frances Hobson Prize and participate in the nineteenth annual Mary Frances Hobson Lecture to be held on the Chowan University campus in April 2013. The Mary Frances Hobson Lecture and Prize recognizes distinguished achievement in the field of arts and letters.

Hats Off! to Charlotte's Lisa Rubenson, who won NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Contest. Her short story, “Sorry for Your Loss,” beat out more than 4,000 entries. NPR reporter Tamara Keith read the story on Saturday’s “Weekend All Things Considered” program.

Two faculty members from the 2012 NCWN fall conference, Elaine Neil Orr and A.J. Mayhew, and one conference attendee, Cheryl Isaac, all have pieces in the current issue of South Writ Large magazine.

Hats Off! to Mimi Herman, whose poetry collection Logophilia was favorably reviewed by Scott Owens in the Wild Goose Poetry Review.

Hats Off! to Mark Havlik, who won First Place for Fiction in the 2013 Pamlico Writers Competition for "What Lies Beyond Those Hills." His piece will appear in an upcoming all-literary issue of Washington The Magazine.

Hats Off! to Malinda Fillingim, whose short story "The Right Track" has been accepted for inclusion in Hub City's (Spartanburg, SC) annual holiday anthology. Also, Fillingim's photo/poem about Martin Luther King, Jr., "Southern Dreams," appears in the online magazine Deep South.

NORTH CAROLINA--"That Other Story" by Laurel Ferejohn of Durham, NC, is the winner of the 2012 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network. The Wolfe Prize awards $1,000 to the author of the winning story.

Final judge Josephine Humphreys selected Ferejohn’s story from eleven finalists sent to her by preliminary judge David Radavich of Charlotte. Humphreys, one of the South's most distinguished novelists, said Ferejohn’s story “smoothly accomplishes fiction's number one goal, that is, to create a believable world, using all the tools available: narrative voice, character, place, dialogue, action. The result is a fictional texture that's strong and convincing."

Ferejohn is an independent editor working with literary and scholarly journals. She is a recipient of the 2012 Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council, with support from the North Carolina Arts Council.

Humphreys selected "Sanctuary" by Elizabeth Brownrigg, also of Durham, as the first honorable mention, praising the story for "its distinctive voice and strong writing.... It's a thought-provoking story." Brownrigg received her MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, and is the author of two novels, Falling to Earth (1998) and The Woman Who Loved War (2005).

NCWN members Kathryn Shaver of Louisville, KY, and Kermit Turner of Hickory, NC, shared the second honorable mention. Of Shaver's story, "The Fourth Monkey," Humphreys wrote, "The narrative voice is dignified, earnest, sympathetic, and the plot progresses in surprising but believable ways." And of Turner's story, "Pool," she said, "I was struck by the way the writer gradually opens a view onto the past of the main character...in a way that's both unexpected and satisfying."

Humphreys, the author of Dreams of Sleep, Rich in Love, The Fireman's Fair, and Nowhere Else on Earth, said of all these stories, "I'd like to add that I was impressed by all four of these submissions. I know a story's good when I finish reading and feel that I've received a gift."

The seven other finalists were "Mr. Potato Head" by Leah Rachel Berkowitz of Durham, NC; "Revival" by Debra Efird of Harrisburg, NC; "Rules" by Heloise Jones of Jacksonville, FL; "Blind Fish" by Amanda Pauley of Elliston, VA; "Crying in Italian" by Virginia Pye of Richmond, VA; "Tea in Chesapeake" and "Dear John," both by Michael Twist of Boring, OR.

The winning story and the three honorable mentions will be considered for publication by the Thomas Wolfe Review.

GREENSBORO, NC--The Network will host its annual Spring Conference at the campus of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro on April 28. Fiction writers can choose between two can't-miss offerings: an all-day fiction workshop with Alan Michael Parker titled, "Fact and Fiction," and a half-day fiction workshop with Mylène Dressler titled, "Get Out of That Room in Your Head: Crafting Physically-Charged, Moving Fiction."

Here are the course descriptions:

Fact and Fiction (All-Day Fiction) with Alan Michael Parker
You can’t make it all up, right? Nor can you render religiously exactly what happened—stories need invention, the mechanics of time, re-telling, and shape. Stories need characters and scenes: life doesn’t always accommodate. So what’s the best way to combine experience and imagination and write the best fiction? In this class, we will focus on questions of fidelity, distortion, fancy, and freedom, as we examine various ways to approach the writing of fiction. Bring a pen, lots of paper, and a good-sized ball of string (really). In the morning, exercises and discussion: in the afternoon, more, as well as a little adventure…

Get Out of That Room in Your Head: Crafting Physically-Charged, Moving Fiction (fiction) with Mylène Dressler
As writers, we face a daily challenge: we create (and live, much of the time) in the spaces inside our heads, yet our task is to create dynamic, breathing characters and active, arcing stories capable of moving our readers as well as stopping them dead in their tracks. How can we notice and break through “brain-locked” writing, and learn to craft fiction that inhabits the physical world, packing visceral as well as emotional punch? In this workshop, we’ll discuss the limitations of writing that happens only-inside-our-heads, and explore techniques and exercises that will help you—and your audience—connect with your stories and characters in charged, vital, and vivid ways.

Alan Michael Parker is the author of two novels, Whale Man (WordFarm, 2011) and Cry Uncle, along with seven collections of poems, including Long Division (Tupelo Press, 2012). His stories, poems, and essays have appeared in many prominent magazines, and in The Best American Poetry 2011 as well as the 2012 Pushcart Prize anthology. Since 1998, Parker has taught at Davidson College, where he is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing; he is also a Core Faculty Member in the Queens University low-residency MFA program.

Mylène Dressler is a novelist whose books include The Medusa Tree (MacAdamCage), The Deadwood Beetle (Putnam), and The Floodmakers (Putnam), and an essayist whose work has appeared in Pilgrimage, Creative NonFiction, and New Graffiti. A professor and frequent distinguished visiting writer at various universities, including the University of Texas at Austin and the McCullers Center in Georgia, she leads workshops designed to develop the skills, stamina, and confidence of emerging and established writers. She is the current Visiting Writer at Guilford College, where she teaches fiction, creative nonfiction, and contemporary literature.

Full faculty bios can be viewed on the conference webpage. The 2012 Spring Conference also offers workshops in nonfiction, poetry, children's publishing, and tutorials for authors. Registration is available online or by calling 336-293-8844.

The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development.

Hats Off! to Angela Davis-Gardner. The paperback edition of her novel, Butterfly's Child, will be published by Dial Press in April, 2012.

Hats Off! to Michel Stone, whose debut novel, The Iguana Tree, sold out its first edition before it was even released. It's received favorable national reviews, and it's been selected as a SIBA "Okra Pick." The release date is March 12, 2012.

GREENSBORO, NC—The University of North Carolina at Greensboro sits in the geographic heart of the state. It’s a fitting venue for the North Carolina Writers’ Network 2012 Spring Conference to be held Saturday, April 28, from 8:00 am – 6:30 pm, in the Elliott University Center at UNC-Greensboro.

The annual event, co-sponsored by UNC-Greensboro’s creative writing program, draws writers from across North Carolina and beyond for workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, children’s writing, and publishing, led by distinguished writing faculty. This year’s conference will also feature a Publishers Panel with book and journal editors; a Faculty Reading; an Open Mike reading for conference attendees; and “Lunch with an Author,” where attendees share lunch and personal conversation with faculty members.

In fact, geography will very much be on people’s minds, as the keynote address will feature representatives from an exciting new web-based project titled “A Literary Map of North Carolina.” A collaborative project between UNC-Greensboro and the North Carolina Center for the Book, the NC Literary Map is a database-driven, searchable/browseable, multi-level, multi-media online research tool to foster interest in North Carolina’s rich literary tradition. Guests can search by author or genre, or just browse the map to find authors who have lived in or written about North Carolina. Scheduled to be officially launched in the fall, visitors can catch a sneak peak at www.library.uncg.edu/dp/nclitmap.

Course offerings at the 2012 Spring Conference include two all-day workshops, one on fiction led by Alan Michael Parker, and a nonfiction intensive led by Randall Kenan; a half-day fiction workshop with Mylène Dressler; and poetry workshops by Janice Fuller and Rebecca Black. Registrants can also attend “Breaking into Children’s Publishing” with Megan Bryant, classes in “Accounting for Writers” and “Guerrilla Tactics for Authors,” and creative nonfiction workshops led by Justin Catanoso and Paul Bogard.

Registration is available online here or by calling 336-293-8844.

The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development.

Hats Off! to new NCWN member Jules Riley, who recently earned an Honorable Mention in the NC Poetry Society's Caldwell Nixon Jr. Award. His children's poem, "A Rainy Day," will be published in Pinesong. He and others will read on May 19, Awards Day at the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines. For more information on the NCPS please visit www.ncpoetrysociety.org.

....... to Sheri Castle. The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance recently named The New Southern Garden Cookbook an Okra pick for Spring 2011. The Okra picks are a baker's dozen of Southern books that SIBA member bookstores are excited about.

..... to Jim Clark. Jim Clark's new CD, The Service of Song, is now available at http://www.jimclarkpoet.com/
The Service of Song features Jim's musical settings of twelve poems by the sadly neglected North Georgia "farmer-poet" Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958).  Reece published four books of poems and two novels with E.P. Dutton in New York before taking his own life at the age of 40.  Poet and novelist Robert Morgan says, "In The Service of Song, Jim Clark gives new life and new voice to the poetry of Byron Herbert Reece. Clark’s music and performance are a wonderful exploration and expression of Reece’s art, inspired and inspiring, for a new generation of readers and listeners. The outstanding poet of the North Georgia mountains could not be more fortunate than to have his work celebrated, set and sung by this outstanding contemporary poet and musician, recalling the ancient, haunting ballads of the mountains."

Greensboro, NC—Bestselling author Carole Boston Weatherford will deliver the keynote address at the 2011 North Carolina Writers’ Network Spring Conference.  The conference will be Saturday, April 30, from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. in the Elliott University Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The annual event, cosponsored by UNCG’s Center for Creative Writing in the Arts, draws writers from across North Carolina and beyond for workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, children’s writing, and publishing, led by distinguished writing faculty. This year’s conference will also feature a Publishing Panel with book and journal editors, a Faculty Reading, an Open Mike Reading for conference attendees, and “Lunch with an Author,” in which attendees share lunch and personal conversation with one of the authors on the faculty.

Weatherford’s books have received the Caldecott Honor, Coretta Scott King Award, NAACP Image Award, Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, Jefferson Cup, and Carter G. Woodson Award, and have appeared on the New York Times best-seller list. Her more than two dozen children’s books include Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom; Remember the Bridge: Poems of a People; Birmingham, 1963; Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane; Becoming Billie Holiday and The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights. A recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature, she teaches at Fayetteville State University.

Conference participants may select from a variety of half- and full-day workshops, including “Writing For Your Life,” a creative nonfiction workshop with author Marianne Gingher; “Packaging Yourself as a Writer,” with Press 53 publisher Kevin Morgan Watson; “The Worst Things Ever” with poet and UNC School of the Arts professor Joseph Mills; and Weatherford’s “Think Anyone Can Write a Children’s Book?” workshop.

Other instructors include David Halperin and Tracy O Connor on fiction, Anjail Rashida Ahmad on poetry, Edmund R. Schubert on science fiction and fantasy, Paul Cuadros on nonfiction, and Angela Harwood on marketing for authors.

Registration for the conference—made possible with support from UNC Greensboro and the North Carolina Arts Council—is $99 for Network members, $150 for nonmembers.

To register, visit www.ncwriters.org, or call 919-251-9140 for more information.

Robert Wallace of Durham is the winner of the 2010 Doris Betts Fiction Prize competition for his story “As Breaks the Wave upon the Sea.” Wallace will receive a prize of $250 from the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and his story will be published in the North Carolina Literary Review’s 2011 issue. Eighty-two stories were submitted to this year’s competition.

Wallace is a recipient of an Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council and a Writer’s Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council, and he has been a Blumenthal Reader. He has had fiction and nonfiction published in various venues, including the Wellspring, The O. Henry Festival Stories, the Raleigh News & Observer, and the anthology Racing Home: New Short Stories by Award Winning North Carolina Writers.

NCLR fiction editor Liza Wieland selected Wallace’s story from ten finalists, saying, “As Breaks the Wave upon the Sea” is a beautifully woven, deeply affecting story (I wept as I read it, and so did my husband). The language is simple and direct; the relationship between a returned Iraq War soldier and his wife is depicted in all its wrenching complexity, from both points of view, in short sections that sing like prose poems. The result is a pitch-perfect whole, and one of the best stories I've read in a long, long time.”

Wieland also noted Wayne Johns’s “Where Your Children Are” and Susan Snowden’s “Revenge” for honorable mention, saying of Johns’s story, “I confess a personal attachment to this story, having grown up in this part of Atlanta and written about the child murders myself. Mainly, though, I love this story for its language: ‘easing into the backyard as into dark water’; ‘orange-tinged moon was snared in the pines’; ‘the last light shifted through the leaves like a kaleidoscope.’ The story's final line evokes the threat that quivers through the entire story. I admire, too, the way the writer has made the awakening of sexual identity a part of this story that works seamlessly with the history we all know. This is clearly a writer of terrific talent.” Of Snowden’s “Revenge” Wieland says, “I admire this story for its sense of place and culture (the Talmadge ham versus the cooler of shrimp), and for the writer's ability to juggle such a large cast of characters. I feel every bit of Carolyn's anger and disbelief, and I very much enjoyed (and would have loved more of) the way the story calls into question our assumptions about high (portraits of venerable ancestors) and low (pastel Pekingese) art.”

Also of note is that finalist Julie Ann Davis’s story “Taylor’s Creek” was recommended by the NCLR editors for publication in the eastern North Carolina–based, online and print magazine IBX Lifestyles, and it will appear in the spring issue.

Six other stories were finalists in the competition: Joseph Francis Cavano’s “Soldiers,” Carol Cooley’s “Jude and Ms. Martha,” Carol Roan’s “The Streetwalker,” Merry Elrick’s “The Rhubarb,” Doris Monica Iarovici’s “Among The Ruins,” and “The Neighbor’s Dog” by Thomas Wolf, who received the Betts Prize in 2007.

Published since 1992 by East Carolina University and the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, NCLR has won numerous awards and citations. Fiction editor Liza Wieland is the author of three novels and three collections of short stories.

A two-year subscription to NCLR will include the 2010 issue, featuring the winner and two finalists from the 2009 Betts competition, as well as the 2011 issue, featuring the winning story from this year’s competition. Go to www.nclr.ecu.edu/subscrip.htm for subscription information, and subscribe by June 1 to avoid postage charges.

Tamra Wilson's story, "The Prodigal," was a finalist in the 2010 Flatireon Writers Short Fiction Contest and her story, "Brother Dirk," took third place in the Children's Story Contest sponsored by Charlotte Writers Club. Both stories are excerpts from Home at the Lincoln Hotel, a novel in progress.

The National Association of Professional and Executive Women (USA) has selected Islamic author and illustrator Linda “iLham” Barto as its 2010 Woman of the Year in the arts category. More about Barto and her work is available on her website www.Lit-by-Linda.com.

Katrina Parker Williams has works published or accepted for publication at the following:
 

• a fictional piece "Rock" published at Charlotte Viewpoint.
• a fictional piece "Aunt Luella's House" and a poem "A Housewife's Lament" published in the March 2010 issue of The Saints' Placenta.
• a poem "Bag of Clothes" accepted at All Things Girl for their March 2010 issue.
• a poem "Revolt in the Cherokee Nation" accepted at Dead Mule for their July 2010 issue.
• a fictional piece "Missus Buck" accepted at The Village Pariah.
• a fictional piece "Grandpa's Courtship" accepted at Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal  for their July-September 2010 issue. 
•  a fictional piece "The Fear of My Father" published at Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal.
• a fictional piece "Ms. Pimmelly's City" published at usadeepsouth.

NCWN member Kim Wright's debut novel, Love in Mid Air, was selected for the "First Fiction" list of Publisher's Weekly, Spring issue 2010.

Joan Carris'  latest book, Wild Times at the Bed and Biscuit, was put on the Smithsonian Notable Books List for 2009. 

Hats Off to Wilson Roberts. His short story, "Against the Dying of the Light"  has been accepted for publication by the Massachusetts Review.

Hat's Off to...JOHN GROOMS of Charlotte, NCWN member and critiquer, who recently won a first place award from the North Carolina Press Association. Grooms, who writes a weekly column for Charlotte alternative weekly Creative Loafing, won first place among weeklies with circulation greater than 10,000 in the category of "lighter columns." His win was based on these sarcasm-laden selections: "Mommy, can I stone the queer now?" "Overkill? What overkill?" and "Do it yourself campaign ads."
To see the columns, click here, or here, or here!

...to GARY CARDEN.   His work , "Prince of Dark Corners" is currently being broadcast on both UNC-TV and ETV, and it will continue to be a part of the broadcast format for 
2008.  The PBS endorsed DVD can be obtained by contacting Gary Carden,  236 Cherry Street, Sylva, N.C. 

...to GLENDA BEALL.  Her poems Early Morning Hope and Beneath the Beauty were published in the 2007 edition of the Journal of Kentucky Studies. This annual publication of the Northern Kentucky University Department of Literature and Language is edited by Gary Walton and Danny L. Miller.

 ...and again to GLENDA BEALL. Her personal essay AN ANGEL CALLED AMOS was accepted by Adams media for the anthology, Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers which will be on bookshelves in April.

Jennifer Mackenzie has won an Artist Fellowship in Screenwriting from the North Carolina Arts Council/National Endowment for the Arts for her script, THE SPACE BETWEEN.  In 2004, Ms. Mackenzie's first screenplay, HEAVEN RUSHING OUT, reached the semifinal round of the prestigious Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, finishing among the top 30 out of the 6,073 scripts entered that year.