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WINSTON-SALEM—Registration for the North Carolina Writers' Network Online Spring Conference 2021 closes Monday, April 19, at 9:00 am EST. Because this is an online conference, there will be no day-of registration, so Monday is your last chance to register.
Registration is open here.
Spring Conference happens Saturday, April 24, entirely online. Open classes include:
- "Authors and Entrepreneurs" with Terry L. Kennedy and Ross White
- "Form and Freedom" (Poetry) with Ashley Lumpkin
- "How to Read Your Work to Others" (Poetry) with Joseph Mills
The day also includes faculty readings, open mics, and an online picnic lunch social hour. The cost of the conference is "Pay What You Can."
"Authors and Entrepreneurs" will be offered both in the morning and in the afternoon sessions. With the business models of traditional publishing changing, authors are increasingly being asked to act entrepreneurially. But a publisher’s only concern will be selling books, and there are many other ways authors can build a sustainable living by developing creative businesses and services that serve other writers and change the world. In "Authors and Entrepreneurs," two arts entrepreneurs will look at business model developed by writers and discuss best practices for starting businesses that benefit both the individual writer and the larger literary community.
"Form and Freedom" (Poetry) is an exploration of traditional and more recently created poetic forms. In this generative workshop, participants will explore how forms are developed and the many creative doors opened by adhering to the constraints they provide.
Why does listening to some readers help us more fully understand their work while others make us wish we were anywhere else, even the dentist? What are the elements of a “good reading”? What should someone consider when giving a reading? In "How to Read Your Work to Others" (Poetry), we’ll talk about what it means to have an audience and what, if any, are your obligations to them. Some topics will include delivery, “poet voice,” poem selections and sequences, forums, and, yes, Zoom.
Register for the NCWN Online Spring Conference here.
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. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.
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WINSTON-SALEM—Last April, the North Carolina Writers’ Network launched an emergency fund drive that turned into its most successful fundraising campaign ever.
This April, the Network is launching a less urgent but more ambitious fundraiser: the ReCover Campaign.
“We want to tell people that the Network’s story is still powerful and compelling, but its pages sure could use a new binding and dust jacket,” NCWN Executive Director Ed Southern said. “The ReCover Campaign can be everything last year’s ‘COVID April’ appeal was not: assured instead of urgent; bold instead of fearful; forward-looking instead of tentative.”
The ReCover Campaign seeks funds to address specific NCWN needs:
- An upgraded, more user-friendly platform for www.ncwriters.org
- A new, cleaner look for our website, newsletter, and other visual media
- Equipment to live-stream some programs, for those who can’t attend in person
- New conference equipment
The Network also hopes to take care of more mundane needs like microphones, mic stands, amps, signs, and new phones for its staff.
“Our Membership Coordinator’s phone is seven years old,” Southern said. “Our Communications Director doesn’t even have a Network-issued phone. Mine is thirteen years old, and a landline.”
In a letter being sent to all NCWN members, Southern wrote, “With these upgrades we can pursue our mission to connect, promote, educate, serve, and lead writers more effectively. We can make sure our members not only have access to the excellence, opportunity, and community that all writers need, but that they have it at their fingertips.”
The NCWN is a 501(c)(3) organization, so all donations are tax-deductible. Gifts can be made online or by checks made out to NCWN and mailed to P.O. Box 21591, Winston-Salem, NC, 27120.
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WINSTON-SALEM, NC—On Saturday, April 24, at 2:30 pm EDT, as part of the North Carolina Writers' Network Online Spring Conference 2021, author James Tate Hill will lead the creative nonfiction session "Writing Trauma."
Registration is open.
The cost is "Pay What You Can." Can you pay $5? $1? $0? Cool, come join us!
Traumatic experiences can be the hardest to write about, but they are often our richest material. “To bring one’s self to others makes the whole planet less lonely,” writes Mary Karr in The Art of Memoir, but how do we translate pain into writing that might interest an audience beyond our therapist? This course will explore the essential elements of creative nonfiction with a focus on structure, voice, narrative, and the ethics of writing about real people.
James Tate Hill is the author of a memoir, Blind Man’s Bluff, coming July 2021 from W. W. Norton. His essays have been listed as Notable in the 2019 and 2020 editions of Best American Essays, and he won the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel for Academy Gothic. He serves as fiction editor for the literary journal Monkeybicycle and contributing editor for Literary Hub, where he writes a monthly audiobooks column. He lives in Greensboro with his wife.
Other features of the NCWN Online Spring Conference 2021 include classes on fiction, poetry, and the business of books, as well as faculty readings, open mics, and an online picnic lunch social hour. Spring Conference is available to anyone with an internet connection, or who even owns just a telephone.
Register here.
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. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.