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GREENSBORO—When their 2018 Spring Conference opens at 8:00 am this Saturday, the North Carolina Writers' Network will welcome a record-setting number of attendees.
The state's largest and most inclusive writers' organization will bring together 161 pre-registrants on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for a full day of workshops and sessions on the craft and business of writing, as well as panels, readings, open mics, and more.
The previous high for Spring Conference attendance was 137, set in 2015.
"At my first Spring Conference as Executive Director, in 2008, we had sixty-six attendees," says NCWN Executive Director Ed Southern. "And we were thrilled."
Spring Conference broke 100 attendees in 2012 and has consistently hovered around the 125 mark since then—until this year.
Tar Heel writers are excited about learning from renowned authors such as Naima Coster, whose debut novel Halsey Street is out this Spring. She, along with poet Emilia Phillips (Empty Clip) and Cynthia Nearman (storySouth) will lead the Master Classes in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, respectively.
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee Jill McCorkle (2018) will give the Keynote Address. Other programming features include faculty readings, open mics, and the popular Slush Pile Live!, where a panel of editors gives feedback on submissions being read aloud: all anonymous, all live!
The exhibit hall too will be filled to bursting with some of the best literary publications and organizations in the state. NCWN has profiled each exhibitor in a series of blog posts. Click here for Part I, Part II, and Part III.
Greensboro's Scuppernong Books will be the official conference bookseller. Conferencegoers are encouraged to bring along an extra shopping bag and get a jump on their summer reading.
On-site registration will open for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Spring Conference at 8:00 am on Saturday, April 21, in the MHRA Building on the campus of UNCG.
Registrants may park for free in the Oakland Avenue Parking Deck, across Forest Street from the MHRA Building (behind Yum Yum Better Ice Cream and Old Town Draught House), courtesy of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at UNCG. Spring Conference also is made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council.
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RALEIGH—Registration for the 2018 Squire Summer Writing Workshops is now open.
The Summer Workshops, which allow writers to focus on one genre with one instructor in a small-group setting over the course of the weekend, run Thursday—Sunday, July 19-22 on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
The Squire Summer Writing Workshops offer an intensive course in a chosen genre (fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry), with ten ninety-minute sessions over the four days of the program. Space in each workshop is limited, so that registrants can work in-depth on their own manuscript samples, as well as their colleagues’, while also studying the principles of the genre with their instructor.
Paul Cuadros, author of A Home on the Field, will lead the creative nonfiction workshop "Storytelling from a Point of Truth." Rob Greene, editor of Raleigh Review, will lead the workshop in poetry, "Poems of Experience." Elaine Neil Orr, author of the novels A Different Sun and the forthcoming Swimming Between Worlds, will lead the fiction workshop "From Character to Plot to Atmosphere in Fiction."
Other programs include faculty readings, panel discussions, open mic sessions for residents, and the popular “Here’s to the Writingest State” opening session.
“The Squire Summer Writing Workshops introduced me to NCWN, and that connection has been key for me,” said Janet Ford, winner of the 2017 Guy Owen Prize from Southern Poetry Review. “Through this organization, I have discovered the members of my writing group, as well as the Spring and Fall Conferences and many meaningful opportunities to publish and read.”
Paul Cuadros is an associate professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, as well as the chair of the UNC Scholars’ Latino Initiative, a college mentoring and preparatory program for Latino high school students at six local public high schools. He is an award-winning investigative reporter and author whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Time Magazine, Salon.com, The Chicago Reporter, and other national and local publications. His book A Home on the Field: How One Championship Team Inspires Hope for the Revival of Small Town America (Harpers Collins), which tells the story of Siler City as it copes and struggles with Latino immigration through the lives of a predominantly Latino high school soccer team, has been required summer reading for undergraduates at UNC-Chapel Hill and several other colleges and universities. In 2014, the book was adapted into the television documentary series Los Jets, produced by Jennifer Lopez and her production company, Nuyorican Productions, Inc. Cuadros is currently working on another book about the Latino community in the American South.
Rob Greene is the editor of Raleigh Review, and he has lived in Raleigh for much of the last two decades. Prior to this he had relocated forty-six times. Greene taught poetry writing at NC State University as a graduate student while earning his Master of Fine Arts. For the past five years he has taught at Louisburg College, where he serves as the advisor for Lou Lit Review. This fall, Greene will begin work on his research Ph.D in creative writing at University of Birmingham (United Kingdom) via distance education. His own poems have been recently published in Open Minds Quarterly, Great River Review, War: Literature & the Arts, and in the Berlin-based annual Herzattacke. His first chapbook, Biloxi Back Bay (Rabbit House Press), was published in early 2017.
Elaine Neil Orr writes fiction, memoir, and literary criticism. Swimming Between Worlds, her newest novel, is described by Charles Frazier as “a perceptive and powerful story told with generosity and grace.” In a starred review, Library Journal said of Orr’s last novel, A Different Sun, “this extraordinary novel shines with light and depth.” Her memoir, Gods of Noonday: A White Girl’s African Life, was a Top-20 Book Sense selection and a nominee for the Old North State Award. She is associate editor of a collection of essays on international childhoods, Writing Out of Limbo, and the author of two scholarly books. In 2016, she was Kathryn Stripling Byer Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. Orr has published extensively in literary magazines including The Missouri Review, Blackbird, Shenandoah, and Image Journal. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
“Because the pace of the weekend is slower, participants tend to build strong bonds with one another,” said NCWN communications director Charles Fiore. “There's space in the schedule for writing, and reading, and going to meals together, and there's plenty of time for sitting around and talking about all the things that inspire us.”
Register now at www.ncwriters.org.
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GREENSBORO—The North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Spring Conference happens April 21. It's a full weekend of classes and workshops on the craft and business of writing, plus panels, readings, camaraderie, and more.
2018 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee Jill McCorkle will give the Keynote Address; popular features include "Luch with an Author," where attendees can eat lunch with the author of their choice (pre-registration required!), and the fourth annual Slush Pile Live!
The conference is held at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro because of the generosity of its Master in Fine Arts Writing Program.
The Master in Fine Arts Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro offers a two-year residency program with an emphasis on providing students with studio time in which to study the writing of fiction or poetry. This program is one of the oldest in the country. The faculty includes Emilia Phillips, who'll lead the Master Class in Poetry at the NCWN 2018 Spring Conference and whose third poetry collection Empty Clip has just been released; as well as past Spring Conference faculty such as Fred Chappell and Lee Zacharias. The program produces The Greensboro Review, edited by poet Terry L. Kennedy.
Conference attendees will be able to park free in the Oakland Avenue Parking Deck courtesy of the MFA Writing Program at UNCG.
Other sponsors include 
The North Carolina Arts Council offers operating support for the North Carolina Writers' Network. The Arts Council has been a statutory state agency since 1967. Their core functions include creating a strong and efficient arts infrastructure across North Carolina; planning and implementing economic development using the arts; education; and research. The Arts Council believes that artists are an integral part of civic life as they stimulate creativity, innovation and dialogue. Our cities vibrate with the energy of the arts; and our rural communities reach deep into their roots and celebrate their unique traditions. Residents in every corner of NC have the chance to engage their artistic aspirations. The arts help children flourish through a complete education that prepares them for the workforce with twenty-first century skills. The arts build bridges where diverse communities reach across boundaries to celebrate and share their cultures. The arts are an essential ingredient in state policy, practice, and pride.
Registration for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Spring Conference is open.