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ALEXANDRIA, VA—You've known for a while now that you have a book inside you. But it seems like such a massive undertaking. The scope is so much larger than those essays or short stories you've published, you wonder where to even begin.
And yet, deep down, you know that you can write a great one.
On Tuesday, December 17, at 7:00 pm, National Book Award Finalist Shelia P. Moses will lead the online class "Techniques for Writing Your First Book."
Registration is closed.
This course is capped at forty (40) registrants, first-come, first-served. There is a $45 fee to register.
A good novel, memoir, or children's book should be filled with great images to draw readers into the story. This is achieved via great language. This workshop will explore the art of descriptive writing and how to create memorable narrative.
Workshop discussions will include:
- Prewriting
- Developing characters
- First Draft
- Revising you manuscript
Shelia P. Moses, is an African-American writer whose subjects include comedian Dick Gregory and the legend of Buddy Bush. In 2004, she was nominated for the National Book Award and named the Coretta Scott King Honoree for The Legend of Buddy Bush. In 2009, her novel Joseph was nominated for the NAACP Image Award.
Shelia is currently working on a novel titled Yardsale, and she lives in Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia.
"Techniques for Writing Your First Book" is the North Carolina Writers' Network's second offering in their 2019-2020 series of online classes.
"This program is a great way for writers from all over North Carolina to connect without having the hassle of driving somewhere and finding parking," said NCWN communications director Charles Fiore. "Online classes offer top-shelf instruction for a fraction of the cost, and the software itself is very intuitive and easy to use."
The online class "Techniques for Writing Your First Book" is available to anyone with an internet connection, or who even owns just a telephone. Instructions for accessing the online class on Tuesday, December 17, will be sent to registrants no less than twenty-four hours prior to the start of class. The class will be archived and made available to registrants for repeated viewings.
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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WILMINGTON—The Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition is now open for submissions. The deadline is January 15, 2020.
This prize awards $1,000 and possible publication in Ecotone to a piece of unconventional journalism not to exceed 2,000 words. Second and Third-Place winners will receive $300 and $200 respectively.
Jane Wong will judge.
Jane Wong's poems can be found in places such as American Poetry Review, POETRY, AGNI, Third Coast, New England Review, and others. Her essays have appeared in McSweeney's, Black Warrior Review, Ecotone, the Georgia Review, Shenandoah, and This is the Place: Women Writing about Home. Her essay in Ecotone, "Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City," was commended in the 2018 Stack Magazine Awards. A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Artist Trust, the Fine Arts Work Center, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Willapa Bay AiR, Hedgebrook, the Jentel Foundation, and others. She is the author of Overpour, from Action Books, and How to Not Be Afraid of Everything, which is forthcoming from Alice James Books. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Western Washington University.
Subjects for essays submitted to the Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition may include traditional categories such as reviews, travel articles, profiles or interviews, place/history pieces, or culture criticism.
This competition is facilitated by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington Department of Creative Writing, which runs a small press, Lookout Books, and a sister literary magazine, Ecotone.
Ecotone’s mission is to publish and promote the best place-based work being written today. Founded at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2005, the award-winning magazine features writing and art that reimagine place, and our authors interpret this charge expansively. An ecotone is a transition zone between two adjacent ecological communities, containing the characteristic species of each. It is therefore a place of danger or opportunity, a testing ground. The magazine explores the ecotones between landscapes, literary genres, scientific and artistic disciplines, modes of thought.
Recent contributors include Ross Gay, David Gessner, Julia Ridley Smith, and Amber Flora Thomas.
Rose Post worked for the Salisbury Post for fifty-six years as a reporter, feature writer, and columnist. She won numerous state and national awards for her writing and earned the NC Press Women's top annual award four times. She received the O. Henry Award from the Associated Press three times, the Pete Ivey Award, and the School Bell Award for educational coverage. Nationally, she won the 1989 Ernie Pyle Award, the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for human-interest writing, and the 1994 National Society of Newspaper Columnists' Award.
The winner of the 2019 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition was Pam Van Dyk of Raleigh, for her essay "ABC to XYZ." Special thanks to the Queens University of Charlotte MFA in Creative Writing Program for facilitating the 2019 contest in the wake of Hurricane Florence.
The full competition guidelines are listed below and can be found at www.ncwriters.org.
Eligibility and Guidelines
- The competition is open to any writer who is a legal resident of North Carolina or a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
- The postmark deadline is January 15.
- The entry fee is $10 for NCWN members, $12 for nonmembers.
- Entries can be submitted in one of two ways:
- Send two printed copies through the U.S. Postal Service (see guidelines and address below), along with a check for the appropriate fee, made payable to the North Carolina Writers' Network.
- Submit an electronic copy online at http://ncwriters.submittable.com, and pay by VISA or MasterCard.
- Simultaneous submissions ok, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- Each entry must be an original and previously unpublished manuscript of no more than 2,000 words, typed in a 12-point standard font (i.e., Times New Roman) and double-spaced.
- Author's name should not appear on manuscripts. Instead, include a separate cover sheet with name, address, phone number, e-mail address, word count, and manuscript title. (If submitting online, do not include a cover sheet with your document; Submittable will collect and record your name and contact information.)
- An entry fee must accompany the manuscript. Multiple submissions are accepted, one manuscript per entry fee: $10 for NCWN members, $12 for nonmembers.
- You may pay the member entry fee if you join NCWN with your submission. Checks should be made payable to the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
- Entries will not be returned. Winners will be announced in March.
- When you submit online at https://ncwriters.submittable.com/submit, Submittable will collect your entry fee via credit card ($15 NCWN members / $25 non-members). (If submitting online, do not include a cover sheet with your document; Submittable will collect and record your name and contact information. For more information about Submittable, click here.)
- To submit as a Member of NCWN ($10), click here.
- To submit as a Non-Member of NCWN ($12), click here.
- If submitting by mail, send submission to:
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ASHEVILLE—If you're getting to Fall Conference early, or if you live in the surrounding Asheville area and want to slip a little writing time into your Friday afternoon, consider joining The Flatiron Writers Room, based in funky West Asheville, when they host the Pre-Conference Tailgate prior to the opening of registration for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2019 Fall Conference.
The Pre-Conference Tailgate will be led by Flatiron Writers Room member A.K. Benninghofen.
This event is free. There is no registration required, and one does not need to have registered for the conference to participate.
This special program will take place:
Friday, November 8, 12:00-1:30 pm
Flatiron Writers Room, 5 Covington St., Asheville, NC 28806
There is limited parking at the Flatiron Writers Room, including a handicap-accessible space in the rear of the building. Once the parking lot is full, attendees can park along Covington St. or across Haywood Rd. in the part of the Odditorium parking lot closest to Haywood Rd. (park perpendicular to Haywood Rd). Visitors also can across Haywood Rd. in the BB&T business park. The Flatiron Writers Room recommends car pooling if possible.
A.K. Benninghofen will lead lead this writing session, useful for any genre of writer.
The best stories are built not on structures and outlines, but on curiosity and intuition. Still, we writers sometimes find it difficult to let go and trust that our subconscious knows more than we do. In this short workshop, we’ll use exercises and prompts to practice the art of discovery. We’ll allow ourselves to get messy, to let the words lead us to those moments of surprise and wonder that keep our narratives fresh and alive. Come with pen and paper and a willingness to share your messiness with others.
A.K. Benninghofen holds a BFA in Theatre from the University of Southern Mississippi. She worked as an actress in New York and Los Angeles for many years before moving to Asheville where she started a family and began her life as a writer. She is a member of Asheville’s Flatiron Writers Group. A.K.’s work has appeared in Word Riot, Passages North, Evergreen Review, Monkeybicycle, Necessary Fiction, Deep South Magazine, the anthology A Book of Uncommon Prayer, and elsewhere. She has been a fiction contributor at Sewanee Writers' Conference, a writing fellow at the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts & Sciences, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, and Wildacres Retreat. In 2012, she was awarded a Regional Artist Project Grant by the North Carolina Arts Council. Currently, she is at work on her first novel, Gloaming Season, as well as a collection of linked stories titled Landmine Maps of the Hospitality State.
The Pre-Conference Tailgate is meant to get writers' creative juices flowing prior to the weekend.
The Flatiron Writers Room is an outgrowth of the Flatiron Writers, who have been writing and providing workshops and events for the western North Carolina writing community since 1993. They host workshops and events; in addition, their space is available for rent to writers who want to teach, host a book launch, or hold a writers’ group or book club meeting. Their goal: to nurture a vibrant and supportive writing community–inspired by Asheville’s rich literary history–while providing writers with quiet, affordable space in which to write, and classrooms in which to teach or participate in classes and workshops.
On-site registration for the NCWN 2019 Fall Conference will open at 3:00 pm on Friday, November 8, in the lobby of the Doubletree by Hilton Asheville-Biltmore. Those who have not pre-registered will be able to sign up for classes at that time.
The NCWN 2019 Fall Conference is a full weekend of classes, panels, readings, open mics, and more. For full details, click here.