NCWN

CARY, NC—The 2012 North Carolina Writers' Network Fall Conference runs November 2-4 at the Embassy Suites in Cary, in the heart of North Carolina's Triangle Area. Pre-registration is now closed. But don't worry! Walk-in registration will be available beginning Friday, November 2, at 5:00 pm.

The annual Fall Conference is North Carolina's premier literary event and one of the largest and most inclusive writers’ conferences in the nation. Held in a different location each year, the Fall Conference offers a prestigious collection of literary talent and a weekend packed with panels, workshops, and readings.

Edith Pearlman will give the Keynote Address. Pearlman's collection of short stories, Binocular Vision, was published by North Carolina's Lookout Books in 2011 and won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and was a Finalist for the National Book Award, among many other honors. Edith will discuss how a lifetime of work went into her "overnight" success.

The Fall Conference offers more than twenty-five workshops in creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, as well as in other aspects of the craft such as writing for children, publishing, and how to wow at an open mic. Registrants can also choose from two Master Classes: Creative Nonfiction (led by Elaine Neil Orr) and Poetry (led by 2012 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee Kathryn Stripling Byer).

Participants at the conference may also register for one-on-one sessions with a publishing or bookselling professional. The Manuscript Mart provides writers with the opportunity to pitch their manuscripts and get feedback from an editor or agent with a leading publisher or literary agency. The Critique Service provides writers with in-depth literary critiques of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays from a seasoned writer. And the Marketing Mart, began in 2011, provides writers with an opportunity to create or refine an effective plan to pitch, promote, and sell their current, upcoming, or proposed books. Registration for the Critique Service and all Marts and Master Classes closed October 26.

“Our most important offering,” said NCWN Executive Director Ed Southern, “is the chance for writers to get to know one another and trade advice, ideas, and encouragement. We have a number of writers who come to the conference year after year, first as registrants and then—as their careers progress—as instructors.”

More than a dozen exhibitors will peddle their wares around the main conference hall, and Raleigh's Quail Ridge Books & Music will sell books on-site. Saturday's night's entertainment will not only draw from the Triangle's rich and diverse population but promises to be a wailin' good time (in 2011, attendees were literally dancing in the aisles!).

Still planning to attend? Walk-in registration opens Friday, November 2 at 5:00 pm. For more information visit www.ncwriters.org.

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.

By Eleanora E. Tate, Faculty, 2012 Fall Conference Faculty, “Through the Eyes of a Child: Writing for Young People”

After nearly fifty years of being a children’s short story and book-length manuscript critique and workshop leader at retreats, residencies, conferences, and in teaching I’ve read many outstanding manuscripts for children.

Almost every one yearned, hungered, craved, even, to become a published children’s writer. It’s this kind of “fire in the belly” longing that unites all writers, regardless of the genre. A writer “shows” when s/he creates sufficient action, sensory details, description and dialogue in a scene to heighten reader’s emotions, at least for the moment. Such imagery allows the reader to “see”—perhaps emotionally feel, hear, smell, even taste—what happens so vividly that the scene becomes real. The writer produces what must be shown.

I’m proud to be a children’s book author. It ain’t easy. It takes just as much skill and perseverance. It takes just as much understanding and application of character development, setting, dialogue, voice, conflict, plot, point of view—i.e., craft—to write a compelling picture book or middle grade or YA manuscript as it does to write a barnstormer for adults. Maybe even more.

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Eleanora E. Tate will lead a workshop titled “Through the Eyes of a Child: Writing for Young People” at the NCWN 2012 Fall Conference. Tate is a folklorist, short story writer, journalist, and author. Her children's books have won Parents Choice Awards, are ABA Pick of the Lists, are Notable Children's Trade Books, and one is a Child Study Committee Children's Book of the Year. Two are audio books and another is an award-winning television film. A former NCWN board member, a veteran writing workshop conductor, and a seminar leader over the years for the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, among others, her newest book is Celeste's Harlem Renaissance (2007). Ms. Tate is an instructor with the Institute of Children's Literature, and on the faculty of Hamline University's Master's Degree-seeking low-residency program “Writing for Children and Young Adults” in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Pre-registration for the NCWN 2012 Fall Conference closes at 11:59 pm on Monday, October 29. On-site registration will be available at the conference.