NCWN

The North Carolina Writers' Network's 2008 Elizabeth Daniels Squire Summer Writing Residency was held last weekend at Queens University of Charlotte. 32 writers got to spend three days writing, reading other's writing, working on writing, and talking about writing.

"I'm overwhelmed at how well the weekend went for me," attendee John Minter said. "This workshop was truly a success. It is one I will always remember."

Charlotte, NC – Registration is open at www.ncwriters.org for the North Carolina Writers’ Network’s 2008 Elizabeth Daniels Squire Summer Residency, July 25 – 27 on the campus of Queens University of Charlotte.

Writers from Queens, UNC-Charlotte, and Davidson College will teach intensive, three-day workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The residency will also feature faculty and student readings, a publishing forum, and a picnic at Freedom Park with an outdoor reading. Registrants stay on-campus to further an atmosphere of collegiality, although “commuting students” are also accepted for the program at a reduced rate.

“We’re very excited to offer the Summer Residency again,” said NCWN executive director Ed Southern. “Past attendees have called this their favorite of all the programs that the Network offers.”

Julie Funderburk, who came to Queens in 2003 after serving as assistant director of UNC-Greensboro’s MFA program, will teach the poetry workshop, which “will focus on giving participants specific ways to analyze and classify poems.”

UNC-Charlotte assistant professor of English Aaron Gwyn, whose novel The World Beneath will be published in 2009 by W. W. Norton & Co., will teach a fiction workshop that “will explore what successful authors do to start their novels and stories, as well as potential pitfalls they avoid . . . and discuss effective ways of shaping the beginning of novels or stories to attract the attention of agents and editors.”

Cynthia Lewis, the Charles A. Dana Professor of English at Davidson and part-time bartender, will teach a creative nonfiction course designed to “focus primarily on group review of participants’ writing samples and secondarily on topics relevant to the craft of creative nonfiction.”

The 2008 Summer Residency will be the first held outside the Triangle. Southern said the decision to move the program’s venue around the state, as well as to shorten it from five days to three, was made to make the Summer Residency more accessible to a greater number of writers.

“The Summer Residency generates such passion among the writers who attend that we felt we had to make it easier for more writers to sign up,” Southern said. “This year, not only does the residency cost less, but you don’t have to take a week off work to attend.

“Several of last year’s attendees told me it was so much fun, we should set up cameras and pitch it as a reality show,” Southern added. “I don’t think I want to know why.”

Information on registration and fees is available at www.ncwriters.org.