Spring Conference 2005 was held at Peace College in Raleigh, NC. The conference is over, but we have left this conference information on the site so that you can refer to it as a model of what our Spring Conference is like.

Faculty Biographies

Lavonne J. Adams is the recipient of the 2004 Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Chapbook Award for In the Shadow of the Mountain, the 1999 Persephone Poetry Award for Everyday Still Life, and read as an emerging artist at Vanderbilt University's "Millennial Gathering of the Writers of the New South." Her poems appear in numerous literary journals, most recently The Cimarron Review, The Comstock Review, and The MacGuffin. She currently teaches in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Darnell Arnoult is a published author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her first book of poetry, What Travels With Us, will be published this year and her first novel, Sufficient Grace, is scheduled for release in 2006. She currently teaches and coaches individuals and groups in writing fiction, poetry and memoir. Her leadership has led to the development of the Grey Mule Writers Circle and the Southern Amen Revelation Sisterhood, both strong support groups for middle Tennessee writers. She is a long-standing faculty member of the Duke Writers Workshop and is a founder of the Brush Creek Writers' Cooperative, a collection of fiction writers, non-fiction writers and poets who share their various creativity and expertise through high caliber instruction in workshops and classes throughout the Southeast. (www.darnellarnoult.com)

Charisse Coleman's essays have appeared in national literary magazines, The News & Observer, and the Independent Weekly. She is a contributor to the anthology Wounds That Do Not Bind: Victim-Based Perspectives on the Death Penalty, due out this fall from Carolina Academic Press, and is about to complete A Bad Goodbye, a memoir of the aftermath of her brother's 1995 murder. A 2001 recipient of an NC Arts Council fellowship in creative nonfiction, Coleman teaches writing through Duke University's Short Courses and private workshops in Durham.

Quinn Dalton's first novel, High Strung, was released by Atria Books in 2003. Bulletproof Girl, a collection of short stories, will be published in April of this year. Her stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines such as Glimmer Train, The Kenton Review, and StoryQuarterly. She received a North Carolina Arts Council artist fellowship for 2002-2003 and an MFA in creative writing from UNC-Greensboro in 1994. (www.quinndalton.com)

Philip Gerard is the author of three novels and four books of nonfiction, including Cape Fear Rising, Hatteras Light, Secret Soldiers, and Creative Nonfiction-Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life. In addition, he has published numerous essays and short stories, and his commentaries have aired on NPR's All Things Considered. Seven of his documentary scripts were produced and broadcast on public television. He holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and teaches in the Creative Writing Department of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. (www.philipgerard.com)

Jaki Shelton Green received the North Carolina Award for Literature in 2003 for her poetry and "inveterate championing of the underdog." Her poetry has appeared in publications such as The Crucible, The African-American Review, Obsidian, Ms. and Essence. Her publications are Dead on Arrival, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Masks, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, and Blue Opal, a play. She has performed her poetry and taught workshops in the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Brazil. Green holds a master's degree in community economic development from the Development Training Institute of Maryland and maintains an independent consultancy specializing in nonprofit board training, arts and education, and humanities. In addition, Green teaches creative writing to marginalized populations of our society such as the homeless, the newly literate, the incarcerated and the writer-as-survivor. She collaborates with human service agencies and non-profit organizations whose focus is using writing as a tool of recovery and change. She is available for workshops such as "Building Community through Poetry and the Arts" through the North Carolina Humanities Council Speaker's Bureau.

Maureen Ryan Griffin, whose poems have appeared in many literary journals across the country, including Calyx, Chelsea, The Cincinnati Review, and The Texas Review, is the author of two poetry chapbooks, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She has non-fiction pieces in On Air: Essays from Charlotte's NPR Station, WFAE 90.7 and Hungry for Home, and offers writing classes and individual coaching and critiques through her business, WordPlay. Her awards include selection for the 2003 Blumenthal Readers and Writers Series sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network, the Mary Jean Irion Scholarship from The Writers' Center at Chautauqua, New York, the Thomas H. McDill, Hayman "America" and Brotherhood awards from the North Carolina Poetry Society.

Tommy Hays' latest novel is The Pleasure Was Mine, which is due out in March from St. Martin's Press. He has written two other novels-Sam's Crossing and In the Family Way, which was a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. He is executive director of the Great Smokies Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and directs Creative Writing for the Academy at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. He reviews books for The Atlanta Constitution, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and is a contributor to Our State. Hays received his BA in English from Furman University and his MFA in creative writing from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives in Asheville with his wife and two children. (www.tommyhays.com)

Carol Shumate has a Ph.D. in comparative literature and has taught at Yale, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Colorado. She has written and edited numerous promotional documents for higher education institutions including UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University, as well as editing and writing for technical and medical publications. She has won prizes for her short fiction and likes to write satire, humor, and personal essays. She is currently Interest Area Consultant in Education for the Association of Psychological Type, and a frequent contributor to the Bulletin of Psychological Type. (www.writestyles.com)