Staff Biographies

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  Ed Southern Executive Director

  A native North Carolinian, Ed Southern has been Executive Director of the North Carolina Writers’ Network since 2008, after several years as Vice President of John F. Blair, Publisher. He also has worked as a bookseller, coffee-shop manager, sporting-goods sales clerk, janitor, assistant facilities manager in a major art museum, bartender, high school sports stringer for a local newspaper, delivery truck driver, dishwasher, basketball scoreboard operator, busser, bagger, and lawn mower.

  He is the author of five books, including Fight Songs, a finalist for the SIBA Southern Book Prize. His shorter work in a variety of genres has appeared in storySouth, North Carolina Literary Review, The Bitter Southerner, South Writ Large, Asheville Poetry Review, and elsewhere. In 2015, he received the Fortner Award for service to the literary arts in North Carolina.

  He lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Jamie Rogers Southern, the Executive Director of Bookmarks, and their children.

  Email: ed@ncwriters.org
  Phone: 336-293-8844

• Kelly March Communications Director

  Kelly March is a writer, editor, and communications professional living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is a former newspaper reporter and a graduate of the MFA program in Writing and Literature at Bennington College.

  Email: kelly@ncwriters.org

   

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  Celeste McMaster Membership Coordinator

  Originally from Arkansas, Celeste McMaster has lived the majority of her life in the Carolinas.  She earned her PhD from the University of South Carolina, where she specialized in 19th and 20th Century British Literature as well as Creative Writing, and received her MA in English from East Carolina University, where she worked for the North Carolina Literary Review. She has published poetry and fiction in journals such as Arkansas Review, The Dos Passos Review, Fish, Mslexia, New Delta Review, Still, and The Saturday Evening Post. 

  Email: celeste@ncwriters.org
  Phone: 919-308-3228

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  Jim Sheedy Database Manager

  Jim Sheedy has been working for the North Carolina Writers’ Network for over twenty years, promoting, coordinating, and teaching writing workshops onsite for North Carolina businesses. For over ten years, he has administered the Network’s membership database system.

  Jim has also been a technical writer in the software industry for over thirty years, currently working for SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina, where he documents the programming interfaces to SAS graphics components.

  Email: jim@ncwriters.org