MHRA Building (Corner of Spring Garden and Forest Streets)
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Saturday, April 13, 2013
The North Carolina Writers' Network and the Creative Writing Program at UNC Greensboro bring you a full day of workshops in a campus setting. This year’s Spring Conference moves to a more convenient location in UNCG’s MHRA Building, on the corner of Spring Garden and Forest Streets, but still offers classes and panel discussions on the craft and business of writing and publishing: from the latest on e-books to the traditional craft of bookbinding.
In addition, the “lunch” part of Lunch with an Author will be provided for those who register, so writers will be able to spend more time talking, and less time waiting in line.
Plus, free parking, thanks to the UNCG Creative Writing Program.
Register Online | Download a Registration Form**Pre-registration is closed**
FEES AND LOGISTICS | SCHEDULE-AT-A-GLANCE | FULL CONFERENCE SCHEDULE WITH COURSES | FACULTY BIOGRAPHIES
Fees and Logistics
Register Online | Download a Registration Form**Pre-registration is closed**
Early registration ends Sunday, April 7. Members may register on-site April 13 for $135. |
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Early registration:
Lunch with an Author:
IMPORTANT: Spring Conference attendees MUST register for Lunch with an Author prior to the conference. Lunch with an Author registration will NOT be available on-site. |
On-site registration as a walk-in:
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You can join the Network when you register, and pay the member rates plus the appropriate member dues:
$75 standard 1-year membership
$55 senior (65+), student, disabled membership
$130 2-year membership
$130 household 1-year membership
Scholarships
If you would like to apply for a scholarship, please send a C.V. and a letter of interest to
Cancellations
Cancellations must be made in writing and arrive at the Network office (via USPS or e-mail) by 4:00 pm, Monday, April 8, for you to receive a refund, less 25 percent. Send request to
Venue and Parking
The 2013 Spring Conference will be held in the Moore Humanities & Research Administration (MHRA) Building on the UNCG campus, 1111 Spring Garden Street, Greensboro, NC, 27403. The MHRA Building is located at the corner of Spring Garden and Forest Streets.
Free parking will be available for Spring Conference registrants in the Oakland Avenue Parking Deck, across Forest Street from the MHRA Building (behind Yum Yum Better Ice Cream and Old Town Draught House).
A map of the UNCG campus is available here.
Nearby Hotels
The Greensboro Marriott Downtown (www.marriott.com/gsodt) offers favorable rates to those attending events at UNC Greensboro.
Other accommodations can be found through the university's list, http://admissions.uncg.edu/visit-lodging.php, or the Greensboro Convention & Visitors Bureau, http://www.visitgreensboronc.com.
For Writers with Special Needs
The North Carolina Writers' Network strives to make our programs and services accessible to all writers, including those with special needs. If you require conference materials either in large print or in Braille, or if you require a sign-language interpreter, please register for the conference and submit your request to
Schedule-at-a-Glance
Register Online | Download a Registration Form**Pre-registration is closed**
Saturday, April 13 | |
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8:30-9:00am | Registration Exhibit Tables and Book Sales (open from 8:30 am - 5:00 pm) |
9:00-10:30 am |
Workshop Session I:
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11:00 am - 12:00 pm | Faculty Readings |
12:00-1:00pm | Lunch with an Author (or lunch on your own) |
1:00-2:00 pm | Open Mic Readings - Sign up at registration table |
2:00-3:30 pm |
Workshop Session II
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4:00-5:00pm |
Publishing Panel with Stephen Kirk (John F. Blair, Publisher), Robin Miura (Carolina Wren Press), Kevin Morgan Watson (Press 53) |
5:00-5:30pm |
Bookmaking demonstration with Andrew Saulters of Unicorn Press |
Full Conference Schedule with Course Descriptions
Register Online | Download a Registration Form**Pre-registration is closed**
8:30–9:00 am Registration
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Exhibits & Book Sales Open
9:00–10:30 am Workshop Session I
Animating Fiction (All-Day Fiction) with Lee Zacharias **Closed**
There are many elements to fiction, both short stories and novels—plot, character, point-of-view, and setting, to name a few—but perhaps none so important as character, which brings the fiction to life and drives the plot. This all-day workshop will center on characterization as we talk about ways to create plot, animate description, and discover the right point of view. The morning session will focus on discussion, the afternoon session on student writing and will include a prompt for generating new writing. Please also bring a short character description—no more than a couple of paragraphs—to share with the class. The description you bring may be from your own work or from a work you particularly admire and want to talk about.
Writing Personal Essays and Memoir: Transforming Memories into Narrative (All-Day Nonfiction) with Judy Goldman **Closed**
In this workshop (geared to both beginning and advanced writers), you’ll learn how to transform your experiences and memories into a narrative readers are interested in. For those of you who want to begin, but the way in seems shadowy, we’ll discuss how to embark: what to put in your essay or memoir, what to leave out, where to start, how to shape the story. For those of you already immersed in the writing, I’ll encourage you to push all the way to the end of a first draft, no matter how awkward it feels. For those of you who’ve completed essays or a memoir, we’ll discuss how to read your pages analytically and diagnostically, how to fix problems so that the writing is as good as you can make it and your story holds together.
How to Write Dynamic Dialog with Lynn York
This workshop, open to all levels of writers, will focus on the role of dialog in fiction writing. What should it do? What should it not do? Most important, how do you make it sound real—and make it do as much work as possible in your story or novel? In-class exercises will provide practical support and tools for writers to apply to their own in-progress and future work.
Nonfiction in a Stupid Golden Age with Scott Huler
Reality is a lie, news is opinion, and everybody is a documentarian. This workshop will range widely over the territory and address:
- the difference between fiction and nonfiction, and how to be absolutely sure you're on solid ground;
- the difference between a trustworthy and an untrustworthy source and how to instantly recognize it;
- how to determine which tool to use for the story you've decided to tell;
- how to know a story when you see one;
- how to learn the essence of nonfiction reporting in five minutes and master it in one quick lifetime;
- how to connect so that you have at least a chance at scraping together something like a living in the explosively growing world of nonfiction storytelling;
- the skill of Late Adoption, the secret to mastering the tools of our trade;
- how to conquer writer's block once and for all (hint: you will not like the method).
The workshop will be more of a conversation than a lecture, and we will be sharing information and learning things to do to make us better and more successful writers.
Introduction to Digital Self-Publishing with Scott Nicholson
The Kindle and other devices have changed the way writers and readers connect. Learn the basic methods and platforms for getting your ebooks to a worldwide audience, as well as the advantages and risks of self-publishing. International bestselling author and publisher Scott Nicholson will share his experiences and answer questions to help you enter the fastest-growing market in literature.
The Risks of Writing Poetry with John Rybicki
Poetry writing is about risk. None of us can compose a potent poem with a block of ice in our chest. In that respect, I will be urging students in this class to walk on water and run with scisssors; to say what it is a heart is burning to say. After some introductory flame throwing (inspiration) and some perusing of the nuances of craft, students will write a prose poem centered around one core person in their lives. Your father or mother will be a stranger to us before you write him/her into existence. By the end of your poem we will come to know them as a warm-blooded, three dimensional being. Don't worry about reaching some pinnacle of expression in a first draft. We all fail lavishly in our attempts to translate into higher language something core about the human condition. Students who wish to will share their work out loud at the end of class.
11:00 am – 12:00 pm Faculty Readings
12:00–1:00 pm Lunch
Lunch with an Author (or lunch on your own). Sign up to have lunch with a small group of fellow registrants and one of our conference instructors. This is a great opportunity to talk shop with an experienced writer in a relaxed, informal setting. IMPORTANT: Spring Conference attendees MUST register for Lunch with an Author prior to the conference. Lunch with an Author registration will NOT be available on-site.
1:00–2:00 pm Open Mic Readings Sign up at registration table
Sign up at the conference registration table if you would like to share your work. Only twelve reading slots, of five minutes each, will be available, first-come, first-served.
2:00–3:30 pm Workshop Session II
Animating Fiction (All-Day Fiction) with Lee Zacharias **Closed**
See description above.
Writing Personal Essays and Memoir: Transforming Memories into Narrative (All-Day Nonfiction) with Judy Goldman **Closed**
See description above.
Writing in Circles: Repeating Sounds, Words, and Refrains in Poetry with Carolyn Beard Whitlow
The ocean repeats its rhythmic waves. Birds repeat their trill. Chants are based on sounds rhythmically repeated. Repetition can be soothing or hypnotic. Or emphatic. Nursery rhymes and jingles depend on the repetition of sounds, most often rhyme. Sonnets most often rhyme. Other poetic forms, however, depend not only on rhyme, but on patterns of repeating words or lines that may not rhyme. The sestina form is based on six unrhymed words that repeat six times—no, really seven. The villanelle depends on two refrains that repeat alternately. Come learn how to create a villanelle and a sestina that repeat lines or words in entrancing and exciting ways. Even if you write free verse, you’ll learn the effect of melodic repetition.
Plot: The Shape of Fiction with John McNally
Have you ever had a good idea for a story but couldn't figure out how best to tell it? Have you written stories that fall flat because of the way you've plotted them? This purpose of this workshop is to refine the way you think about plot, to consider the ways it should function in stories and novels, and to expand your repertoire of plot's many shapes.
Creating with Images in Nonfiction with Cynthia Nearman
This workshop is designed to engage and invigorate participants’ approaches to the smallest yet most essential elements of nonfiction storytelling: sensory images and concrete details, objects and actions. First, we’ll look briefly at vivid scenes from recently published essays, paying careful attention to the connection between concrete details and characters’ desires, and between descriptions of actions and objects and larger meanings or ideas. Our main focus will be on what it means to "think from within images" as we generate and revise our own nonfiction prose. We’ll practice strategies for discovering and selecting images that do "double duty"—i.e., concrete detail and sensory information that works organically to create living, moving pictures resonant with meaning.
Authors as Entrepreneurs with Terry L. Kennedy and Ross White
With the business models of traditional publishing changing, authors are increasingly being asked to act entrepreneurially. While many authors choose to do this by concentrating on marketing their work, an increasing number are developing new models of creative businesses and services that contribute to the literary community and develop a personal brand. In this session, two arts entrepreneurs will look at several small businesses developed by writers and discuss best practices for starting businesses that benefit both the individual writer and the larger literary community.
4:00–5:00 pm Publishing Panel
Representatives of some of North Carolina’s most distinguished presses will answer your questions about what they look for in a manuscript, and the evolving realities of 21st Century publishing. Panelists include Stephen Kirk (John F. Blair, Publisher), Robin Miura (Carolina Wren Press) and Kevin Morgan Watson (Press 53).
5:00–5:30 pm Bookmaking Demonstration
Andrew Saulters of Greensboro’s Unicorn Press will lead a hands-on demonstration of the traditional art of bookbinding, showing how writers can create their own book, and not just the words on the pages.
Faculty Biographies
Register Online | Download a Registration Form**Pre-registration is closed**
Spring Conference Faculty |
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The 2013 Spring Conference is made possible with support from the Creative Writing Department at UNC-Greensboro, the North Carolina Arts Council, and Self Employment in the Arts (SEA).