Hillsborough Named Best Literary Small Town

Garden & Gun Magazine recently ran a list of the top ten creative small towns, and Hillsborough ranked as the Best Literary Small Town in America. Boasting arguably “more critically acclaimed authors per capita than any zip code in the region,” Hillsborough residents include many familiar names and friends of the North Carolina Writers’ Network:

• Fiction writer Jill McCorkle, who will lead the Fiction Master Class at the 2012 Fall Conference, November 2-4 in Cary
• Fiction writer Allan Gurganus, an inductee of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame
• Creative nonfiction writer Randall Kenan, who led the Nonfiction Master Class at the 2012 Spring Conference
• Fiction writer Zelda Lockhart, an NCWN Board Member

And many, many more—in fact far too many more to mention here. All in all, eighty NCWN members call the town of Hillsborough, with its population of 6,087, home.

Here’s maybe the best quote from the article:

While in some places an author or artist might primly be euphemized as “interesting” or “different”—Southern code for weird—Hillsborough not only abides the eccentric and creative, it embraces them.

For a full explanation for why Hillsborough was named the Best Literary Small Town in America, click here.

Thanks to the NC Arts Council for passing along this story.