The North Carolina Writers’ Network 2019 Fall Conference happens November 8-10 in Ashveille. Ron Rash will give the Keynote Address; there are a full slate of course offerings for writers of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and stage and screen; and there will be an exhibit hall packed with some of the most renowned literary journals and organizations in the Carolinas.
We’ll be introducing the 2019 Fall Conference exhibitors on our blog in the coming days, five at a time, in alphabetical order.
Here are the first five!
Blair (www.blairpub.com)
Blair is a nonprofit, independent press that publishes diverse books, including literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction about the American South and beyond. New titles include Any Other Place, a collection of stories by Michael Croley. Publisher’s Weekly promised, “Readers will relish these melancholy stories of everyday and exceptional tragedies.†Useful Phrases for Immigrants by May-Lee Chai is a luminous and sharp-eyed story collection for an increasingly globalized world, while All We Know of Pleasure: Poetic Erotica by Women, edited by Enid Shomer, won the 2019 IPPY Bronze Medal for Specialty Poetry and was a 2018 Foreword Reviews INDIES Finalist for Anthologies. Blair accepts nonfiction book proposals year-round; they accept fiction and memoir through their three annual contests. Follow Blair on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and visit them on the web.
Bull City Press (www.bullcitypress.com)
Established in 2006, Bull City Press published a tiny literary magazine, Inch; as well as fiction, nonfiction, and poetry chapbooks. Recent titles include the poetry chapbooks Tunsiya/Amrikiya by Leila Chatti and Writing Your Name on the Glass by Jim Whiteside; and the forthcoming The Wishbone Dress by Cassandra J. Bruner, winner of the 2019 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. The 2020 Frost Place Chapbook Competition is now open for submissions, through January 5, 2020. In summer 2020, the winner’s chapbook will be published by Bull City Press, and the winner will receive 10 complimentary copies (from a print run of 300), and a $250.00 stipend. The winner will also receive a full fellowship to attend the five-and-a-half-day Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place in August 2020, including room and board (a cash value of approximately $1,500.00), and will give a featured reading from the chapbook at the Seminar. In addition, the chapbook fellow will have the option to spend one week living and writing in The Frost Place House-Museum in September 2020 (peak leaf season in the White Mountains), at a time agreed upon by the fellow and The Frost Place. Follow Bull City Press on Faecbook and Twitter, or visit them on the web.
Charlotte Readers Podcast (www.charlottereaderspodcast.com)
This podcast, which is midway through its fourth season, lets listeners meet Charlotte-area authors and those who visit the Queen City, and hear writers read their work. Author and host Landis Wade encourages authors to read and talk about their award-winning, published, and emerging works, the kind of stories and poems that touch the emotions, followed by the kind of questions and answers that offer depth and insight into the readings. Wade is a recovering trial lawyer who starts each day walking Gus and Lori, two rescue dogs named after characters from Larry McMurtry’s classic western, Lonesome Dove. Recent guests include Scott Huler, author of A Delicious Country: Rediscovering the Carolinas along the Route of John Lawson’s 1700 Expedition; crime writer Nora Gaskin; and Philip Gerard, who recently won the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state’s highest civilian honor. The Charlotte Readers Podcast is on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and on the World Wide Web.
Flatiron Writers Room (www.flatironwritersroom.com)
The Flatiron Writers Room, located in vibrant West Asheville, provides space for writers to learn, teach, read, celebrate and, of course, write. An outgrowth of the Flatiron Writers, founded in 1993, the Flatiron Writers Room hosts workshops, events, and a co-working space for writers. In addition, their space is available for rent to writers who want to teach, host a book launch, or hold a writers’ group or book club meeting. They recently launched their first online course. Recent events have included a literary agent panel and pitch slam; a class on podcasting; and a class on grant and proposal writing. The Flatiron Writers Room will host the Pre-Conference Tailgate on Friday, November 8, at 12:00 pm, prior to the opening of registration at the North Carolina Writers’ Network 2019 Fall Conference. FWR member AK Benninghofen will lead a workshop that will concentrate on the art of discovery. The Pre-Conference Tailgate is free and open to the public; one does not need to be a member of FWR or NCWN to attend; and one does not need to register for the NCWN 2019 Fall Conference. Follow the Flatiron Writers Room on Facebook or learn more at www.flatironwritersroom.com.
Registration for the North Carolian Writers’ Network 2019 Fall Conference is open.