RALEIGH—By a unanimous vote, the North Carolina Writers’ Network Board of Trustees has welcomed Raleigh poet and literary organizer Ina Cariño as its newest member.
This election is a milestone in the Network’s history, as Cariño is the first trustee born after the NCWN’s founding in 1985.
“Ina has been an inspiring force in North Carolina’s writing community for many years, and I’m very glad the Network can now count on their insight and experience to help steer it,” said NCWN president Shervon Cassim. “I’m looking forward to all that Ina brings to the Board.”
Ina Cariño is a Filipinx American poet with an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University. Their poetry appears in Wildness, Waxwing, New England Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Ina is a Kundiman fellow, a Best of the Net finalist, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a recipient of a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. They are the winner of the 2021 Alice James Award for their manuscript Feast, forthcoming from Alice James Books in March 2023.
They also—coincidentally—led the Network’s most recent Online Series workshop, “Words as Symbols, Words as Spells: How Poems Alchemize Our Realities.” Find out more about Ina’s work at www.inacarino.com.
“As a queer poet of color in the South, I’m excited to join the NCWN board, an organization that welcomes writers of all skill levels and backgrounds,” Cariño said. “Writing is a solitary act; and yet, even as intimate as the writing process is, there is always room for everyone. I think this accessibility is what the writing world needs more of—especially now that emerging voices in the field are finally being heard—and I am deeply honored to become a member of this organization.”
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to all writers at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.