Two weeks ago, this decision would have been difficult. A month ago, it would have been unthinkable.
Today, it seems the obvious choice to make.
In the coming days, we will issue refunds to all registrants and exhibitors.
If you registered for the Spring Conference but do not want your fees refunded, please tell me at ed@ncwriters.org, and we will convert—with gratitude—your registration fee into a donation.
If you donated to the NCWN 2020 Spring Conference, we hope you will let us apply your donation to scholarship aid for future NCWN conferences. If you would rather we refund your donation, please tell me at ed@ncwriters.org, and we will be glad to do so.
We have begun planning an online alternative to Spring Conference: our first-ever Cabin Fever Conference, to be held April 17-18, with many of the same instructors leading many of the same classes. We will finalize this Cabin Fever Conference and open registration for it as soon as possible, and we hope many of you will join us . . . at a safe, non-contagious distance.
We also are holding an Online Open Mic next week, allowing writers to share their infectious work, without sharing any infections. We will open registration for that Online Open Mic later today.
In the meantime, we promise you this: However long the Covid-19 pandemic requires social distancing, however much it may disrupt what we think of as “normal,” the Network will be here—supporting and connecting writers around and beyond the state; nourishing and nurturing the literary arts; providing access to excellence and opportunity, and even to a community . . . that’s not communicable.