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NCWN to Hold 2021 Spring Conference: Online, We Must

Emilia Phillips
GREENSBORO—We tried. We planned. We hoped. And we will gather together—face-to-face, not screen-to-screen—again someday.

That day, though, will not be this April.

Due to UNC-Greensboro’s ongoing COVID-19 response, we will not be able to hold our 2021 Spring Conference in person. Instead, the entire Spring Conference will move online, via Zoom.

Registration is open.

All dates and times will remain the same, as will the schedule of events. The Master Classes will take place across Thursday and Friday evenings, April 22 and 23.

Most of the Spring Conference will take place Saturday, April 24, including the classes, the Faculty Readings, and the Open Mic Readings. The classes will be decoupled from the genre tracks, so that registrants can choose their classes for the morning and afternoon sessions. In place of “Lunch with an Author,” we will plan an online social hour for casual conversation.

The “pay what you can” registration fee will remain in place, as well.

The Spring Conference Master Classes will be led by Eric G. Wilson (creative nonfiction), Valerie Nieman (fiction), and Emilia Phillips (poetry).

Saturday’s offerings will include poetry classes led by Ashley Lumpkin and Joseph Mills; a creative nonfiction class on “Writing Trauma,” led by James Tate Hill; and “Dramatic Tension and the Core of Hope vs. Fear,” a fiction class with Zelda Lockhart. Both the morning and afternoon sessions will include “Authors as Entrepreneurs,” led by Terry L. Kennedy and Ross White.

Registration and full details are available on www.ncwriters.org.