Kicked off with a keynote address by 2020 NC Literary Hall of Fame inductee Carole Boston Weatherford, the 2022 Spring Conference will be a full day of classes, workshops, readings, and community.
The on-site conference will take place at UNC Greensboro, in and around the MHRA Building and Curry Auditorium. On-site registrants can choose from among five class offerings in both the morning and afternoon sessions, or apply for one of the three Master Classes that will take place over both sessions.
Register here.
Belle Boggs, author of the acclaimed memoir The Art of Waiting and two books of fiction, will lead “Writing with Urgency,” the Master Class in creative nonfiction.
Derek Palacio, whose debut novel The Mortifications was a New York Times Best Book of 2016, will lead the Master Class “Cause & Effect in Fiction.”
Rona Jaffe Award-winning poet and translator Laura Mullen will lead the Master Class in poetry, “River of Time & Art.”
Each Master Class is open only to 10 well-qualified applicants, who are admitted on a rolling basis. (That means the class may fill prior to the deadline, so don’t wait until the last minute to apply.) Prior publication is not required, but applicants should be ready to handle the intensive instruction of the class.
The on-site conference also will offer craft classes on poetry with Charmaine Cadeau Ward and Stuart Dischell; on prose with Caleb Johnson, Travis Mulhauser, and Julia Ridley Smith; and on screenwriting with Joy Goodwin and Ron Stacker Thompson.
The online conference will include livestreams of Carole Boston Weatherford’s keynote address and other general sessions, an Online Picnic hosted by author and NCWN trustee Michele T. Berger, and two sessions of exclusive online-only classes: on publishing with Hub City Press director Meg Reid; on pitching story ideas with The Bitter Southerner assistant editor Rachel Priest; on the flux of the writing process with acclaimed novelist (and occasional banjoist) Steven Sherrill; and on craft with award-winning writer Maegan Poland.
Registration is open here.
“We’re excited to bring writers together again,” said NCWN Executive Director Ed Southern, “whether they’re joining us online or on-site. The Spring Conference will be a chance to pursue excellence, opportunity, and community, however you participate.”
Scholarship aid will be available to help deserving writers to attend the Spring Conference, either on-site or online. In addition to general scholarships, More Seats Scholarships and the Elliott Bowles Screenwriting Scholarships will be open for applications.
For the on-site Spring Conference, all appropriate and possible safety protocols will be in place, including masking while indoors (with no exceptions), proof-of-vaccination required of all participants, and as much distancing as the venue will allow.
“We also will encourage faculty to lead their classes outdoors, if feasible,” Southern said, “and to keep their fingers crossed for good weather.”
The Network plans to offer popular Spring Conference features such as Open Mic readings and Slush Pile Live!, while recognizing that circumstances might not allow them.
“We hope that by late April, we will be able to gather fully,” Southern said. “But we know that it’s more important to gather safely, to whatever extent and in whatever form we can.”
Registration and more details on the 2022 Spring Conference are available at www.ncwriters.org.