WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH — The North Carolina Writers’ Network 2013 Fall Conference will be Nov. 15-17 at the Holiday Inn Resort in Wrightsville Beach. Registration is now open at www.ncwriters.org.
The Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country, and provides a weekend that includes a luncheon, banquet, readings, workshop tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and an exhibit hall with literary organizations, presses and publishers. Conference faculty includes professional writers from North Carolina and beyond.
Wilmington resident Clyde Edgerton will give the keynote address. Edgerton is the author of five New York Times Notable Books and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Master classes will be led by Philip Gerard (creative nonfiction), Rebecca Lee (fiction), and Peter Makuck (poetry).
“No matter how accomplished you are, or how much a novice, you always take something good away from a conference,” said Ellyn Bache, author of, most recently, “The Art of Saying Goodbye.” “Sometimes the best part is that you always go home buoyed up, ready to work, excited.”
Several workshops are designed to help writers navigate this rapidly shifting landscape. Bache, who is also the author of “Safe Passage,” will lead a workshop titled “Presses and Agents and E-Books, Oh My: 40 Years in the Book Biz.” Jen McConnel will lead a workshop on “The Ins & Outs of Indie Publishing,” and Bridgette A. Lacy will help writers learn how to market their books with “From Book to Buzz.”
Registrants will choose from craft-based workshops such as Virginia Holman’s “Getting Started: The Short Personal Essay” and “What’s in Your Attic? Recovering Your Old Poems” with Mark Cox. Jim Dodson, founding editor of Wilmington’s Salt magazine, will lead a workshop titled “Writing a Life—Including Your Own,” and UNCW’s Malena Mörling will lead a workshop on “The Short Poem.”
Wilmington-based Ecotone literary magazine and Lookout Books will lead a panel on Saturday morning titled “How to Work with a Publisher (So They Want to Work with You).” Lookout Books publisher Emily Louise Smith will also sit on the Sunday panel, “Agents and Editors,” along with literary agents Michelle Brower of Folio Literary Management and Paul Lucas of Janklow & Nesbit Associates, as well as Christine Norris of Press 53.
These editors and agents will participate in manuscript and marketing marts, and the critique service, where registrants can have their manuscripts evaluated by professionals.
Susan Steadman will lead a playwriting workshop, “Creating Compelling Characters: What Playwrights Can Learn from Actors.”
Registration for the NCWN 2013 Fall Conference is now open. For a complete list of workshops, and to see the weekend’s full schedule, go to http://www.ncwriters.org/programs-and-services/conferences/3874-2013-fall-conference-in-wrighstville-beach.