The North Carolina Writers’ Network 2016 Spring Conference will be Saturday, April 23, in the MHRA Building on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Registration is open.

Michael Parker, of Greensboro, will give the keynote address. He is the author of six novels, including “All I Have in This World,” and two collections of short stories.

A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia, he is the Vacc Distinguished Professor in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and since 2009 has been on the faculty of the Warren Wilson Program for Writers.

Quinn Dalton, author of the novel “High Strung,” will lead the fiction master class, “Make a Scene: Learn How to Use the Emotional Building Blocks of Fiction.”

“Midnight Bowling,” her next novel, will be published by Carolina Wren Press in March.

Augusta University assistant professor Jim Minick will lead the creative nonfiction master class, “Tension in Your Prose.” He is the author of four books, including his most recent, “The Blueberry Years,” a memoir that won the Best Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Southern Independent Booksellers Association.

The poetry master class will be taught by Jennifer Whitaker, author of “The Blue Hour,” winner of the Brittingham Prize and forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press later this year. She is an assistant poetry editor at storySouth.

Additional offerings include poetry classes with Vievee Francis and Matthew Olzmann, the 2015-16 Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; fiction sessions with “Sweetgirl” author Travis Mulhauser and Greg Shemkovitz, author of “Lot Boy,” who teaches writing and literature at Elon University;

Creative nonfiction with Myléne Dressler, the director of the Sherwood Anderson Creative Writing Program at Guilford College; writing tween nonfiction with Bonnie J. Doerr, author of eco-mystery novels for tweens; and two sessions focused on the business of books: “The Facebook Advantage” with 20-year publishing veteran Karen M. Alley, and “Getting the Word Out: Marketing Your Book on Your Own or with Your Publisher” with Lauren Moseley, marketing manager at Algonquin Books.

The Network will offer the second installment of  “Slush Pile Live!” Beginning at 4 p.m, attendees may drop off either. 300 words of prose or one page of poetry. At 5 pm, a panel of editors will listen to the submissions being read out loud and raise their hand when they hear something that would make them stop reading if the piece were being submitted to their publication. The editors will discuss what they did and did not like about the sample, offering constructive feedback on the manuscript itself and the submission process.

Many familiar features remain, including faculty readings, an open mic for conference participants, an exhibit hall packed with publishers and literary organizations, and “Lunch with an Author,” where conference-goers can spend less time waiting in line and more time talking with the author of their choice. Spaces in “Lunch with an Author” are limited and are first-come, first-served. Pre-registration and an additional fee are also required for this offering.

Pre-registration is open through Sunday, April 17.

Theconference is sponsored in part by the Greensboro News & Record; WFDD 88.5 FM and UNCG’s Creative Writing Program, which will provide free parking for Spring Conference registrants in the Oakland Avenue Parking Deck, across Forest Street from the MHRA Building (behind Yum Yum Be.

For additional information, and to register, visit www.ncwriters.org.