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Founded in 1950, the nonprofit North Carolina Writers Conference operates without bylaws or dues, and was created solely for the purpose of allowing professional writers a chance to get together once a year to talk shop and socialize. It meets the last weekend in July and has no other activities during the year. MEMBERSHIP AND ATTENDANCE AT THE ANNUAL MEETING ARE BY INVITATION ONLY.

2009 CONFERENCE IN CARTHAGE/PINEHURST

The conference, “Our 60th Splendid Summer,” will be held the weekend of July 31-August 1 near Carthage/Pinehurst, N.C., for NCWC members and their guests. The honoree will be poet, fiction writer, editor, and teacher Ruth Moose. To make reservations at Little River Golf & Resort, the number to call is 888-766-6538 (toll free) or 910-949-4600. To receive our group’s $75 room rate—for one room of a two-bedroom villa—please specify that you’re with the NCWC. Please note: The deadline for room reservations/cancellations is June 30. Be sure to make your plans before then! You may specify if you and a friend wish to reserve rooms in the same villa unit. The group rate is also available for Thursday, July 30, for any who wish to come early for an extra day of visiting and writing in a lovely rural setting. Little River Golf & Resort is on Highway 15/501 five miles north of Pinehurst. Details about the resort appear at http://www.littleriver.com. For further information, please contact Susan Meyers at BardOwl2@aol.com.

SUSAN MEYERS, 2009 CHAIR

Susan Meyers is a past president of the North Carolina Poetry Society and the Poetry Society of South Carolina. A North Carolina native, she lives with her husband in the rural community of Givhans, near Summerville, S.C. She is the author of Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press, 2006), winner of the inaugural S.C. Poetry Book Prize, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award for Poetry, and the N.C. Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Book Award. Her chapbook Lessons in Leaving won the 1998 Persephone Press Book. Her poetry has also been published in The Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, North Carolina Literary Review, and other journals, as well as the online sites Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. A long-time writing instructor, she has served as the poet-in-residence at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., and as a mentor for creative writing students at the Charleston County School of the Arts. She holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte and an MA in English from East Carolina University. 

SALLY LOGAN, VICE-CHAIR

Sally Logan is an award-winning poet whose chapbook, Vigils for the Dead, was published by Longleaf Press.  Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including Tar River Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, and Pembroke Magazine. She is a three-time first place winner of Crucible’s literary contest.  In February 2006, she was featured as Poet of the Week by N.C. Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer on the North Carolina Arts Council website. She was selected to be in the 1999 North Carolina Writers’ Network Blumenthal Writers and Readers Series, and as a Vision and Voice poet for the Arts Council of Moore County. Sally is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While she was a graduate student in dramatic art, Carolina Playmakers produced two of her one-act plays. She studied acting with Wynn Handman in New York and played “the girl” in The Fantasticks for a three-month-long run in St. Louis. Sally has served on the boards of Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, the North Carolina Poetry Society, the North Carolina Poetry Council, and the Moore County Choral Society.  Now living in Chapel Hill, she sings with the Chapel Hill Community Chorus. She has two children, three grandchildren, and enjoys bird watching and gardening with deer.

PAT RIVIERE-SEEL, SECRETARY-TREASURER

Pat Riviere-Seel is a past president of the North Carolina Poetry Society. A Shelby, N.C., native, she lives in Asheville with her husband and two cats. She is the author of two poetry collections: The Serial Killer’s Daughter (2009),  a finalist in the Main Street Rag Publishing Company’s Chapbook Contest;  No Turning Back Now (2004), a finalist in  Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices Chapbook Contests and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Current poetry appears or is forthcoming in Kakalak 2008: An Anthology of Carolina Poets, Solo Café, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry.  Pat is Associate Editor of Asheville Poetry Review and has taught poetry classes for UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program and the College for Seniors. A former political reporter for The Fayetteville Observer, she was editor of Voices, the journal of Rural Southern Voice for Peace based in Celo, N.C.; founder and president of For the Record, a public and government relations firm in Annapolis, MD. She holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and a BA from NC State University.

2008 NCWC in Hickory

Distinguished poet, novelist, and Davidson College professor emeritus Anthony S. Abbott was honored during the Hickory meeting, held at the Park Inn and themed "The Search for Wonder," after one of Tony’s book titles. In addition to a reading by Tony, the wide-ranging sessions drew on the talents of Carolyn Beard Whitlow, Rand Brandes, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Abigail DeWitt, Emoke B’Racz, Betty Miller Conway, Sheryl Monks, Kevin Watson, Frannie Ashburn, and Georgann Eubanks. Marsha Warren emceed Saturday evening's banquet, at which Joseph Bathanti, Janice Fuller, and Ron Bayes paid tribute to Tony. Written tributes from Lee Smith and Robert Morgan were also shared before Tony gave his closing remarks. Sharon A. Sharp served as the 2008 conference chair.

2006 NCWC IN SMITHFIELD

Celebrated mystery writer Margaret Maron was the honoree for the Smithfield conference. A Friday evening buffet supper was held at the Ava Gardner Museum downtown. Saturday sessions included discussions on Maron, Liz Squire, and poetic mysteries. Venues for Saturday were the Johnston County Courthouse, Heritage Center, and Community College.  The conference chair was James Clark, Jr.

2005 NCWC IN WINSTON-SALEM

Author and poet Heather Ross Miller was this year's conference honoree. Friday night activities included a picnic supper at the home of Emily and Ed Wilson. Saturday the focus was on readings and panels on poetry with Kathryn Stripling Byer, Fred Chappell and other N.C. poets; Jan Hensley's new exhibit of books and photos of N.C. writers; literary news from the N.C. Arts Council, and a report from Hub City in Spartanburg, S.C. Emily Herring Wilson served as 2005 chair.

2004 NCWC IN CULLOWHEE

The 2004 North Carolina Writers Conference was held in downtown Sylva and on the campus of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. This year's event featured a little mountain music, a little clogging, and more than a little good fellowship and literary talk. Speakers and panelists included Ron Rash (One Foot in Eden), Charles Price (Freedom's Altar), Michael Tlanusta Garrett (The Cherokee Full Circle), playwright Gary Carden, and Leigh Wilkerson, poet, essayist, and frequent contributor to the Ashville Citizen. An afternoon discussion featured NetWest founder Nancy Simpson and Writers Workshop founder Karen Ackerson. Tributes to Sally Buckner at the Saturday banquet were provided by Jim Clark, Susan Byrum Rountree, and others. Kathryn Stripling Byer served as 2004 conference chair.

2003 NCWC IN GREENSBORO

The 54th annual meeting of the North Carolina Writers Conference was held on Friday and Saturday, July 25-26, 2003, at the Greensboro Historical Museum and Marriott Downtown. UNC historian William S. Powell was honored at the Saturday night banquet. A conference reception was held Friday at the UNCG Faculty Center. The Saturday program at the museum and public library featured words of wisdom from Marie Gilbert, Orson Scott Card, Jerry Barrax, Marjorie Hudson, Isabel Zuber, Jerry Leath Mills, Ron Bayes, Joseph Bathanti, Jeffery Beam, Bill Morris, and others. Among those presenting tributes to Powell at the Saturday night banquet were Betty McCain, Jerry Cashion, Bland Simpson, and the Powell's children.

2002 NCWC IN ELIZABETH CITY

The 2002 conference in Elizabeth City featured David Cecelski, Carole Boston Weatherford, Janet Lembke, and David Stick. Also on the program were Charlotte Observer associate editor Jack Betts, News & Observer columnist Tara Powell, former Durham Herald-Sun book editor Betty Hodges, and Studies in Philology editor-emeritus Jerry Leath Mills. Fayetteville journalist, historian, and book critic Roy Parker, Jr. was honored at the Saturday banquet. The 2002 conference chair was Chapel Hill author and teacher Bland Simpson.

TRIBUTES IN PEMBROKE MAGAZINE

Each year since 1977 the conference has honored one of its own. Recent honorees have also included Shelby Stephenson, John Hope Franklin, Glen Rounds, and Daphne Athas. Tributes presented at the Saturday banquet have been faithfully published in Pembroke Magazine, the international literary journal edited by Linda and Shelby Stephenson at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Editorial and Business Office: UNC-Pembroke, Box 1510, Pembroke, NC 28372.

Fifty Splendid Summers: A Brief History of the North Carolina Writers Conference tells the history of the oldest general organization of writers in the Tar Heel state. Membership is by invitation, and most of the state's leading writers during the past half century have been participants. The 46-page history was co-published by the Conference and the North Carolina Collection, with financial support from the Paul Green Foundation. A PDF is available courtesy of the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library at the following link: www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/resources/ncwc.pdf