From the Pamlico Writers Guild

Educator and southern writer Jill McCorkle will open the 2015 Pamlico Writers Conference and Competition with a Friday night, March 20, 2015, keynote speech.

As a seasoned writer, McCorkle has the unusual distinction of having her first two novels published on the same day in 1984. From that base, four of her stories have been tabbed for Best American Short Stories and several have been collected in New Stories from the South. Her short stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Oxford American, The Southern Review, Narrative Magazine and The American Scholar among others. Her story “Intervention” is included in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. An essay, “Cuss Time,” originally published in The American Scholar was selected for Best American Essays. Other essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Garden and Gun, Southern Living, Our State, Allure and Real Simple.

The Friday evening public kick-off event will include a finger-food reception, “Pitch the Publisher” (a 7-minute private face-to-face with a real publisher), the keynote speech, and a free writer’s open mike to be held at the nearby Inner Banks Artisans’ Center. There is a $10 charge for the Friday evening event.

The all-day March 21 conference begins with a panel discussion on the conference theme of “Launching Today’s Writer.” A morning breakout session will be followed by lunch on your own. Sessions will resume with the afternoon focal presentation by Emily Louise Smith, director of the Publishing Laboratory at University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Afternoon session leaders who are writers and educators of literary and academic acclaim, include Susan Sloate, Marni Graff, Dave Wofford of Horse & Buggy Press, Emily Smith, Alex Albright, Amber Flora Thomas, Katharine Ashe, Richard Krawiec and Doris Schneider. The conference day will conclude with the awards ceremony for the 2015 Pamlico Writers Competition and a social time with hors d’oeuvres. There is a $49 conference registration fee.

The 2015 blind juried Writing Competition is open for entries and will conclude on March 8, 2015. There are three adult categories (Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry) and a special high-school contest with two categories. The adult categories require a $10 reading fee (three poems for $10) and feature first-place awards of $100, second-place awards of $50, and honorable mention awards of local merchant gift certificates. Two special high-school categories (Prose and Poetry) do not require reading fees, in keeping with our desire to promote creative writing in the high school. Each high-school category will have a single winner who will receive a $250 cash scholarship.

The public may register for the conference, enter the competition and reserve seats in breakout sessions at www.pamlicowritersconference.org. All registration fees will be paid online through PayPal or a credit card of choice.

Competition entries may also be made in person at the Turnage Theater through March 6, 2015, or online until March 8. Registration for the conference may be made in person at the Turnage until the day of the conference. Late registrations may not be guaranteed a seat in desired sessions.