We all attend conferences of one sort or another,
don’t we? Most professionals
belong to associations that have annual meetings and even if you aren’t doing a
9-5 job, there’s always Friends of the Library, for instance, or fraternal
organizations such as VFW, Elks, or D.A.R., right?
Of all the ones that I go to, though, my absolute
favorite is probably the North Carolina Writers Conference. Membership is
loosely limited to published writers and such friends of writing as newspaper columnists,
archivists, academics, and editors of literary journals. We write fiction,
non-fiction, essays, memoirs, poetry, etc. Panels range from scholarly studies on life in NC to misadventures in research. I myself am one of the few who write only crime fiction. Karen Pullen, shown with me here, is another. Like me, she finds it delightful to hang out with writers in other fields, especially when some
of the more musical members bring out their guitars for an old-fashioned
sing-along.
Ours is the oldest writers association in the
state, founded at Manteo in 1950 at the instigation of Inglis Fletcher
(1879-1969), author of many NC historical novels. There was no air conditioning
on Manteo in 1950. A friend of
mine who was at that first meeting told me, rather disapprovingly, that it was
so hot that several of the conferees went skinny-dipping in the Albemarle
sound.
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| Janet Lembke, author of Despicable Species, Dangerous Birds, River Time,Virgil's Georgics, etc., etc. |
Perversely, the NCWC continues to hold its annual
meeting at the hottest time of the year in some of the hottest places around
the state. 2012 was no exception. We met last weekend in New Bern where
the Neuse River merges with the Trent to flow into Pamlico Sound. Daytime
temperatures ranged from 97 to 101 and the air was so humid, it was like
stepping into a sauna whenever we ventured outside. Amusingly, Janet Lembke, this year’s honoree and pictured here, is the author
of Skinny-Dipping, a book that
praises the sensual delights of that activity.
