Registration is now open for the 2008 North Carolina Writers' Network Spring Conference, which takes place Saturday, April 26, from 8 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. in the Elliott University Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The annual event draws hundreds of writers for intensive workshops in fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, poetry and publishing led by distinguished writing faculty from across the nation. Participants also attend panel discussions, faculty readings, and benefit from networking opportunities with publishers, editors, and other writers.

"Bringing together North Carolina's writers is the most important thing we do," says Ed Southern, the Network's executive director. "The state as a whole has a stronger literary tradition than any one of its towns or cities. Writers from every corner of the state benefit from being a part of that tradition."

Southern adds that while the Internet has forever changed the literary marketplace, writers' essential challenges remain the same.

"Writers work alone," he says. "But we'll always need opportunities to improve our craft, to find an audience, and to share ideas and inspiration with other writers. The Network's conferences provide that sense of community."

Critically acclaimed poet Linda Gregg -- author of six books and recipient of such honors as a Guggenheim Fellowship, Whiting Award, National Endowment for the Arts grant, and the PEN/Voelcker Award -- will provide the keynote address. Gregg's one-hour talk, which begins at 3:30 p.m., is free and open to the public, as are the faculty readings, which begin at 4:30 p.m.

Conference participants may select from half- and full-day workshops covering such craft issues as plot, characterization and dialogue in fiction and creative nonfiction, and using sensory imagery in poetry and developing creative momentum from one poem to the next. Additional workshop selections feature instruction for screenwriters and playwrights.

Registration for the conference -- made possible with support from the Center for Creative Writing in the Arts, UNC-Greensboro, and the North Carolina Arts Council -- is $110 for Network members, $145 for non-members.

To register, visit www.ncwriters.org, or call (704) 246-6314 for more information.

Randolph Writers

The Randolph Writers will hold their regular monthly meeting Tuesday, April 15, at 7 p.m. at the Moring Arts Center in Asheboro.

Barbara Tazewell will speak to the group on "Point of View."

The monthly assignment is to take one noun, a "thing" and define it by describing it as much as possible within the confines of one page, double-spaced.

Randolph Writers is open to all writers who want to learn more and enjoy more about writing.

For information e-mail robinemerson@aol.com.

Buckner Honored

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has announced that Dr. Sally Beaver Buckner, a member of the class of 1953, is one of the recipients of its 2008 Alumni Distinguished Service Awards.

The Alumni Association will honor recipients of the award at a luncheon in May.

Buckner, a published poet, taught literature and writing at Peace College for 28 years before her retirement in 1998.

"Never one to seek the limelight or to jockey for power," wrote one nominator, "Sally has worked on, year after year, as a teacher, writer and community advocate for various humane causes."

A Statesville native, Buckner earned her doctorate from UNC-Chapel Hill. She taught at every level, from kindergarten through graduate school. She published fiction and poetry in a number of journals and anthologies, and authored a poetry collection, "Strawberry Harvest." Buckner also edited two anthologies, "Our Words, Our Ways" and "Words and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry."

Buckner has been a longtime reviewer for The Pilot.

She now lives in Cary.

New Book

PublishAmerica announces the publication of "Softly as a Whisper" by Johnnie Khalida Lovell of Winston-Salem

Zula Mae grows up in a small town called Snow Mountain surrounded by good people. Her adventures lead her to college and shortly after, she marries her old boyfriend, Idris. During the wedding ceremony, she is confronted with a whisper that tells her "don't get married." But she weds while her heart, mind and whisper tell her otherwise.

Nine years later, Zula Mae is divorced, poor, uneducated, and single parent of three young girls who must battle her way to happiness.

Johnnie Khalida Lovell was born in 1950. She received a bachelor's degree from Salem College and has master's degrees in special education and liberal arts from Wake Forest University. She is a teacher.

The official release date is May 3, and the book will be available at bookstores throughout the country, and it can be ordered online at www.publishamerica.com.

Poetry Reading

The Department of American Indian Studies and the Office of Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke will host an evening with indigenous poet, fiction writer, essayist, and storyteller Simon J. Ortiz on Wednesday, April 23, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Mary Livermore Library.

The event is free and open to the public and will be followed by light refreshments and a book signing.

Ortiz is a native of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, where he grew up at Deetseyaamah, a rural village area in the Acoma Pueblo community.

"I've been a writer and poet for over 35 years," Ortiz says. "One of the major voices in Native American literature, I was among the first to be published as a contemporary Native American writer of poetry and fiction beginning in the 1960s."

Works by Ortiz include "The Good Rainbow Road," "Out There Somewhere," Men on the Moon, "From Sand Creek," "After and Before the Lightning," "Speaking for the Generations," "Woven Stone" and "Earth Power Coming."

He has received national and international recognition, including National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Award and the "Returning the Gift" Lifetime Achievement Award.

Ortiz lives in Tempe, Ariz., where he is a professor in the English Department and American Indian Studies at Arizona State University.

For further information, contact Dr. Jane Haladay in the Department of American Indian Studies at (910) 521-6485 or at haladayj@uncp.edu.