More than 300 writers, editors, and literary agents will gather Nov. 2022 for the annual North Carolina Writers' Network Fall Conference, one of the country's largest conferences dedicated to the craft and business of writing.

Registration for this year's conference, to be held at the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort in Wrightsville Beach, is now open at the Network's Web site, www.ncwriters.org.

This year's conference will feature a keynote address by novelist Cassandra King, author of the bestsellers "Queen of Broken Hearts," "The Same Sweet Girls," "The Sunday Wife" and "Making Waves." Her fifth novel, "Bridal Falls," will be released in 2010. King will speak Friday evening at 8:30, followed by a reception and book signing.

More than 30 writers and editors will lead workshops, master classes and panel discussions in topics ranging from finding the form in free verse to how to write how-to books, from the fundamentals of screenwriting to the importance of food writing, and from using dialect to selling works to an agent or editor.

The conference will also again offer the popular "Manuscript Mart" and critique service sessions, in which registrants can discuss their unpublished works with book professionals.

The conference will offer a wider range of registration options than in the past, including one-day-only and no-meals registrations, allowing writers on a reduced budget to still enjoy part of the conference without paying full conference fees.

The conference faculty includes authors Ellyn Bache, Wendy Brenner, Marianne Gingher, Philip Gerard, Peter Makuck and Robert Anthony Siegel. Emily Smith, director of The Publishing Laboratory at UNC Wilmington, will teach a workshop on what writers should look for in a cover design, and Ben George, editor of UNCW's literary journal, Ecotone, will discuss writing for and submitting to literary magazines.

Agents and editors at the conference will include Peter Steinberg of The Steinberg Agency in New York; Stephen Kirk of John F. Blair, Publisher; David Perry of University of North Carolina Press; Betsy Thorpe of Novello Festival Press; and Kevin Watson of Press 53.

Saturday's luncheon will feature readings of flash fiction by contributors to the new book "Long Story Short: Flash Fiction by 65 of North Carolina's Finest Writers," followed by the second annual Network Town Hall Meeting, a chance for members to share their thoughts on the direction and activities of the N.C. Writers' Network.

The annual banquet on Saturday evening will be accompanied by a musical performance by Philip Gerard, the director of the Department of Creative Writing at UNCW.

Registration is not limited to members of the Network, or even to writers from North Carolina. Anyone with an interest in writing can sign up online, or by calling the Network at (336) 293-8844 or (919) 251-9140.