Carol Crawford - Conference Coordinator
When I finish a book I really, really love, I always look back and think, how did they DO that? I just finished re-reading TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME. And in both you care so much about people who don’t really exist. How did the author do that?
This is the ideal all writers chase when we open a blank document and start a new piece of work. And we do it by ourselves – we can’t really write in a group or a committee. It’s very difficult to judge our own work and to figure out what is going to make sense to people, whether we are being clear and whether we are anywhere close to saying what we want to say.
To figure out all that, and to learn to write well, we need other writers and mentors and teachers. We have many wonderful writers in our area, and they are always striving to improve. The Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference is an opportunity for them to meet professionals in the industry and get accurate information about how to publish a book or find an online market or get an article accepted somewhere. It’s also a chance to meet other writers and network with them. It’s a bonus to find a person from Macon or Chattanooga or Birmingham who is struggling with the same thing you are – who is also having trouble with the rhythm of a poem or the focus of a memoir. That kind of camaraderie lets us know we are not crazy – or if we are, at least we are not alone!
I moved to Blue Ridge in 1994 and I joined the North Carolina Writers’ Network for awhile because it was easier, I thought, to drive to Murphy than to Atlanta, where the Georgia Writers mostly met. (I have since joined Georgia Writers also). I attended writers’ groups in Murphy, Brasstown, Young Harris and Blairsville. I also attended some conferences in Athens and Asheville. I got a little tired of driving so much and I thought, wait a minute, why couldn’t some of these speakers come to Blue Ridge?
At the time I was on The Art Center board and Candace Lee was the Executive Director. One afternoon Candace and I got into a conversation about all this, and by the end of the conversation, we had a plan. Candace was the driving force behind that first conference. After the first one, it just took on a life of its own, and it’s still here.
This is the ideal all writers chase when we open a blank document and start a new piece of work. And we do it by ourselves – we can’t really write in a group or a committee. It’s very difficult to judge our own work and to figure out what is going to make sense to people, whether we are being clear and whether we are anywhere close to saying what we want to say.
To figure out all that, and to learn to write well, we need other writers and mentors and teachers. We have many wonderful writers in our area, and they are always striving to improve. The Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference is an opportunity for them to meet professionals in the industry and get accurate information about how to publish a book or find an online market or get an article accepted somewhere. It’s also a chance to meet other writers and network with them. It’s a bonus to find a person from Macon or Chattanooga or Birmingham who is struggling with the same thing you are – who is also having trouble with the rhythm of a poem or the focus of a memoir. That kind of camaraderie lets us know we are not crazy – or if we are, at least we are not alone!
I moved to Blue Ridge in 1994 and I joined the North Carolina Writers’ Network for awhile because it was easier, I thought, to drive to Murphy than to Atlanta, where the Georgia Writers mostly met. (I have since joined Georgia Writers also). I attended writers’ groups in Murphy, Brasstown, Young Harris and Blairsville. I also attended some conferences in Athens and Asheville. I got a little tired of driving so much and I thought, wait a minute, why couldn’t some of these speakers come to Blue Ridge?
At the time I was on The Art Center board and Candace Lee was the Executive Director. One afternoon Candace and I got into a conversation about all this, and by the end of the conversation, we had a plan. Candace was the driving force behind that first conference. After the first one, it just took on a life of its own, and it’s still here.