By Maya Spikes

Now that the New Year’s Eve confetti has fallen, it’s time to look back on the past year. If you have the Spotify music/podcast app, think of this as Triangle Association of Freelancers’ version of “Wrapped.”

Last year marked TAF’s 20^th anniversary! Our founder, Don Vaughan, and our members have built a rich history of supporting all types of writers from those who aspire to be published authors to those with careers spanning decades.

Here are some of the ways we spent 2023 building on this history:

Our membership has increased to 159 people, including 10 new members who joined during 2023.

TAF kicked off last year in January by hosting a reading/signing at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh for the first volume of The TAF Omnibus: Stories & Poems. Several contributors to the anthology read poems or portions of their stories, followed by a question-and-answer session and a book signing.

In September, TAF continued its growing series of anthologies with the publication of The TAF Omnibus: Stories & Poems Vol. II edited by Arlene Bice. We’re also planning to create another TAF Omnibus in 2024 that will feature short stories, essays, poems, and novel excerpts.

We continued having success with Zoom meetings, which included our monthly meetings and four TAF Talks (in-depth interviews) during the year. Our TAF Talks guests shared their experiences, great advice, and humor. They included thriller writer Joseph Finder, New Yorker cartoonist Sidney Harris, romance author Reese Ryan and historical nonfiction writer Nathaniel Philbrick.

We also hosted a special educational session on plotting with author and novelist David Morrell. His debut novel, First Blood was later adapted as the movie of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone.

Our virtual meetings for TAF Talks and our monthly meetings are great, but it’s also nice to meet in person. TAF held two in-person dinner gatherings at Milton’s Pizza, which were great fun.

For 2024, TAF has exciting plans to continue encouraging and inspiring writers both inside and outside of our group.

The new year will mark the return of our Write Now! conference on April 27, 2024 at the McKimmon Conference Center at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

If you’ve never been to the conference, I highly recommend attending. Many of our past attendees connect with other writers and leave the conference with actionable writing tips.This year’s keynote speakers will be award-winning science fiction author Nicole Givens Kurtz and Writer’s Digest magazine editor-in-chief Amy Jones.

Sessions include creating realistic secondary characters, the art of the interview, tips for those new to self-publishing, and writing query letters to grab an editor’s attention, among other discussions.

Our session presenters include national magazine award-winning journalist Sean Flynn as well as four TAF members: Reese Ryan, Karin Wiberg, Don Vaughan and Kyle Marie McMahon.

Mark your calendars for this special event now. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements about Write Now! 2024 and other updates.

I would like to thank everyone in TAF for making 2023 and the past 20 years successful. I’m so grateful for our motivational and helpful discussions, both in person and virtual, that have created a supportive community of writers.

I wish you much writing success in 2024.

Happy New Year!

Maya Spikes Executive Director, Triangle Association of Freelancers

by Maya Spikes

A message from our Executive Director:

Overall, 2022 was a good year for Triangle Association of Freelancers. We now have more than 150 registered members, having added more than 15 new members in 2022.

Here are some of TAF’s 2022 highlights:

Given the popularity of the topic, we hosted an online self-publishing workshop as part of our new TAF Instructional Pop-up Series. The first featured members Rebecca Dalton, Lisa Tomey and Deanna Martinez-Bey, who shared their unique publishing experiences and answered participants’ questions.

We also published another group anthology, The TAF Omnibus: Stories & Poems, edited by Arlene Bice. It is available on Amazon.

Many of our TAF members also reached their individual goals and had impressive achievements this year. They wrote and published new books and wrote for national magazines such as Writer’s Digest, as well as started a variety of new projects such as blogs.

TAF continued having success with sessions on Zoom, which included our monthly meetings and also four TAF Talks during 2022. TAF Talks are moderated online conversations with prominent writers, editors and other industry professionals. They are a special perk of membership, available to registered members only. Our guests for this year were screenwriter/novelist/director Nicholas Meyer, writing coach and Vonnegut scholar Suzanne McConnell, Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry and award-winning romance author Beverly Jenkins.

In April, TAF celebrated National Poetry Month with poets Zan Jones and Carlos Miller, who were interviewed by member Lisa Tomey, a poet herself.

Other guests featured during our monthly TAF meetings were actress Beverly Washburn, Videoscope editor Nancy Naglin, Veterinary Practice News editor Elisa Jordan, Back Issue and RetroFan editor Michael Eury, humorist Dan Bain, Prevention editor Sarah Smith, historical romance author Jennifer Delamere, and Writer’s Digest editor Amy Jones.

Another special highlight was our Write Now! 2022 Conference at The McKimmon Center in Raleigh. About 65 writers attended the conference in April. While we love our Zoom meetings and TAF Talks, it was great to see many of our members in person. Write Now! 2022 was our first in-person event since the pandemic began in 2020.

Our conference keynote speakers were award-winning children’s author Kelly Starling Lyons and award-winning journalist and UNCW professor Philip Gerard. Other presenters included Cat Warren, Sandra Gutierrez, Deanna Martinez-Bey, Brian Adornetto, WRAL’s Scott Mason, A.G. Riddle, Mur Laffery, Ursula Vernon, and Dana Coen. Our sessions for both nonfiction and fiction writers offered valuable lessons and inspired a wide variety of writers.

On a sad note, professor and author Phil Gerard recently passed away in November 2022. Along with his extraordinary career, Phil was an amazing storyteller and a longtime supporter of TAF, having spoken at three Write Now! conferences. I enjoyed speaking with him shortly before his keynote presentation at April’s conference. During his keynote, Phil shared his insightful research about the Civil War and how it affected our state.

For 2023, TAF plans to continue supporting all writers, both inside and outside of our group.

This is a big year for us, as 2023 marks TAF’s 20th anniversary!

We have come a long way from being a small group of motivated writers with regular gatherings at local coffee shops and restaurants, to a nonprofit organization that hosts conferences and online meetings for writers featuring nationally-known speakers.

In lieu of a Write Now! conference for 2023, we will be celebrating our anniversary with special events all year long, including our TAF Talks and Instructional Pop-ups. We expect to continue having our monthly meetings on Zoom for the foreseeable future.

Stay tuned for upcoming announcements and updates during our year-long celebration of our 20th anniversary.

In the meantime, I’m wishing you much happiness and success in 2023.

Happy New Year!

Maya Spikes

Executive Director, Triangle Association of Freelancers

By Maya Spikes

On April 30th more than 60 writers gathered in the McKimmon Center at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C. for Write Now! 2022, the annual writers conference put on by Triangle Association of Freelancers (TAF).

It’s been three years since we hosted Write Now! in person. After holding a virtual conference in 2020, and postponing the conference last year, it felt good to be back.

The planning committee spent months before the symposium trying to find the most interesting topics and the most inspiring speakers for you. This year’s sessions were especially helpful and engaging, engendering comments such as these:

“Thanks for including me in this year’s TAF conference. The whole affair was a big gift to all the writers who participated—well-organized and with really useful presentations and panels. I know I came home with a full notebook!”

~ Philip Gerard, keynote speaker
 
“After two years, we had the opportunity to attend this amazing event in person. Thanks to all the people who helped this conference to be what it was: most inspiring, educational, and above all, great fun.”

~ Ana Shapkaliska, attendee

3 Takeaways from Write Now!

Here are just three of the many lessons learned from Write Now! 2022:

1. Be open to changes.

Even spontaneous writers usually have a loose set of plans and/or expectations for their content. Be flexible and willing to adapt to changes that happen along the way. For example, accepting new information or research that might contradict your ideas or your readers’ current beliefs about a topic.

2. Storytelling isn’t just for fiction writers.

All writers must learn the basics of telling a good story. This seems obvious for fiction authors, but nonfiction authors need to sharpen their storytelling skills, too. Some of the most compelling interviews, blog posts, testimonials, and other nonfiction content share powerful stories and experiences that give readers an emotional connection to you and/or the people you’re writing about.

3. Writers need to connect with other writers.

The singer Barbra Streisand is right: We really are “people who need people.”

Writing can feel like an isolating activity, even before recent years. The global COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine has made many writers feel even more isolated. Throughout this year’s Write Now! conference, so many writers said they were happy to be out and to talk with other writers in person. It’s great to connect with writers by joining social media sites and online groups. Connecting online helps a lot when you can’t meet people in person. But there’s something about meeting other writers in real life. In-person conversations are more natural and spontaneous.

Important Next Steps

Gathering with other writers to learn new writing tips is great. Using these lessons is even better. Luckily, TAF offers a great opportunity for you to share your writing with others. TAF members can submit poetry and short fiction pieces for TAF’s upcoming anthology. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2022. For more information, or for questions about anthology submissions, please email Project Editor Arlene Bice at arlenebice1633@gmail.com.

Final Thoughts on Our Writers Conference

So many people helped to make Write Now! 2022 a success!

Thanks to everyone who attended the conference. I hope the sessions motivated you to start or restart your writing, or to finish that manuscript, memoir, or screenplay.

I’m grateful to all of our guest speakers and panel discussion leaders for sharing their expertise, experiences, and advice during the conference sessions.

Special thanks to our guest speakers: Kelly Starling Lyons, Cat Warren, Sandra Gutierrez, Deanna Martinez-Bey, Brian Adornetto, Becket Royce, Lucinda Gainey, Scott Mason, A.G. Riddle, Mur Lafferty, Ursula Vernon, Dana Coen, and Philip Gerard.

As always, we appreciate TAF’s executive board, conference planning committee, and volunteers who worked behind the scenes before, during, and after Write Now! to make this a great event for our guest speakers and conference attendees.

Finally, congratulations to one of our members, Karin Wiberg, who received this year’s “Friend of TAF Award.” A longtime supporter of TAF, Karin acted as our Guest Liaison, regularly communicating with guest speakers and conference volunteers during the months leading up to the conference.

I wish you all the best of luck with your writing in 2022 and beyond. And I hope to see you next year at Write Now! 2023.

Maya Spikes

Executive Director