TAF’s 2022 Year in Review and Plans for 2023

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