A Writer's Guide to Elon, North Carolina

Elon University's library says it serves lifelong learners as well as scholars from nearby universities and community colleges. Visitors 16 and older can get a 24-hour guest account for the library computers at the Information Desk by showing a photo ID and giving a current home address. Guest accounts have no Wi-Fi. Bring a network cable if you want your laptop on the wired network.

Faculty papers and manuscript collections sit here beside university records and rare books, along with church records related to the Southern Christian Church. The archives serve the public as well as the university. Walk in on a Wednesday; for any other day, write to belkarchives@elon.edu for an appointment.

May Memorial, about four miles east of Elon in Burlington, is the headquarters of the county library system. It opened in 1938 in the former 1918 post office. Local historians will want its Community History Archive of digitized county newspapers and Edward J. McCauley's Times-News photographs from 1949 to 1971, and a Local History & Genealogy specialist works here. Meeting rooms are booked by application. The library is closed Sundays.

The Mebane branch moved in 2005 into a renovated mill building, built in 1919 as Durham Hosiery, with three times the capacity of its old space at the back of Mebane Town Hall. It is closed Sundays.

Persnickety Books has sold new and used books in Burlington since 2017, and it takes trade-ins. There is a coffee bar. Its calendar carries meet-the-author events and writing workshops, plus a set of monthly events.

Scuppernong is an independent bookstore in downtown Greensboro with a café that serves wine and beer as well as coffee and tea, much of it from local suppliers. Jerusalem Market delivers food to the store.

Cup 22 is a two-level coffeehouse in Saxapahaw, about 15 miles southeast of Elon, inside the Haw River Ballroom, a music venue in the village's former dye house. It has riverside decks. The Wi-Fi is free, and the shop calls itself a quiet spot to get work done. It opens daily and sells locally baked goods.

The Eddy has served food from local farms since 2010 in a refurbished textile mill on the banks of the Haw River. Jazz plays every Wednesday evening. On the third Thursday of each month a musical open mic welcomes all levels, and the host brings a guitar and keys for anyone without an instrument. It is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

This Greensboro hotel is named for O. Henry, the short-story writer born William Sydney Porter in Greensboro in 1862, and a 1998 portrait of Porter by Frank P. Holton III hangs in the lobby. The Social Lobby serves afternoon tea daily. It also hosts the O.Henry Jazz series. Green Valley Grill serves Mediterranean dishes, with tables in a courtyard garden.

The Network serves writers across North Carolina, and membership is open to every genre and every level of experience. It runs conferences and online classes and offers a critique and editing service. Its Weymouth Fellowship pays for a week's residency at the Weymouth Center for a writer who has never had one. Prison Writers Outreach is another of its programs. Members get the newsletter and discounts on Network events.

The Poetry Society is a statewide community of poets and poetry lovers, and its meetings include a writing workshop and an open mic. It sponsors the Susan Laughter Meyers Poetry Fellowship and the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series. Members receive eMuse, a monthly e-newsletter, and a print newsletter twice a year.

Greensboro Bound is a nonprofit in Greensboro, about 20 miles west of Elon, that holds a yearly book festival of free author conversations. Between festivals it runs free author talks and workshops. Its Authors Engaging Students program brings authors into area schools.

Scuppernong keeps a calendar of readings and author events, and Scup TV holds video of past ones. Its book clubs and reading lists carry on between events.

The center is Elon University's international research center for engaged learning and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Faculty from institutions around the world work together in its three-year research seminars, and it also holds a Conference on Engaged Learning and think tanks. Its concise guides cover engaged learning and how to research and publish SoTL.

UNCG's special collections in Greensboro document the university and the Piedmont Triad. The holdings range from manuscripts and rare books to cello music collections and the Women Veterans Historical Project, and many items are digitized through Digital Greensboro. Visits are by appointment. Email scua@uncg.edu before you come.

North Carolina Humanities is the state's nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, founded in 1972, with its office in Charlotte. It funds and runs public humanities programs across the state, North Carolina Reads among them. Its Small Project Grants go to not-for-profit organizations for lecture series, exhibitions, and other humanities projects.

Elon's Center for Engaged Learning publishes an open-access, peer-reviewed book series on engaged learning in higher education, with titles such as The SoTL Guide and Inclusive Pedagogy in Practice. Its Series on Engaged Learning and Teaching, concise books for a multidisciplinary higher-education audience, is published by Routledge.

Scuppernong Books started this small press in Greensboro in 2019, and it became a nonprofit in 2022. Its list runs to memoir and essays, with writing from Death Row. Several titles concern North Carolina and civil rights history.

Foreign Policy Analysis publishes research on the processes, outcomes, and theories of foreign policy, with an actor-specific focus. Barış Kesgin of Elon University is one of its three co-editors, and it is an official journal of the International Studies Association, published by Oxford University Press. Preparing an article for Foreign Policy Analysis

The North Carolina Arts Council funds these project grants for professional artists in any discipline and at any career stage. A grant can pay for new work, professional development, or equipment. Writers in Alamance County apply through the regional consortium of the Durham Arts Council; Guilford County writers apply through the one that includes the Arts Council of Greater Greensboro.

The North Carolina Writers' Network sponsors this competition for a single unpublished poem, and the MFA Writing Program at UNC Greensboro handles the entries. The winning poem appears in The Greensboro Review. North Carolina residents and Network members can enter.

The Network runs this prize for unpublished short stories. The North Carolina Literary Review publishes the winner and considers every finalist. North Carolina residents and Network members can enter, as can NCLR subscribers who live or have lived in the state.

Each year the North Carolina Poetry Society gives this award to the published poetry collection it judges best by a native or resident of North Carolina.

This North Carolina Poetry Society award is for an unpublished book-length poetry manuscript, and Redhawk Publications publishes the winner. It is open to North Carolina poets.

Our sister site gathers grants and writing resources for Elon students on one page.

The same guide, for UNCG students in Greensboro.

North Carolina A&T, also in Greensboro, has its own page of grants and writing resources.

This locally owned franchise in Burlington prints documents with coil binding and lamination. It also prints posters and blueprints, and you can choose finishing options online.