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Conference Schedule

Full Conference Schedule

Friday: (Open to the Public)

11-11:45am- Rubenstein Library Art Gallery Tour & Workshop w/ Mandy Carter + Kamau Pope – 411 Chapel Dr, Durham, NC 27705 ( Arrive at 10:30 for Park and Ride from Rubenstein Arts Center)

RSVP for Mandy Carter event

12-1pm: Lunch for all participants in the Duke Rubenstein Library/ Gallery

1:30-2:30pm: Mahogany L Browne Reading & Workshop- Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University –  2020 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27708

2:30-3:30pm: Terrance Hayes Reading

3:30-5:00pm: Q&A + Book Signings w/ Mahogany & Terrance- Rubenstein Arts Center

1:00p- 5:00pm: * Express – Pre- conference registration available at the Rubenstein Arts Center during book signings*

5-7pm- Dinner Break ( on your own)

7:00pm: The Griot Battle Royale Poetry Slam Competition– Rubenstein Arts Center ( $10 @ the door)

9:30- until – Mix and Mingle Kick-off Party – Durham Hotel Rooftop

Saturday: (Ticket Holders Only)

7:30-8:30a- Opening Breakfast + Optional Registration Site @ 21 C Hotel

8:30a- Opening Reception & Keynote by: Dasan Ahanu – Durham Arts Council-  111 North Corcoran St, Durham, NC 27701 ( Registration open at Durham Arts Council from 8am- 10:00am)

9:30a -11:45a: Workshops/Panels  – 21 C Durham Hotel & Durham Arts Council 

11:00 Hallmark Craft Talk w/Terrance Hayes: “Line, Breath, and the Word”  

12:00: Lunch at Queeny’s Burgers ( discounted/on your own)

1pm-2:30pm: Panels & Roundtables – 21 C & Durham Arts Council 

2:30- 3:30pm Hallmark Workshop w/: Nikky Finney: “Writing the Land”

3:30-5:30pm – Book Fair & Author Signings at Durham Arts Council

American Underground Presents: Pitch Fest/Critique Session

Self Guided & Guided Historic Tours w/ Whistle Stop Tours– Provident 1898, NC Mutual, Pauli Murray Center, Black Wallstreet/Parish Street, West End Community + Museum of Durham History

Live Podcast w/ Sistories at Queeny’s Burgers

5:30-7:00pm: Dinner ( on your own for General Adm)

7:30- 9:15pm: Black Poet Laureate Palooza at North Star Church of the Arts ( Open by Invite)

9:30-11:30p: Spoken Word/Performance Showcase at North Star Church of the Arts & AfterParty ( Open by Invite)

Sunday: ( Ticket Holders Only)

8:30a: Yoga 

10a: VIP & All Access Brunch w/ Meditation Moment & Poetry Reading by: adrienne maree brown @ Durham Bottling Co

* A la Carte offerings will be avialable for Gen. Admin*

12:30: Healing Power of Nature /Connecting with Self Workshop w/ adrienne maree brown @ Durham Bottling Co

Optional Activities in the Park

more details and specific session titles to be released, October 20th

Where to Stay

Premier Hotels: Ranging from $149-$199

Durham Hotel & 21 C hotel block sold out

Get Tickets

Panels & Workshops

Trinity: Writing the Multi-generational Fiction Novel

  • with Zelda Lockhart
View Description >
This 2-hour workshop will offer you, the tools you will need to write a novel for multigenerational healing. You will walk away with a daily writing practice, guidance for writing the pivotal scenes of your novel, and guidance on conducting research on yourself and your people.

There Is A Place For Us: Building Community Amidst A White Literary Landscape

  • with Asiah Mae, CJ Suitt, Dasan Ahanu, Sheree Greer, Moderator: Krystal DaMuse
View Description >
Far too often, as Black writers, we’ve found ourselves in spaces that are othering, isolating, and toxic for our minds, bodies, and souls. As creatives, not being presented when we attend residencies, classes, panels, or workshops can hinder us from building community, saying yes to opportunities, and results us not showing up authentically. The reality is, as southern writers, we will always be met with spaces and places where we Black faces are few and far between. How do we push forward and continue to build community insight of, while always staying true to the culture and our core beliefs are artists and creatives?

Do Not Make Grief Your God

  • with Mahogany L. Browne
View Description >
A workshop on grief-letting as a practice of literary meditation. This lecture-styled talk invites you to experience grief through a collection of poems.

Is My Play Ready For the Stage?

  • with Nichole Palmer, Monica Prince, Jonathan S. Eddie, Monet Marshall
View Description >
Compiling a screenplay that is stage ready is not an easy task. It requires strong characters, scene, plot, rise, and fall, and of course, great dialogue. Many of our works, may appear to be ready for an audience at first glance, but aren’t quite ready yet. We’ll hear from industry professionals about what a stage performance and its accompanied script needs to wow audiences, and leave them begging for more.

Making Art Your Career: Does Work Life Balance Exist without Burnout?

  • with Monet Marshall, Curtus Hill, Sheree Greer, Chris Everette | Moderator: Lejuane Bowens
View Description >
Does work-life balance exist for us? If so, what does it look like? How do we not let creativity become a chore? In this panel/roundtable, artists, creatives and entrepreneurs will come together in conversation about the many challenges of striving to obtain work - life balance in a post peak- pandemic world. Get ready to talk everything from work-from-home boundary setting while fighting the urge to do it all to learning how to fill your own cup, and brainstorm solutions for a healthy creative lifestyle. Join Chris Everette, Curtis Hill, and more!

Pen, Performance, and Prophecy:  Literary Expression Along an AfroCarolina Continuum

  • with Regina Carter Garcia, Michelle Lanier, Angela Epps, Dasan Ahanu Moderator: Fred Joiner
View Description >
Afro Carolina declares intersection of ethnicity and place. But what is the Afro- Carolina tradition and how is it tethered to Black Southern writing and creativity? We'll hear from "Afro Carolina" originator and filmmaker Michelle Lanier as she gives us a history lesson and explores the Black Carolina legacy. Follow panelists, Regina Carter Garcia, Fred Joiner, and more as they explore how Afro Carolina roots originally show up in their craft and govern the approach to their craft. We'll talk about where we are, where we're headed, and where we're going.

Communing with Nature & Strategies to Stay Present

  • with adrienne maree brown
View Description >
Far too often we are busy, on our phones, worried, stressed, not focused on the here and now. Distractions cloud our mind and our judgment, and we can’t write a good story or show up authentically if our heads are foggy and nerves are shot. Come with our “at peace” guru to find your muse outside in the world and inside yourself. Feel the delight of being present with and channeling the world through your own nature.

Healing Our Wounds: How to Approach Identity, Trauma, and Grief on the Page

  • with Zelda Lockhart and Destiny Hemphill
View Description >
Both Zelda and Destiny hold space in their literary art for the writing itself to be a healing space. What does using your writing as a healing tool do for you and your reading audience? Come with them as they guide you through ways to approach grief and trauma on the page, while unpacking heavy topics and sensitive subjects you’re grappling with in your work.

Publishing Paid Me 101: Demystifying The Publishing Industry, Agents, and Submissions 

  • with Ashley Lumpkin, Terrance Hayes, Kwame Mbalia, Crystal Simone Smith Moderator: Jay Ward
View Description >
#PublishingPaidMe made it impossible to ignore serious, enduring wage gaps between BIPOC and white writers. Do writing programs at PWIs fail BIPOC writers entering the workforce? This panel unites prominent BIPOC editors, and writers to offer practical advice and expose hard truths of making a living as a Black writer in a whitewashed industry, and to answer: What was your trajectory? What do you wish you were told? What tips, tricks, or strategies aided your success? As the VIDA Count demonstrates, BIPOC writers who do publish books are less often reviewed and marketed. While this has been widely critiqued, industry change has been performative and slow. This panel holds space for BIPOC writers who have beaten the odds, offering advice, solutions, and truth-telling for emergent BIPOC voices.

Freelancing While Black: Pitching Black Stories and Landing the Deal

  • with Nikki Miller, Khalisa Rae, Mahogany L. Browne, Minda Honey | Moderator: Anya Pearson
View Description >
Navigating the freelance and journalism landscape is already a minefield. For writers of color, the challenges become greater, the wage gap becomes wider, and the chances of landing the deal get slimmer. Surviving toxic, exploitation full-time staff jobs? Forget it! Black journalists have been calling out the disparities for decades while the industry would have us normalize inequity. Our Black journalists have solutions and suggestions for the freelancer that’s one pitch away from giving up. 

Octavia Taught Me: Lessons from O. Butler on Creative Practice

  • with Sheree Greer
View Description >
Novelist Octavia Butler wrote, "First, forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable... Habit will help you finish and polish your stories." In this craft talk and interactive workshop, writers will reckon with their writing habits and writing goals, reflecting on what works and what needs updating. We'll share approaches and tools to help us (re)design and (re)commit to our creative practice with sustainability and accountability in mind. Workshop includes writing prompts, discussion, and resources for writers. The workshop, Octavia Taught Me, invites writers to think about their approaches to craft, but also to their writing goals and systems of accountability, which encourages exploration of career and community as a Black literary artist. (Re)visiting the inimitable Octavia E. Butler’s work as a portal into how we can better commit to personal, professional, and creative elevation in our own work speaks directly to the themes of entrepreneurship, Black joy/wellness (as we want to design approaches that uplift and affirm us as artists, individuals, and community members), and Black writing legacy.

From the Page to the Stage

  • with Jonathan S. Eddie & Monet Marshall
View Description >
Do you feel as though one of your stories, poems, or life experiences would make for a great stage play or solo performance? In the interactive and fun workshop, “From The Page to Stage, attendees will explore the creative process of playwriting and acting. Students will participate in a variety of exercises where they will explore dramatic/comedic writing, acting techniques, as well as voice & movement exercises. This workshop aims to inspire and inform attendees on how they can bring their existing works and ideas center stage

 “Shelter in a Poem” Line Breath and the Word

  • with Terrance Hayes
View Description >
Join Terrance in this hallmark craft talk where we’ll work on dissecting a poem, and apply the techniques to our own writing to make our line, breath, and word that much stronger. Let’s find the gems in the text that are worth critiquing and questioning. This “do-it-yourself” workshop combines close reading and quick writing to explore poem making and poetic collaboration.

Writing the Land: Poetics of Place, Agriculture, Black Foodways & Home

  • with Nikky Finney
View Description >
"Writing the Land: a poetry workshop/craft talk combo that touches on southern agriculture and nature and the land that influences our writing poetry. Nikky will use Rice and other books she's written on the topic as the foundation.

“How do you say that word?”: Choreopoem Workshop for the Culture

  • with Monica Prince
View Description >
Coined by the late Ntozake Shange in 1975 with her award-winning choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, the choreopoem as a genre has captured the bodies of performance artists across the world. Creating and producing a choreopoem is more than choreographing text--it includes poetry, dance, music, art, yoga, podcast clips, audience interaction, and more. Guided by Monica Prince, choreopoem scholar and creator, participants will learn the structure and execution of the choreopoem as a form, potentially starting their own, while championing its roots in Black expression, suffering, and pleasure.

Finding the Middle Grade Story in All of Us: Crafting Stories w/Fantasy & Wonder

  • with Kwame Mbalia
View Description >
Join Kwame as he helps us find the middle grade story hidden Inside of all of us. How do we tap into that childlike imagination and dream of a world and characters with depth and wonder? Kwame will take on a journey to craft engaging scenes and main characters to propel readers through middle grade novels. Whether it be a strong lead or a passionate protagonist, we’ll dig deep to create characters that pop off the page to excite any middle grade reader, whether it be for your graphic novel, or young adult story. 

Taste. Touch. Travel: Food and Travel Writing 101- Using the 5 Senses to Enhance Your Non-fiction

  • with Nikki Miller
View Description >
This ain’t ya mommas travel and food writing class. We’ll cover the basics of food and travel writing, while exploring how to make it fun and exhilarating. Let's use our senses to savor eating and drinking, food writing will suit your taste. You can write a review of a new restaurant in town, an article about the secrets of saffron, a story about helping grandma in the kitchen, or a collection of recipes for catfish. Food writing requires a passion for food and the ability to summon its wonders in words. Here you will learn about the full spectrum of food writing—reviews, memoir, essay, articles, blogs, books—as well as writing craft and how to market your work. Whether you seek to write about producing, preparing, or partaking of food, we’ll show you how to spice your writing just right.

 CRAFT: CHARACTERS — CREATIVE VS. CUNNING

  • with Nichole Palmer
View Description >
Originating characters is the lifeblood of any good work because characters drive story. It’s the characters audiences fall in love with or love to hate. Characters give audiences a vehicle in which to ride while being witnesses to the unfolding drama. Learn how to weave a strong backstory that supports the present-day journey, which leads to a satisfying ending. Workshop style. Bring computers and current work. Dramatic writers or novel writers welcome.

Writing the “I,” Giving our Poems Identity and Emotional Image

  • with Tyree Daye
View Description >
Considering what Federico Fellini states, "What's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters." The following workshop will focus on our imagistic obsession to consider new ways of rendering them fresh on the page. Workshop participants will examine various poets, read essays on poetic theories, and complete a series of exercises that enable them to capture the particularities of their obsessions. To write poems that belong to no one else but them.

Writing Your Multigenerational Novel

  • with Zelda Lockhart
View Description >
This 2-hour workshop will offer you, the tools you will need to write a novel for multigenerational healing. You will walk away with a daily writing practice, guidance for writing the pivotal scenes of your novel, and guidance on conducting research on yourself and your people.

Chant Down, Babylon: Poetry as Insurgent Incantation

  • with Destiny Hemphill
View Description >
This workshop invites participants to meditate on and write towards the following questions: What rituals, spells, and incantations might we activate to initiate ourselves into alternative ways of being, to manifest alternative worlds? What does it mean to engage the immaterial (language, spellwork, dreams the psyche) not as means to escape material realities but as always already mutually entangled and informed by the material? How can we use poetry to channel insurgency? How can poetry’s incantatory potential unsettle oppressive formations of power? How can poetry as a mode of spellbinding help us manifest liberatory ways of being?

Panelists, Speakers & Workshop Facilitators:

Poetry

Jennifer Bartell Boykin

Poetry

Fred Joiner

Poetry

Asiah Mae

Poetry

D.J. Rogers

Poetry

adrienne maree brown

Poetry

Regina Carter Garcia

Poetry

Ashley Lumpkin

Poetry

Jay Ward

Poetry

Josephus Thompson

Poetry

Destiny Hemphill

Poetry

Tyree Daye

Poetry

Terrance Hayes

Poetry

Nikky Finney

Poetry

Dasan Ahanu

Poetry

Fiction

Sheree Greer

Fiction

Kwame Mbalia

Fiction

Zelda Lockhart

Fiction

Stage

Monica Prince

Stage

Monet Marshall

Stage

Jonathan S. Eddie

Stage

Nichole Palmer

Stage

Non-Fiction

Minda Honey

Non-Fiction

Nikki Miller

Non-Fiction

Mahogany L. Browne

Non-Fiction

Guest Panelist

Angela Belcher Epps

Guest Panelist

LeJuane Bowens

Guest Panelist

Michelle Lanier

Guest Panelist

CJ Suitt

Guest Panelist

Curtis Hill aka SP the Writer

Guest Panelist

Chris Everette

Guest Panelist
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email: griotandgreyowl@gmail.com
phone: ‪(919) 808-2067‬

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