8:45 a.m. How to Write Columns Readers and Editors Both Want

9:30 a.m. – Your Dream Project: From Idea to Reality

Meredith Cummings

Do you have a dream project that seems out of reach? So did Meredith Cummings. This session will take you from your project dream to finding funding and making it happen.

When Meredith Cummings took her old Volvo wagon, Ruby, on a 10,000-mile trip to newsrooms around the country she stepped out of her own newsroom experiences and held up a mirror to the journalists who bring us the news every day. “Who,” she asked, “is watching the gatekeepers?” She visited news outlets big and small, for-profit and nonprofit, traditional and cutting-edge across all media during her #followmylede journey, writing as she went.

She will talk about the behind-the-scenes work that went into her journey and what you can take from it. She will also approach a difficult issue she encountered again and again as she wrote: when to filter vs. overshare.

10:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. – Break

10:30 a.m. – The Business of Writing

Lori Duff

Licenses? Contracts? Accounting? Estate planning? What does any of that have to do with the art of writing? A lot! (Or maybe everything.) Judge Lori B. Duff will explain what you need to know to keep your writing business (yes, your writing is a business!) on the right side of the law. From navigating contract legalese, deciding whether or not to incorporate, managing business expenses, even considering what happens to your work after you’re gone, Judge Duff will educate in an entertaining, understandable way. There’s a reason she was awarded the title of “Atlanta’s Funniest Lawyer” in 2018.

11:15 a.m. TikTok And Reels For Writers

Rebecca Regnier

Author and columnist Rebecca Regnier turned an old column into a viral video on TikTok and opened up a whole new avenue for her work. As of January 2022, she had 25K followers and 400,000 likes. Her most viral video garnered 3.5 million TikTok views, while another had 1.5 million Facebook views. Attendees will learn how to use small snippets from columns to go viral and connect with new readers. They’ll be introduced to other creators who used the platforms to snag book deals. Discover the world of BookTok and AuthorTok where readers and writers are connecting.

12:00 p.m. – Lunch & Keynote

John Archibald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist for the Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, and the Press-Register

John Archibald is a Pulitzer- winning columnist in the American South where he has worked for more than 35 years. He writes for the Alabama Media Group, and his columns appear in The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, the Mobile Press-Register, AL.com and its social brand, Reckon. John is also a national Murrow Award-winning podcaster, a voice of the deep South and what that place means to America. He is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2021 and included as one of NPR’s favorite books of the year. More recently, John was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2020-2021, and taught column writing at Harvard Summer School. While at Harvard he studied alternative storytelling and how algorithms in digital news affect perceptions of crime and contribute to polarization. Archibald’s reporting has been honored more than 75 times in state and national journalism contests, including those sponsored by NABJ, the National Education Press Association, The AP, Alabama Press Association, Troy State University and others. He was honored for “distinguished journalism” by Auburn University, and enshrined on the student journalism hall of fame by the University of Alabama, his alma mater.  He worked on teams that twice were finalists for IRE Awards, and his reporting led to changes in laws and policies, and the arrests and convictions of several public officials and their associates. He has appeared frequently on national and international news programs, and as a speaker at schools, colleges, conferences and clubs.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, part of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is a cultural and educational research center that promotes a comprehensive understanding of the significance of civil rights developments in Birmingham. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, BCRI reaches more than 150,000 individuals each year through award-winning programs and services. In 2017, the BCRI was designated as part of a Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, along with the A.G. Gaston Motel, Kelly Ingram Park, the 16th Street Baptist and Bethel Baptist Churches.

The bus will meet at the hotel at 2:00 p.m. The Civil Rights Institute tour will begin at 3:00 p.m. The tour will conclude at 5:00 p.m.

6:00 p.m. – Dinner (at hotel)

7:00 p.m. – The NSNC Annual Contest Awards

8:00 p.m. – Hospitality Suite will open after dinner

Kyle Whitmire is the state political commentator for the Alabama Media Group. He was previously a local political reporter for The Birmingham News, a columnist and new media editor for WELD for Birmingham, and political editor and author of the weekly “War on Dumb” column for the Birmingham Weekly.

Online education by columnists and bloggers offers enriching experiences different from traditional education. Discover a lucrative way to reach readers through education by adapting your niche to teaching online courses. NSNC member Cole Imperi founded The School of American Thanatology, offering education in Thanatology (death/grief), Thanabotany and Deathwork in 2020, and created a global reach of students in 21 countries through search engines and social media, not through paid advertising. She will compare online teaching platforms, offer the nuts and bolts of getting started, and will share her revenue figures for one course. You might find a larger audience through courses. There’s not much difference between a loyal column reader and a student who is learning from you.

An indie revolution is happening and Jim Azevedo will reveal how Draft2Digital’s 2022 acquisition of Smashwords is fueling a dramatic change in self-publishing. Learn the innovative ease and simplicity for creating print and digital publishing. Discover new tools for greater marketing, circulation and revenue for self-published authors, even if they are with other platforms.

What happens when national politics disappears from the op-ed page? In 2019, one newspaper decided to find out, and we worked with them to measure the effects. In our book, Home Style Opinion, we detail those findings: local issues filled the substantial void left by national politics, and polarization slowed down. The future of local news needs to include local opinion journalism, and we make the case for greater support for this essential public forum in the midst of our local news crisis.

Roy S. Johnson, Director of Content Development, Alabama Media Group, Pulitzer Prize Commentary finalist

A conversation about one journalist’s life from mid-century America to the digital present, with stops along the way from the Tulsa massacre and the Trail of Tears to Stanford University, Savoy, Birmingham, Donald Drumpf, and beyond. Q&A moderated by NSNC President Tony Norman.

If you’re in a seemingly endless war with your WordPress site, victory is just ahead. Whether you need some basic strategies for building out a new site or you’re a long-time WP user and need some serious help with updates, this is the session for you. Get answers to questions like Does your site have an SSL certificate? Did you know that you needed one? Have any clue about how much traffic your website gets or your conversion rates? Learn some tricks of the WordPress trade from a designer with two decades’ experience in the industry. Attendees will be sent a survey a few weeks prior to the conference to better understand their background and needs.

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists presents the Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award to accomplished and deeply-respected columnist, Mary C. Curtis. She is an award-winning Roll Call columnist, journalist and educator based in Charlotte, N.C. and Washington, D.C. She has contributed to NBC News, NPR, The Washington Post, The Root, ESPN’s The Undefeated and talks politics on WCCB-TV and NPR-affiliate WFAE in Charlotte. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, the Charlotte Observer, the Baltimore Sun, and the Associated Press, and was national correspondent for AOL’s Politics Daily. Her coverage specialty is the intersection of politics, culture and race, and she has covered the 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. Curtis is a Senior Leader with The OpEd Project, at Yale University, Cornell University, and the Ford Foundation and at the Aspen New Voices Fellowship in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a Kiplinger Fellow, in social media, at Ohio State.

Curtis was chosen to be included in The HistoryMakers, the single largest archival collection of its kind in the world designed to promote and celebrate the successes and to document movements, events and organizations that are important to the African American community and to American society; it is available digitally and permanently archived in the Library of Congress. Her honors include Clarion Awards from the Association for Women in Communications, awards from the National Headliners and the Society of Professional Journalists, three first-place awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, and the Thomas Wolfe Award for an examination of Confederate heritage groups. Curtis has contributed to several books, including an essay in “Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox.” You can find her work at www.maryccurtis.com

The Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to honor a columnist who exemplifies outstanding achievement in the tradition of Ernie Pyle. In the 1930s, Pyle wrote a national travel column for Scripps-Howard News Service, carried in some 200 newspapers. In World War II, he became a renowned war correspondent, first in Europe, then the Pacific theater. Rather than writing about the official military perspective, Pyle reported first-hand accounts about soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1944, and the next year he was killed on a Pacific island during an attack. Past recipients include Maureen Dowd, Connie Schultz, Leonard Pitts Jr., Andy Rooney, Clarence Page, Dave Barry and Roger Ebert.

This year’s ELPA selection committee consisted of Suzette Standring, Dave Astor and Mike Leonard. Standring said, “Mary C. Curtis’s lifetime career encapsulates what columnists stand for and aspire to be: an eloquent truth-teller, unafraid of documenting what is, and creating clarity and hope of what can be.” Astor said, “Mary C. Curtis has offered powerful and eloquent commentary on race, politics, culture, and other topics during her long and varied career. Adding to the strong appeal of Mary C.’s widely read columns are elements of humor and relevant experiences from her personal life.” Leonard notes, “Mary C. Curtis is a consummate journalist, adept at hard news, opinion and perspective, and committed to advocacy for others. Her work with the OpEd Project demonstrates a commitment to empowering women and broadening our national dialogue. Her podcasts are of the highest order, thoughtful and extremely well-voiced. And if all of this gives you the impression she’s all work and no play – you also might see her beautifully dressed and blissfully happy to hit Broadway for a musical or play.”