Hillsborough Writers

Hillsborough Writers has a simple purpose: to encourage writing.

While writing is most often a solitary endeavor, having a group of writers with whom you can share, learn, laugh, empathize, build worlds, and mend your manuscript is a valuable experience. Writing for yourself or with the intent to publish has become more complicated, from which computer word processors to use to navigating the publishing industry.

What HW Offers:

Hillsborough Writers has a group who meets at the Main Orange County Library on Tuesday mornings from 10:00 to 12:00 (formerly known as the Write Rabbit group). This group is not a critique group; rather, we meet to write together. We try to commit these two hours to working on our writing in whatever form suits us. Sometimes this means researching a topic, working on a query letter, or editing a draft. You do not have to be a novelist to participate. All we ask is that you come to work.

Attendance varies from week to week depending on schedules. There is no sign-up required to attend, although, we would love to meet you if you decide to come.

The Hillsborough Writers Critique Group meets the first Wednesday of every month. This group is a structured group for serious writers who are in need of constructive feedback and is different from the group that meets Tuesday mornings. For more information, please click here.

HW is in the creation phase. We hope to offer literary events and programs for the Hillsborough community in the future. If you are interested in volunteering to help make this happen, please email info@hillsboroughwriters.com.

A note from Alissa C. Miles, founder of Hillsborough Writers…

I attended a party for a writer friend. His book was launching and because I know how hard it is to write one, and then rewrite, and rewrite again, I wanted to support what he’d accomplished, plus he writes a pretty darn good story. Also attending was a bookseller friend of mine who asked, “What’s going in Hillsborough for writers?”

Hillsborough is known for being a welcoming home for authors: Allan Gurganus, Michael Malone, Lee Smith, Jill McCorkle, Annie Dillard, Frances Mayes, Stephen Demorest, Hal Crowther, etc. Hillsborough is a small town with a big history. We love a good story and are proud to have such a high concentration of literary minds, book-people, and storytellers in such a small space.

So, in answering my friend’s question I admitted, “Not much.” This is surprising, I know. Hillsborough has been a champion for the arts and for preserving history, but as far as I am able to Google (it’s possible that writing-focused groups exist and I haven’t found them), writing in all its forms does not have the same kind of support. Hillsborough is bursting with excellent artists and wonderful community involvement through the Hillsborough Arts Council. In an area where writing is important to so many, I’d love to see the community come together to encourage writers of all ages and genres.

This website is the beginning of some ideas I’ve been dreaming for a while. I’d like to organize writing groups and workshops, connect writers with beta readers, host book fairs and readings, and one day facilitate the Hillsborough Writers Retreat.

Writing for me has been an outlet, an outreach, a connection, a thorn in my side, and a balm for my broken heart. My hope is to provide a space for others who write because they enjoy it, want to try it, or can’t live without it.

If that’s you and you’d like to help, please email me at info@hillsboroughwriters.com.

Alissa C. Miles’ novel Mad Moon was published in 2020. Her short story The Window won a fiction prize through Two Sisters Writing and Publishing in 2019. She is the writer of the Substack newsletter The Hound: From bullet points to the bookshelf. The pursuit of creativity while folding laundry. Several of her creative nonfiction pieces are in the online publication Epilogue, including her essay titled Death and Writing. She lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina with her family and two dogs (a coonhound named Pip and a terrier-hound mix named Tug). She is a member of WFWA, SIBA, and NCWN.

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