NSNC 2026 Columnist Contest - Now Open

Sunshine Week March 15-21, 2026

Consider a Gift to the NSNC Education Foundation

Join NSNC and Reap the Benefits!

NSNC 2026 Columnist Contest - Now Open

Contest submissions now open! We are accepting entries from columnists, bloggers, and serial essayists  for our 2026 Annual Columnist Contest (for work published in 2025). We will accept entries from columnists, bloggers, and serial essayists published in 2025.  Everyone is welcome to submit. You don’t have to be an NSNC member.

Sunshine Week March 15-21, 2026

We’re counting down to #SunshineWeek 2026, March 15-21. Together, we champion #OpenRecords and #OpenGovernment nationwide March 15-21. #FOIA #transparency. Free resources: sunshineweek.org

Consider a Gift to the NSNC Education Foundation

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists Education Foundation is a tax-exempt charitable organization [501(c)3] devoted to the education and training of new and experienced columnists everywhere. Donate here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/NSNCEdFnd

Join NSNC and Reap the Benefits!

We are excited for What’s in-store for NSNC members this year. We are gearing up to launch the NSNC Annual Columnist Contest on January 15, so you’ll want to be sure your membership is up-to-date. Also, if you have ideas, suggestions, etc., please share them with our President Meredith Cummings at meredithcummings@gmail.com or Executive Director Ginny McCabe at nsncdirector@gmail.com. Thank you for your support of NSNC!

Meet Will Rogers’ Great-Grandson

A late – but most welcome – addition to the Macon 2012 program is Josh Rogers Leuty, a great-grandson of Will Rogers.   Leuty, 44, was raised on a dairy farm near Bakersfield, CA by parents Eric and Bette Rogers Brandin. His grandfather, California rancher Jim Rogers, was the last surviving offspring of Will and…

If you feel it, you can convey it.

By Suzette Martinez Standring NSNC Past President At writing conferences, creativity often gets short shrift in favor of growing one’s business. Supersize followers on Facebook and Twitter!  Get readers a-gogging with vlogging and blogging! Strengthen your footing on the technology trail. Very helpful, yes, but when all is said and done, it is about our…

Jesse Rifkin, Scholarship Winner: The grim future of a local bookshop

By Jesse Rifkin Student Columnist University of Connecticut – Jean Norman gazes around Paperback Trader, the small bookstore she had owned since 1980. Her eyes pause at the rows of comic books. “A young man named Jay used to stop by often for the comics,” she remembers. “He graduated in 1987 and lives in Florida…

Embed, Blog, and Beyond

By Suzette Martinez Standring NSNC Past President   Vlogging, blogging, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter – it’s all under the umbrella of social media and I’m dog paddling in the deluge. Recently, I attended the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in Dayton, both as a presenter (Hypnotic Recall Fills the Creative Well), and as a seeker of information…

New Member has New Book

New NSNC member, Cathy Turney, announces her recently published book, “Tales of a Codependent Pet Owner.” Cathy is a San Francisco Bay Area author who has had humor stories published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Bay Woof Magazine and the Contra Costa Times. Cathy recently won America’s Funniest Humor Showcase awards for her two stories, “An ‘i’…

In the May Newsletter

I Love Macon

Preview of 2012 “Macon Whoopee” conference … Not one, but two columns by regular contributing columnist Suzette Martinez Standring … President Ben S. Pollock gives a “fare thee well address … Reports and photos from the 2012 Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop … Plus “What Are You Writing?” and “Columnews”