NSNC 2026 Columnist Contest - Deadline Extended to May 1

Consider a Gift to the NSNC Education Foundation

NSNC 2026 Columnist Contest - Deadline Extended to May 1

Contest submissions will be accepted through May 1! 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.

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

Saralee Perel has book coming out

Nationally syndicated award-winning columnist, Saralee Perel, has signed with agent Bob Mecoy for her newest non-fiction book, “Eddie’s Philosophy.” Saralee says, “Eddie the Cat, an NSNC 2008 award-winning columnist, bluntly shares his no-nonsense values, his shenanigans and his life with my husband, Bob, and me. I only wish Eddie didn’t have nine lives. I wish…

New book from Kelly Kazek

Kelly Kazek’s book “Fairly Odd Mother: Musings of a Slightly Off Southern Mom” is being released. The hardcover book contains a collection of Kazek’s award-winning humor columns published in The News Courier and syndicated through Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. News Service. A portion of proceeds will go to Art on the Square, a community arts…

Sound Bites From a Self-Styled Twit

Laura Snyder

By Laura Snyder Nationally Syndicated Columnist   “Survive and Thrive” may have been the theme of this year’s conference, but Twitter was the name and Tweeting was the game. It was everywhere.  Each speaker had some very innovative ideas for getting us through the paper-to-digital transition, but the underlined advice in nearly every speech was “You…

President’s Message – Samantha Bennett

Samantha Bennett

By Samantha Bennett I don’t mean to gloat and make you feel bad if you weren’t there, but I have to say: Ventura kicked butt. It was a career seminar that was also a great party, a celebration that was also an education. Steve Lopez inspired us. Jeff Zaslow brought us to tears. Jon Carroll…

California Columnist Retires at 83, Plans To Marry

NSNC member Beth Ashley, a longtime columnist for the Marin Independent Journal in Northern California, has announced her retirement after 40-some years, 26 of them as a columnist.    Craig Wilson broke the news in his column in USA Today.  They met when she worked at Wilson’s paper a few months “on loan” from the…

Columnist writes book on restaurant chain founder

Mike Harden

Mike Harden was a regular attendedee at our conferences until 2008 when he was busy working on a book about a restaurant chain founder Bob Evans.  He collaborated with his daughter, Robbin, on the book “A Bountiful Heart.” Retired from the Columbus Dispatch, Harden still writes a twice-weekly metro column.