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!

Hoosier Youngest to Receive Rogers Honor

NSNC's Will Rogers Humanitarian Award statuette

Will Rogers Humanitarian Award An award-winning writer from The Indianapolis Star has been chosen to receive the 2015 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award at the annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Marisa Kwiatkowski, an investigative reporter covering social services, will be recognized for her outstanding work on behalf of children. In nominating her…

History of NSNC Through My T-Shirts

you, the columnist By Dave Lieber Dallas Morning News columnist I’m so excited about seeing everybody at the 2015 Indianapolis National Society of Newspaper Columnists conference that I started going through my wardrobe. What to wear? So many NSNC related T-shirts. Then I realized, I could tell the story of our group through my T-shirts. (Hey,…

Pyle Scholar Speaks on 70th Anniversary of Death

Ernie Pyle is at center. Photo courtesy Ernie Pyle Legacy Foundation

Remarks of Owen V. Johnson, Ph.D., for delivery at the 70th anniversary commemoration of the death of Ernie Pyle, near his grave at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl Crater, Hawaii, April 18, 2015. Johnson is a professor emeritus of journalism at Indiana University, which the noted war correspondent, an Indiana native, attended.…

An Important National Columnists Day – 2015

Memorial stone for Ernie Pyle, being dedicated on the 70th anniversary of his death, April 18, 2015, at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl Crater, Hawaii.

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists sets April 18 as National Columnists Day. The 2015 edition is a special one. The day was chosen because it was on April 18 that Scripps Howard war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed, shot by a Japanese sniper on a Pacific island, in 1945. That’s 70 years ago to…

Mark Twain’s Hero

Artemus Ward, pen name of Charles Farrar Brown, 1834-67

President’s Message By Jerry Zezima President National Society of Newspaper Columnists Leave it to Mark Twain to have the best take on April Fools’ Day. In “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar,” he wrote, “This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are the other 364.” Before he became “the Lincoln of our literature,”…

When Stand-Up and Column Writing Meet

Suzette Martinez Standring

Art of Column Writing By Suzette Martinez Standring 2004-06 President National Society of Newspaper Columnists Life is an unexpected ride. I’m a columnist who presents writing workshops, maybe the occasional keynote. But stand-up comedy? Terrifying! I am not that gal. Or am I? On a lark I did a Story Slam recently. The theme was…