The Hinge is Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill’s newest literary center. Our mission: To support, nurture, and connect local writers, readers, and the larger literary community.
Contact Information
Executive Director Lisa Shroyer: hingelit@gmail.com
To submit a Triangle-Area literary event to be posted on our calendar: calendar@hingeliterary.org
To contact us about a Hinge event: hingeevents@hingeliterary.org
For class info: classes@hingeliterary.org
For general info: info@hingeliterary.org
Our Board
Ross White, President
Ross White is a distance learning professional at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, and a lecturer in creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill. He received a BA in English Education from UNC-Chapel Hill and a MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. At night and on the weekend, he is the Executive Director of Bull City Press, the editor of Inch, a quarterly magazine devoted to short poems and microfiction, and a co-coordinator of The Grind Daily Writing Series, a national online writing group. His poems have appeared in Poetry Daily, New England Review, Carolina Quarterly, Meridian, and others, and with Matthew Olzmann, he co-edited Another and Another: An Anthology from the Grind Daily Writing Series. He also serves on the Advisory Board for the North Carolina State Employees Credit Union (Pittsboro St. branch).
Jim Roberts, Treasurer
Jim Roberts is Executive Vice Provost for Finance and Administration at Duke University with broad responsibilities for resource planning and management. He has a PhD in European History from the University of Iowa and an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. He and his wife have supported the arts in North Carolina in several ways. They host the long-running Learned Place house concert series, which features Southern roots music. More recently, they have launched Doe Branch Ink, a retreat for writers in Madison County, NC about 30 miles north of Asheville. Jim has served on the boards of the Full Frame documentary film festival and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
Richard Allen, Secretary
Richard Allen is an attorney in private practice, specializing in small business law. He is also a poet and essayist. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Big Jewel, Diagram, and Salt Hill. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, New York University and Duke University School of Law.
Dr. Elaine C. Rideout
Dr. Elaine C. Rideout has 25 years of experience in conceiving new ideas and moving them to execution and routinization. A social entrepreneur, she has created 2 public entities, 5 nonprofits and supported dozens more. She is also a business entrepreneur, having founded two startup companies and supported the development of many more. Currently, she is CEO of WISERsystems, Inc., a wireless technology startup located on NC State’s Centennial Campus, and President/CEO of Economic Investment Strategies (EIS) Associates, an enterprise-based economic development public policy consulting firm. She has raised over $100 million in support of her nonprofit and business ventures.
Rideout is a Kauffman Dissertation Fellow, and holds the Ph.D. in Psychology from North Carolina State University, where she also serves as Adjunct Professor with the NC State Entrepreneurship Initiative. She holds the MPP in economics from the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.
Bridget Bell
Bridget Bell is an English instructor at Vance Granville Community College and Durham Technical Community College. She is also an associate editor and publicist for Four Way Books, an independent literary press based in New York City. She received a BS in Journalism with a minor in French from Ohio University and has studied in Tours, France and Martinique. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College with a focus in poetry. Her poems have appeared in Zone 3, New Ohio Review, Cutbank Literary Journal, Diagram, and others. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Hinge?
The Hinge is a volunteer group of writers and readers with a common goal of supporting, nurturing and connecting the local literary community. We hope to achieve this goal by offering classes, organizing community outreach opportunities, hosting events, and creating an online, centralized hub for the literary community. We are all-inclusive with a desire to collaborate with rather than compete against other existing literary outlets.
Who is The Hinge for?
If you like to read or if you like to write than The Hinge exists for you. Our monthly meetings are open to anyone interested in becoming involved with the Triangle literary community. To find out about our monthly meetings, join our mailing list.
What does The Hinge do?
In addition to offering classes, The Hinge also hosts a variety of literary events and promotes literary events hosted by other organizations. If you have an event you’d like to have us add to The Hinge Calendar, please email us. We also publish a weekly newsletter. If you’d like to receive that newsletter, please join our mailing list.
Where is The Hinge located?
Currently, The Hinge does not have a brick and mortar location. Our monthly meetings are held at the homes of Hinge volunteers, and our workshops are held at Outsiders Art and Collectables in Durham. We do have plans to establish a permanent home in the future.
Why does The Hinge charge for classes?
Part of The Hinge’s mission statement is to support writers. All of our class instructors are working writers selected for their expertise and talent. We feel it is important to compensate our instructors for the time and energy they put into classes. By charging for classes, we are able to fulfill our mission statement. We also believe that students who invest money into classes are more likely to be fully engaged participants, thus creating a high caliber experience.
What kind of classes does The Hinge offer?
We currently offer fiction and poetry workshops that run for eight weeks. The cost for these classes is $250. We have immediate plans to also offer a one-day intensive non-fiction craft class, and we will also be offering an eight-week non-fiction workshop class shortly.
Where did you get the name The Hinge?
As one of our monthly meetings, we had a let’s-name-this-group brainstorm session. We compiled a long list, eliminated those names that did not have available URLs, and then put it to an online group vote. The Hinge came out as the winner!
Who is currently involved with The Hinge?
Our volunteers are lawyers, teachers, graphic designers, website developers, waiters, editors and a myriad of other titles. Our volunteers are also, of course, writers and readers of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction.
What does The Hinge have planned for the future?
The Hinge is currently working towards becoming a 501(c)3. In the immediate future, we will launch a literary blog and start an outreach program that will enable Hinge members to volunteer within the community. We also plan to establish regular Hinge hosted events, expand our class list, and obtain a permanent home.
Do you have questions we did not address? Email us!
