WHAT: N.C. Literary Festival

WHEN: Tonight-Sunday

WHERE: UNC Chapel Hill

INFORMATION: For details and a full schedule, visit www.ncliteraryfestival.org

MORE COVERAGE: Check out Friday's Entertainment section for a feature on Joanna Smith Rakoff, author of the novel "A Fortunate Age."

BY DAWN BAUMGARTNER VAUGHAN

dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563

Marianne Gingher has a theory on why there are so many writers in North Carolina.

“It’s a nice state to live in. A lot of writers have found teaching jobs, and teach the next generation and the torch gets passed,” she said. She’s one of them, a teacher and a writer who passes the torch. Gingher is a professor of English and comparative literature at UNC Chapel Hill, which is hosting the North Carolina Literary Festival that starts tonight.

Many of the 100 or so writers are university professors or former students of those professors, many of whom teach at the host campus. Every other year it’s held, the state’s book festival alternates between the campuses of UNC, N.C. State and Duke. The last festival was held in April 2006 in Durham. The festival has a few speakers tonight and Friday — John Grisham and Anna Deavere Smith among them — but really gets rolling on Saturday, when the bulk of the festival takes place. Writers include R.L. Stine, Elizabeth Strout, Elizabeth Spencer, Elizabeth Edwards, Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Judy Schachner and a host of others.

Gingher will appear at the festival on panels with writers featured in the new book by UNC Press that she has edited — “Long Story Short: Flash Fiction by Sixty-five of North Carolina’s Finest Writers.” Some of those writers are featured at the festival at other events, too. Like young adult author Sarah Dessen, who grew up in Chapel Hill and still lives in Orange County. Her teen novels have topped the best-seller lists, including this summer’s “Along for the Ride.” She wrote the flash fiction story “Registry” in “Long Story Short.” At the festival, she’ll be on the panel “A Mentor’s Influence” on Saturday with her former teacher, author Jill McCorkle, and former student, Courtney Jones Mitchell.

“Jill was a great teacher, and has remained a friend,” Dessen said. McCorkle read Dessen’s work even after she was out of her class, Dessen said, and, along with Lee Smith, offered publishing advice when she was starting out. Now Dessen has paid it forward.

“Being a mentor, at least for me, is such an honor,” Dessen said. “It’s really just hoping to pass on what you’ve learned to someone else so they don’t have to make the same mistakes you did,” she said. Dessen said the community of North Carolina writers is one of support and good will.

The slogan of this year’s festival is “A Celebration of Reading and Writing.” Gingher said she likes how the festival includes both.

“It’s a chance for everybody to celebrate the art of not just writing, but the appreciation of writing,” she said. Contributors to “Long Story Short” are those Carolina writers familiar with flash fiction, short fiction and novels. Some writers she contacted didn’t want to write to a limited length. Others were willing to edit stories down, like author Michael Malone, who still ended up with the longest flash fiction story in the book.

It’s not his ordinary style, Malone said, but he worked his character of Cuddy Mangum, who appears in some of his novels, into a flash tale.

Gingher said writing flash fiction challenges the imagination, to, like a puzzle, see how much you can do in a short space.

Pamela Duncan, another contributor to “Long Story Short” who will also be at the festival, recalled what fellow writer Doris Betts said in a class years ago: “The shorter something is, the more magnificent it must be,” Duncan recalled. Betts will also be at the festival. Many of the North Carolina writers’ paths have intertwined. Duncan considers Betts among her heroes, as well as Lee Smith and Elizabeth Spencer — also featured at the festival. Duncan will appear with North Carolina author Ann B. Ross on Saturday as they talk about writing about funny women. Duncan said she admires Ross as a writer and a person.

Malone, too, is looking forward to seeing his fellow storytellers.

“Gathering with my fellow North Carolina writers is such a pleasure for me that a decade ago I moved to Hillsborough,” Malone said. “Seeing those few that don’t live in the Piedmont will be an added joy at the festival. Literary festivals are festive because they bring together not only writers but writers and readers. All art part of the collaboration of art.”