SUPPORT GRIOT AND GREY OWL BLK SOUTHERN WRITERS
✨ Carolina Gold 2025: Mining Black Stories from the Appalachia to the Gullah Coast
Presented by the Griot & Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference
📍 Downtown Durham, NC | November 7–9, 2025
The Griot & Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference was born from a deep and urgent need: to create space for Black writers in the South to thrive, connect, and be seen. Too often, our stories are pushed to the margins. Carolina Gold is our answer—a love letter to Black Southern storytelling and a radical act of preservation.
This 3-day gathering brings together 100+ Black writers for world-class workshops, historic tours, panels, performances, and publishing opportunities—all rooted in the cultural heartbeat of Durham, North Carolina.
From Pauli Murray's legacy to the legacy of Black Wall Street, the Hayti Heritage Center, NC Mutual, and Bennett Place, Durham offers the perfect backdrop for storytelling, resistance, and rebirth.
🌱 Why We Need You
We didn’t reach our Kickstarter goal—but the dream is alive and growing.
Thanks to generous grants and community support, we've raised over $40,000 so far. But to fully realize the Carolina Gold anthology, digital archive, and 2025 conference, we need seed funding from supporters like you.
Your donation will:
🎤 Give Black writers access to workshops with nationally renowned authors and editors
📚 Support the Carolina Gold Anthology & Digital Archive preserving Southern Black stories
🚌 Fund historical field trips & cultural site visits
📝 Provide scholarships and honorariums for Black writers with limited access
🎭 Build a stage for Black poets, storytellers, and creatives across the South
📖 Why It Matters Now
After polling over 1,000 Black writers, we found that 90% felt disconnected from creative community, and that many write in isolation without institutional support. Griot & Grey Owl is rewriting that narrative—creating a sustainable, welcoming space for Black literary kinship to flourish.
We write alone, but we grow together.
🎉 Help Us Make Carolina Gold Shine
Whether you give $25 or $2,500, your support helps us preserve the Afro-Carolina oral tradition and build a lasting home for Black Southern writers.
✨ Donate now at donorbox.org/griot-and-grey-owl