Showing posts with label literary reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literary reading. Show all posts

Friday, January 20, 2023

Poet Louise Runyon to be Featured Reader for Mountain Wordsmiths

 By Carroll S. Taylor

Louise Runyon

 January 2023 begins a new year for Mountain Wordsmiths, an online writers’ gathering sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network-West. Our first gathering will meet on Thursday morning, January 26, at 10:30 a.m. on Zoom, and our featured speaker will be poet Louise Runyon, who will be sharing poetry from her fifth and most recent book of poems, Where Is Our Prague Spring?

 Her book examines Runyon's deep love for the mountains of Western North Carolina, her childhood experience of love here, and her attempts to reconcile this love with the hatred and division found in the present.  A great-niece of Lucy Morgan, founder of the renowned Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, Runyon honors her visionary and activist family in these poems.

 A resident of Sylva, NC , Runyon was born and raised in New York City but grew up at Penland School in the summertime.  She lived most of her adult life in Atlanta before coming back to western North Carolina in 2019. A dancer and choreographer as well as a poet, she is Artistic Director of Louise Runyon Performance Company. The publication of her new book is supported by the Jackson County Arts Council.

 Poet Catherine Carter of Western Carolina University says, “…Runyon interrogates the place and her family’s long history there to illuminate a complicated tradition of Appalachian progressivism dating both back to and forward from the Trail of Tears.  These thoughtful poems evoke an Appalachia that few outsiders know: simultaneously progressive and conservative, woven into the wider world in unexpected ways, and rooted deeply in the labor and vision of women.” 

 NC Writers’ Network-West is continuing to take precautions as we stay in touch and use technology to share our writing. We will offer writing events and writing classes online with some writers’ groups now meeting in person with careful safety guidelines.

 

Mountain Wordsmiths will meet via Zoom on the fourth Thursday of each month Those wishing to attend our gatherings may contact Carroll Taylor at vibiaperpetua@gmail.com to receive the Zoom link. Also, those who wish to participate in Open Mic may sign up upon entering the meeting. We welcome those who would simply like to listen to the beauty of wordsmithing.

Thursday, August 12, 2021

Zoom Writer's Night Out & Open Mic, August 13

NCWN-West presents
Kanute Rarey
Storyteller, Poet, Writer, Teacher

Writers' Night Out via Zoom
August 13, 7 pm
Reading & Discussion + Open Mic


Kanute Rarey has performed oral and written stories and poetry in North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina and from Texas to Florida; Vermont to Minnesota; and parts in between. His stories range from personal to family, to sacred, to scary, to a tall tale or two. While Rarey has officially been a storyteller since 2015, his family and friends would say, “He has been telling stories all his life.”
 
Rarey’s personal goals are to write and perform stories, to promote the storytelling revival in America, and to work with and support aspiring storytellers, writers, poets, and singer-songwriters to encourage and create opportunities and audiences for the performance of their arts. 
 
He is the founder and producer of a weekly Zoom-based TELL IT LIKE IT IS Story Swap and STORIES ON THE SQUARE, a monthly open mic night at a coffee and wine shop in his hometown in historic Hayesville, NC. He also founded FRESH AIR Stories and Music – a four-concert series at the gazebo on the Courthouse Square in Hayesville. 

Rarey is currently working with a small group of leading prose and poetry writers, authors, storytellers, and singer-songwriters to produce a new, yearlong four-performance series for 2022, SCRIBES ON STAGE, with the regional theater, Peacock Playhouse, in Hayesvile, NC. 
 
He is a member of the Board of Directors of John C. Campbell Folk School and the southeastern regional organization, Southern Order of Storytellers, and a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network. His wife Kathy and he have lived in the mountains, including Georgia, Alaska and North Carolina, for over thirty years. Visit his website for more info. 

Open Mic
3-4 minute maximum of poetry or prose (2 poems only, please)
To sign up for Open Mic, please send Glenda an email (with a sentence she can use to introduce you): glendabeall@msn.com 

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Writers' Night Out is Zooming along

 

Please join us for 
Sally Stewart Mohney
prose & poetry

Writers' Night Out via Zoom

March 12, 7 pm
Reading & Discussion + Open Mic

An award-winner writer and NC native, Sally Mohney will read and then discuss poetry's influence on prose and vice versa. 

 

Sally majored in fiction writing at UNC-Chapel Hill and has taken graduate fiction classes at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop as well as the University of Florida. She has published short stories in journals such as the Boston Literary Review, and she is the recipient of the Jesse Rehder Writing Prize from UNC-Chapel Hill. Currently, she is searching for a home for her full-length literary manuscript, Migratory Spirits, set in North Carolina and Cumberland Island. Sally was invited to read an excerpt of Migratory Spirits at the Southern Women Writers Conference.   

Her new poetry book is eventide (Kelsay Books) -- see the quote next to the book cover below. Her previous book, Low Country, High Water, (Texas Review Press) won the Southern Poetry Anthology Prize: North Carolina. Other publications include A Piece of Calm (Finishing Line Press) and pale blue mercy, (Main Street Rag, Author’s Choice Series). Sally's poems have appeared in the Broad River ReviewCharlotte Observer, Cortland Review, James Dickey Review, North Carolina Literary Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily and elsewhere. A North Carolina native, she now lives a thousand feet from the Chattahoochee River in Georgia.

 


"From the low country to the Appalachians, to the River Thames and the North Sea, Sally Stewart Mohney seeks solace and bears witness to water—from wetlands to dry waterfall during her intriguing journey." 
- NC Writers' Network

If you are not a member of NCWN, contact Karen Holmes or Glenda Beall and we will 

send your invitation to join us on Friday night. Members should have received the link

to the Zoom program.



Open Mic
3-4 minute maximum of poetry or prose (2 poems only, please)

To sign up for Open Mic, please send Glenda an email (with a sentence she can use to introduce you) by clicking here: glendabeall@msn.com 



ZOOM Helpful Hints: You can join Writers' Night Out by cell phone, notebook, laptop, or computer and use audio only or audio and video. You can do a test for yourself anytime at zoom.us, where you'll see yourself on video and be able to test your audio too. 

The night of WNO, try to get on before 7 pm to make sure everything is working on your end. You will be in a waiting room until the host opens the door.

Sign up for Open Mic by clicking here: glendabeall@msn.com


Writers' Night Out is the second Friday of every month.

We will continue via Zoom for now. 
April 9: Annette Clapsaddle, novelist, Even as We Breathe

 

The North Carolina Writers' Network is not allowing in-person events right now. Some time In 2021, we hope to continue in person at our new location:

The Ridges Resort on Lake Chatuge 
but please check your email.

 

But don't wait, join the fun and camaraderie on Zoom! 

 
Stay well, friends,
 - Karen


Karen Paul Holmes
www.karenpaulholmes.com
www.simplycommunicated.com
www.facebook.com/karenholmespoetry
www.instagram.com/sharing_poems/

Monday, February 29, 2016

Writers' Night Out 2016 Schedule - Blairsville, Georgia

Mark your calendars now for a stellar line-up...


Writers' Night Out is about to begin it's 6th year. Some readers may be added, but here are the dates and featured writers so far. And remember... there's always an open mic.
 
Union County Community Center, Blairsville
  • April 8: Rupert Fike & Janice Townley Moore
  • May 13: Carol Crawford
  • June 10: Jonathan Kevin Rice (will teach the next day at Writers Circle) & Ronald Moran
  • July 8: Rosemary Royston & Karen Paul Holmes
  • August 12: Ginger Murchison & Lynn Alexander
  • Sept 9: Jim May
  • Nov 11 Christopher Martin& Staci Bell

The Union County Community Center in the heart of Blairsville has once again agreed to be our gracious host. They let us use the facility for free, with no minimum requirement on food purchases, which is an amazing benefit to NCWN-West and the area writers and audience.

Watch this blog for more information about the April 8 reading. Rupert and Janice are Writers' Night favorites.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Who are the writers you need to see read live?

http://flavorwire.com/487668/50-writers-you-need-to-see-read-live

I read an article on 50 Writers You Need to See Read Live and it made me think about all our Netwest writers. How many of us take time to work on our readings so they will entertain our audience and keep them wanting to hear more? How many of us say the work must stand on its on and we don't worry about the presentation?

I noticed in the article that almost every single person listed used humor in his/her presentation. Does that mean we can't read about serious subjects? I don't think so.

Read the original article and see what the author thinks makes a good reader.

Netwest holds open mic and featured reader events in our region. Send us the names of those
you think do a very good job of reading their work.
We can help each other by telling what we enjoy from our writers and poets when they read.
Send your thoughts to me by Email: glendabeall@msn.com

Sunday, May 25, 2014

COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS


2014 updated schedule 

Second Wednesday of each month
10:30 a.m. Blue Mountain Restaurant in Peachtree near Murphy Medical Hospital and Tri-County College in Cherokee, County, NC. You might take home one of the door prizes offered each month. 
Stay for lunch when we pull the tables together and visit.

MARCH  12  Deanna Klingel

APRIL 9– Brenda Kay Ledford

MAY 14  -- Lucy Gratton and Joan Howard

JUNE 11Estelle Rice

JULY 9 -- Glenda Beall

AUGUST 13  -- Staci Bell and Linda Smith

SEPTEMBER 10 – Carole Thompson

OCTOBER 8 – Mary Mike Keller and Bob Grove

NOVEMBER 12 -- Karen Holmes – Paul Schofield


DECEMBER – open mic  and sign up for next year