Interview on You Tube with award-winning Netwest Poet

Brenda Kay Ledford, award-winning poet from Hayesville, NC was interviewed by Pam Roman of  the Clay County Chamber of Commerce regarding her new book, Crepe Roses.

See the complete interview here.

Congratulations, Brenda Kay.

November 8: Last Writers' Night Out for 2014

Local favorite Bob Grove and formerly local, award-winning Eva Nell Mull Wike will entertain us with their stories.

Please Note: There's been a slight change to Writers' Night Out: We no longer have a formal dinner service. Many of us just meet in The View Grill upstairs at the Union County Community Center for dinner or drinks. Then we have our program in the Ballroom (or other room as directed by signs) at 7 p.m.  For directions to the event, click here (the Holiday Inn Express on the map is now a Comfort Suites). As always, you can sign up at the door to read for 3 minutes in the open mic.

Nancy Purcell's poem accepted for Anthology

Kudos to Nancy Purcell, former Transylvania County Representative for Netwest. Her poem, Hard Frost was accepted for inclusion in the anthology, Life is a Roller Coaster from Kind of a Hurricane Press. http://www.kindofahurricanepress.com/

Nancy’s prose has been published in various print media, and she teaches Creative Writing  at Brevard College in their Creekside program for adults. She also facilitates a writing group made up of her students.

A Southern fiction writer, Nancy has learned to tap into readers’ emotions and keep them riveted right up to the final sentence. As a student of relationships, she explores family dynamics that include romance, old age, deceit, even murder. She is also a prose judge for the Carl Sandburg Home Writer-in-Residence program at Flat Rock, NorthCarolina.

Congratulations, Nancy. We look forward to seeing more of your poetry. Visit Nancy online here.

Paul Schofield, novelist, reads at Coffee with the Poets and Writers

Coffee with the Poets and Writers meets the second Wednesday of each month. Murphy resident, Paul Schofield, novelist, is featured November 12 at 10:30 a.m. at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill on the corner of Hwy 141 and Hwy 64 in Cherokee County, NC. This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West (Netwest), and the community is welcome. Visitors are invited to participate at open mic by signing up to read a short prose piece or a couple of poems. 

Paul’s vocation is architecture, but he is also a writer. He has written The Trophy Saga, an action-packed, pure science-fiction trilogy, in the classic style. The Saga features time-travel, chase and battle scenes, fusion powered star-ships, a computer-controlled society, tender moments and scary episodes. Exciting and refreshing to read, the Saga is free of explicit sex, profanity, graphic violence and paranormal themes.

Born and raised in Montana, immersion in the natural world around him was inevitable. As he grew up he learned the complexities of language, and the joy of humor, by the daily exchange of witty puns with his father. An avid reader, Paul’s favorite genre was science fiction.

His interest in the night skies sparked a love for amateur astronomy. Coming of age during the time of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Babylon V, his love of science fiction grew, and his desire to craft and share his own stories was ignited.

When he became chilled to the bone in Montana, he moved to Florida, where he became quite well done…seasoned. Now he and his wife Ellen live in western North Carolina with their highly intelligent cats, contentedly fulfilling their role as “halfbacks.” Learn more about Paul Schofield and his books at his website, http://www.paulmschofield.com/

For more information about Coffee with the Poets and Writers, call 828-389-4441. Visit the NCWN West website, www.ncwriters-west.org 

Randolph P. Shaffner, Netwest member has a new book

“A fascinating, well-researched and long overdue biography of the Virginia Military Institute’s most unheralded founder and underappreciated champion of educational reform.”

       ̶ Dr. Bradford A. Wineman, Marine Corps University

 

Read more about Randolph Shaffner on his website. 

"This is a fascinating and extremely readable book, deeply researched but never pedantic. It presents a thorough and persuasive defense of Col. Preston’s unique role in the founding and preservation of V.M.I. and paints a vivid and often surprising picture not only of this one eccentric, determined reformer—schoolmate of Edgar Allan Poe and brother-in-law of Stonewall Jackson—and his family, but also of Virginia society before, during, and after the Civil War."

       ̶ J J. B. McAfee, Richmond, Virginia

 

"This biography from McFarland Publishing has the type of massive bibliography and expansive scholarly documentation seen in quality original works. I can't say I am familiar with this particular fellow (Civil War readers encounter a lot of Prestons), but, as the title indicates, he was a key figure in the institutional development of VMI. Preston and Stonewall Jackson both married Junkin sisters, and the professor would also serve on Jackson's staff during the war."

     –"New Arrivals," Booknotes IV, Oct. 11, 2014, by Drew at Civil War Books and Authors