COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS OCTOBER 8

Coffee with the Poets and Writers, a monthly literary event held at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill, 30 NC Hwy 141, Murphy, NC will hold a reading at 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, October 8. Two members of NCWN West, Bob Grove and Mary Michelle Brodine Keller, are featured on the program this month. The public is invited.


Bob Grove was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but now lives in the mountains of North Carolina. He earned his Bachelor of Arts at Kent State University and his Master of Science at Florida Atlantic University. His diversified curriculum enabled him to teach courses in English, journalism, creative writing, physics, chemistry, biology and psychology.

Bob has been an ABC-TV public affairs director, an on-air personality, and the founder and publisher of Monitoring Times magazine. A prose critique facilitator for the North Carolina Writers’ Network West and an officer with the Ridgeline Literary Alliance, he has published seventeen books and hundreds of articles in sixteen national magazines.

Now retired after 35 years as founder of Grove Enterprises, an international supplier of radio communications equipment, Bob has more time to write. Most recently, he has published a mystery novella (Secrets of Magnolia Manor), his memoir (Misadventures of an Only Child), a collection of children’s stories (Adventures of Kaylie and Jimmy), and has written several flash fiction stories as well as some forgettable poetry. Bob’s public readings are popular as a performance art form, typified by his annual December reading, in costume and dialect, of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the John C. Campbell Folk School.His collected writings on technical topics are now available online, as is his Abnormal Psychology which he uses as a teaching text in continuing education classes. As an experienced auctioneer, he has also published a collector’s guide, Antiquing. All Bob’s publications are available on Amazon Kindle. Visit his website at www.bobgrove.org.

Mary Michelle Brodine Keller, a published poet and writer, and a seasoned genealogist lives in Hiawassee, GA. She served as publicity director for NCWN West and is on faculty at Writers Circle around the Table where she teaches a class, Bones to Flesh, writing about your ancestors.

In her writing, she draws inspiration from something she has seen or an incident that intrigues her — a casually spoken phrase becomes the cornerstone of an essay, short story or poem. She is a visual artist and paints in oil, water color and pastels. She is also a musician and plays piano, guitar and dulcimer.

Known to her friends as Mary Mike, her poems have been published in The Mountain Lynx, Freeing Jonah III and IV, and Lights in the Mountains. Her poem "As The Deer" was published in ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers is open to the public at no charge. Bring a poem or short story and read at Open Mic. Those attending are invited to join the writers and poets for lunch and to enjoy a social hour.

This event is sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network West. Contact NCWN West Representative, Glenda Beall, at 828-389-4441 or gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com  for information.