Brenda Kay and Blanche, Ready for Christmas

Brenda Kay Ledford and her mother, Blanche Ledford

The picture above was first posted on Brenda's blog, She gave me permission to share it with all of  you. Brenda Kay Ledford has been a member of NCWN and therefore, a member of NCWN-West for as long as I have been here, about twenty years or more. She lives with and cares for her mother, Blanche, also a published writer.

Brenda Kay's poetry books have won the Paul Green award from the North Carolina Society of Historians several times. She began writing poetry in Nancy Simpson's writing classes and began publishing her work very soon after. She is dedicated to promoting her community in various ways and we often see articles by Brenda Kay in the local newspaper. She's a retired educator and earned her Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University. She studied Journalism at the University of Tennessee and was Creative Writing Editor of "Tri-County Communicator."

Blanche Ledford has not been able to get out much lately due to a fall and a broken hip earlier this year, and we have missed seeing her at our writing events, but she is doing better. Several of Blanche's stories of growing up in Appalachia were published in anthologies by Old Mountain Press. She and Brenda Kay co-wrote a book, Simplicity, about their lives here in Clay County NC. She won the Paul Green award for that book.

The new anthology edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham, It's All Relative, Tales from the Tree, includes one of Blanche's stories, Planting by the Signs.  Curiosity Shop Books in Murphy, NC  carries this book.

Brenda Kay and her mother preserve the old ways of the mountain people by writing about them.
Brenda Kay's most recent book of poetry is Crepe Roses published by Kelsay Books. This book also won a Paul Green Multi Media Award.

Besides posting photography that is a feast for the eyes, Brenda writes on her blog about interesting places to visit. Read about this goat farm right down the road from where I live in Clay county.

The Christmas picture of Brenda Kay and her mother, Blanche, warms my heart because I know they have the same loving relationship I had with my mother.
 Visit Brenda Kay's blog to learn more about them.