JCCFS's The Literary Hour to feature poets and writers Glenda Council Beall, Karen Paul Holmes, and Estelle Darrow Rice, on Thursday, September 20, 2018, in the Keith House, Brasstown, NC

On Thursday, September 20, 2018, at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and NC Writers' Network-West will sponsor The Literary Hour. At this event, NCWN-West members will read at the Keith House on the JCCFS campus, in Brasstown, NC. The Literary Hour is held on the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise indicated. This reading is free of charge and open to the public. This month's featured readers will be Glenda Council Beall, Karen Paul Holmes and Estelle Darrow Rice. 

Glenda Council Beall has been writing and publishing poetry, short stories and personal essays since 1995. In 1998, she published a family history book, Profiles and Pedigrees, Descendants of Thomas Charles Council (1858 – 1911). In 2009, her poetry chapbook, Now Might as Well be Then, was published by Finishing Line Press. 

Beall is owner/director of Writers Circle around the Table, a writing studio in Hayesville, NC. She opened the studio in 2010 after her husband passed away. She teaches there and brings in top rated instructors to hold classes at reasonable rates for local writers. Beall also teaches at the Institute of Continuing Learning at Young Harris College and at Tri-County Community College in the Community Enrichment department.

Animal lover Beall, along with writer Estelle Rice, produced their first book together. Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins. Filled with color pictures of family pets and family members, these stories will entertain, and bring a smile or a tear.

Karen Paul Holmes splits her time between Atlanta and the Blue Ridge Mountains. With an MA in music history from the University of Michigan, she eventually made her way to the warm south and became Vice President-Marketing Communications at ING, a global financial services company.

Karen now leads a kinder gentler life as a freelance writer and poet. She finds joy participating in poetry readings and supporting poetry.

A member of the North Carolina Writers' Network, the Atlanta Writers Club, and the Georgia Poetry Society, she has studied with poets: Thomas Lux, Denise Duhamel, Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, William Wright, Carol Ann Duffy, and Nancy Simpson (whom she counts as her first poetry mentor).

Karen Paul Holmes has two full-length poetry collections, No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin Books, 2018) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich Press, 2014). In 2012, Karen received an Elizabeth George Foundation emerging writer grant for poetry. She was chosen as a Best Emerging Poet in 2016 by Stay Thirsty Media. Publications include Prairie Schooner, Valparaiso Review, Tar River Poetry, Poet Lore and other journals and anthologies. Holmes hosts a critique group in Atlanta and Writers’ Night Out in Blairsville, which she founded. She also teaches writing classes at the Folk School, Writer’s Circle, and other venues.

 

Estelle Darrow Rice is a poet and writer of short stories and personal essays.  She holds a BA degree in Psychology from Queens University, Charlotte, NC and a MA degree in counseling from the University of South Alabama, Mobile AL. Her work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies.  She published a popular book of spiritual poems, Quiet Times.

She is originally from Charlotte, NC, but she and her late husband, Nevin Rice, lived in Mississippi before retiring to Cherokee County. She has resided in Marble, NC for the past twenty years. Before her husband became ill, Rice taught writing classes for NCWN-West and at Writers Circle around the Table. She was always a favorite instructor.

Estelle is an animal lover and with co-writer Glenda Council Beall, wrote and published a collection of poems and stories about family pets and other non-human species, Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins.