Rarey and Grove are featured at Coffee with the Poets and Writers March 20

On Wednesday, March 20, at 10:30 AM, Coffee with the Poets and Writers (CWPW) will feature storyteller Knute Rarey and writer Bob Grove. 

The event will be held at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC, and is free and open to the public. An open mic will follow the presentation. CWPW is sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network West (NCWN-W).  

        Kanute Rarey is a local storyteller. He told his first "official" story in 2015 atJohn C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, and later at the Swapping Ground at the International Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Since then he has also told stories at the Georgia Mountain Storytelling Festival, the Big Fibbers Festival, the Texas Storytelling Festival, the Moth Story Slam in Asheville, and the Stone Soup Festival.

       Born on a family farm in Ohio, he began visiting the North Georgia mountains regularly about forty years ago and fell in love with the people, their stories, the wild rivers, beautiful lakes, and mountains. He moved to Hayesville in 1990 and lived here for ten years. Work then took him away. Four years ago he retired back to Hayesville full-time.

       Rarey is a traveler, teacher, grandfather, and lifelong learner. Stories are from his personal life, from growing up on a farm in the Western Carolina mountains, from listening to family tales at breakfast gatherings and holiday meals, from the "characters" that make up his family, and from living with children and grandchildren. Some of his stories are established fables that hold life lessons that have been told over and over for many years. Other stories are works of his imagination.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Bob Grove lives with his wife Judy and their adorable Sheltie in a 55-acre woodland atop a mountain of North Carolina.  His diversified college curriculum led him to teach high school courses in science, psychology, English, and creative writing. Grove served as an ABC public affairs host, interviewing many newsworthy notables. He has been a featured speaker at 14 national conventions and a U.S. Congressional committee. 

His interests have led him to treasure hunting in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador, exploring in Alaska, roaming through old, abandoned houses, and sightseeing the beautiful Grand Canyon of the Pacific on the island of Kauai.   

Now retired and a prose critique facilitator for the North Carolina Writers Network-West and the Ridgeline Literary Alliance, he has published 19 books and hundreds of articles in 23 magazines. 

With more time to write, Grove varies his topical genres from humor to drama, and even dabbles in occasional poetry. He is a popular performance reader, evidenced by his well-attended annual reading, in costume and British dialect, of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown. 

    For more information about this event, please contact Glenda Beall at: glendabeall@msn.com.