Poet Pat Riviere-Seel to be Featured Reader for Mountain Wordsmiths

Noted poet and writer Pat Riviere-Seel will be the featured reader for Mountain Wordsmiths on Thursday morning, September 23, at 10:30 a.m. This event, sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network-West, is being held via Zoom because of COVID concerns. We hope to meet again in person soon; however, we are happy that not only local writers are attending our meetings but writers outside our state as well.

Riviere-Seel’s most recent poetry collection, When There Were Horses, is scheduled for release in the fall of 2021. Her previous collections include Nothing Below but Air, The Serial Killer’s Daughter, and No Turning Back Now. 

The Serial Killer’s Daughter won the North Carolina Literary and Historical Society’s Roanoke Chowan Book Award and Nothing Below but Air was a semifinalist for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. The Serial Killer’s Daughter has been staged by Shared Radiance Performing Arts Company and performed as a one-act play.

 

Riviere-Seel taught poetry classes for UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program for 15 years. She served as the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Distinguished Poet in the Western Region from 2016-2018. The program pairs student poets with an established poet for one-on-one mentoring.

 

In 2017 she received the “Charlie Award” from the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival held in Burnsville, NC. The annual award recognizes a writer who has made significant contributions as a writer and a community builder. In 2012 she held a unique position as poet-in-residence at the North Carolina Zoo. As part of the residency, she wrote a poem for the zoo. Her poem “Summer Solstice” is on display at the black bear exhibit.

 

Her poems were first published when she was an undergraduate at North Carolina State University. After graduation, Riviere-Seel worked as a newspaper journalist, publicist, and as lobbyist for nonprofit organizations in the Maryland State House.

 

She and her husband live in the woods and tend to two black cats they adopted from Brother Wolf, a no-kill animal shelter in Asheville.

Mountain Wordsmiths meets on the fourth Thursday of each month. 

We welcome those who were regulars at Coffee with the Poets and Writers which met at Moss Memorial Library prior to COVID-19 restrictions. Those wishing to attend Mountain Wordsmiths may contact Carroll Taylor at vibiaperpetua@gmail.com to receive the Zoom link.

Members of NCWN-West will receive the Zoom link in an email before the meeting.

Anyone who wishes to participate in Open Mic may sign up upon entering the meeting, and we welcome those who would simply like to listen to the beauty of wordsmithing.