Coffee With the Poets and Writers to Resume Monthly Meetings at Moss Memorial Library

Marcia Barnes, Renowned Poet and Writer, Will Speak

Coffee with the Poets and Writers (CWPW) will feature poet and writer Marcia Barnes on Wednesday, June 8 at 10:30 A.M. at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, N.C.

The event is free and open to the public. An open mic will follow the presentation. Bring a poem or short prose piece to participate. CWPW is sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network West (NCWN-West), which also includes writers in Towns, Union, Fannin, and Rabun Counties in Georgia.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers will meet every second Wednesday from June until December 2022. Masks are optional.

Marcia Barnes earned a Bachelor’s degree in fine art, with a concentration in drawing, from the University of South Florida, Tampa. She grew up in Washington State near Puget Sound and in sight of the mountains.

Barnes writes poetry and has authored three published books. Currently, she writes feature articles and reports on local news for the Clay County Progress. Barnes says that the degree she received did not lead to her earlier career, and that career did not cut a path to writing.

After a series of nondescript jobs, while finishing college and raising four children, she had a 20-year career in the commercial flooring industry. Working from an office in Tampa, she traveled west to Fort Worth, south to the Bahamas, north to Kentucky, and many places in between.

In March 2004, her husband’s engineering work moved the couple to middle Georgia. Barnes took a part-time job with a designer in Perry, then started writing and never stopped.

Two of her published books were written while living in Warner Robins, “The Little Book of Secret Family Recipes” and “Tobijah,” illustrated by Doreyl Ammons Cain. Barnes was awarded the Georgia Author of the Year Award in the Children’s Book Category for “Tobijah” in 2017, by the Georgia Writers Association.

Barnes’ second children’s book, “A Day with Tobijah” was published in 2019, after a move to the North Georgia Mountains.

Her poetry has been published by Negative Capability Press, Poem, Slant and appeared in Poetry and Prose Anthologies published by Old Mountain Press.

Barnes says that she is still not completely sure how she got from there to here, but friends who write, and the North Carolina Writers Network, and the people she works with at Clay County Progress have been a huge help.

Barnes lives in Clay County, N.C., with her lively cat Celeste. For more information, contact Joan Howard, joanhoward121@gmail.com,