Distinguished Local Poet Mary Ricketson Will Speak at Coffee With the Poets and Writers

 Distinguished Local Poet Mary Ricketson Will Speak at 

Coffee With the Poets and Writers

10:30 AM

 October 12 at Moss Memorial Library

 

Coffee With the Poets and Writers (CWPW) will feature well-known poet and columnist Mary Ricketson on Wednesday, October 12, 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 of about three minutes to participate.  CWPW is sponsored by North Carolina Writers' Network West (NCWN-W) which also includes writers in Towns, Fannin, Union, and Rabun Counties in Georgia.

 

Mary Ricketson lives in Murphy, NC, and works as a mental health counselor and a blueberry farmer.  Her poems reflect the healing power of nature, surrounding mountains as midwife for her words.  Her published collections are I Hear the River Call My Name, Hanging Dog Creek, Shade and Shelter, Mississippi: The Story of Luke and Marian, Keeping in Place, and Lira, Poems of a Woodland Woman. Forthcoming book: Precious the Mule.

 She writes a monthly column, Woman to Woman, for the Murphy NC weekly newspaper, The Cherokee Scout.

Her career in the helping professions, since 1970, started as a social worker for the state of Texas.  In North Carolina, she was on the original staff of Industrial Opportunities Inc, a sheltered workshop, developing an innovative training and work opportunity for adults with developmental disabilities. Later she led a 3 county community focus group to study domestic violence and sexual assault, culminating in the founding of REACH, emergency and ongoing services to abused women. She earned a Master's degree in Counseling from Western Carolina University in 1979, having traveled after work, five years of night classes, one or two a semester.  She has been a therapist of individuals and families since 1978, and since 1987 in private practice as a mental health counselor in Murphy, NC.

Mary has a grown son and says, "If I could choose only one thing to repeat in my wonderful life, I would be a mother, happy for the privilege to give life, to keep the circle going."  She also writes, "For a long time when I was growing up, I would write to keep from having to talk, I stuttered so severely.  Eventually, I stopped writing and made myself talk, following whatever determination I could muster.  Now I write to see what nature has to say to me."

Coffee With the Poets and Writers will meet every second Wednesday from June until December 2022.  Masks are optional.  Please do not park in the Book Store Parking Lot.

 For information contact joanhoward121@gmail.com

By Joan M. Howard