Author Sandy Benson and Poet Richard Cary to Read at Campbell School

Author Sandy Benson and Poet Richard Montfort Cary will read from their work at the Literary Hour Thursday, April 20, at 7 pm in the Keith House Living Room of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.  The Literary Hour is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West and is free and open to everyone.

Benson will read selections from her first book, “My Mother’s Keeper: One Family’s Journey Through Dementia,” and the book she is currently working on, “Girls Can’t Do That,” a collection of

Sandy Benson

mostly humorous short stories about her life as one of America’s first female foresters.  Cary will read selections from his forthcoming chronological autobiography of his poetry.

Benson is a soon-to-be-retired professional forester with a background in journalism.  She has worked as a forester in Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska, while moonlighting as a reporter, editor, publisher, and freelance non-fiction writer.  Numerous newspapers and magazines have published her articles, and she received several awards from the Nebraska Press Women’s organization.

She has lived with her husband, Barry, in Warne, NC, since 2018 and enjoys sharing tales at local storyteller gatherings and writing publicity releases for the Peacock Performing Arts Center in Hayesville.

Cary began writing poetry in high school and continues to this day.  He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1964 with a BFA in Theatre Arts, and spent six years in regional theatres, before moving year-round to Nantucket Island, MA, where he became a designer and builder of custom

Richard Cary

homes.  In 1985, he founded Actors Theatre of Nantucket, the island’s professional theatre company, and served as Artistic Director for twenty years.

His claim to local fame is that his great aunt, Olive Dame Campbell, founded the Campbell Folk School.  In April 2022, he wrote and directed “The Birth Of The John C Campbell Folk School” which received generous praise when it was performed at the Peacock.  The theatre hosted an encore production this year.  He and his wife Cheryl moved to Hayesville NC in 2017.

Local poet and author Joan Howard will host the event.

The John C. Campbell Folk School offers classes in folk arts and crafts and storytelling.  For information about the school, you can find its webpage and contact information at https://www.folkschool.org/.  Students and faculty of the school are welcome to attend the readings.

A Good NIght at Writers' Night Out

We were fortunate to have Dana Wildsmith as our featured guest for Writers' Night Out on Zoom. 

She writes poetry and prose and I enjoy all of her books. The memoir, Back to Abnormal, begins with her stepping on a rattlesnake and being bitten. Tonight she told us how upsetting it was for her when people took it so lightly and made it seem to be her fault. Most of us think it just takes a shot of anti-venom and you are fine, but she explains in her book just how painful the whole thing is and that it continues for days and weeks. And she said you take many anti-venom shots, not just one. But, she didn't take the anti-venom shots because she was told that if she was allergic she could die from the shots. It was a horrible experience.

Dana lives on an old family farm in Bethlehem, Georgia, a town where people come at Christmas to have their holiday cards stamped. 

Dana's newest book is One Light, a book of poems that centers on the caregiving of a loved one.

Her mother, Grace, probably saved Dana's life when she was fourteen and her nightgown caught fire as she stood too close to the fireplace. The child had massive burns all over her body and needed extensive care as she recovered. But her mother never left her side. In the book, One Light, Dana writes poetry about her mother's care. But she also writes poems about caring for Grace in later life who developed a terrible form of dementia. 

Anyone who has cared for a loved one with any kind of brain disorder knows the sorrow and frustration that occurs. I found it enlightening when Dana wrote poems in her mother's voice and in her own voice exploring the situation. 

Dana teaches often at the John C. Campbell Folk School online and in person. She will be teaching a class in person in January 2023.

https://folkschool.configio.com/pd/809/writing-in-a-changing-world?st_t=2077&st_ti=2516&cid=2527&returncom=productlist&source=search

Register early to be sure you can get in. If you live in local surrounding counties, you may get a discount on the price.

We thank Dana for being our guest at WNO and look forward to reading her books which are available at City Lights Books in Sylva, NC, and can be purchased at most local bookstores. You can also order them from the publishers. Go to Amazon.com to learn more.

We welcome you to join us for Writers' Night Out no matter where you live. Writers from Florida, Wyoming, and distant counties in North Carolina attend each month. They often read at Open Mic. Contact Karen Paul Holmes or Glenda Beall if you don't receive an invitation with the link to the Zoom meeting. 

 

Update on Writing Events and what to expect in the future

Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC is still closed and will be through May 2. 
Coffee with the Poets and Writers will not meet in May.

The Literary Hour usually held at the John C. Campbell Folk School will not meet in May.
Tri-County Community College is closed and the NCWN-West poetry and prose groups will not meet until the college is opened again.

No events are planned for NCWN-West until we all feel safe gathering in groups again. At this time, I can't imagine when that will be.

We might hold some Zoom events for writers including Writers' Night Out in May, but at this time we have no definite plans.

We would like to hear from you. Would you like to meet on Zoom or on Skype?

If enough of our members want to meet online, we will look at that possibility.
Leave a comment on this blog or email me your opinion.
gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com

If you participated in the Cabin Fever conference held by NCWN last Saturday, please let us know your thoughts about it. I signed on for four workshops and I did enjoy the entire day. Some of the groups had as many as 63 attending. Some of them muted their video and we could not see their faces. But that was fine. Some also muted their audio and they did not speak during the class time.

The instructors were excellent, especially Lynn York, editor for Blair Publishing and Robin, her co-instructor was exemplary in her presentation. I think this was the most detailed presentation I have seen or heard on what happens as your manuscript goes through the process of being published. Some of my thoughts on traditional publishers and marketing changed after hearing them speak.

I am teaching a free writing course for the next four weeks online using Zoom. If this experiment goes well, I will consider opening Writers Circle Around the Table and teaching online for pay in the coming months. 

We can make these months at home productive if we use our time to reflect on what we do, what we like to do and how we can better achieve our writing goals.

We can use this time to submit to contests and keep our work out, don't hoard your writing on your computer, submit it and give it a chance to mingle while you stay home. 

Come see Bob Grove perform A Christmas Carol, tonight, at the John C. Campbell Folk School at 7:00 PM, Keith House Community Room, Brasstown, NC

December 11, 2019

Time: Admission:

7 p.m. - 8 p.m. Free

Location:  Community Room, Keith House

A Christmas Carol

In period costume, Bob Grove will present a dramatic reading of the classic tale, including character voices. In the familiar story, miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future who, in the course of a night, convince him to abandon his "bah, humbug" ways.

https://www.folkschool.org/event.php?event_type_id=15

The Literary Hour Readings, This Thursday, October 17, 2019, at JCC Folk School, Brasstown, NC, featuring, Glenda Council Beall, James F. I. Davis, and Mary Michelle Brodine Keller

On Thursday, October 17, 2019, 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. This event is now held in the community room. 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, James F. I. Davis, and Mary Michelle Brodine Keller.

Glenda Council Beall moved from southwest Georgia to Hayesville, North Carolina in 1995; it has been home ever since. Her poetry, essays and short stories have been published online, in magazines and in literary journals. Beall’s poetry chapbook, Now Might as Well be Then, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009. She co-authored a collection of stories, poems and articles in 2018, Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins, Family Pets and God’s Other Creatures.

One of her hobbies is genealogy. In 1998 she compiled stories about her grandfather and his ten children and the hardback book, Profiles and Pedigrees, The Descendants of Thomas Charles Council (1858 – 1911).

Beall teaches writing in her studio, Writers Circle around the Table, the Institute of Continuing Learning, and Tri-County Community College. She serves as program coordinator for the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West.

James F. I.  Davis grew up on a family farm, got a degree in Economics from Cornell University, an MBA in International Business from The American University, and spent three years in the US Army, leaving as a Captain. Davis was an international banker for most of his working years, lived in Europe and Latin America, and traveled to more than 50 countries during his career. 

Several hundred of Davis’ articles have been published, mostly about finance, economics and the effects of government policies on people's standard of living. Recently he has been writing mostly humorous stories about interesting people and/or unique situations he encountered while traveling the world for business and pleasure. He hopes to turn these stories into an entertaining novel. His first literary attempt garnered second place in a national short story contest.

Mary Michelle Brodine Keller, or Mary Mike as she is often called by her friends, writes poetry, essays, and short fiction. She draws her subject matter from things she sees or experiences, putting meaning to them. She is also a visual artist, painting in oil, watercolors and pastels.  She likes to think of her poetry as painting with words. 

Her poems have been published in The Mountain Lynx, and in anthologies: Freeing Jonah III and IV, Lights in the Mountains, Echos Across the Blueridge, Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains and various other publications. She calls herself a reader, reading to others in a variety of settings, and finding that more satisfying than publication, as it is a shared experience.

For more information regarding this event, contact Mary Ricketson at: maryricketson311@hotmail.com.

Dana Wildsmith author of new book, One Light, will teach at John C. Campbell Folk School

I just received Dana’s new poetry book, One Light, published by Texas Review Press, a memoir in poetry. It seems that she and I have walked the same path in life. She was burned terribly as a fourteen year old and writes about the anguish of almost losing her hand, and describes the pain. She sings and has a poem on page 30 titled Hymns.

I watched my husband’s face and listened to him sing hymns while nurses pulled off the layers of dead skin from his cancer-ridden leg. I felt his pain as she described the painful scraping of dead skin from her burned arms and hands.  

Read the title poem below.

A single light can lead you home. One light

is all you need to break the back of night

when darkness seems to weigh  more than it has

on all the nights before, and nothing’s as

it was. Bit by bit, the lighter shades

of night you used to trust have faded as

you stopped believing in relief. The dark

goes on forever, and begins right where you are.

But when your eyes can’t guide your steps, you learn

to trust your heart instead. You rise and turn

toward where you need to go, and in the dark

you think you see a glimmer like a star

that wasn’t there until you headed home

through darkness, trusting that a light would come.

In the poem, Hospital Days, Dana writes about a few good memories she had from those weeks in the hospital; hot dogs from the deli, her friends who came to see her and to sing with her. Her mother took care of her through this time knowing her daughter could lose her hands. She was Dana’s rock, always. You can’t read Dana’s work without knowing her Mama.  Sadly the time came when Dana became the care-giver when her mother’s mind began to fade. Her Mama died from an aneurysm. 

Balancing on the precarious rock trying not to do or say too much, but needing to say and do so much. The poems about her mother at ninety broke my heart, and filled me with memories as I thought about my mother who lost her short term memory after an aneurysm damaged a part of her brain.

As Fred Chappell said, “Here are some of the strongest poems I have ever read. I am grateful for this truest of books.” I am grateful, too.

Dana will be teaching “What’s in Your Writing Folder?” Sunday, September 8 – Saturday September 14.

Dana has been a Folk School instructor since 2004. Her environmental memoir, "Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South," was finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. She is also the author of five collections of poetry, including "Christmas in Bethlehem." Her newest collection of poems, "One Light," is a memoir in poetry. Dana has served as artist-in-residence for Grand Canyon National Park and Everglades National Park; as writer-in-residence for the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska; and she is a fellow of the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. She teaches English Literacy through Lanier Technical College.

Visit Dana's website

The Literary Hour at JCCFS, Brasstown, NC, to feature Joan Ellen Gage, Bob Grove, and Carroll S. Taylor on Wednesday, April 17, 2019

On Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 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 Joan Ellen Gage, Bob Grove, and Carroll S. Taylor. For more information on this event, please contact Mary Ricketson at: maryricketson311@hotmail.com.

Joan Ellen Gage is an author of humor and inspiration written from her own unique perspective. Her recipe for her writing focuses on staying upbeat and laughing at her own foibles. Gage’s photos are the spice in the mix that serve to punctuate the writing and add that special garnish to her creations. 

Joan has written and published five books, Water Running Downhill, Embracing Your Inner Cheerleader, A Redhead Looks At 60, Trinity's Adventures in Imagination, and a special edition of Water Running Downhill! the Rose Edition, as a tribute to her friend Rose Macedo Kull. All of the books are available on Amazon. Currently, Gage is working on a new book entitled: Words of Defiance and Empowerment.

Gage is a former administrator for the NCWN-West blog. Additionally, Ms. Gage has two blogs, Traveling at the Speed of Now, www.joanellengage.com,and A Redhead Blogs at 60, https://joans-zone.com/.

Bob Grove: Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Bob holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kent State University and a Master of Science degree from Florida Atlantic University. His diversified curriculum qualified him to teach high school courses in biology, anatomy and physiology, earth and space science, astronomy and space science, psychology, English, journalism, and creative writing.  

 Bob was an ABC-TV public affairs director and on-air program host, and founder and publisher of Monitoring Times Magazine. He has published 19 books and hundreds of articles in 23 magazines. Additionally, he has published a mystery novella, Secrets of Magnolia Manor, his memoir, Misadventures of an Only Child, a collection of children’s stories: Adventures of Kaylie and Jimmy, and many flash fiction stories as well as some poetry. Grove’s books can be found on Amazon.

Grove is prose critique facilitator for the North Carolina Writers Network and a co-facilitator of the Ridgeline Literary Alliance.

Carroll S. Taylor grew up in rural West Central Georgia. A graduate of Tift College (Mercer University) with a BA in French, she holds graduate degrees in French and English as well as an EdS in Educational Leadership. An educator for forty-three years, Taylor taught French, English, Journalism, Creative Writing, and ESL, and advised students to create and publish school newspapers and yearbooks. After retirement, she moved on to her second career as a part-time instructor at Columbus State University, teaching freshman composition. 

Taylor is the author of two young adult novels, Chinaberry Summer and Chinaberry Summer: On the Other Side. She is currently writing the third novel in the series, Chinaberry Summer: Down by the Water. Her books emphasize generational storytelling and respect for the valuable role of reptiles and amphibians in our ecosystem. One of the personal highlights of publishing her novels was her book reading held in the childhood home of Carson McCullers. 

Readers may find her journal blog at chinaberrysummer.com, and  follow her at: https://www.facebook.com/ChinaberrySummer/. .

Carroll is a member of North Carolina Writers’ Network, North Carolina Writers’ Network-West, and the Georgia Poetry Society.