On Thursday, September 20, 2018, 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 Glenda Council Beall,
Karen Paul Holmes and Estelle Darrow Rice.
Glenda Council Beall has been writing and publishing poetry,
short stories and personal essays since 1995. In 1998, she published a family
history book, Profiles and Pedigrees,
Descendants of Thomas Charles Council (1858 – 1911). In 2009, her poetry
chapbook, Now Might as Well be Then,
was published by Finishing Line Press.
Beall is owner/director of Writers Circle around the Table,
a writing studio in Hayesville, NC. She opened the studio in 2010 after her
husband passed away. She teaches there and brings in top rated instructors to
hold classes at reasonable rates for local writers. Beall also teaches at the
Institute of Continuing Learning at Young Harris College and at Tri-County
Community College in the Community Enrichment department.
Animal lover Beall, along with writer Estelle Rice, produced
their first book together. Paws, Claws,
Hooves, Feathers and Fins. Filled with color pictures of family pets and
family members, these stories will entertain, and bring a smile or a tear.
Karen Paul Holmes splits her time between Atlanta and the Blue
Ridge Mountains. With an MA in music history from the University of Michigan,
she eventually made her way to the warm south and became Vice
President-Marketing Communications at ING, a global financial services company.
Karen now leads a kinder gentler life as a freelance writer
and poet. She finds joy participating in poetry readings and supporting poetry.
A member of the North Carolina Writers' Network, the Atlanta
Writers Club, and the Georgia Poetry Society, she has studied with poets:
Thomas Lux, Denise Duhamel, Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, William Wright, Carol
Ann Duffy, and Nancy Simpson (whom she counts as her first poetry mentor).
Karen Paul Holmes has two full-length poetry collections, No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin
Books, 2018) and Untying the Knot
(Aldrich Press, 2014). In 2012, Karen received an Elizabeth George Foundation
emerging writer grant for poetry. She was chosen as a Best Emerging Poet in
2016 by Stay Thirsty Media.
Publications include Prairie Schooner, Valparaiso Review, Tar River Poetry, Poet Lore
and other journals and anthologies. Holmes hosts a critique group in Atlanta
and Writers’ Night Out in Blairsville, which she founded. She also teaches
writing classes at the Folk School, Writer’s Circle, and other venues.
Estelle Darrow Rice is a poet and writer of short stories
and personal essays. She holds a BA
degree in Psychology from Queens University, Charlotte, NC and a MA degree in
counseling from the University of South Alabama, Mobile AL. Her work has been
published in numerous journals and anthologies.
She published a popular book of spiritual poems, Quiet Times.
She is originally from Charlotte, NC, but she and her late
husband, Nevin Rice, lived in Mississippi before retiring to Cherokee County.
She has resided in Marble, NC for the past twenty years. Before her husband
became ill, Rice taught writing classes for NCWN-West and at Writers Circle
around the Table. She was always a favorite instructor.
Estelle is an animal lover and with co-writer Glenda Council
Beall, wrote and published a collection of poems and stories about family pets
and other non-human species, Paws, Claws,
Hooves, Feathers and Fins.
