A message from Travis Denton and Katie Chaple

From: Denton, Travis W 

Dear Friends—

Katie and I hope all’s well where you are, and that you and yours are all safe and healthy. (Katie continues to tell me to stop touching my face.) Right now, we’re all physically distancing ourselves, but I have an opportunity for you where we can be “virtually” together this summer and do the good work of poetry.

Katie and I are co-leading Manhattanville College’s Summer Writer’s Week Poetry Workshop in Purchase, NY coming up from June 22 to June 26. This is a wonderful and exciting program that we’re thrilled to be a part of. Now, the program is going to happen via Zoom (not in person, because of, well, you know) and that’ll work just fine. We’ll have a lot of fun, and do the good work of poetry. We invite each and every one of you to be a part of the workshop. Please do hurry to sign up—space is limited.

Our poetry workshop will be in the morning each day for about three hours, and in the afternoon there will be craft talks, and poetry readings in the evening. And if you sign up to join our poetry workshop, we will also offer each of you an hour’s worth of free one-on-one poetry/manuscript consultation. How’s that?

Here’s the link to the Manhattanville Summer Writer’s Week Webpage with all the info on how to join. http://mvillemfa.com/summer-writers-week/summer-writers-week-2020/ Feel free to share this link with anyone you think might be interested. If you have any questions at all or just want to be in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

Stay safe, everyone!

Only Good Things Always,

Travis & Katie

Writers' Night Out in May

We held our second Zoom online Writers' Night Out on Friday with guests,    Travis Denton and Katie Chaple,husband and wife poets from Atlanta, Georgia.           


The evening was enjoyable with the two talking and asking questions to each other about writing poetry. They were humorous, relaxed and likable.

We had a glitch at the beginning of the hour because we had sent out two different links for the Zoom meeting, but hopefully, everyone found us eventually.This type of venue is not as familiar to us as we would like, but hope we can master it before long. Our open mic readers were in Florida, Watkinsville, Georgia, Hiawassee, Georgia, and local.

I thought it interesting that Katie and Travis have already scheduled a week of workshops in the fall and all will be online. We will probably find that many of the gatherings we have been used to will end up being online. NCWN has ongoing workshops online. 

At the present time, we have no plans to hold Coffee with the Poets and Writers this summer even if the Moss Library opens soon. Neither will we hold the Literary Hour at the John C. Campbell Folk School if it opens soon. We hope to plan for the fall, but will see what the country looks like then. 

Because these meetings are open to the public, we would have to police seating and wearing of masks and our leaders aren't ready to take that on now. Also, many of our members and audience are over 65 which puts them in the high risk group for COVID-19. We prefer to stay home and wait than to take risks with our lives.

I hope you are learning how to take online classes to improve your writing and to motivate you to write while you are home. With more time on our hands, we can polish up those manuscripts in our folders and submit them.

We would love to have our members contribute posts for this blog. Give us ten tips for writing poetry, fiction, short stories or creative nonfiction. You are accomplished writers, and I know you have things you can share with others.

If you have a list of prompts you could share, send them in and we will publish them. We don't get many comments but we have a large readership from all over the world. When you post here, we will also list your books, your website, etc. This site belongs to our members. Let us hear from you.
To make it easy, send to glendabeall@msn.com 

NCWN-West and Georgia Poetry Society Team Up for Two Events

An exciting weekend is in store in Blairsville, Georgia (a lovely mountain community on the border of NC)

October 13: Writers' Night Out, 7 pm

October 14: Georgia Poetry Society meeting (non-members welcome), 9:30 am-3 pm

Writers' Night Out features two local writers, Mary Michelle Keller and Natalie Grant.

Open mic follows - sign up at the door to read poetry or prose for 3 minutes. 

Union County Community Center in the heart of Blairsville, GA. Food and drink available (self-pay) at the View Grill - please arrive by 6 pm if you're having dinner. 

The Georgia Poetry Society quarterly meeting takes place at the Choestoe Schoolhouse, Blairsville. 

Featured presenters: Georgia poets Travis Denton and Katie Chaple. NC poets, Tina Barr and Brett Martin

The day includes presentations on craft, hands-on writing exercises, poetry contest announcements, and an open mic—plus the camaraderie and good spirits of fellow writers. Breakfast items will be provided, and lunch from G & G Bakery and Café will be available for purchase on site. While the meeting will be geared toward poetry enthusiasts, all writers are welcome. More info here: GPS Fall meeting. If you plan on having lunch, please RSVP to Lyn Hopper by Oct. 10 at gpstreas@gmail.com 

Writers' Night Out Nov 8

Our last Writers’ Night Out for 2013

features

Katie Chaple & Travis Denton

Two entertaining readers who are university poetry instructors, editors and husband & wife: You’re in for a treat.

Oh yeah, an Open Mike too!

 

Last month, we had a small group of 10 in attendance, so please come this Friday to give these wonderful poets a large and enthusiastic audience as we usually do for Writers' Night Out. November is our last meeting of the year -- we'll resume in March 2014.

Writers’ Night Out
Friday, Nov 8

Brothers Willow Ranch Restaurant, Young Harris, GA
Private Room upstairs (can access by ramp from upper parking lot)

6:00-7:00 eat dinner or munchies and socialize (come early to order dinner)
7:00-ish announcements and featured reader
Break
7:45-ish Open mike, sign up at door, limit 3 minutes per poetry or prose reader (Please time yourself at home, let's make it fair to everyone. Prose readers can often eliminate some details and still captivate the audience with their piece).

Featured Poets' Bios:

Katie Chaple is the author of Pretty Little Rooms (Press 53, August 2011), winner of the 2012 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry through Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. She teaches poetry and writing at the University of West Georgia and edits Terminus Magazine. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Antioch Review, Crab Orchard Review, Mead, New South, Passages North, StorySouth, The Rumpus, Washington Square, and others.

Travis Denton is the Associate Director of Poetry @ TECH as well as a McEver Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech. He is also founding editor of the literary arts publication, Terminus Magazine. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies, such as Mead, The Atlanta Review, The Greensboro Review, Washington Square, Forklift, Rattle, Tygerburning, Birmingham Poetry Review, and the Cortland Review. His second collection of poems, When Pianos Fall from the Sky, was published in October 2012 by Marick Press.