Linda Grayson Jones, Meagan Lucas, and Janice Townley Moore to read at The Literary Hour at JCCFS, Brasstown, NC, on Thursday, November 21, 2019, at 7:00 PM

On Thursday, November 21, 2019, at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and NC Writers' Network-West (NCWN-West) will sponsor The Literary Hour, where NCWN-West members will read at the Keith House’s Community Room on the JCCFS campus, in Brasstown, NC. This event is typically held on the third Thursday of the month, is free of charge and open to the public. This month's featured readers will be Linda Grayson Jones, Meagan Lucas, and Janice Townley Moore.

Linda Grayson Jones, a poetry devotee since childhood, has a B.S. in Biology from

Stetson University, an M.A. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Pathology from Vanderbilt University. In 2009, she returned to her first love—teaching.

Jones is currently an Associate Professor of Biology and Dean of Math and Science at Young Harris College. She remains a reader and writer of poetry. 

Janice Moore is an Associate Professor Emerita of English at Young Harris College.  Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Connecticut Review, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, and The Journal of the American Medical Association.  

Moore's chapbook, Teaching the Robins, was published by Finishing Line Press. Among the anthologies that include her poems are The Bedford Introduction to Literature, and three volumes of: The Southern Poetry Anthology: Contemporary Appalachia, Georgia, and North Carolina, from Texas Review Press.  

Moore is coordinator of the NCWN-West’s poetry critique group and is on the poetry editorial board of The Pharos, publication of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.

Meagan Lucas teaches English at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and is the Fiction Editor at Barren Magazine. Meagan has a BA in History from Wilfrid Laurier University, an M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction from Ferris State University, and an MA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

Meagan’s stories have been published in a variety of journals including: Four Ties Literary Review, Santa Fe Writers Project, The Same Literary Journal, The New Southern Fugitives, Barren Magazine and Still: The Journal. Lucas  won the 2017 Scythe Prize for Fiction, was the runner up in the 2017 SNHU Fall Fiction Competition, and a Judge’s Choice finalist in the 2018 Still: The Journal Fiction competition. Her story “Voluntary Action” was nominated by Still: The Journal for a 2019 Pushcart Prize.

Her first novel, Songbirds and Stray Dogs was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in August 2019.

For more information on this event, contact Mary Ricketson at:

 maryricketson311@hotmail.com

 

Popular NC poets to read on Wednesday, June 27, 2018, at the JCCFS, Brasstown, NC

At 7:00 PM on Wednesday, June 27, 2018, the John C. Campbell Folk School and the 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 usually 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 Linda Grayson Jones, Brenda Kay Ledford, and Maura Payne Way.

Linda Grayson Jones

Linda Grayson Jones has read and written poetry since childhood and recalls reading The Highwayman to her 3rd grade classmates. She has a B.S. in Biology from Stetson University, an M.A. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Pathology from Vanderbilt University. Her career path has been primarily in academic biomedical research, but in 2009 she returned to her first love—teaching. 

Jones is currently an Associate Professor of Biology and Dean of Math and Science at Young Harris College. She remains a reader and writer of poetry and is a member of North Carolina Writer’s Network.  She credits Nancy Simpson for encouraging her to use Grayson Jones as her published poet’s name.

Brenda Kay Ledford

Brenda Kay Ledford is a seventh-generational native of Clay County, NC.  She was an honor graduate of Hayesville High School, earned her Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University, and received a diploma of highest honors in Creative Writing from Stratford Career Institute. 

Her work has appeared in many journals.  Her latest poetry collection, "Crepe Roses," won the 2015 Paul Green Multimedia Award from NC Society of Historians.  She's won this award 10 times for her books, blogs, and collecting oral history of Southern Appalachia.

Her life-experience essay, "The Front Porch," won first place in the 2018 Cherokee/Clay County Senior Games Silver Arts Literary Contest.  She qualified for the State Finals that will be held this fall in Raleigh.

Maura Payne Way: Originally from Washington, D.C, Maura now makes her home in Greensboro, NC. Her debut collection, Another Bungalow, was released by Press 53 in 2017. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, O. Henry Magazine, Verse, DIAGRAM, and The Chattahoochee Review.

Payne studied poetry at Mary Washington College and Boise State University. In addition to her being a poet, Maura teaches 9th and 10th grade English at New Garden Friends School. She has been a teacher for twenty years.