Dyre and Mitchell to Read at Literary Hour Aug. 17

  Author Mary Jo Dyre of Murphy and Poet Maren Mitchell will read from their work at the Literary Hour Thursday, Aug. 17, 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.

Mary Jo Dyre

Dyre is the author of “Springheads” which was published in 2023 and is a Murphy, NC, resident.  She began her writing career by completing her deceased brother Arnold Dyre’s half-completed manuscript of “Dark Spot” which became the final book in his Jake Baker Mystery series.

Her novel combines multiple genres of historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure, and fantasy to create a compelling story mixing broad sweeps of history gleaned from the Appalachian mountains, rural Mississippi, the wild west days of Arizona, and the continent of South America.  Dyre is also known in the area for founding a school serving families and students in Cherokee, Clay, and Graham counties, and serving as its executive director from 2000-2021.

Maren O. Mitchell’s poems have appeared in regional, national, and international publications including “Appalachian Heritage,” “The South Carolina Review,” “Southern Humanities Review,” “Appalachian Journal,” and several anthologies.  Three of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and she received a 1st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society.

Maren O. Mitchell

Her chapbook is “In my next life I plan....”  She also has published a nonfiction book “Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide.”  Mitchell, a North Carolina native now living in Georgia, taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College, in Flat Rock, NC, and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site.

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.

The Literary Hour at the folk school started in 1995 and is offered every third Thursday of the month through November, according to Glenda Beall, NCWN-West coordinator.  “Our goals for the Literary Hour at the folk school are to bring local writers and any member of NCWN who is in the area to the campus to share their work,” she said.

Congratulations to Maren O. Mitchell

Maren O. Mitchell

Maren O. Mitchell, a County Representative of NCWN-West for Georgia, has had the following poems published lately: the November, 2021 issue of POEM: "I'd Like to Forget" and "I See the Sounds of Time" - the December, 2021 issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal: "February 6, second." - the #102 issue, The Optimist, of Poetry East: "Hope, you stay with me when I have nothing else" - and the January 2022, issue of The Lake: "Green" and "Orange, my-favorite-color."

 Her chapbook, In my next life I plan... is forthcoming in 2022 from dancinggirl press. 

 Maren's poems appear in The Antigonish Review (Canada), Cider Press Review, Chiron Review, The Cortland Review, POEM, The Comstock Review, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Journal and elsewhere.

Three poems, “X Is a Kiss on Paper," “T, Totally Balanced,” and "Bears, Ants and Avocados" have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes.

 A North Carolina native, in her childhood, Maren O. Mitchell lived in Bordeaux, France, and Kaiserslautern, Germany.  After moving throughout the southeast U.S., she now lives with her husband on the edge of a national forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.

 

Congratulations to Maren O. Mitchell

Maren O. Mitchell has poems published in 3 online journals:


The Orchards Poetry Journal – “My Friend Janice Said She Wouldn’t Write a Poem the Prison Across the Meadows Within View of Her House, but Suggested I Could” and “Most visible,”


Still: The Journal, Summer issue – “V,” “Vanishing Act” and “Tree Talk”

The Lake (UK), July issue – “All the way home”


Maren O. Mitchell’s poems appear in San Pedro River Review, The MacGuffin, The Cortland Review, Hotel Amerika, Poetry East, The Comstock Review, Tar River Poetry, The Pedestal Magazine, Appalachian Heritage, Slant, Still: The Journal, Chiron Review, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Journal and elsewhere. Two poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives with her husband in the mountains of Georgia.

Maren O. Mitchell Has Poems Published in Comstock Review, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East and Chiron Review

Maren O. Mitchell has had poems accepted by the following publications: Comstock Review has published "Appalachian Come Home" in their Spring/Summer 2019 issue; Tar River Poetry will publish "Church of the Moment" in the fall issue; Poetry East took "R" for Poetry East 97, 2019 Fall; and Chiron Review will publish "W" in a future issue.

The Literary Hour Readings at John C. Campbell Folk School to feature poets Richard M. Cary, Maren O. Mitchell, and Ryvers Stewart, on Wed., June 12, 2019, in the Community Room

On Wednesday, June 12^, 2019, at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School (JCCFS) and NC Writers' Network-West (NCWN-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 Richard Cary, Maren O. Mitchell, and Ryvers Stewart.

Richard Montfort 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. He spent six years in regional theatres, before moving year-round to Nantucket Island MA, as a designer & builder of custom homes. In 1985, he founded Actors Theatre of Nantucket and served as Artistic Director for twenty years. Richard and his wife Cheryl moved from Asheville NC to Hayesville NC in 2017. 

Cary’s claim to fame is that his Great Aunt, Olive Dame Campbell, founded The John C. Campbell Folk School. Cary is currently editing over 60 years of his poetry for a collection.

Maren O. Mitchell, a North Carolina native, lived in Bordeaux, France, in her childhood, and in Kaiserslautern, Germany.  She now lives with her husband on the edge of a national forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.

Mitchell has taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College, Flat Rock, NC, and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. For over thirty years, across five southeastern states, she has taught origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. 

Mitchell’s poems appear in The Cortland Review, The MacGuffin, POEM, The Comstock Review, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Journal and elsewhere. Work is forthcoming in POEM, Slant, The Comstock Review, Poetry East and Chiron Review. Two poems, “X Is a Kiss on Paper” and “T, Totally Balanced,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. In 2012 she received 1^st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society. Her nonfiction book, Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide, (Line of Sight Press, 2012), www.lineofsightpress.com is on Amazon. 

Ryvers Stewart has been writing poetry since middle school, but it was in high school she truly fell in love with it (and acting). She is in the graduating class of 2019 at Tri-County Community College with an Associates in Arts degree, she plans on graduating 2020 with an Associates in Fine Arts. 

On the weekends Stewart can be found playing D&D and Pathfinder. She is currently working on her first poetry book.

For more information on this event please contact Mary Ricketson at maryricketson311@hotmail.com.

Poet Maren O. Mitchell's poems appearing in The Lake, online poetry journal, and The Macguffin Literary Magazine

Maren O. Mitchell’s poem, “O without a kickstand, Q” appears in The Macguffin, Volume 35.1, and her poem, “Falling Toward Winter” appears in The Lake, December issue, online UK journal.

Maren O. Mitchell, poet and author of Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider's Guide:

Amazon Books: Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider's Guide

 

Mitchell’s poems appear in POEM, The Comstock Review, Slant, A Journal of Poetry, The Pedestal Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Chiron Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Lake (UK), Skive (AU), The Classical Outlook, Town Creek Poetry, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Appalachian Journal, The Arts Journal and Red Clay Reader #4.

Her work is included in The Crafty Poet II: a Portable Workshop; The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins; The Southern Poetry Anthologies, V & VII; Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems; Sunrise from Blue Thunder; Nurturing Paws; and Echoes across the Blue Ridge. 

 

Two poems, “X Is a Kiss on Paper” and “T, Totally Balanced,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes by contributing editors of Pushcart. In 2012 she received 1^st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society. Her nonfiction book, Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide, (Line of Sight Press, 2012) www.lineofsightpress.com is on Amazon. Interconnecting with writers throughout mountain towns in northern Georgia, she participates in monthly critique groups and public reading venues.