Literary Hour Returns to J.C. Campbell School

  The Literary Hour returns to the J.C. Campbell Folk School March 16 at 7 p.m. with readings by popular local poet and storyteller Brenda Kay Ledford and local novelist David Plunkett.  The Literary Hour will continue every third Thursday of the month through September and is free and open to everyone.
Ledford, a Clay County, NC, native, will read from her poetry which draws on her love for the beauty, heritage, and history of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.  Her poetry collection, “Blanche, Poems of a Blue Ridge Woman,” published by Redhawk Publishing, won the Paul Green Multimedia Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians in 2022.
In addition to her award-winning poetry, she is the recipient of the Children’s Book Award for her picture book “The Singing Convention” and writes the Blue Ridge Poet blog which is dedicated to preserving the culture of Southern Appalachia through poetry, storytelling and writing.
Plunkett, who lives in Young Harris, GA, is the author of the espionage thrillers “Chessboard” and “Poisoned Pawn” published by Kindle Direct Publishing.  Readers have called “Chessboard” “intriguing and captivating,” and a well-researched book about “the shadow workings of our government.”  He will read selections from both novels and talk about his process for writing them.
The Literary Hour is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West and will continue every third Thursday of the month through November 16 at 7 p.m.
        The March meeting will be hosted by Murphy, NC, poet Mary Ricketson, who is president of the Ridgeline Literary Alliance and the 2011 winner of the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest national poetry contest.
Ledford, Plunkett and Ricketson are members of the North Carolina Writer's Network-West.  The Literary Hour meets in the Living Room of the Keith House on the J.C. Campbell Folk School campus.  For more information you can contact Glenda Beall at glendabeall@msn.com.
The J.C. Campbell Folk School is located in Brasstown, NC, and 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.

Mary Ricketson to Read from Precious the Mule

Mary Ricketson

Mary Ricketson will read from her new poetry collection, Precious the Mule, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva on Friday, Nov 11, at 5 pm.  City Lights Bookstore is located at 3 E Jackson St, Ste 1, Sylva, NC, a small Main Street town tucked in the heart of the southern Appalachian Mountains. 

"Precious the Mule is a story of humanity, compassion, and kindness.  My neighbor’s mule got badly injured, frightening all of us who live in this cove.  Mingled with the natural beauty of winter and springtime at my home in the Appalachian mountains, this is the story of a relationship I developed with my neighbor the mule a story that joins sorrow and suffering with joy and hope."  Mary Ricketson.

Ricketson lives in Murphy NC, works as a mental health counselor and a blueberry farmer.  Her poems often reflect the healing power of nature, surrounding mountains as midwife for her words.  Her published collections are I Hear the River Call My Name, Hanging Dog Creek, Shade and Shelter, Mississippi: The Story of Luke and Marian, Keeping in Place, and Lira, Poems of a Woodland Woman, and new collection, Precious the Mule. 

Celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Gene Hirsch, poet

 

Those in the photo above met Saturday afternoon to celebrate the life of the late Dr. Gene Hirsch who was the founder of the writing program at the John C. Campbell Folk School in the early nineties. Because of his dedication to writing and writers, many poets, novelists, and creative nonfiction writers found their voices, and found the confidence and inspiration to write their stories in verse or in prose.

All of us present on Saturday told our story of how Gene influenced us. He was the most generous of people and taught poetry classes for free out of his cabin in Cherokee County NC.

He taught at the folk school every time he came down from his home in Pennsylvania where he worked as a geriatric doctor. Gene was a person who encouraged others. He never made anyone feel they were unworthy to call themselves poets and as a result so many people published their words that were found to be important to others. 

I am especially grateful to Gene Hirsch because the writing program at the John Campbell Folk School was where most of my writing education took place. I did not study creative writing in college but was once told I had an equivalent of a master's degree right here from the best writers anywhere. 

People like Valerie Nieman, Kathryn Byer, Darnell Arnoult, Steven Harvey, Carol Crawford, Nancy Simpson, and so many other wonderful teachers came to Brasstown NC, and taught us for a week and made a huge difference in our lives. 

I took one or two week-long classes every year for ten years and then I taught at the folk school. Thank you, Gene. You never knew how many people you touched because you convinced the director and the board of the folk school to include the craft of writing in their schedule.

Thanks to Mary Ricketson for organizing this memorial to Gene.

Mary Ricketson will teach a virtual writing workshop

Mary Ricketson will teach a virtual writing workshop, The Nature of Writing, for the Carl Sandburg Home, Flat Rock NC.  

The workshop will offer an opportunity to deepen your experience with nature through a variety of writing techniques including observation, imagery, and reflection of self, through poetry and prose.  This workshop is open to all skill levels and writing genres.

The Nature of Writing

Sunday, January 23, 2022

3:00-5:00 PM EST

No fee

Click on the following link to obtain registration forms.  A zoom link will be provided after the submission of registration.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=urWTBhhLe02TQfMvQApUlO7OjcwaJeZJk0IR7yPN4BNUN0xJM0dVVkZUT0g2NUZGS1BGTE9NSTlGWC4u

Mary Ricketson's latest poetry book is here

We are proud to announce the publication of this poetry book: 

Keeping in Place, a chapbook of poems by Mary Ricketson, Murphy NC, published by Finishing Line Press:  This collection of poems chronicles the author’s experience, isolated at home in the Appalachian mountains during the first several months of the current Covid 19 pandemic.   

 “Keeping in Place,” says author and Young Harris College professor Rosemary Royston, “is a collection of poems where the speaker, stricken by COVID, turns her focus to nature, drinks in the magic of the mountains, and absorbs the wisdom of walnuts.”  

Shelby Stephenson, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina, says Ricketson “pays homage to the natural world she loves, securing emotions she treasures… On her walks, she salutes the cow, the mule, the plants, and a hemlock she tunes to survival.” 

Ricketson’s poems often reflect the healing power of nature, surrounding mountains as a midwife for her words.  Her published collections are I Hear the River Call My Name, Hanging Dog Creek, Shade and Shelter, and Mississippi: The Story of Luke and Marian.  She writes a column, Woman to Woman, for The Cherokee Scout in Murphy NC. 

Keeping in Place is available from Curiosity Bookstore in Murphy, City Lights in Sylva, the author, or www.finishinglinepress.com. 

*********************

A Personal Note

I received my copy of Keeping in Place and found the book filled with thoughtful verses and images that draw me in: "Walking home, past red farm implements,/ pitchforks in place by shovels and pic axes,/ where even gravel looks bright against dirt, /one white iris sings her promise of hope."

From the poem, "My Contemplation."

"Sick with COVID went viral"  - tells of the horrible experience of illness, being alone, the phone her lifeline, and then the joy of the Negative test later. I felt her pain, her anxiety, and her relief.

Congratulations to Mary Ricketson for another exceptional poetry book.

Glenda Beall

Poet, Dr. Eugene Z. Hirsch, 12/18/31 -- 9/3/20

This post written by Mary Ricketson

Gene Hirsch, MD, a poet of our mountains, died September 3, 2020, after a long struggle with cancer.  

He was a well-known writer in western North Carolina.  He taught poetry at John C. Campbell Folk School for many years, and helped Nancy Simpson start North Carolina Writers Network West 25 years ago or more.  He regularly attended critique groups, read at organized events, and taught small groups of poets at his home in Murphy.  Gene was teacher and mentor to be remembered.  He lived in Pittsburgh PA and in Murphy NC, and visited Murphy often, until May 2019.

Gene was known as a loving man who listened deeply to every poem from any kind of writer, rustic beginner to polished expert.  He cared about the craft of writing and also cared about the person writing the poem.  As a physician, he had a long career practicing medicine.  In later years he taught doctors and medical students to provide the best of medical and human help to dying patients.  The following is a quote, introduction to his long essay, Intimacy and Dying, written earlier this year, unpublished.

I am a retired geriatrician who, for thirty five years, taught humanistic values in Clinical Medicine to medical students and doctors. From 2000 to 2010, at Forbes Hospice in Pittsburgh, I guided students through the ancient clinical art of responding to struggles and needs of dying people. Among other curricular activities, with permission, we (2 -4 students and I) visited patients in their homes, not to learn procedures for obtaining medical histories, but for the specific purpose of listening to their thoughts, feelings, ordeals and supports. They understood that they were being placed in the role of teachers rather than patients. This proved to be important to all.

Gene kept his illness private, made no apology for that request.  He asked me to talk with him late in his dying process, asked me to be “ears to listen, for some day my dying to be worth my life.”  I will have more to say about that after I have settled enough to review the scratchy notes I kept of this time.  He also asked me to organize a memorial after his death. He said he wants to be remembered in our mountains.  Once the world is safe to gather in person, when the pandemic is over, we will have a memorial for memory, poems, and a celebration of his life.

His body has been cremated.  At some time, in respect for his request, his family will spread his ashes privately at his former home in Murphy.  He gave that home to his wife’s son and family, a family who loves the mountains and the privilege to vacation there. 

During the final months of Gene’s illness, he engaged the help of a friend and poet in Pittsburgh, Judy Robinson, to organize and seek publication of his poems.  The result of that effort is indeed a book, published 7-15-20, available from Amazon, details below.

Cards and words of sympathy may be sent to Gene's wife, Virginia Spangler, 139 Overlook Drive, Verona PA 15147.

In fond memory of Gene Hirsch,  

Mary Ricketson

Speak, Speak, pub July 15, 2020
Paperback $30, Amazon

Dr. Eugene Hirsch, Gene, to all who know him, has extended to me the privilege of editing his poetry, an assignment I accepted with pleasure. This collection, “Speak, Speak,” is the culmination of Gene’s long career of writing, and reflects the complexity of his mind and experience. As a physician/writer he joins a distinguished list, and in my opinion as a reader/editor, he earns his place among the others, notably Maugham, Chekhov, William Carlos Williams.

Judith R Robinson, editor

https://www.amazon.com/Speak-Gene-Hirsch/dp/939020240X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=gene+hirsch&qid=1598800059&sr=8-1

The Literary Hour Readings, Wednesday, March 20, 2019, at The John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC

On Wednesday, March 20, 2019, at 7:00 PM, the John C. Campbell Folk School 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. 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, poet and author Natalie Grant, poet Joan M. Howard, and poet Mary A. Ricketson.

Natalie Grant has spent much of her life in Western North Carolina and most of her career as the only high school language arts teacher at a rural k-12 school. She writes both fiction and poetry and is inspired by the landscape of her mountain home, its people, and the many storytellers in her family.

Currently, Grant is writing short stories and a volume of poetry entitled The Language of Bones. Her educational background includes an MFA in creative writing from the University of the South's School of Letters, an MA in English from Western Carolina University, and a BA in History and English from Berea College. Grant is also a Rep for NCWN-West. 

Joan M. Howard, whose poetry has been published in POEM, The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry, the Aurorean, Lucid Rhythms, Victorian Violet, the Wayfarer and other literary journals. She published the book Death and Empathy: My Sister Web, in 2017.  Her latest book is: Jack, Love and the Daily Grail, from Kelsay Publications.

Howard is a former teacher with an MA in German and English literature and is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network.  She enjoys birding and kayaking on the beautiful waters of Lake Chatuge near Hiawassee,

Mary A. Ricketson, Murphy NC, inspired by nature and her work as a mental health counselor, has poetry published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Red Fox Run, It’s All Relative, Old Mountain Press, Whispers, and Voices. Her chapbook is, I Hear the River Call my Name, and she has two full length collections, Hanging Dog Creek, and Shade and Shelter.  Her new book, Mississippi: The Story of Luke and Marian, is forthcoming, 2019, from Kelsay Books.

Currently Mary is using her own poetry to present empowerment workshops, combining roles as writer and her helping role as a therapist. Ricketson’s poems and activities relate with nature, facilitate talk about a personal path, and focus on growth in ordinary and unusual times. She writes a monthly column, Women to Women, for The Cherokee Scout, is a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor, a Rep for NCWN-West, and an organic blueberry farmer.

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

Joint Poetry reading to be held at City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC, Saturday, September 15, 2018

Poets Catherine Carter, Mary Ricketson, and Joan M. Howard will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, September 15, 2018, at 3:00 PM, for a poetry reading. The reading is free of charge and open to the public.

Catherine Carter has written three collections of poetry and directs the English Education program at Western Carolina University. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Orion, Ploughshares, Cider Press Review, Cortland Review, North Carolina Literary Review, and Best American Poetry 2009, among others. Her full-length collections of poetry include The Swamp Monster at Home (LSU Press, 2012) The Memory of Gills (LSU, 2006), and Larvae of the Nearest Stars (forthcoming from LSU, fall 2019.

 

Mary Ricketson of Murphy NC, has been writing poetry for 20 years; to satisfy a hunger, to taste life down to the very last drop. She is inspired by nature and her work as a mental health counselor. Her poetry has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, and the anthologies, Lights in the Mountains, and Echoes Across the Blue Ridge. Her two collections are Freeing Jonah, and her chapbook I Hear the River Call My Name. 

Joan Howard is a retired teacher who lives in Hiawassee and Athens GA.  Her poetry has been published in Poem, The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry, the Aurorean, Lucid Rhythms, Victorian Violet, The Wayfarer, The Deronda Review and other literary journals.She has two books: Death and Empathy: My Sister Web and Jack, Love and the Daily Grail. 

 

 

Event date: Saturday, September 15, 2018 - 3:00pm

Event address: 3 East Jackson Street, Sylva, NC 28779

 

City Lights Bookstore

Local Poets will read their work that witnesses to “The Magic of These Mountains,” Friday July 6, 2018, at the Towns County Library, Hiawassee, GA

Friday, July 6, 2018, poets Glenda Barrett, Joan Howard and Mary Ricketson will read their poetry that witnesses to the magic of the mountains surrounding us. The event will be held at the Towns County Library, in Hiawassee, GA, from 3 to 5 PM. 

Glenda Barrett, a native of Hiawassee, Georgia, is an artist, poet, and writer. Her work has been widely published since her first writing class in 1997 and has appeared in: Woman's World, Farm & Ranch Living, Country Woman, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Journal of Kentucky Living, Nantahala Review, Rural Heritage, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Kaleidoscope Magazine and many more.

Barrett is the author of two poetry books, When the Sap Rises, from Finishing Line Press, and The Beauty of Silence, from Kelsay Books. Both books are available on Amazon.com. Barrett is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Mary A.Ricketson, of Murphy NC, has been writing poetry for 20 years; to satisfy a hunger, to taste life down to the very last drop. She is inspired by nature and her work as a mental health counselor. Her poetry has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and Freeing Jonah. 

Ricketson has three published books, I Hear the River Call my Name, from Finishingline Press, Hanging Dog Creek, from FutureCycle Press, and Shade and Shelter, from Kelsay Books. All books are available on Amazon.com. Ricketson is Cherokee County's Representative for the NCWN-West, and is the president of Ridgeline Literary Alliance.

Joan M. Howard’s poetry has been published in POEM, The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry, the Aurorean, Lucid Rhythms, Victorian Violet, the Wayfarer and other literary journals. She has two books, Death and Empathy: My Sister Web, available on Amazon.com and  Jack, Love and the Daily Grail,  available from Kelsay Books and Amazon.com.   

Howard is a former teacher with an MA in German and English literature and member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Light refreshments will be available, and the public is invited to this free event. The Town's County Library address is: 99 South Berrong Street, Hiawassee, GA 30546; their phone is:  706-896-6169.