Writers' Night Out Oct 13, Blairsville, GA

Mary Michelle Keller and Natalie Grant Featured
+ Open Mic

Please join us this Friday night at the Union County Community Center.

The next day, Oct 14, all are invited to the Georgia Poetry Society meeting at the Choestoe Schoolhouse in Blairsville, 9:30-3:30. See the GPS website for more info.

Brasstown, NC's John Campbell Folk School readings Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016, to feature writers Mary Michelle Keller & Lucy Cole Gratton

Mary Michelle Keller

Lucy Cole Gratton

On Thursday, October 20, 2016 at 7:00 PM, the John Campbell Folk School and NC Writers Network-West are sponsoring The Literary Hour, an hour of poetry and prose reading held at Keith House on the JCFS campus, Brasstown, NC. This is being held on the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise notified. The reading is free of charge and open to the public. Poets and writers Mary Michelle Keller and Lucy Cole Gratton will be the featured readers, returning to the Folk School as one of the more entertaining pair of readers.

Mary Michelle Keller has lived in Town County 20 years. It is here that she began to write poetry followed by the natural progression into prose. She is a musician, artist and photographer. Keller says that all those loves give root to her poetry as inspiration. Her poem, As The Deer, published in the anthology, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, was inspired by an old hymn by the same name that she plays on the dulcimer.

Keller enjoys words; moving them around on paper until a poem, short story or essay emerges. She finds pleasure in reading to a few or many, be it her own words or those of others, and says reading at the Folk School is always a treat. Keller always enjoys reading her pieces to locals and students of the school.

Lucy Cole Gratton is a retired CPA who has lived in the Murphy area over 20 years. She received her BA in mathematics from Agnes Scott College, her MEd in secondary math from the University of Florida and her accounting hours from Florida Atlantic University.

Since her retirement she served as Executive Director for the Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition, Inc for several years and continues to assist with the accounting and tax preparation for the Coalition as a volunteer. She is a member and serves as Treasurer of the Mountain Community Chorus Inc., which rehearses at Young Harris College, presenting a concert each spring and Christmas.

Gratton is a Cherokee County representative for NCWN and a member of NCWN-West. She coordinates the program at John Campbell Folk School for NCWN-West and serves as moderator. Her poems include various topics but predominantly center around her concern for the environments and her home in the woods of Lake Appalachia. Gratton’s writing has been published in various venues but has had limited publication since she writes predominantly for the love of writing, sharing it with family and friends.

Contact: Lucy Cole Gratton, Cherokee County Representative –NCWN-West

828-494-2914 
lgratton@hughes.net

COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS OCTOBER 8

Coffee with the Poets and Writers, a monthly literary event held at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill, 30 NC Hwy 141, Murphy, NC will hold a reading at 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, October 8. Two members of NCWN West, Bob Grove and Mary Michelle Brodine Keller, are featured on the program this month. The public is invited.


Bob Grove was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but now lives in the mountains of North Carolina. He earned his Bachelor of Arts at Kent State University and his Master of Science at Florida Atlantic University. His diversified curriculum enabled him to teach courses in English, journalism, creative writing, physics, chemistry, biology and psychology.

Bob has been an ABC-TV public affairs director, an on-air personality, and the founder and publisher of Monitoring Times magazine. A prose critique facilitator for the North Carolina Writers’ Network West and an officer with the Ridgeline Literary Alliance, he has published seventeen books and hundreds of articles in sixteen national magazines.

Now retired after 35 years as founder of Grove Enterprises, an international supplier of radio communications equipment, Bob has more time to write. Most recently, he has published a mystery novella (Secrets of Magnolia Manor), his memoir (Misadventures of an Only Child), a collection of children’s stories (Adventures of Kaylie and Jimmy), and has written several flash fiction stories as well as some forgettable poetry. Bob’s public readings are popular as a performance art form, typified by his annual December reading, in costume and dialect, of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the John C. Campbell Folk School.His collected writings on technical topics are now available online, as is his Abnormal Psychology which he uses as a teaching text in continuing education classes. As an experienced auctioneer, he has also published a collector’s guide, Antiquing. All Bob’s publications are available on Amazon Kindle. Visit his website at www.bobgrove.org.

Mary Michelle Brodine Keller, a published poet and writer, and a seasoned genealogist lives in Hiawassee, GA. She served as publicity director for NCWN West and is on faculty at Writers Circle around the Table where she teaches a class, Bones to Flesh, writing about your ancestors.

In her writing, she draws inspiration from something she has seen or an incident that intrigues her — a casually spoken phrase becomes the cornerstone of an essay, short story or poem. She is a visual artist and paints in oil, water color and pastels. She is also a musician and plays piano, guitar and dulcimer.

Known to her friends as Mary Mike, her poems have been published in The Mountain Lynx, Freeing Jonah III and IV, and Lights in the Mountains. Her poem "As The Deer" was published in ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers is open to the public at no charge. Bring a poem or short story and read at Open Mic. Those attending are invited to join the writers and poets for lunch and to enjoy a social hour.

This event is sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network West. Contact NCWN West Representative, Glenda Beall, at 828-389-4441 or gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com  for information.