The Literary Hour at John C. Campbell Folk School changed from Thusday 11/16/2017 to Wednesday, 11/15/2017, at 7:00 PM

Please be advised that The Literary Hour at John C. Campbell Folk School has been changed from Thursday, 11/16/2017, to Wednesday, 11/15/2017, at 7:00 PM.

The Literary Hour will host local poets Linda G. Jones and Staci Lynn Bell on Thursday, November 16, 2017, at the John C. Campbell Folk School at Brasstown, NC

On Thursday, November 16, 2017, at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and NC Writers' Network-West will sponsor The Literary Hour, an hour of poetry reading held at Keith House on the JCCFS campus, in Brasstown, NC. This event is held on the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise indicated. The reading is free of charge and open to the public. This month's featured readers will be Staci Lyn Bell and Linda G. Jones.

Dr. Linda G. Jones joined the faculty of Young Harris College in 2009 and is currently an Associate Professor of Biology and Dean of the Division of Mathematics and Science. Most of her career was spent in biomedical research. She is now happy to be teaching students in the classroom and serving as a mentor for student research. One current research model is the Zebrafish embryo used for developmental and toxicological studies. She has a number of interests outside of the science classroom which include reading and writing poetry. Jones is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network–West and a participant in the NetWest poetry critique group.

Staci Lynn Bell, a Chicago native, has lived in Western North Carolina for the past 5 years. She relocated to South Florida, gaining popularity as a 25 year radio and television personality and passionate animal advocate. In 1988 her environmental essay won statewide acclaim in Florida.  After retiring from broadcasting, Bell worked for many years training working dogs and rehabilitating rescues. Her poetry and prose have been published in several journals. Her short story “Cheyenne” took 2^nd place and her poem, “Time” took 3^rd place in the 2016 NC Cherokee/Clay Senior Games Sliver Arts. Bell is a member of the North Carolina Writer’s Network and Ridgeline Literary Alliance.  

Holmes & Krawiec at Writers' Night Out, September 8

Please join us for this reading featuring poet, author, playwright and founder of Jacar Press, Richard Krawiec, and poet, Karen Paul Holmes. Share your work at open mic, too!  Union County Community Center, Blairsville, GA 

Richard will also teach at Writers Circle in Hayesville the next day. See Glenda Beall's Writers Circle Blog for more information.

Sneak Peak: Our Featured Poets for Writers' Night Out, Aug 12

Ginger Murchison has had poems featured three times on The Writers Almanac since April.

Hear Garrison Keillor read them: http://writersalmanac.org/poem_author/ginger-murchison/

Ginger Murchison

Ginger will read along with 

Lynn Alexander  

former Atlanta Review poetry editor 

at

Writers' Night Out

Friday, August 12

7 p.m.

Union County Community Center

Blairsville, GA

Lynn Alexander

Open Mic follows the featured readers

Both poets will have books for sale

COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS

We had an interesting mix of writers and poets gather today at  Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill for our last meeting of the year. We don’t meet in January and February because the weather is questionable in this area during those winter months. We will begin in March on the second Wednesday, at 10:30 a.m. and our featured Netwest member will be Bob Grove, author of several books, including his memoir, Misadventures of an Only Child. Visit him online at bobgrove.org.

We had visitors today from Murphy, NC and from Blue Ridge, GA. I was happy to  see two writers from my classes at Tri-CountyCommunity College in Murphy, Kim Delaney and Larry Weas. I look forward to teaching again in March 2015 at TCCC. The title of the class is Write Your Life Stories. We will meet from 6 – 8 p.m. on Tuesday evenings. See www.glendacouncilbeall.blogspot.com for more description of the class.

We gave away five or six door prizes today – books and writing magazines. We talked about how, as writers, we bond when we share our poems and stories with each other. We get to know each other in a way that non-writers do not. Maren Mitchell said when she first read her work in public her knees were shaking but now she could read before a thousand people and it would not bother her. I hope all our beginning writers and poets hear that and know that one day all their fears will disappear, and they will enjoy sharing their work with others.

The program was all open mic today and we heard stories, poems and essays from those gathered around the table. I read a poem from Christmas Presence, an anthology edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. The poem, Southside Diner by Cecily Wells, showed a glimpse of the loneliness of some people at Christmas time and made us all feel grateful.

Some photos of our day:

From left: Kim, Totsie, Maren, Joan, and Bill

Linda, Joan and Jim

Not pictured,  but present: Larry Weas and Louisa, Jim's wife.

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.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers in Far Western North Carolina

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, September 10 by two outstanding published poets, Carole Thompson of Blairsville and Peg Bresnahan of Transylvania County NC. The public is invited. Carole Richard Thompson and her husband moved to Blairsville, in the North Georgia mountains, 21 years ago. After being a portrait artist for many years, she began to study writing, and joined the North Carolina Writer’s Network. She credits her love for writing to her friend and mentor, Nancy Simpson, whose classes in creative writing and poetry have been her greatest source of inspiration. Her first short story, "A Bag of Sugar for Paula," was published in The Liquorian Magazine, and also the anthology, Christmas Presence, published by Catawba Press. Her story, "The Uniform" appeared in the anthology, Clotheslines, published by Catawba Press. Her essay, “The Common Thread” won the 1991 NSDAR Best of Show and National Gold Honors Award in their National Heritage Committee, Literature and Drama Division Contest. Carole’s poetry has appeared in anthologies, A Sense of Place, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and Women’s Spaces, Women’s Places as well as in poetry journals. In 2013, her poetry book, Enough, was published by FutureCycle Press. The title poem, “Enough,” is a compliment to a long marriage which endured ups and downs. She recalls wartime partings, letters, and phone calls – never enough. But in the later years, being together every day is now enough. Peg Bresnahan’s second poetry collection, In a Country None of Us Called Home, was recently published by Press 53. Peg is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. She received her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpeliar. Her work has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies.  She lives in Cedar Mountain, NC with husband, sculptor, Dan Bresnahan. She says she moved to the mountains of western North Carolina and the land of waterfalls from the Door County Peninsula of Wisconsin, exchanging what she thinks of as the horizontal water of Lake Michigan for water that is decidedly vertical.  Kathy Smith Bowers, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina said of Peg’s latest book, "This is one of the most beautifully crafted and moving collections I have read in a long time."

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 after the event as we pull tables together and enjoy a social hour.

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

COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS

2014 updated schedule 

Second Wednesday of each month, 
10:30 a.m. Blue Mountain Restaurant in Peachtree near Murphy Medical Hospital and Tri-County College in Cherokee, County, NC. You might take home one of the door prizes offered each month. 

Stay for lunch when we pull the tables together and visit.

MARCH  12  Deanna Klingel

APRIL 9– Brenda Kay Ledford

MAY 14  -- Lucy Gratton and Joan Howard

JUNE 11 – Estelle Rice

JULY 9 -- Glenda Beall

AUGUST 13  -- Staci Bell and Linda Smith

SEPTEMBER 10 – Carole Thompson

OCTOBER 8 – Mary Mike Keller and Bob Grove

NOVEMBER 12 -- Karen Holmes – Paul Schofield

DECEMBER – open mic  and sign up for next year