Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Coffee with the Poets & Writers features Author Joan Ellen Gage and Storyteller Kanute Rarey on Wednesday, August 16, 2017, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC



Wednesday, August 16, 2017, Coffee with the Poets and Writers will meet at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC. North Carolina Writers’ Network-West sponsors this event which meets at 10:30 a.m. on the third Wednesday of the month.

Two members, Joan Gage, poet and Kanute Rarey, known for his storytelling, are featured on the program this month. Coffee with the Poets and Writers is open to the public at no charge. Bring a poem or short prose, 1000 words or less, and read at Open Mic. Have coffee and cookies with us. 




Joan Ellen Gage is an author of humor and inspiration written from her own unique perspective. Her recipe for her writing focuses on staying upbeat and laughing at her own foibles. Joan’s photos are the spice in the mix that serve to punctuate the writing and add that special garnish to her creations.

Gage has written and published five books, Water Running Downhill!, Embracing Your Inner Cheerleader!, A Redhead Looks At 60, Trinity's Adventures in Imagination, and a special edition of Water Running Downhill! the Rose Edition as a tribute to her friend Rose Helena Macedo Kull, all available as eBooks.  

Joan Ellen Gage has given author talks, and had several radio interviews. She is a member of NC Writers’ Network-West, serving as an administrator for their blog. Additionally, Ms. Gage has two blogs, Traveling at the Speed of Now, www.joanellengage.com, and A Redhead Blogs at 60!    https://joanszoneblogalicious @wordpress.com. Gage lives in Western North Carolina with her husband and their Belgian Tervuren dog, Magnolia.




Kanute Rary lives in Clay County, NC and is a storyteller as well as a writer. He may have been born and raised on a farm in rural Ohio, but Kanute Rarey moved to the mountains as soon as he could.  After a quarter of a century in the mountains of Alaska and North Carolina, storytelling is second nature to him. He says most of his stories are true… more or less. 

Rarey has studied storytelling with Elizabeth Ellis and Bil Lepp. Folks have heard him tell at the Georgia Mountain Storytelling Festival, the Moth StorySlam in Asheville, John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, and the Swapping Ground at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN.  And you can find him regaling local folk around Hayesville, North Carolina at the Clay and Cherokee County care centers, the Clay County School System.  The guys at Pat’s Barber Shop will tell you Kanute is ready to compete in the Bigs. He is out to win the Whopper Hat.

Contact NCWN West Representative, Glenda Beall, at 828-389-4441 or glendabeall@msn.com  for more information.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Poet Glenda Barrett to read at Coffee with the Poets & Writers on Wednesday, July 19, 2017, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC

This Wednesday, July 19, 2017, poet Glenda Barrett will read at Coffee with the Poets and Writers, at 10:30 AM, at the Moss Memorial Library, 26 Anderson Street, Hayesville, NC. This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network-West, and is open to the public. An open mic for all attendees will follow Barrett's reading.

 Glenda Barrett, a native of Hiawassee, Georgia, is an artist, poet, and writer. Her work has been

widely published yearly 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's poetry chapbook, When the Sap Rises, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008. She has completed two more books since that time, a book of poetry with Kelsay Books, The Beauty of Silence,  available on Amazon, and a book of Appalachian essays. Glenda worked many years in various healthcare system jobs and retired due to a form of Muscular Dystrophy.

She is very grateful to be able to devote her time to the two things she loved as a child, painting and writing. She has two grown children and lives with her husband of forty-two years in the North Georgia mountains.

Barrett is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network-West. For more information on this event, contact Glenda Council Beall, Program Coordinator of NCWN-West, at 828-389-4441.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Poet Maren O. Mitchell has poems in the July 2017 publication of The Lake, in Slant, Summer 2017, in POEM, May 2017, and Comstock Review Spring/Summer 2017


Maren O. Mitchell's poem, "Outside In," is currently in the July issue of The Lake, an online English poetry journal. Her poem, "A Is an Article to Anchor," appears in SLANT, A Journal of Poetry, Summer 2017, and poems, "K, Lost Dog" and "I Want to Remember" appeared in POEM, May 2017. Forthcoming in Comstock Review, Spring/Summer 2017 is the poem, "D, The First Syllable."

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Appalachian author Glenda Barrett publishes a new book, The Beauty of Silence, with Kelsay Books


Appalachian author Glenda Barrett has published a book of poetry with Kelsay Books. The Beauty of Silence, is available on amazon. Here is what writers Nancy Simpson, Mary Ricketson, and Janice Townley Moore say about Barrett's book:


In The Beauty of Silence, Glenda Barrett reveals the most authentic Appalachian voice to rise out of the southern mountains in years. “The Gist of the Matter,” invites us in, as she sits at a table with her kinfolks, peeling and eating an apple. The reader listens as this wise family elder recounts the then and now of her mountain heritage. In her poem, “Sorting it Out,” she affirms, “In hindsight, my best lessons were learned not in good times, but in deepest sorrow. I learned pain would not destroy me.” Her hope is to share specific truths. This nugget of wisdom emerges from, “Serenity,” “I’ve learned the comfort and peace found in solitude.” I chose, “The Fork of the River,” as my favorite. “My best lessons have been learned not in chaos, but in places of silence. Like the Cherokee before me, I seek direction in the quietness of the morning."

—Nancy Simpson, author of Across Water, Night Student, and Living Above the Frost Line, New and Selected Poems


Glenda Barrett’s poems reflect a wisdom that grows from a life-long relationship with nature. The gentle flow of a mountain stream, the hardship of ice in winter, and a sudden drought in summer contribute to her perspective. In The Beauty of Silence, Barrett plants seeds for the reader through a garden of strong people, simple ways, and the wisdom of experience. From her grandmother, her ancestors, flowers in a garden, to the trail tree of the Cherokee, she sifts her life to find nuggets of country wisdom. She “stands knee deep in the cool, clear waters of Owl Creek.” A quiet simplicity feeds her, feeds the reader. “Clods of dirt are busted, large rocks rolled aside, tangled vines uprooted, and brambles turned under,” until it’s time to return to my complicated life.” Barrett is a “homegrown girl” who couldn’t leave her roots for long. Her poems provide the reader a wealth of perspective, a wisdom long remembered.

—Mary Ricketson, M. E. Ed., Licensed Professional Counselor, author of I Hear the River Call My Name, and Hanging Dog Creek



In clearly crafted poems, Glenda Barrett connects a literal geography, the North Georgia mountains of her heritage, to a landscape of honest and varied emotions. There is elation in, “I can almost feel the pulse beat of my ancestors who hoed this ground,” balanced with sorrow, “I felt searing pain like deep furrows plowed slowly back and forth across my heart.” As a poet who finds meaning in the ordinary, she often surprises the reader with insights such as, “For the soil to be useful it has to be broken.” Always close to the natural world, her poems reveal that she is a professor of the five senses, as when she describes spring, “Even the red tulips . . . with their mouths wide open seem to be shouting with the rest of creation, 'Hallelujah.'" As seen her lines reflect a triumphant spirit that is certain to be transferred to readers.

—Janice Townley Moore, author of Teaching the Robins



 Glenda Barrett, a native of Hiawassee, Georgia, is an artist, poet, and writer. Her work has been
widely published yearly 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's poetry chapbook, When the Sap Rises, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008. She has completed two more books since that time, a full-length poetry book which is currently under review by a publisher and a book of Appalachian essays. Glenda worked many years in various healthcare system jobs and retired due to a form of Muscular Dystrophy.

She is very grateful to be able to devote her time to the two things she loved as a child, painting and writing. She has two grown children and lives with her husband of forty-two years in the North Georgia mountains.

Barrett is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network-West.



Friday, June 23, 2017

Interview with Rosemary Rhodes Royston on Writers Digest by Robert Brewer


Please access this interview with Rosemary Rhodes Royston on Writers Digest by Robert Brewer:

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/rosemary-rhodes-royston-poet-interview

Rosemary is a long time member of NCWN and NCWN West and served as Program Coordinator a few years back. She holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University and is a lecturer at Young Harris College, Georgia.


Royston’s poetry has been published in journals such as The Southern Poetry Review, The Comstock Review, Main Street
Rag, Coal Hill Review, FutureCycle, STILL, New Southerner, and Alehouse. She has a chapbook, Splitting the Soil, published by Finishing Line Press.
Her essays on writing poetry are included in Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets, McFarland. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she was the recipient of the 2010 Literal Latte Food Verse Award. Most recently, she received Honorable Mention in the George Scarbrough Poetry Contest, Mountain Heritage Literary Festival, along with her short fiction being selected as Honorable Mention in the Porter Fleming Literary Awards, 2012. She blogs at The Luxury of Trees.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Coffee with the Poets and Writers features writers Staci Lynn Bell and Joan M. Howard on June 21, 2017, 10:30 AM, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC



Coffee with the Poets and Writers will meet June 21, 2017, 10:30 AM at Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC. Staci Lynn Bell and Joan Howard will be featured members this month. 

Staci Lynn Bell, a Chicago native, has lived in Western North Carolina for the past 6 years. Having moved many times as a child, her best friends were her imagination, books and animals. Staci attended University of Wisconsin, Madison majoring in Communications. She relocated to SW Florida, gaining recognition as a 25 year radio and television personality and animal advocate.  She has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, 234 Journal, Old Mountain Press Anthologies and in Kakalak 2016. Bell has both a poem and short story in Wolf Warriors: The National Wolfwatcher Coalition Anthology. Staci is a member of the NCWN.


Joan M. Howard lives in Hiawassee and in Athens, Georgia. Joan loves to kayak on Lake Chatuge and take long walks on the Chatuge Dam. She holds a BA from Indiana University and an MA from the University of Oregon. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies.  She published a poetry collection recently, Death and Empathy: My Sister Web, which is in memory of her sister, Webster and her husband Jack.

It has been said that, “Howard’s poetry will not only make you ache for something or someone lost; it will stitch together a broken heart.”

The public is invited to attend Coffee with the Poets and Writers. Everyone is invited to take part in Open Mic and read a poem or short piece of prose. 

This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network West, a program of the state literary organization, North Carolina Writers’ Network. 

Contact Glenda Beall, 828-389-4441 or glendabeall@msn.com for more information.