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.

Meet Bob Grove, local writer and interesting person

Recently Bob Grove, prose critique facilitator for NCWN-West, told us that he had published three more books. Bob has published 18 books already, but he has not stopped writing or publishing. I asked Bob to write something for our blog about him and his writing. This is what he said:

I suspect the fact that I bounced through five different colleges and universities before I settled down on a major could account for the diversions of my life—at least partially. I was on a first-name basis with the university registrar who patiently processed me through about a dozen different changes.

Although I've written and published 18 books, the most recent three were spawned by vastly separate circumstances.

I have a large extended family—sixteen grandchildren (last count) and a half-dozen great-grandchildren. They like to hear amusing stories about my life, and I enjoy telling them. Thus, was born Misadventures of an Only Child.

My autobiography continues to serve well for public readings; the revelations are usually followed up by one typical question from the audience: “Did you really do that?”  Yes, I did.

One of my fifty or so professions, occupations, and odd jobs included (and still includes) auctioneering. A personal fascination, is the endless assortment of bogus medical contraptions that have been foisted on the vulnerable public for centuries. I began collecting some of them myself, and finally wrote a descriptive, illustrated collection of these devices, entitled Medical Quackery.

And thirdly, my fascination with the workings, and more specifically, misworkings of the human mind led me to teach adult education classes in the recognition of mental disorders (my wife says I’m ADHD/OCD). I soon realized that there weren’t many easy-to-read volumes available on the subject, propelling me to publish my own textbook for classroom instruction, Abnormal Psychology.

Bob earned his bachelor’s degree from Kent State University and his master’s degree from Florida Atlantic University. He and his wife Judy live in Brasstown, NC.

You will find Bob’s books on Amazon.com, Kindle and on Create Space:

https://www.createspace.com/4669441      Misadventures of an Only child

https://www.createspace.com/7300982      Medical Quackery

https://www.createspace.com/7267696       Abnormal Psychology

Interview by Glenda Council Beall

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.

The Literary Hour at John C. Campbell Folk School, Thursday, August 17, 2017, in Brasstown, NC, to feature local writers Glenda Council Beall, Glenda Barrett, and Jo Carolyn Beebe

On Thursday evening, August 17, 2017 at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC, and North Carolina Writers Network-West will co-sponsor The Literary Hour, an hour of poetry and prose reading in the library of Keith House. This event is held on the third Thursday of the month, unless otherwise indicated.  It is free of charge and open to the public, and the reading will be followed by an open Mic.  Poets Glenda Council Beall and Glenda Barrett, with poet and prose writer Jo Carolyn Bebe, will be the featured readers.  This month is unique in that we have three members of NCWN-West entertaining during The Literary Hour.

Glenda Council Beall

Glenda Council Beall’s writing has been published in numerous literary journals including, Reunions Magazine, Main Street Rag Poetry Journal, Appalachian Heritage, Journal of Kentucky Studies and online journals, Your Daily Poem, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Wild Goose Poetry Review. Robert Brewer, editor at Writers Digest published one of her essays online. She read her work with Carol Crawford on the Writer's Radio Program, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Her poems have been anthologized in The Southern Poetry anthology: Volume VII: North Carolina 2014,  Lights in the Mountains, The Best of Poetry Hickory Series, 2011, Kakalak: North Carolina Poets of 2009, and Women’s Spaces, Women’s Places, among others. Her poems have won awards in the James Still Poetry Contest and the Clay County NC Poetry Contest. Her poetry Chapbook, Now Might as well be Then, is available at Finishing Line Press.

She serves as Program Coordinator of North Carolina Writers’ Network West She is also a Clay County Representative for NCWN-West, and in that capacity she hosts Coffee with the Poets and Writers once each month.

Glenda is Owner/Director of Writers Circle where she invites those interested in writing poetry or prose to her home studio for classes taught by some of the best poets and writers in North Carolina and Georgia.  Find her online at www.glendacouncilbeall.com and www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com

 

Glenda Barrett

Glenda Barrett, a native of Hiawassee, Georgia is an artist, poet and a visual writer.  Her work has been widely published in magazines, anthologies and journals.  These include Country Women, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Farm and Ranch Living, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Deep South Magazine, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Woman’s World, Greensilk Journal and others.  

Barrett's Appalachian artwork is for sale on fineartamerica.com and her poetry chapbook, When the Sap Rises, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008.  She now has a full-length poetry book titled, The Beauty of Silence, that was published in July of this year by Aldrich Press, and is available on Amazon.com

Jo Carolyn Bebe           

Jo Carolyn Beebe is a native of Mississippi. Many of her poems and stories are based on her recollections of conversations with her grandparents. Her Grandmother Anderson said, "The Bartletts are kin to Daniel Boone. They came through the Cumberland Gap with him." Great-grandfather Ricks showed her a greasy circle in his front yard where no grass would grow. "This is where the Indians cooked their food," he told her.

She also has her own memories of life in a small, rural town. Her story, "The Way You Hypnotize a Chicken," really happened when she and a friend hypnotized one of Grandmother's hens. And where else but in a small town could two little girls play in the funeral home and pick out their everyday casket and their Sunday casket?

Jo Carolyn has been published in Main Street Rag, Clothes Lines, Women's Spaces Women's Places, Lonzie's Fried Chicken, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge and by Abingdon Press. She has been most gratified with her family history book The Beekeepers and Sons of Ander.

She is a graduate of Miami University, Oxford and has been a resident of Towns County for 21 years.

July 14 Writers' Night Out Features Philip Levine Prize Winner

Featured Readers plus Open Mic

Union County Community Center, Blairsville, GA 

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.