Hayesville Library to Host Local Writers Nov. 12 for Reading and Book Signing

You are invited:

 

Ricketson and Ledford to read at Cherokee County Arts Council July 18

Mary Ricketson and Brenda Kay Ledford, poets from Murphy and Hayesville, will read selected poems from their published collections on Tuesday, July 18, 5:30-7:00 pm at Cherokee County Arts Council, 33 Valley River Ave, Murphy NC, across from the Mason Jar and Curiosity Bookstore. 

Mary Ricketson

Brenda Kay Ledford

Refreshments will be served and there will be time for discussion.  This event takes place in the gallery, where the paintings of Pam Strawn of Murphy will be on display. 

Everyone is invited.  Please join us.  No admission charge. 

CarolLynn Jones and Mary Ricketson Reading at Literary Hour

  Local writers CarolLynn Jones and Mary Ricketson will read from their work at the Literary Hour Thursday, May 18, at 7 pm in the Keith House Living Room of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.  The Literary Hour is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West and is free and open to everyone.

CarolLynn Jones

CarolLynn Jones is the author of “Danya,” a historical novel.  It is a fictionalized account, based on memoirs by survivors of the Russian communist revolution, which follows the lives of two families struggling in a world going mad with sweeping cultural, religious, and political upheaval.  The novel is available on Amazon.  Jones studied art and illustration at Syracuse University and started a greeting card business which supplied cards to stores throughout the country.  She has traveled in Russia and spent two weeks living with a Russian family.  She will be reading from a true story of hope and redemption.

Mary Ricketson

Mary Ricketson is an award-winning poet, mental health counselor, and blueberry farmer who lives in Murphy.  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 “Precious the Mule.”  Ricketson won first place in the 2011 Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest 75th anniversary national poetry contest.  Inspired by nature and her role as a mental health counselor, her poems reflect the healing powers of nature, a path she follows from Appalachian tradition, with the surrounding mountains as midwife for her words.  She is also known for her monthly column, “Woman to Woman,” which runs in “The Cherokee Scout.”

Writer and poet Glenda Beall, coordinator for NCWN-West, will host the
event.  The Literary Hour at the folk school started in 1995 and is offered every third Thursday of the month through November.  “Our goals for the Literary Hour at the folk school are to bring local writers and any member of NCWN who is in the area to the campus to share their work,” Beall said.

The John C. Campbell Folk School 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.

Poet Louise Runyon to be Featured Reader for Mountain Wordsmiths

 By Carroll S. Taylor

Louise Runyon

 January 2023 begins a new year for Mountain Wordsmiths, an online writers’ gathering sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network-West. Our first gathering will meet on Thursday morning, January 26, at 10:30 a.m. on Zoom, and our featured speaker will be poet Louise Runyon, who will be sharing poetry from her fifth and most recent book of poems, Where Is Our Prague Spring?

 Her book examines Runyon's deep love for the mountains of Western North Carolina, her childhood experience of love here, and her attempts to reconcile this love with the hatred and division found in the present.  A great-niece of Lucy Morgan, founder of the renowned Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, Runyon honors her visionary and activist family in these poems.

 A resident of Sylva, NC , Runyon was born and raised in New York City but grew up at Penland School in the summertime.  She lived most of her adult life in Atlanta before coming back to western North Carolina in 2019. A dancer and choreographer as well as a poet, she is Artistic Director of Louise Runyon Performance Company. The publication of her new book is supported by the Jackson County Arts Council.

 Poet Catherine Carter of Western Carolina University says, “…Runyon interrogates the place and her family’s long history there to illuminate a complicated tradition of Appalachian progressivism dating both back to and forward from the Trail of Tears.  These thoughtful poems evoke an Appalachia that few outsiders know: simultaneously progressive and conservative, woven into the wider world in unexpected ways, and rooted deeply in the labor and vision of women.” 

 NC Writers’ Network-West is continuing to take precautions as we stay in touch and use technology to share our writing. We will offer writing events and writing classes online with some writers’ groups now meeting in person with careful safety guidelines.

 

Mountain Wordsmiths will meet via Zoom on the fourth Thursday of each month Those wishing to attend our gatherings may contact Carroll Taylor at vibiaperpetua@gmail.com to receive the Zoom link. Also, those who wish to participate in Open Mic may sign up upon entering the meeting. We welcome those who would simply like to listen to the beauty of wordsmithing.

Appalachian Naturalist Brent Martin Virtual Reading July 8

Writers' Night Out - July 8, 7 p.m. Reading + Discussion... + Open Mic  Brent Martin, conservationist & multi-genre writer   Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain, on Martin's new book: "If I were making a personal top ten list of important Appalachian artists, writers, and musicians, I'd include--along with more well-known names like Doc Watson and Nikki Giovanni--photographer George Masa. Brent Martin's introduction splendidly places Masa and his work in the context of the mountains they both love so much--a perfect match since Martin, like Masa, has spent most of his adult life studying the southern mountains, protecting them, exploring them." NCWN-West invites you to join us via ZOOM (see link below).

Brent Martin's book, George Masa's Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina (Hub City Publishing), has just been released. Martin is also the author of three chapbook collections of poetry and of Hunting for Camellias at Horseshoe Bend, a nonfiction chapbook (Red Bird Press, 2015). His poetry and essays have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, Tar River Poetry, Chattahoochee Review, Eno Journal, New Southerner, Kudzu Literary Journal, Smoky Mountain News, and elsewhere. He has recently completed a two-year term as Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the West. He is also the author of The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present.   Martin a lifelong conservationist and educator, having worked over a decade as Southern Appalachian Regional Director for The Wilderness Society, and prior to that serving as Executive Director for Georgia Forestwatch and Associate Director for the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. He has led outings for over 20 years for the above organizations, as well as Carolina Mountain Club, NC Bartram Trail Society, the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference, Highland Biological Station, and many, many more. He lives in the Cowee community in Western North Carolina, where he and his wife, Angela Faye Martin, run Alarka Institute.  For the Zoom link and to sign up for Open Mic: click here: glendabeall@msn.com Open mic: 3-4 minute max, poetry or prose (2 poems only, please)

Poetry, Wine & Fun in Hiawassee, GA

free event

Wonderful Wednesday 

April 17 

5-7 pm

Poetry Reading - Karen Paul Holmes, 5:30

BodySense

2226 Ridge Crest Circle

Hiawassee, GA

Local poets and writers to read at Hayesville's Festival on the Square this weekend, July 9th and 10th, 2016

This weekend, Hayesville, North Carolina will offer their annual Festival on the Square.The festival begins Friday evening, July 8th, with a street dance. Music and many vendors will grace the square on Saturday and Sunday, July 9th and 10th. Included in this event will be our North Carolina Writers' Network-West booth, which will be on the North side of the square.

Several local poets and writers, members of NCWN-West, will be attending the booth, and will read periodically from their published works. Included in this line-up, are Tom Davis, Joan Ellen Gage, Mary Rickertson, Rosemary Royston, Marcia Barnes, Glenda C. Beall, Joan M. Howard, Bob Grove, and Lucy  Cole Gratton.

During the day, the booth will have books to give away. Please make an effort to come by and support the wonderful members, who are taking time to showcase our writers' network.


http://www.clayhistoryarts.org/
http://festivalnet.com/43539/Hayesville-North-Carolina/Festivals/Festival-on-the-Square

Ronald Moran and Jonathan Rice entertained at Writers' Night Out, NCWN-West event, June 10, 2016, at Blairsville, Georgia

Ronald Moran

Jonathan K. Rice

Ronald Moran, former Clemson professor, dean, and a Fulbright
Lecturer, joined Editor Jonathan K. Rice at Writers’ Night Out on Friday, June 10 at the Union County Community Center in the heart of Blairsville. Moran read first, not only featuring published poems from Eye of the World, but also recently written ones. Quite a bit of his work was witty and met with laughter and acknowledgment. Rice followed and read from Shooting Pool with a Cellist (Main Street Rag), and Killing Time (Main Street Rag). Rice’s love of music was apparent in his poems, as was his keen eye. The poets were followed by open mic, where several writers in attendance shared both poetry and prose.

Writers’ Night Out is sponsored by NC Writers' Network-West and takes place on the second Friday of the month. Prose writers or poets wishing to participate in the open mic can sign up at the door to read for three minutes. The Union County Community Center hosts the event at 129 Union County Recreation Rd., Blairsville, Georgia 30512, off Highway 129 near the intersection of US 76, phone (706) 439-6092. Food is available for purchase in The View Grill, but please arrive by 6 pm to get served.
Rosemary Royston

https://theluxuryoftrees.wordpress.com/about/

Two Events Coming up:

The Working Writers Reading: On Thursday, April 9th at 7 p.m. at Brevard College, novelist and newspaper columnist Katherine Scott Crawford, short story writer Jubal Tiner, and poet Ken Chamlee from their published work and works-in-progress. Brevard College, McLarty-Goodson Room 125. 

On April 25, Katherine Scott Crawford will discuss her historical novel Keowee Valley as an Author Presenter at the 2015 Blue Ridge Bookfest. She joins other Author Presenters Tommy Hays, Karen White, Terry Kay and more.Event is FREE and open to the public. For more information, go to www.blueridgebookfest.org.

Author Website: www.katherinescottcrawford.com

Blog: www.thewritingscott.blogspot.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/KatherineScottCrawford

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/KatherineScott

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."

~ John Muir

Keller and Gratton read at JCCFS October 16

Thursday, October 16^th 7:00 p.m.
John C. Campbell Folk School
Brasstown, N C

Mary Mike Keller and Lucy Cole Gratton
will read their poems and stories 

The reading is  free and open to the public.