Billy Collins at Malaprop's

Attention poets,
Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate, will read from and sign his most recent collection of poems, The Rain in Portugal, at Malaprop's Bookstore Cafe in Asheville, NC.
The event is free and  open to  the public.
Thursday, November 10, 5:00 p.m..

Billy Collins is entertaining when he reads. My husband decided he  did like poetry after hearing Billy Collins read at Young Harris College.

Contact Virginia McKinley for more information.

Virginia McKinley

Community Outreach

Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe

55 Haywood Street

Asheville, NC 28801

(828) 254-6734

www.malaprops.com

virginia@malaprops.com

Third place winner of Flash Fiction contest

What Bugs Me!

By Tom Davis

Recently my daughter, Dixie the vegetarian, introduced me to the garbanzo bean. Not impressed.

My wife Molly declares Dixie takes after me. If something’s good for her, it’s gotta be good for everybody. Soon after her vegetarian transformation, she started bugging me. “Dad,” she would say, “I can’t believe you put that stuff in your stomach. Do you know how long it just sits there fermenting?” Or, “Dad I can hear your arteries slamming shut as you shovel that junk in.”

To shut her up, I tried eating better. With the exception of an occasional Mac Attack and a periodic close encounter with The Barbecue Hut, my behavior proved impressive.

At least, I did pretty well until Dixie stumbled upon a recipe for garbanzo bean soup. I’ve got several problems with the garbanzo bean.

No matter how long you boil one, it’s still crunchy. This may not seem like much, but I like crunchy cereal, not crunchy soup!

A Garbanzo bean doesn’t even look like a regular bean. Take your basic lima. Now there’s a bean-looking bean—kinda fat and oval-shaped. It lies there, begging you to eat it with corn bread. The garbanzo is round like a marble. When you drop a spoon full of these babies on your plate, they roll in all directions.

Finally, and most important, there’s the garbanzo’s taste. There isn’t any—at least not to me.

I’ve stated my position and have suffered rebuke and humiliation. Any opinion contrary to Dixie’s invariably draws inquires into the questioner’s mental status. Did I mention Molly says Dixie takes after me?

Oh, well, what the heck? I’m used to getting no respect around here. After all, what should a man expect who stares down into his soup bowl and gets mooned by a bean.

Newt Smith reads from Camino Poems, his poetry book that rates high praise.

Ron Rash said of Camino Poems--Reflections on the Way “In this superb collection, Newt Smith’s spiritual journey is rendered with such attentiveness and fidelity that we become his fellow travelers. We too share the pain and effort but above all the wonder, and are reminded that in matters of the spirit the journey and destination can be one.”

I am delighted to post about Newton Smith's new poetry book, Camino Poems. Newt has served as our trustworthy NCWN-West Treasurer since 2009. You might not know him, but he is always there behind the scenes taking care of our finances. I am delighted to learn more of Newt's history in his bio for this book.  

**************************************************************

Poetry has been an essential part of Newton Smith’s life for more than fifty years. Wanting to write poems was what motivated him to leave Georgia Tech and major in English at UNC Chapel Hill. After a three-year tour in the Army as a Russian linguist, he returned to UNC for his Ph.D. 

In graduate school he was one of the founding editors along with Russell Banks and William Matthews of Lillabulero Magazine and Lillabulero Press, then one of the significant publications of the small press movement. His dissertation was The Origin of the Black Mountain Poets, one of the earliest studies of that movement. 

He began teaching at WesternCarolina University with a focus on creative writing, contemporary poetry, modern fiction and American literature. He has taught poetry to a wide range of writers, from second grade to retirees as well as undergraduates and graduate students. His academic publications focused on the Black Mountain poets, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Robert Morgan, Fred Chappell, Jim Wayne Miller, William Matthews, Russell Banks, Ron Rash and others. 

He has published widely in literary magazines beginning in the 1970’s, including Southern Poetry Review, Carolina Quarterly, Ann Arbor Review and others. His most recent poetry publications are in the Asheville Poetry Review, Rivendale, Main Street Rag, Pisgah Review, and Jonah. 

Since retiring Newt Smith has had time to devote to travel, gardening, Buddhist studies, mindfulness practices, and hiking in nature, especially in the Smoky Mountains. During his 2014 pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago he wrote a poem everyday reflecting on the physical body, nature, and the spiritual as he walked along the Way.

Newt said about the pilgrimage, "Because it was autumn, many days I gleaned blackberries, grapes, apples, figs, peaches and other fruit and chestnuts along the way. It meant that my attention was focused on the abundance of this earth instead of on my narrow self and its minor concerns. My attention often fell on butterflies, snails, ant hills and the abundance of rocks."

Kathryn Stripling Byer says of Camino Poems, "What are these lines from "Bowing to the Sun" but prayer itself? "The day began with smells...the deep aroma of turned earth,/and then the allure of blackberries....Soon I want to taste everything:/rosehips, flowers, thistle,/even the pebbles at my feet." The blessing of absolute attention carries this pilgrim through every step of his journey, each poem inviting us to walk with him in faith and love."

"Part of the Camino traverses the part of Spain called the Meseta, high plains area dominated by vast fields of wheat. Here emptiness and silence became an opening, a recognition that we are held in a space that extends beyond all we can imagine. The expansiveness and abundance of this life were frequent subjects of these poems as they were for earlier pilgrims who walked from churches to cathedrals to Santiago and beyond to Finisterre," Newt recalled.  

 Emptiness

Ledigos toTerradillos de los Templarios

Here on the Meseta

the land stretches

in every direction

beyond the horizon.

Objects are swallowed up

in this vista.

What is most apparent 

is space 

and how it persists....

This flower

this stone

this hand that writes

all are held 

in this emptiness. 

 ***************************************************************

I learned about El Camino Santiago from my friend, Rebecca Gallo, who has walked the Way more than once. Now I read Newt's poetry and feel I am on the pilgrimage with him. Hear him speak and read from his book at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC on Friday, November 4, 6:30 p.m.

To reserve copies of Camino Poems, please call City Lights Bookstore at 828-586-9499.

Event date: 

Friday, November 4, 2016 - 6:30pm

Event address: 

3 East Jackson St.

Sylva, NC 28779

Fall Conference Pre-Registration Deadline is October 28

Fall Conference happens November 4-6 at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley.  Registration is now open at www.ncwriters.org;  pre-registration ends Friday, October 28.

With some 200 writers in attendance, as well as dozens of faculty and publishing professionals, the North Carolina Writers’ Network 2016 Fall Conference is the largest writing conference in the state and one of the biggest and most inclusive in the country. It’s a great chance for writers to network, but more importantly, it’s a chance for beginners and bestselling authors alike to focus on writing for an entire weekend and quickly improve their craft.
2016 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee Margaret Maron, of

Willow Springs, will give the Keynote Address.

Maron is the five-time Agatha Award-winning mystery writer of the Deborah Knott series, which is set in Johnston County. In 2015, she was given a lifetime achievement award by Bouchercon, the world mystery convention.

Saturday’s luncheon will feature three authors from UNC Press’ Savor the South series: Debbie Moose, Bridgette A. Lacy, and John Shelton Reed. They’ll talk about how good food writing is about so much more than just food.

2014 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee and current NC poet laureate Shelby Stephenson will be the featured guest at Saturday night’s banquet. He’ll talk about writing, read some poetry, and most likely strum a little bit on his guitar.

Program offerings include the second annual All Stories Connect panel discussion. This year’s theme is “A Conversation about Culture” with Shervon Cassim, Sheila Smith McKoy, Donna Miscolta, and Elaine Neil Orr. Sunday morning will once again feature the popular Brilliant at Breakfast panel discussion “Agents and Editors,” featuring Michelle Brower of Zachary Shuster Harmsworth; Robin Miura, editor of Carolina Wren Press; Emma Patterson of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.; and Kathy Pories, Senior Editor at Algonquin Books.

Poetry classes include “Image and Narrative” with Guggenheim and NEA fellow Joseph Millar; “Writing Haiku” with Lenard D. Moore, recipient of the 2014 NC Award for Literature, the state’s highest civilian honor; and “The Furniture of the Poem: The Space of the Page and How We Fill It” with Chris Tonelli, poet and owner of Raleigh’s So & So Bookstore.

Fiction writers will choose from a full slate of class offerings including “Minute Particulars” with Raleigh’s Kim Church, whose debut novel Byrd won the Crook’s Corner Book Prize for best debut novel set in the South; “Ending Well: Short Story Endings and Their Lessons” with Clare Beams, author of the forthcoming short-story collection We Show What We Have Learned (Lookout Books, 2016). Poet, playwright, and arts educator Howard L. Craft will teach “Developing Authentic Dialog”; and Art Taylor, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, will teach “Sharp, Succinct & Suspenseful: Crafting the Mystery Story.”

Other classes focus on some aspect of the publishing industry. Poet, NCWN trustee, and NCWN regional rep for Wake County, Alice Osborn, will teach “How to be a Rock Star at PR”; the Triangle Association of Freelancers will lead the panel discussion on “Freelance Writing 101”; intellectual property attorney Mitch Tuchman will talk to writers about “Copyright Infringement”; Ross White, poet and founder/publisher of Bull City Press, will lead “Grammar Gone Wild”; and Kim Church and Emma Patterson will chat about “How to Work with an Agent.”

Additional offerings will appeal to authors who write across genres: award-winning Young Adult and New Adult author Jen McConnel will ask “YA/NA: What’s the Big Deal?”; Zelda Lockhart, founder of LaVenson Press Studios, will guide attendees through “The Relationship Museum”; award-winning writer and folklorist Eleanora E. Tate will lead a class on children’s writing; and sci-fi writer Ian J. Malone will teach a class called “Beyond Vanity: How Indie Publishing Builds Professional Writers.”

2016 Fall Conference sponsors include March Graham, author of Ashes and Dust; Chatham-Lee Counties NCWN regional rep Al Manning; the North Carolina Museum of History; Alice Osborn: Editor/Book Coach/Author; The 2017 Piedmont Laureate Program; the University of North Carolina Press; and the North Carolina Arts Council.

For more information, and to register, visit www.ncwriters.org.
__
Contact: Charles Fiore, Communications Director, North Carolina Writers' Network, Charles@ncwriters.org

Open Mic at City Lights in Sylva, 7 pm, October 28

I'm sorry to be so late posting this...but Friday night, October 28th, at 7 pm, Netwest's Jackson County group is hosting its monthly open mic night at City Lights Bookstore on Spring Street in Sylva.  There'll be desserts and beverages, and signup begins at 6:45.  It's a small, friendly, and supportive crowd--please do come out.

Fair warning and deep apologies, however:  when we scheduled this month's open mic night, we didn't realize that it's also WCU's homecoming weekend.  There'll be a parade down Sylva's Main Street from 6:30 to 7:15, so it's safe to anticipate some parking challenges.  I'll probably try to come in early from the back or river side of town,  park uphill, and have supper at City Lights Cafe (great crepes!) to avoid the crowds.  Others may wish to see the parade and then walk up the one block to City Lights, or to arrive a little late (though I can't guarantee that the parade mightn't run late, too.)  Plan ahead, and please do accept my apologies for not foreseeing this.  Thanks!

Poet & Writer Glenda Barrett to read at Coffee with the Poets and Writers, on Wed. October 19, 2016, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC

Glenda Barrett

Poet and writer Glenda Barrett will read at Coffee with the Poets and Writers, on Wednesday, October 19, 2016, at 10:30 AM, at the Moss Memorial Library, 26 Anderson Street, Hayesville, NC. 

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.

Glenda'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.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers is a free event sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network-West. The public is welcome to attend.

For more information, please contact Glenda Council Beall at 828-389-4441.

Gratton & Jones Featured at Writers' Night, Blairsville, GA

Poet Maren O. Mitchell's poem "Black Cow", appears in Wild Goose Poetry Review's Online Journal for Summer 2016

Maren O. Mitchell’s poem, “Black Cow” currently appears online, in Wild Goose Poetry Review. Mitchell’s poems have been published in Chiron Review, “Waiting on Squirrels,” “Rod Spears, Gigolo,” and “Phillipa Daisy, Dancer”; Hotel Amerika, “T Is Totally Balanced,” and “X Is a Kiss on Paper,”; The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Breath and Bread” a found poem; and The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop, “Shapeshifter” and “Intrinsic.” 

Maren O. Mitchell’s poems have appeared in Iodine Poetry Journal, The Lake (UK), Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Hotel Amerika, Southern Humanities Review, Skive (AUS), The Classical Outlook, Town Creek Poetry, Appalachian Journal, Pirene’s Fountain, Wild Goose Poetry Review and elsewhere. Her work is included in Negative Capability Press Anthology of Georgia Poetry, The Southern Poetry Anthologies, V: Georgia & VII: North Carolina and Sunrise from Blue Thunder. Poems are forthcoming in Hotel Amerika and Chiron Review. Her nonfiction book is Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide (Line of Sight Press, 2012) www.lineofsightpress.com  and is available at the Curiosity Shop bookstore in Murphy, NC, and on Amazon.

Mitchell has taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College, Flat Rock, NC, and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. In 2012 she received 1st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society. For over twenty years, across five southeastern states, she has taught origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.

A native of North Carolina, in her childhood Mitchell lived in Bordeaux, France, and Kaiserslautern, Germany. After moving throughout the southeast U.S., she now lives with her husband in Young Harris, Georgia, on the edge of the national forest.

You can find the link to "Black Cow," here:  https://wildgoosepoetryreview.wordpress.com/summer-2016/maren-o-mitchell-black-cow/

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

WINNERS OF FLASH FICTION CONTEST ANNOUNCE

The flash fiction contest for NCWN-West members attracted eight writers who submitted a total of 10 short pieces. 

Pat Davis from Brevard, NC volunteered to accept submissions and fees, and forward them to the judges and to Newt Smith, NCWN-West treasurer. 

The winning stories and authors are:

1. Small Talk - Ellen Andrews

2. The Oatmeal Box - Carol R Thompson

3. What Bugs Me - Tom Davis

Congratulations to our winners. 

We want to post the winning stories on this site very soon.

Perhaps we can hold another contest if we have enough interest. Let us know what  you think.