Mary Ricketson to Read from Precious the Mule

Mary Ricketson

Mary Ricketson will read from her new poetry collection, Precious the Mule, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva on Friday, Nov 11, at 5 pm.  City Lights Bookstore is located at 3 E Jackson St, Ste 1, Sylva, NC, a small Main Street town tucked in the heart of the southern Appalachian Mountains. 

"Precious the Mule is a story of humanity, compassion, and kindness.  My neighbor’s mule got badly injured, frightening all of us who live in this cove.  Mingled with the natural beauty of winter and springtime at my home in the Appalachian mountains, this is the story of a relationship I developed with my neighbor the mule a story that joins sorrow and suffering with joy and hope."  Mary Ricketson.

Ricketson lives in Murphy NC, works as a mental health counselor and a blueberry farmer.  Her poems often reflect the healing power of nature, surrounding mountains as midwife for her words.  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 new collection, Precious the Mule. 

Looking Glass Rock Writers' Conference Accepting Applications

The Looking Glass Rock Writers' Conference is accepting applications through Dec. 15, 2022, for its May 18 to 21, 2023 workshops in Brevard, NC. 

The Looking Glass Rock Writers' Conference, a partnership between the Transylvania County Library Foundation and Brevard College, is a unique creative experience for writers which aspires to foster reading, writing, creativity, and a sense of place in Transylvania County.

"The Looking Glass Rock Writers' Conference is a restorative and invigorating retreat into a beautiful community in a lush part of the country. The short story I worked on while in attendance benefitted from my workshop instructor's critical but kind eye, my peers' honest, thoughtful feedback, and the overall serenity of the small town, small campus environment. The mountains of North Carolina would seem to be made for writers."   Jake Lancaster, scholarship recipient and 2022 workshop participant.

You may email questions about applying to lgrwc@brevard.edu.

The Looking Glass Rock Writers' Conference is open for applications to its fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction workshops.

May 18-21, 2023

Brevard, NC

Poet Ken Chamlee Reading in Hendersonville

 Has New Collection of Poems, "If Not These Things"

Kenneth Chamlee

    Poet Kenneth Chamlee will read, take questions, and sign books at the Brandy Bar, 504 7th Ave E, Hendersonville, next to White Duck Taco, Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 7 pm.

    Chamlee's newest collection of poems, "If Not These Things" (Kelsay Books, 2022), discovers new insights with fresh language in the familiar experiences of life. 

    "Writing and reading poetry helps me appreciate our natural world, better understand our social world, and accept the constancy of change in both," he said.

    His poems have appeared in The North Carolina Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, and Cold Mountain Review, and in two contest-winning chapbooks, "Absolute Faith" (ByLine Press) and "Logic of the Lost" (Longleaf Press). 

    His poetic biography of 19th century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, "The Best Material for the Artist in the World," is due out in 2023. 

    A Professor Emeritus of English at Brevard College in North Carolina, Chamlee holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. He is a 2022-23 Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the North Carolina Poetry Society. 

     To learn more about Chamlee and his poetry go to www.kennethchamlee.com.

Final Mountain Wordsmiths Meeting for 2022

The final Zoom meeting for 2022 of Mountain Wordsmiths will be Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022.  The meeting will feature spooky, scary stories or poems written or appreciated by anyone who wishes to share. You can also bring something to read that feels like October. You don't have to be the author of the piece you're reading. Bring a poem or short piece you like that was written by another poet/writer. Don't stay away because you don't have something to read. Come enjoy the beauty and fun of wordsmithing!

Mountain Wordsmiths will meet again in January 2023.

P.S. March through October 2023 meetings are open! If you would like to be our featured reader for one of those months, please let Carol Taylor know! 

Topic: Mountain Wordsmiths

Time: Oct 27, 2022 10:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

        Every month on the Fourth Thu, until Oct 27, 2022, 1 occurrence(s)

        Oct 27, 2022 10:30 AM

Zoom link and Open Mic sign-up: Contact Glenda Beall glendabeall@msn.com

Happy News for Carroll S. Taylor

 

Carroll S. Taylor, poet, novelist, and facilitator of Mountain Wordsmiths 

Congratulations to Carroll S. Taylor whose poem, "Warp and Weft" has been accepted for publishing by the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International Fine Arts Gallery. It will be published online in the Arts Gallery about mid-November. It will be in the gallery for six months and will then be archived for two years.

Carroll is the author of two YA novels, Chinaberry Summer, and Chinaberry Summer on the Other Side. She also recently published a children's book Feannag the Crow with exquisite illustrations by CSA Books, the publisher.

Her poetry is published in a number of journals, reviews, and anthologies. She lives in Hiawassee, Georgia, and is an active member of NCWN-West. 

Brenda Kay Ledford's Poem Published

 Brenda Kay Ledford's poem, "Mountain Fall," has been published online at "Family Friend Poems."

www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/138514

Literary Hour on October 20, 2022 has been canceled.

Cold weather--as in freezing temperatures--descended on the mountains this week and will continue through Thursday night. Because the Literary Hour is held in the Open House and the temperatures may dip into the low forties by 7 p.m., we have canceled this month's Literary Hour. The scheduled readers, Richard Cary and CarolLynn Jones, will be rescheduled in 2023.

It may be cold, but the colors have been astounding. 

Pat Zick

NCWN-West, Cherokee County representative

A Good NIght at Writers' Night Out

We were fortunate to have Dana Wildsmith as our featured guest for Writers' Night Out on Zoom. 

She writes poetry and prose and I enjoy all of her books. The memoir, Back to Abnormal, begins with her stepping on a rattlesnake and being bitten. Tonight she told us how upsetting it was for her when people took it so lightly and made it seem to be her fault. Most of us think it just takes a shot of anti-venom and you are fine, but she explains in her book just how painful the whole thing is and that it continues for days and weeks. And she said you take many anti-venom shots, not just one. But, she didn't take the anti-venom shots because she was told that if she was allergic she could die from the shots. It was a horrible experience.

Dana lives on an old family farm in Bethlehem, Georgia, a town where people come at Christmas to have their holiday cards stamped. 

Dana's newest book is One Light, a book of poems that centers on the caregiving of a loved one.

Her mother, Grace, probably saved Dana's life when she was fourteen and her nightgown caught fire as she stood too close to the fireplace. The child had massive burns all over her body and needed extensive care as she recovered. But her mother never left her side. In the book, One Light, Dana writes poetry about her mother's care. But she also writes poems about caring for Grace in later life who developed a terrible form of dementia. 

Anyone who has cared for a loved one with any kind of brain disorder knows the sorrow and frustration that occurs. I found it enlightening when Dana wrote poems in her mother's voice and in her own voice exploring the situation. 

Dana teaches often at the John C. Campbell Folk School online and in person. She will be teaching a class in person in January 2023.

https://folkschool.configio.com/pd/809/writing-in-a-changing-world?st_t=2077&st_ti=2516&cid=2527&returncom=productlist&source=search

Register early to be sure you can get in. If you live in local surrounding counties, you may get a discount on the price.

We thank Dana for being our guest at WNO and look forward to reading her books which are available at City Lights Books in Sylva, NC, and can be purchased at most local bookstores. You can also order them from the publishers. Go to Amazon.com to learn more.

We welcome you to join us for Writers' Night Out no matter where you live. Writers from Florida, Wyoming, and distant counties in North Carolina attend each month. They often read at Open Mic. Contact Karen Paul Holmes or Glenda Beall if you don't receive an invitation with the link to the Zoom meeting. 

 

Valerie Nieman will teach at John C. Campbell Folk School - Prose workshop

 OCT. 30-NOV. 5 - 

The Breath of Life: Discovering and Depicting Characters

Prose workshop at John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. Registration is still being accepted.

www.folkschool.org  

Valerie Nieman teaching a workshop at the Lights in the Mountains writers' conference
for NCWN-West

Richard Cary and CarolLynn Jones featured at Literary Hour October 20

Literary Hour at John C. Campbell Folk School

The North Carolina Writers’ Network-West’s Literary Hour will be held at the John C. Campbell Folk School on Thursday, October 20, 2022, at 7 p.m. The event will be held in the Open House. The Literary Hour is free and open to the public.

The featured writers for October are Richard Cary and CarolLynn Jones.

Richard Montfort Cary, the featured poet for October, began writing poetry in high school and continues to this day. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1964 with a BFA in Theatre Arts. He spent six years in regional theaters before moving year-round to Nantucket Island in Massachusetts where he worked as a designer and builder of custom homes. In 1985, he founded Actors Theatre of Nantucket, the island’s professional theater company. He served as the artistic director for twenty years. Richard and his wife Cheryl moved to Hayesville, North Carolina, in 2017. He has roots in the area as his great-aunt, Olive Dame Campbell, founded the John C Campbell Folk School. Richard will read several of his poems.

CarolLynn Jones received a scholarship to study art and illustration at Syracuse University. Subsequently, she started a greeting card business and sold cards to stores throughout the country. Her historical novel, Danya, written under the pen name of C.S. Jones, was inspired by her travels in Russia, which included living with a Russian family for two weeks. The novel, based on the memoirs of those who struggled to survive the Russian communist revolution, follows the lives of two families in a world going mad with sweeping cultural, religious, and political upheaval. She will be reading an excerpt from Danya as well as a true story of hope and redemption.

The Literary Hour will be held on the third Thursday of the month through November at John C. Campbell Folk School in the roofed and open pavilion of the Open House. 

From Clays Corner in Brasstown turn onto Brasstown Road, then turn left on Scoggins Road then left again to pass Davidson Hall. Or coming from Martins Creek, turn right onto Davidson Road and follow around to Open House. Parking is in front near the vegetable gardens.

Anyone with a love of the written word will be transported by the talent of the featured writers. Contact Patricia Zick at pczick23@gmail.com for further information.