America-Land of the slobs

I am certainly not a “clothes-horse.” For one thing, I am color blind, so the concept of color matching has no meaning for me. However, my wife checks out my costumes to make sure I don’t frighten babies.

When I was growing up, there were certain understood standards of dress, according to the occasion. Church, weddings, funerals, banquets etc. called for something more than everyday dress. I suppose this was a gesture of respect, for the occasion as well as for the reputation on your family.

Apparently such standards no longer exist. Historians tell us that such standards began to disappear during the late 1970’s, and we have since morphed into a “wear anything, anytime society.”

Recently I attended a class reunion for my wife’s high school. This was a grand affair, representing classes from 1938-2000. There were over 700 attendees registered. While many of the events scheduled over the two days were appropriate for very casual attire, there were also two banquets. Here at least, one would expect the alumni to make some effort to look presentable to their friends and classmates, some of whom they had not seen for many years.

Most did make an effort. Now this was in western Oklahoma in August, where the temperature was 103 degrees each afternoon. Only a couple of elderly gentlemen showed up wearing coats and ties. Most everyone else was in clothing appropriate to the climate. Of course there were a couple of men wearing caps advertising John Deere Tractors or Southern States Fertilizer, and a few old ranchers with white Stetsons. At first, it was a little disconcerting to look around and see men sitting at a banquet table wearing a Stetson while eating, but then one must remember that such hats are permanently attached, and can only be removed by a surgical procedure.

The ladies present had all made an effort to look especially nice for the occasion. Not so for all the men. A couple of local men came in wearing old Bermuda shorts, dirty t-shirts and shower clogs. From the looks of those around me, I could tell that many others had the same impression I did. These men just could not be bothered. Whatever they happened to have on was good enough for an alumni banquet, good enough for classmates they might not have seen for years, even if some of those classmates had come great distances for the celebration.

You never have a second chance to make a first impression. My first impression was that these were slobs, and should be boiled in oil.

If they were politicians, they lost a lot of votes that night.

The Redheaded Stepchild, call for submissions

I just received this call for submissions from Malaika King Albrecht, whom some of you may know. She's a fine poet, originally from New Orleans, now living in Southern Pines. This sounds like a great idea! I'm going to submit some of my rejects, and I hope you will, too. We have until the end of August to make literary history!

The Redheaded Stepchild.
http://redheadedstepchild.freehostia.com

The Redheaded Stepchild only accepts poems that have been rejected by other magazines. We are accepting poetry submissions only during the month of August for our inaugural Fall 2008 issue. For more information, please visit our site at

http://redheadedstepchild.freehostia.com

We accept only email submissions via redheadedstepchildmag(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @).
In the body of your email, please include the following:

a brief bio

3-5 poems

the publication(s) that rejected the poems

Gary Carden Receives Honorary Doctorate

From ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com



(Photo by The Sylva Herald)

A week ago, Western Carolina University recognized with an Honorary Doctorate one of its own, a writer who has enlivened the literary scene here in western North Carolina, not to mention the lives of its inhabitants, for over forty years. I say forty years, because I arrived in Cullowhee in 1968 to teach at WCU and shortly thereafter met our new honorary "Doctor." Gary Carden made my acquaintance with his story "Jedro Tolley," the main character racing wildly down the hill on his bike, screaming like a banshee and thus imprinting himself, and Gary, in my imagination forever. This author, I knew for sure, after only the first couple of paragraphs, was the real thing. We became friends, and over the last few decades, I've heard him tell his stories, at which he is a master, and I've watched his plays, goosebumps on my arms and tears, often, in my eyes. "Birdell," "Nance Dude,"and "The Prince of Dark Corners" have joined Jedro in that timeless place of imagination where all our voices come together and live on and on. And when the Prince of Dark Corners himself, Milton Higgins, walked into the dinner hosted by the Chancellor before graduation last Friday night, my skin tingled. My eyes widened. I had to touch the hem of his shirtsleeve! Which I did after dessert was served. And then he gave me a hug. I can't say that was the highlight of my evening, since Gary had earlier given me a hug. Let's just say I was doubly delighted by being in the presence of these two, the actor and the playwright.



(Actor Milton Higgins, in "The Prince of Dark Corners")

Gary has a blog at blogholler.blogspot.com. Here's how he introduced it last year when he began:

THE NEWS FROM BLOG HOLLER

I've been thinking about creating this blog for several years, but each time I typed a sentence I became self-conscious and deleted it. What could I possibly say here that hasn't been said by someone else? Not only that, but it has often been said with grace, beauty and conviction. Well, maybe that is my purpose ... or part of it anyway. I believe I need to pay tribute to all of the folks in Appalachia who have defined this region with integrity and authenticity. I am talking about the novelists, musicians, poets and essayists who create images, characters and sounds that resonate in my heart. Maybe I can render a valuable service by inscribing their names and commenting on their creations. That is one of my objectives, anyway. One other thing. If my language sounds pretentious and/or pompous, bear with me. I think I'll eventually get over it.

Growing up in an isolated cove, I became dependent on radio, comic books and the Ritz Theater. Like most kids of my generation, I sat transfixed in front of the old Silvertone each afternoon, listing to the Lone Ranger, Sargent Preston of the Royal Mounties and Jack Strong, the all-American boy. I collected Captain Marvel Comics, Superman, the Green Lantern and
Plastic Man. At night, I listened to Suspense, Inner Sanctum, the Shadow and Escape! Each Saturday, I sat in the front row of the Ritz, watching heroes like "Wild Bill" Elliott, Sunset Carson, Whip Wilson and Lash LaRue.



===============
When I was a little girl, I sat, not in the front row, but in the middle of the Camilla Theater, watching Lash LaRue. And Roy Rogers. Lash was always my favorite. Maybe that's why Gary and I became friends! We both had the same taste in cowboys! And later on, the same taste in writers. Gary has given a great deal of his time to reviewing and promoting other authors, mostly with Appalachian ties, like my friend Isabel Zuber. Here are the three of us at City Lights Bookstore, where Isabel did a reading/signing to celebrate the publication of her first novel, SALT.



(Gary Carden, K. Byer, and Isabel Zuber at City Lights Bookstore)

Gary is taking his memorable "The Raindrop Waltz" to Hendersonville on September 17th. He has a play at SART which may be produced in Bryson City next year, titled "Outlander". "Prince of Dark Corners" is returning to the "real stage" with a performance in Highlands in November. "Nance Dude' will be the centerpiece of the Haywood Bicentennial Celebration in Waynesville this December and "Birdell" will be a fundraiser for NC Writers Network West in September. Gary is a past recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship in drama. His stories and poems have been collected over the years. I encourage you to visit his blog to find out more about his writing, his upbringing, his honors, and his insights.

Traveling, a personal essay by John Malone

I went on my first long trip in the winter of 1937, when my mother took me, my older sister Emily and my Irish nanny, Miss McGinty to Florida and Beaufort, South Carolina, for the winter. I was only eighteen months old at the time, so my memories of that trip are mere flickers and flashes – the hot sand under my feet, seeing a starfish on the beach, the sound and smell of the sea as the cool water rushed around my ankles and Mama splashed some of it over my shoulders and back, making me shiver. I held on tight, only able to grasp two of her fingers in my pudgy little fist.

A few years later, I was taken on my first airplane by my parents, a flight on an Eastern Airlines DC-3 from Pittsburgh’s old county airport to Philadelphia. We were on our way to Beach Haven, New Jersey, to visit my Grandmother Malone, who spent her summers on the putting green and the card tables at the old Baldwin Hotel, where she used to go with my grandfather before he died in 1933. The only thing I remember about my first flight was being very airsick and filling up the little waxed paper bag held by my mother while she held my forehead with the other hand.

We also visited the Steel Pier and the boardwalk in Atlantic City that summer, and I vaguely remember seeing a baby contest, with anxious mothers wearing hats, gloves and high-heeled shoes as they primped and prettied their little darlings in the sand underneath the board walk. Or maybe I just saw it in an old 1930’s movie.

When I was five, my mother took me to New York twice, flying with me to LaGuardia for eye surgery with the famous surgeon, Dr. Dunnington, who was supposed to be able to correct all kinds of eye problems in small children. As s a baby, I had had a high fever that weakened the muscles in my right eye, causing it to turn inward. Dr. Dunnington tried twice to shorten the stretched muscles so that my eyes would be aligned properly, but he couldn’t get it exactly right. He made it turn outward instead of inward. My mother told me later that I almost died on the operating table after swallowing my tongue while under the anesthetic. In spite of years of trying to correct it, I still have double vision and have to shut one eye in order to read.

With the outbreak of war in 1941, Papa stopped taking vacations for patriotic reasons, devoting his full time to supporting the war effort by supplying the needs of the coal mines and steel mills in the Ohio River Valley as they earned their Army and Navy “E” awards. The rest of the family took regular summer vacations without him, traveling by train and lake steamer up to Ontario’s Muskoka Lakes or by car and ferry to the Lake Erie Islands, where Granddaddy Gardner owned half of Ballast Island, near Put-In-Bay, Ohio. It was there that I learned how to sail, row and handle power boats, taught by my favorite uncle, Clancy Horton, a naval architect from Massachusetts. In August, 1945, we were driving up to Lake Erie from Pittsburgh when we heard on the car radio in our pre-war Chevy sedan the news about the first atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.

The following spring, when I was eleven, Papa drove me and Mama down to Mexico and back in a brand new post-war De Soto, visiting friends on his first vacation in six years. While we were there, I saw my first bull fight in Mexico City. I was horrified and fascinated. I read Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon” and “The Sun Also Rises” and became an instant aficionado, collecting other books about bullfighting and hanging beautiful bullfight posters and photos on my bedroom walls showing famous toreros like the Mexican, Carlos Arruza, the great Juan Belmonte, El Cordobes, Dominguin and the old timers like Manolete and Joselito. I got a set of little toy bullfighters, horses and bulls that I used to stage imaginary corridas on the floor in my bedroom. I even practiced passes with a cape, a muleta and a wooden sword, making my little sister Carolyn play the part of the bull.

I went off to boarding school when I was thirteen, first as a five-day boarder at Shadyside Academy, a private school near Pittsburgh, and later at The Hill School in Eastern Pennsylvania, traveling back home by train via Philadelphia for the holidays. I also started visiting New York for weekends during my sixth form year at the Hill School, hanging out “under the clock” at the Biltmore Hotel and in the jazz clubs around 52nd Street. The two summers after I graduated from The Hill, Mama and Papa took me and my sister Carolyn to Europe.

After those first two visits, I was totally in love with European food, languages, history and culture (and women), a love which has persisted throughout my life. I thought of myself then, and still think of myself even now as a “citizen of the world.” Thus, after getting an MBA, making an unhappy try at joining my father’s industrial supply business in Pittsburgh and hanging out at the local clubs and bars, I set my heart and mind on an international career. In my first move to escape the old home town, I spent the summer of 1960 visiting Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. In September, 1961 I went off to London for two years with Christa, my new German bride, and two hundred dollars a month from my parents to study economics and try to qualify for a job at the World Bank, where I thought I could “do well by doing good.”

In early 1963, while we were still living in a cold, damp third-floor walk-up in East Croydon in the London suburbs, I received a cable from Washington inviting me to the World Bank’s Paris office for a whole day of interviews with visiting Washington department heads. A few months later a second cable arrived. I was hired. The job came in the nick of time, for we already had a London-born, one-year-old daughter, and our second child was on the way.

For the next twenty-nine years I traveled all over the world, using a United Nations Laissez-passer instead of my American passport, which I only needed when re-entering the US. I traveled overseas on Bank business an average of about 120 days each year while assigned to the Washington headquarters, and for eight years I lived with Christa and the children in Africa and Indonesia while assigned to various World Bank field offices as Resident Representative, a sort of ambassador of money, with a chauffeur-driven Mercedes and a little, UN-blue World Bank flag fluttering on the front fender.

I made frequent visits to Europe also, attending consultations with the other “aid donors” in Geneva, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Bonn, Rome and Copenhagen. Whenever I found myself in Europe, I would be sure to visit my German in-laws in Christa’s home town. For five years after retiring from the Bank in 1992, I kept on working part-time as a consultant for the Bank, the United Nations Development Program in New York and the International Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome. All in all, I have traveled to a total of seventy-five different countries on five different continents.

After retiring, I went back and added up the total number of times I had visited Sudan on official World Bank business. I was amazed to find that I had actually been there twenty-two times. Some funny things happened on those occasions. I remember one time when I was the “advance man” for a visit by World Bank President Robert S. McNamara, the former U.S. Defense Secretary, in 1972, just after the cease-fire in the war with the rebels in Southern Sudan. McNamara brought his wife along as well as a large entourage of headquarters officials. The McNamaras were lodged in Sudanese President Nimeiry’s official guest house while the rest of us stayed in hotels.

On the morning when we were all scheduled to fly down to Juba, the southern rebels’ capital, in a chartered Sudan Airways 707, I went to the guest house from my hotel room at daybreak to welcome the Sudanese cabinet ministers who were going to escort Mr. and Mrs. McNamara. The McNamaras were still in their bedroom upstairs when the high-powered Sudanese delegation arrived at the guest house, so I welcomed them, ushered them into the lounge and served coffee, explaining that their guests would be down momentarily. As we sat there sipping our coffee and making polite conversation, a steady, rhythmic thumping noise became audible through the ceiling above us, obviously coming from the McNamaras’ bedroom. Broad white grins spread across the black faces of our Sudanese hosts as they exchanged knowing looks and nods with each other. I said nothing, letting them go on admiring my boss’s imagined sexual prowess. But I knew they were mistaken: Robert McNamara, a fitness fanatic, could not enjoy his usual morning run while traveling in the capital cities of Africa. Instead, he and his wife started each day by jumping ropes in their bedroom.

I traveled for two more weeks with McNamara on that trip, showing him around my two World Bank “parishes,” Sudan and Somalia. I lost fifteen pounds trying to keep up with him. We never got to finish a single meal. McNamara, always fidgety and anxious to get on with the work, hated what he called “ceremonial eating” and would get up before dessert or coffee and rush off to his next appointment. The rest of us, hearing the scrape of his chair as he pushed back from the table, would dash to the cars as fast as we could. We would then finish our meal by eating McNamara’s dust while we tried to keep up with his speeding Mercedes limo and motorcycle police escort as they careened through the crowded African streets, running over the occasional careless dog.

McNamara clearly admired the grit and determination to survive of the people during our visit to drought-ridden, hardscrabble Somalia. On board his chartered jet, flying back to Nairobi at the end of the two weeks, McNamara turned to me. “John, wouldn’t it be great if we could take all these poor starving Somalis and just move them over to Sudan with all its undeveloped land and water resources?” I felt a chill as I suddenly recalled McNamara’s naïve Viet Nam body count. He liked to think big.

After saying goodbye to McNamara in Nairobi as he and his entourage went on to conquer world poverty in other African countries, I headed downtown to the Long Bar at the New Stanley Hotel for a long-awaited booze-up, surrounded by the ghosts of Ernest Hemingway, Robert Ruark and other deceased literati who had fondly mentioned the New Stanley and its Long Bar in their books and articles.

After retirement, as our five children grew up, moved away from home and started families of their own, our travels took on a different form: the pursuit of our grandchildren, fiercely competing with their other grandparents for face time. Periodically, their career needs would move our children and their precious charges, sometimes closer to us, sometimes farther away. Sometimes we would gain a temporary geographic advantage over the “in-laws,” only to lose it again with the children’s next move. Sometimes all four grandparents would arrive for a visit simultaneously, overwhelming the grandchildren with love and presents. After the visit, we would all go our own ways, saying things like, “Don’t you think X and Y have aged a lot?” or “Did you notice how much weight poor Z has put on?”

Once or twice a year, Christa and I would go on a vacation, usually for two weeks at a time. One of the more memorable trips Christa and I made was a fortnight in the high mountains of Guatemala, where we worked hard building houses for poor families with Elderhostel and Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village Program. The building sites were in a small village almost eight thousand feet above sea level, where the air was very thin and hard to breathe. We had to sit down and rest every ten minutes or so, just to get our breath. At night we went back to a cheap hotel in the village where the rooms were not heated. In spite of piling blankets on the bed, I have never in my life been so cold for so long. We finished the houses on schedule nonetheless and were given a wonderful sendoff by the new owners.

We visited Christa’s relatives in Germany and Crete several times, spent Christmas with our daughter and her family in the Philippines and went four times to visit our youngest and his wife in Hawaii, California and the Canadian Rockies (no grandchildren, just two grand dogs). I go up to Andover, Massachusetts, once or twice every year to visit my sister Carolyn. Christa and I have circled the globe twice by air, made two Atlantic crossings by sea, cruised around the Eastern Caribbean, sailed the Aegean and gone down the Danube and across the Black Sea to Istanbul in Russian ships.

In 1996 we made an abortive attempt to become Florida tax residents (no state income tax) by spending six months and a day each winter in the Keys. Hurricane Georges scored a hit on our waterfront house on Big Pine Key on September 25, 1998, removing a corner of our roof, while completely destroying another couple’s dream retirement home nearby. The other couple bought our house for the asking price, which included a tidy capital gain, desperate to have a roof over their heads, even a damaged one. Nowadays we try to spend just the month of February down south, preferring the Gulf Coast, near two of our children and their families.

I have traveled to Ireland a total of seven times over the years, visiting my Irish cousins and searching for my roots. Christa came along on two of those trips, and on one of them, we brought our elder son, his wife and their three children (the only Malone grandchildren) along with us. Although I can claim only 13/32 of Irish blood, I am nuts about Ireland. I even have an Irish passport and harbor fantasies of running away from home and going to live there someday. I know I won’t, though, because I would miss my kids and grandchildren too much (not to mention Christa, my faithful traveling companion for the last forty-seven years, who doesn’t like Ireland at all!). Still, I think I would like to go over there one more time while I am still able to go for long walks in the hills.

My two books have involved me in a lot of travel also, first attending writers’ workshops in North Carolina and doing research in Ireland and in the various locales of Pennsylvania and Ohio where my ancestors and I were born and raised, and then going back a year or two later to the same places for the book signings. Those excursions really were “ego trips.”

Lately I have joined the board of an international non-profit, the GOAL Project, which helps to extend AA’s life-saving twelve-step program of recovery from addiction to countries where it is either unknown or just getting started. I travel to GOAL’s Pittsburgh headquarters twice a year for board meetings and will likely get to visit some of the countries where our projects are located in the next few years.

Speaking of addiction, I am beginning to realize that I am probably addicted to travel. If I am stuck in one place too long, I start to get restless. Christa calls it “Wanderlust.” She says she has had enough traveling to last the rest of her life. She is happy, she says, to stay in our nice little house on the outskirts of Waynesville, North Carolina, gardening and playing tennis in the summer and quilting in the winter.

I wonder.

Vegetables at the Meat and Three

My husband Barry says mac and cheese is his favorite vegetable.
“What part grows in the ground? Do you harvest the macaroni or the cheese?” I ask, laughing at his remark.

He points to the menu he holds. Our favorite meat- and- three restaurant in our little mountain town lists macaroni and cheese under the green beans and sliced tomatoes, right along with mashed potatoes.

I like macaroni and cheese, but it must be real cheese. Not a microwave dish or plastic-packaged cheese sauce thrown on top of noodles. Neither do I like to order cheese grits and have my plate served with a spoonful of grits and a slice of Velveeta lying across the top. Some things you just don’t try to short cut.

My recipe for macaroni and cheese elicits raves from my dinner guests. I use three different cheeses. In the oven the sharp cheddar on top melts into a golden lava flow and crisps at the edges. Beneath that sunny cover a creamy sauce, seasoned perfectly with salt and pepper, with a jar of pimento mixed in to give color and sweet pepper flavor, awaits the diner’s taste buds. Pimento and cheese go together like peanut butter and jelly and is a favorite combination in our family. I’m not bragging, but I’ve been told I make the best pimento cheese sandwiches. I use sharp cheese, just enough mayo, and I am heavy handed with the pimento. Barry said he thought macaroni and cheese couldn’t get any better until he ate it with chopped pimento.

Still, I think my mother made the best. She simply prepared a cream sauce from scratch, stirred in grated cheese until it melted and turned the sauce a pale yellow. She poured it over cooked elbows and layered the top with more freshly grated hoop cheese she bought at Hancock’s grocery.

I remember Mr. Hancock, wearing his blood-spattered white smock, used a butcher knife to cut a wedge from the great round that lay sweating on his meat counter. He ripped off a sheet of white butcher paper from a nearby roll and wrapped, without a wrinkle, the pock-marked chunk of cheddar.

Riding home in the Nash, sitting next to my sister, the pungent smell reeking through the brown bag tempted me to open the white paper and sneak a bite. Just like the tiny mice that wintered in our farm house, I was drawn to the smell of what Daddy called rat cheese. Many evenings before going to bed, he cut a small piece off the wedge and baited a mouse trap.

The next morning he held up the spring-coiled death instrument and laughed. “It never fails,” he’d say, as he carried the corpses outside for the cats. I felt sorry for those mice. They had been tempted by the “rat cheese” just as I was, and I’m sure, even if they had known it was to be their last meal, they had to take a bite.

When we arrived home from the store, Mother would put away the groceries, but she left the cheese on the kitchen counter. The flavor peaked at room temperature she told me. When she wasn’t looking I nibbled on the triangled hunk, breaking off one small piece at the time. I wished I could eat the whole thing. But I knew Mother had to make that cheese feed our big family.

Later, when she took the bubbling dish of macaroni and cheese from the oven, the aroma wafted throughout our house. My four teenaged brothers, my sister and I needed no coaxing to come to dinner. If it had been allowed, I’d have made my meal on that one dish, filling my plate over and over with the soft noodles.

I was not a big fan of greens or rutabagas, or many other things from the garden that Mother put on the table every day, so, like Barry, when I was a kid macaroni and cheese was my favorite vegetable, too.

Book Review by Gary Carden

The Other by David Guterson. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. 256 pages

je est un autre (I am an other)
-Rimbaud

When Neil Countryman finds himself running in tandem with John William Berry in a half-mile race — a race in which the two teenagers are trailing far behind the other sprinters, both make a valiant effort “not to be last.” When the exhausted Neil (the narrator of this novel) loses, he notices that the victorious John William (seventh in a race of eight runners), bears a striking resemblance to himself — “my near-doppelganger,” he says. Thus begins an unlikely friendship between Neil, a blue-collar Irish youth and the troubled John William (J.W.), a product of one of Seattle’s most famous (and wealthy) families.

The two friends appear to have nothing in common. Neil has a warm, stable relationship with his family, whereas J. W. despises his parents and steadfastly refuses to participate in their world of privilege and culture. Neil wants to become an English teacher; J.W. talks of discovering a way to “escape the unhappiness machine” (his metaphor for the material world). Their only bond is a love for the natural world and a delight in treks into the “North Cascades Primitive Area,” a remote region noted for glaciers, dangerous camping conditions and (until recently) uncharted wilderness.
In one memorable trip, Neil, J. W. and Pete Jenkins, another friend (who brings along a copy of Jack Kerouac’s Desolation Angels), become hopelessly lost in a bleak part of the Cascades that had once been occupied by the Hoh Indians. Within three days, they are experiencing near-starvation conditions. Subsisting on bug larvae, tree bark, trapped birds and worms, they spend 14 days of aimless wandering before they finally emerge on a Canadian highway.

Rather than being chastened by this experience, J. W. and Neil (Pete has had enough!) return to the Hoh Valley in the Cascades again and again. After one exhilarating trip, the two friends make a “blood pact” by cutting their palms, clasping hands and swearing that they will never reveal the location of their campsite: a remote cove containing a sulfur spring (which they convert into a kind of natural hot tub) and backed by a limestone cliff. J.W. vows to return and live here the rest of his life, passing his time carving a cave in the cliff, learning to trap, perfect his “woods craft/survival lore” and reading the “Gnostic Gospels.” Shortly after this incident, J. W. makes a final effort to become a part of what he calls the “hamburger world” by registering at a small college where he quickly develops a reputation as an ecology nut and misfit. This episode also includes a painful first-love encounter that leaves J.W. even more disillusioned. Convinced that his only alternative is to withdraw to his remote campsite in the Cascades, he packs and, like Tom Sawyer, “heads to the territories.”

Although Neil has enrolled in a small college and is well on his way to becoming a teacher, he seems incapable of breaking his bond with J.W. For the next seven years, he continues to make irregular trips to J.W.’s campsite, bringing his “blood brother” supplies: canned goods, tools, books and Playboy magazines.

At this point, The Other appears to be a bittersweet tale of a blighted friendship, but gradually another, more subtle theme emerges. As the years pass, Neil watches J.W. become increasingly embittered and inept. It soon becomes evident that “the hermit of the Hoh” cannot survive without the canned goods and supplies. Neil’s repeated attempts to lure his friend out of the wilderness are futile. Again and again, Countryman decides to abandon J. W. and each time, he returns with yet another load of supplies, only to be met by taunts and insults (Neil eventually marries and becomes a teacher ... a “lackey” in J.W.’s opinion!). The relationship seems at a hopeless impasse.

I have no intention of revealing the remainder of this fascinating novel. Like the doomed Christopher in Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, J.W.’s motives for rejecting the world where the majority of us live cannot be dismissed as the misguided rant of a misfit. In addition, David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars, Our Lady of the Forest) has a gift for revealing the hidden bonds that link us with others.
(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at
gcarden498@aol.com

Coffee with the Poets in July

photo:Glenda Beall, Katie, Estelle Rice at Coffee with the Poets

Netwest was happy to welcome Rebecca, an eleventh grade student, to CWP this month. She and her mother, Nicole, came for the first time and we hope it won't be the last. Rebecca enjoys writing stories, but she also had written an excellent poem which she read to the crowd in Crumpets Dessertery.

Once again, Katie and her family which includes her twin sister, Corey, were present. Someone commented about the father and mother who come each time to hear Katie read her poetry. If all children had this kind of support from their parents they would have more confidence in themselves and their talents would expand more quickly.

We hope Katie and Rebecca and their families will come back every chance they get. Students are always welcome at Coffee with the Poets held on the fourth Wednesday of each month at Phillips and Lloyd Book shop on the square in Hayeville, NC. 10:30 a.m.

Dr. Gene Hirsch, poetry class at JCCFS

Gene Hirsch will be conducting his twice annual poetry workshop at John C. Campbell Folk School from August 10 - 16. His workshops are unique in that they aim to consciously combine in depth, two interlacing arts: poetic expression and the humanistic expression of a person's life-world ("lebensvelt").
Gene is a physician who has devoted much of his career not only to clinical medicine, but to teaching physicians and medical students to understand the ways in which suffering people and their loved ones try to understand their misfortunes and strive to overcome. This involves the privilege of entry into the depths of human thought , feelings, strengths, vulnerabilities, and aspirations. To help patients and to teach students in this manner has been regarded as a venerated art throughout the history of Medicine.
Poets analogously strive for no less than this. They also live in others' joys and sorrows and their appreciations of nature and the lebensvelt. They understand that people think and feel not so much in polished sentences and paragraphs as in images, words, and nuances and associations and, as physicians, they attempt to capture these rich instants. While each individual, possesses human sensibilities, for poets, these are amplified, characterized, given fine instruments, practiced and honed, recognized, and above all, shared.
When a fine art is endowed with expressive instruments, it becomes also a fine craft - and so with medicine and poetry. The folk school setting, as for the art-crafts such as weaving or blacksmithing, has the ideal ambiance for this poetry experience.
In his role as a poet, Gene said, " I initiated the writing program at the folk school in 1993 and was its first Writer in Residence. Nancy Simpson, noted poet, and I initiated the NCWNW in its current form, including its critique group."
Gene has been represented in anthologies, reviews, medical and lay publications. He has written two chapbooks and has recently compiled a collection. He has been responsible for five volumes of Freeing Jonah, an anthology of poetry from workshops at the folk school and the local community. Gene's poetry students have included physicians, nurses, and social workers in hospitals and hospices. In his many years of writing, and teaching at the folk school, he has approached poetry and human dynamics from a broad perspective with an ability to listen "with the third ear", continually discovering new meanings from others.

This coming workshop will focus on developing self-awareness of one's approaches to conceiving and crafting poems, expressive styles, and individual issues of each participant. Participants will write, discuss, and meet individually with Gene for in depth discussions. There will be no critiquing or evaluating.

The workshop welcomes experienced, eager poets who bring some poems they have previously written.

Networking by Glenda Beall

How important is networking in the literary world of North Carolina? Some people attend the NCWN Fall Conference to network with other writers, agents, editors and publishers, as well as to take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about the craft of writing.
Networking happens at small and at large events, in workshops and at picnics, at readings and every other place where writers congregate. Any time writers communicate with each other, in person or online, an opportunity may arise for a beneficial outcome. This happened recently for a Netwest member who posted an essay on http://www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com/.
Joan L Cannon, author of two novels, lives in Morganton, NC. Shortly after the Netwest web log came online, Joan contacted us inquiring how she might promote her book, Settling. For many of us in rural areas, it is difficult to travel and find opportunities to read and sign books, especially if we are not youngsters. Joan has become a wonderful friend, but most of all, she is a terrific writer and her work deserves to be read.
Joan was encouraged to post her book on ncwriters.org at Book Buzz. She already had a website, but set up a blog as well, http://www.hilltopnotes.blogspot.com/. She leaves comments on posts by our members on http://www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com/. On our recommendation, Joan clicked on http://www.seniorwomen.com/ and read the work of the fabulous writers there. In a short time, Joan had become a regular contributor for Senior Women. Read her essays twice a month.
Our Haywood County Representative, John Malone, author of two historical novels based on his family from Ireland, posted on the Netwest web log, a well-written article about a medical incident he suffered last year. He received a number of comments complimenting his work. Joan has never met John. But she saw his work online and she liked it. Joan L. Cannon sent to Tam Gray, her editor at Senior Women, the link to John’s post. Tam Gray liked what she saw. Now John Malone is the “token male” on the Senior Women site. He will give readers a different perspective from the women writers.
All of us, wherever we are on the ladder of success, benefit by helping others. Most successful writers are generous writers. By networking we learn not only what might help us along the way, but how we may help others. Thank you Joan L Cannon and John Malone.



Read John's essay, "Retirement Odyssey," soon at www.seniorwomen.com

Charles Price visited Hayesville and signed books

Charles Price is the author of the “Hiawassee” series, four works of historical fiction set in his native Western North Carolina. His novel “Freedom’s Altar” won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award. “The Cock’s Spur” received an Independent Publisher Book Award as one of the Ten Outstanding Books of 2001 and also won the Historical Fiction Award of the North Carolina Society of Historians.

We found Price set up in Crumpets Dessertery inside Phillips and Lloyd Book store in Hayesville, NC with a host of family around him on Saturday afternoon. His latest novel, Nor the Battle to the Strong: A Novel of the American Revolution in the South was stacked on the table before him. Customers from the Festival on the Square were filing in and out of the book store. I suspect many of them stumbled upon Charles Price when they came in to escape the heat on the town square which was packed with tents and tables for crafts.

Price, a native of Clay County, is popular in the area. Elizabeth and Joe Rybicki said he is a delightful person and we found him to be friendly and talkative. We brought in our visitors from south Georgia. They bought Hiawassee for their son, a Civil War buff, and enjoyed conversation with the author as he told us about the cover shot that graces his new hardback book. It was a perfect choice and, since covers often sell books, we imagine the close-up shot of a soldier's boot in the stirrup on horseback intriqued many readers to take a closer look.

When asked if he might come to the area and teach a workshop for Netwest, Charles Price said he no longer teaches. Too bad. He is one of the more succesful writers from this area.

His novel, “Where the Water-Dogs Laughed,” was a first finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award for Historical Fiction. Price was a Washington lobbyist, management consultant, urban planner and journalist before returning to North Carolina to be a full-time writer. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from UNC Chapel Hill.

Some Time in Glory

Some Time in Glory

Some time in glory,
We will meet those who have been,
With those who are to be,
And learn why we were.

Some time in glory,
We will hear the cries of our actions,
And the sighs of our dreams.

Some time in glory,
We will see our fears as pebbles,
And our hopes as worlds.

All we did will be measured,
Against all we could have done.
We will feel the space between,
Some time in glory.

Book Signing at Curiosity Book Shop in Murphy

Saturday, July 26, from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 pm Shirley Uphouse, author of My Friends, My Dogs, will sign her book at Curiosity Book Shop in Murphy, NC.

She is past Program Coordinator for Netwest and is a well-published writer of personal essays and short stories.

Uphouse has trained and exhibited her dogs for over forty years. Some of the breeds have been Beagles, Pomeranians, an Old English Sheepdog and currently two Australian Shepherds. She competed in conformation, obedience and agility. Uphouse has judged AKC shows for twenty years in twenty-five states from east to west coast and in Canada. Her book My Friends, my Dogs, offers many pictures and stories of the dogs of her life. There are also stories of dogs she has rescued. She looks forward to meeting other dog lovers.

Netwest Honors Nancy Simpson

A surprised Nancy Simpson was honored at the Celebration of Books and published authors and poets on Thursday evening, July 17. After a day at John C. Campbell Folk School where Nancy presented to the North Carolina Arts Council Board along with Kathryn Byer, she found herself acclaimed by award winning poets and recently published poets who began their writing in her classes at the Folk School, or in one of her many classes at Tri-County Community School. Glenda Barrett, whose chapbook, When the Sap Rises, was published by Finishing Line Press, brought a painting of mountains and Lake Chatuge that she had done for Nancy. Kathryn Byer, Poet Laureate of North Carolina and Debbie McGill, Literary Arts Director for the NC Arts Council spoke about when they first met Nancy. "I met Nancy when I came to read in Hayesville at the library when my daughter was a babe in my arms," Kay said. She went on to talk about her admiration of Nancy as a poet. She wanted us to realize that Nancy Simpson, while a wonderful teacher and leader, was first and foremost, a poet.

Debbie remembered how tenacious Nancy had been about Netwest and would not take "NO" for an answer when it came to getting what was needed for writers here in the rural mountains of North Carolina.

Brenda Kay Ledford, award winning poet, spoke about her first class with Nancy and how so many of us who were present Thursday evening, met in Nancy's classes. Glenda Barrett and Mary Ricketson expressed gratitude for Nancy's encouragement to those of us who call her our mentor. Mother and daughter, Dorothea Spiegel and Linda Smith, both met Nancy in one of her classes. Dorothea is likely one of the best poets in the area. She is in her 80's now and still writes excellent poems.

Netwest presented Nancy with a check to add to her computer fund. She is saving for a much-needed new Mac, and we want her to continue to write poetry and finish the historical novel she has begun.

Also, she will need it for her work on the proposed new Netwest anthology she will be editing.

There is no financial value we can put on the dedication and generosity Nancy devoted to NCWN West for thirteen years. Without her constant efforts to obtain funding, to maintain interest in all the counties represented, and keep mountain writers connected to each other and to Raleigh and Chapel Hill, we would not have continued as a program of NCWN.

Celebration of Authors and Poets

A Celebration of published authors of Netwest brought out over thirty members and guests who enjoyed a festive evening of food, wine and mingling with other writers. Michelle and Paul Keller opened their lovely home for a "garden party" set up under large trees in their back yard surrounded with flowers of all colors and kinds.
Writers and poets from Towns County Georgia, Union County Georgia, Clay and Cherokee Counties in North Carolina applauded the success of Brenda Kay Ledford, Glenda Barrett, Jerry Hobbs, Shirley Uphouse, and Mary Ricketson who have published books in recent months. Other writers in the Netwest area have books out but the traveling distance prevented them from coming to the Celebration.

Sam Hoffer, new Netwest member and food columnist for the Cherokee Scout newspaper brought one of her outstanding dishes. Another new member, Marjorie Hobkirk, a resident of Brasstown, was among the writers who attended.
The consensus was that we need more opportunities to come together for socializing and getting to know each other outside our critique groups and readings.

Poll Results

The vote is in and most of our readers escape into fiction/novels when they want to relax and get away from it all. Second place went to non-fiction, and magazines, poetry and romance tied for third place.

What was the last novel you read?

Do you have a favorite author?
Click on comments at the bottom of this post and tell us who takes you away with her/his stories or takes you to a place you'd never go alone.