Richard Argo's winning poem

Ode to Rock and Roll

On a cool morning I helped my friend Bob collect rocks for his garden. We drove his pick-up to a rain-rutted road off the highway and rode a quarter mile, sheer wall on one side, sheer drop on the other, to the top of a mountain.

First we huffed and hefted, stumbled and cursed the two-man rocks. Then we hugged the one-man rocks to our chests like teddy bears. Finally, we filled the gaps with one-hand rocks until the bed sagged as if the truck would tip up on its tailgate.

No room to turn around, Bob, eyes flitting side-mirror to side-mirror, backed the truck down that rutted road. The radio blared rock-and-roll, blared the Rolling Stones. Oh, children. It’s just a kiss away, kiss away, kiss away.

I knew what the song said. The precipice is a kiss away. Death is a kiss away. It’s always just a kiss away. In the seat, eyes closed, dust and sweat coated my arms and chest, seatbelt flapped against my shoulder, I smiled. Oh, children. I was not afraid.

Richard Argo leads the Netwest prose group every second Thursday evening, 7:00 pm at Tri-County College in Murphy, NC.

NCWN West 17th Annual Picnic a Big Success

If you were not able to attend the 17th annual NCWN West picnic held Sunday in Murphy NC , I’m sorry you missed it.

Writers from Haywood County, Jackson County, Cherokee and Clay Counties, from Georgia and one visitor from Buncombe County came down.
Gary Carden, playwright, storyteller and writer, held us rapt with his talk, his reading of poetry by Jim Wayne Miller and a great story about a fish that drowned because he forgot where he came from.

Fantastic dishes of all kinds, including Peg Russell’s rum cake, a popular pumpkin pie, salads and desserts and vegetables like new potatoes and fresh green beans loaded the table.

A long list for open mic kept us later than we had planned but almost everyone who signed up had the opportunity to read. We were happy to have those who came for the first time and even happier to have those new writers and poets join Netwest.

We’re pleased to see so many attending who had first come to one of our workshops. I see future Netwest leaders in the women and men who joined us for the picnic.

As always we are pleased when our former Program Coordinators, Nancy Simpson and Shirley Uphouse are present. The Netwest Representative for the Board of Trustees of NCWN, Al Manning came and brought several people with him. JC Walkup from Canton also brought writers from her area.

My photographer was not able to come today, but Peg Russell made several pictures and I will share them on the blog as soon as I can find an easy way to do so.

As many of you know, I will be resigning as PC at the end of this year. To my surprise I was acknowledged by JC Walkup and Peggy Morse with a lovely card and gift certificate to my favorite local restaurant. They expressed appreciation for making the writers in their area feel more a part of Netwest. I am happy that our 80 members feel closer to each other and hopefully in the years to come we will share readings between counties and teachers between counties. And I hope every one of the members of Netwest will support each other and promote each other in any way possible.

Thanks to Mary Ricketson and Jerry Hobbs, Netwest representatives for Cherokee County, for hosting this year’s picnic. They deserve the appreciation of all of us. I look forward to next year’s picnic wherever it will be.

New Southerner Literary Contest

This sounds good---two of the judges, Cecilia Woloch and Silas House--are friends and wonderful writers. KB

This is a great opportunity for new and experienced writers alike. It's a brand new contest, not heavily advertised due to budget constraints. Could you help me spread the word? Deadline is October 1, just a few weeks away!

Bobbi Buchanan, editor
NewSoutherner.com
375 Wood Valley Lane
Louisville, KY 40299
502-239-3438

New Southerner Literary Contest
$200 prizes for poetry, fiction and nonfiction

Three prizes of $200 each and publication in New Southerner will be awarded for works of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction.
* 5,000 word limit for prose
* 50 line limit for poetry
* Entry Fee: $10 per entry; checks should be made payable to Swallowtail Press
* Multiple entries accepted
* Postmark deadline: October 1, 2008

Final judges:
Nonfiction — Kathryn Eastburn (author of A Sacred Feast and Simon Says)
Poetry — Erin Keane (author of The Gravity Soundtrack and The One-Hit Wonders) and Cecilia Woloch (author of Tsigan and Late) (ceciliawoloch.com)
Fiction — Silas House (author of The Coal Tattoo and Clay's Quilt)

All work must be typed on standard-sized paper. No manuscript will be returned; for acknowledgement of receipt, include self-addressed, stamped postcard with submission.

Send two copies—one with the author’s name, address, phone number and optional e-mail address in the upper right-hand corrner, the other with no author information. Include separate title page for each entry indicating title of work, category, author’s name, address and phone number.

Entries must be the author’s original, unpublished work and should be appropriate for publication in New Southerner, an independent journal dedicated to promoting self-sufficient living, environmental stewardship and support for local economies. For more information, see our submission guidelines online at newsoutherner.com/aboutus.htm.

Winners will be contacted by telephone and/or e-mail by the end of November. Winning entries will be published in the winter issue of New Southerner, scheduled for release Dec. 10. Judges may choose to award honorable mentions in each category.

Entries and entry fees made payable to SWALLOWTAIL PRESS should be mailed to:

New Southerner Literary Contest
375 Wood Valley Lane
Louisville, KY 40299

Questions regarding entries should be directed to bobbibuchanan@newsoutherner.com.

John Campbell Folk School Reading in September

Jo Carolyn Beebe

and Michael Beadle

Michael Beadle, poet and teaching artist, from Canton, NC, and Jo Carolyn Beebe, writer from Hiawassee, Georgia will read at the monthly Poets and Writers Reading Poems and Stories at the John C. Campbell Folk School, in Brasstown, NC Thursday, September 18, 7:00 PM.
Beadle’s first poetry collection, An Invented Hour, was published in 2004, and his poems have been included in various journals and anthologies such as The New Southerner, Kakalak, and Sow's Ear. Michael tours the state teaching poetry and creative writing workshops as an artist-in-residence. He also performs original, classical and contemporary poetry for schools, festivals, elderhostels, and church and civic groups.
His most recent poetry collection is Friends I’ve Never Met. Michael is a contributing writer and an award-winning journalist for the Smoky Mountain News, a weekly newspaper in Western North Carolina. Read some of his poems online at http://www.ncarts.org/ and http://www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com/.

Jo Carolyn Beebe was born in Baldwyn, Mississippi. She majored in Religion and Creative Writing at Miami University of Ohio. Her work has been published in Main Street Rag, Lonzie’s Fried Chicken, an anthology, Lights in the Mountains and in Heroes of Hackland. Abingdon Press published a short story and children’s play written by Beebe.
This busy writer has several pieces completed and waiting for the right publisher to take them.
“Most of my stories are based on oral family history handed down by my grandparents and great-grandfather. Their tales were rich in Civil War experiences of their parents and the hard life of the rural south,” said Beebe. “Besides writing fiction, my other passion is genealogy. When I'm writing fiction, I wish I could be tracking down an elusive ancestor. When I'm doing research, I wish I could be writing a story or a poem. I combined those two elements in my "waiting-to-be-published" novella, PIECES OF YESTERDAY. One literary agent said before it can be published, I need to purge my adverbs. I like adverbs. I absolutely, positively, really do.”

This night with this writer and this poet will be one of the most interesting events sponsored by NCWN West this year. Michael will share poems from his new collection and he'll be happy to sign books after the reading. Admission is free and the community is invited. Contact Glenda Beall 828-389-4441 for more information

Nor The Battle to the Strong reviewed by Gary Carden

Nor The Battle to the Strong by Charles F. Price
Savannah: Fredric C. Beil. Publisher – 2008
$25. 95 – 447 pages







I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, not yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.
- Ecclesiastes; 9: 11-12

For most of us, the historic struggle for American independence has been elegantly embalmed in tasteful rhetoric and imagery: Washington at Valley Forge; The Surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown; the numerous statues of “Mad” Anthony Wayne – all depicted with grandiose posturing and melodrama. Such is not the case with Charles F. Price’s latest novel, Nor the Battle to the Strong – an imposing chronicle of General Nathanael Greene’s 1781 campaign through Virginia and the Carolinas. Price literally brings this elusive chapter of the Revolutionary War down to earth.

Historically, both the conflicts and the personalities depicted in Nor The Battle to the Strong have been pushed to the background of textbooks and nearly forgotten, their significance reduced to footnotes and postscripts to grander and more imposing events. However, for a brief, shining moment, Nathanael Greene hung on the cusp of fame – stood with George Washington and Lafayette as one of the Nation’s most capable military leaders. Then, came the summer of 1781 and the battle of Eutaw Springs.

From the first page, Nor The Battle to The Strong reflects the author’s impressive research. The reader is quickly immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of a rag-tag encampment composed of demoralized soldiers, often accompanied by wives and children. Many are former farmers or reluctant conscripts and the majority of them have neither weapons nor uniforms. Further, they seem to be at the mercy of drunken, inept or brutal officers who march them in meaningless circles. This is a regiment of the Continental Army of the United States.

The action of this novel is seen through the eyes of two remarkable characters: General Nathanael Greene and private James Johnson. Alternately, we view the action from high and low: Greene’s lofty perch from which he plots the “chess of war,” and then through the astonished eyes of “wee Jamie,” a runaway indentured servant who has joined the Continental army, believing it represents safety – a refuge for him and his sister, Libby. While Greene writes effusive letters to politicians and fellow officers plots campaign strategy and consults with his staff, young Jamie learns the art of butchery and pretends Libby is his wife so that his companions will not pursue her as a sexual companion. Greene envies the dash and glamour of his peers, ponders his lapsed religion (Quakers do not engage in warfare), and yearns for “a place in history;” Jamie devises a plan to “elevate himself” by becoming a member of the First Dragoons.

What then, do these two men have in common? At the crux of Price’s novel is a paradox. When Jamie learns that he may well be the direct descendant of a legendary warrior, the Scottish “Wee John, the Crowner’s son,” he begins to dream of a heroic encounter – an event that will carve his name in the family history. General Greene dares to dream of honor, fame and position. For both men, the battle of Eutaw Springs represents a predestined goal. However, for both, the battle will bring painful revelations.

Nor The Battle to The Strong is filled with characters that are locked in a great struggle to create a nation; yet all of them have a “hidden agenda.” The struggle for American Independence is a means to an end - personal glory. The irony of their travail may be this: regardless of the success or failure of their personal quests, they all (inadvertently, perhaps) contribute to the greater good: the creation of this country.

This novel is packed with the names of remarkable men who live on in the names of our cities and counties: Sumner (two of them), Lee, Washington, Hampton, Henderson, Blunt, Marion and Pickens – all emerge as vibrant and flawed beings who played a part in the shaping of our history. Especially memorable (and tragic) is “Light Horse Harry Lee.”

However, the real power of this novel resides in the beauty of the writing. Price’s descriptive passages are memorable. The serene beauty of the march by night on the eve of the battle stands in sharp contrast to the horrendous carnage of the battle and Jamie’s daunting ride through the British lines. The book bristles with vivid characters, including a defrocked Methodist preacher who has the ability to make people “bark like a flock of spaniels, foam at the mouth and pop their teeth;” a man who sleeps with a pig and a horse named Jesus.

There is much more. It will have to suffice to mention one detail: Wee Jamie falls in love, and true to the family prophecy, he lives to find a sassy, heavily armed girl named Agnes who waits for him in Burke County.

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The Raindrop Waltz in Hendersonville Sept. 17

‘The Raindrop Waltz’ at BRCC

The Arts and Humanities Series at Blue Ridge Community College will present “the Raindrop Waltz” by award-winning playwright Gary Carden at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17. This free event will be in the Patton Auditorium.
“The Raindrop Waltz” is poignant and sweet, painful and funny. It captures a handsome picture of one Western North Carolina family through several generations based on Carden’s Jackson County childhood.
Agnes is a fiercely independent Appalachian grandmother who lives alone in the rustic cabin she has inhabited for many years. Because she is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and soon will be unable to care for herself, her family is faced with the difficult decision of moving her from her beloved mountain home to a nursing home. With great love and humor, Jody Lee, her grandson whom she raised, tells the story of his life and hers through memories of family tales, songs, loves and relationships.
This performance will be staged by Burnsville Little Theater that has a history of providing dramatic presentations for more than 80 years. Director Elizabeth Westfall will bring a performance that has been staged many times in Western North Carolina and beyond. Cast includes Elizabeth Westfall, Bob Wilson, Milton Higgins, Bill Wheeler, Bruce Chuvala, Colette Blankenship and Jennifer Issacs. Carden will also be present and available to answer questions after the performance.
A Sylva native, Carden was raised by his grandparents in a “house filled with the past.” From birth, he was steeped in untainted mountain culture, lore and language. He has investigated and evoked his native region in drama, rendering authentic presentations of the characters and of mountain history and folklore. In the many plays he has written, Carden portrays the mountain people from earlier eras with great devotion and compassion but also with uncompromising honesty.
Carden is also known as a folklorist and storyteller. He graduated from Western Carolina University and for the past 15 years has taught literature and drama, worked for the Cherokee Indians and has been a storyteller.
Recently, Carden was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by his alma mater, WCU. Widely acclaimed for his written works and spoken performances that bring to life the history, myths and legends of Western North Carolina, Carden is the author of “Mason Jars in the Flood and Other Stories,” the 2001 Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year.
This program is sponsored by the Community Enrichment Division in the Continuing Education Department. For more information, contact Martha Howell at 694-1743 or at http://www.blogger.com/.

Top Ten Reasons I Have Enjoyed Being Program Coordinator for Netwest

1. I was able to bring onboard a corporate sponsor, United Community Bank, Inc..

2. I have been delighted to give something back to Netwest. We are steadily increasing our membership.

3. I’ve met and discussed Netwest with people throughout NC, and I’ve participated in exciting writing events and spoken to eager audiences of writers.

4. With the addition of Henderson County to our membership, I had the opportunity to meet the writers there, appoint a county representative and play a part in helping them build a writing community.

5. Working with our past and present leaders we revised a set of guidelines, drafted in 2003, which makes Netwest more independent without breaking from the North Carolina Writers’ Network. This was sorely needed.

6. One of the goals I had as Program Coordinator was to reach out to all the counties included in the membership of Netwest and let them know they are Netwest members just as much as members in Cherokee and Clay County.

7. For many years I had heard “we get nothing for our dues” from some members. I was able, in this past year, to give our members several low cost workshops by top writing instructors, to promote the work of deserving writers, to give computer classes to members at low or no cost, to start a Netwest blog and give our members’ work an outlet to the world.

8. I worked as a volunteer at the Spring Conference in Winston-Salem and found that NCWN needs volunteers and will offer an incentive to members who help out. I appreciate Ed Southern and Virginia Freedman giving me the chance to help with registration.

9. I’ve found working with Nicki Leone, President of NCWN, to be a joy and I admire her for her dedication to writers and to writing.

10. In my position as Program Coordinator, I now realize this is indeed a position which requires dedication and commitment. A PC must be visible, be active, and must respond to every phone call and email from members, possible members, writing instructors, from those who have published books, from those who want to publish books, from those who need the address of a fellow writer, from those who failed to check the calendar or just think it is easier to call the PC.

Part of the Program Coordinator’s job is to welcome new members, writers from out of town, make flyers, publicize and set up readings, contact and remind writers of the dates they read. Beg for volunteers to help when needed, work closely with all newspaper editors so they will happily print our news and calendar announcements, raise funds for special projects, and get to know our Indie book stores who are important to us as writers. And do all this with a smile. To many, the Program Coordinator is the face of Netwest.

10. The best part of being a Program Coordinator for Netwest is seeing our image, a mountain writer’s group, become respected and admired throughout the state of NC and beyond.
To see our members succeed and grow as writers, to see their work appreciated by others, to be their voices when they want to share good news, and know that I had some small part in making this happen, this is the best part.

Glenda Beall

NETWEST PROSE GROUP FACILITATOR, RICHARD ARGO ON CRITIQUE AND COMPOST

Author at end of table with
his prose group.

The Value of Critique
by Richard Argo

During my school years, a few lifetimes ago, I took a program with a professor who, in discussions on the weekly papers students were required to submit, always asked if we wanted support for our efforts or critique. This professor had the reputation for reducing students’ work to compost. So I, a forty-something, unsure of my abilities and indeed my entitlement to higher education, opted for support.
The professor dispensed this support without measure. He assured me that the submitted work was of proper length, neatly typed with references correctly listed and I could expect to receive full credit.
Life was good. This college stuff was easy – at least for the first two weeks. But then I wandered if my writing was good, was I expressing myself well, and was I right in what I said.
“Ah,” the professor said with a smile when I asked the question. “Are you now asking for critique?”
I gritted my teeth, took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
To make a semester-long story short, he reduced my work to compost – again and again and again. However, his comments were spot on. I learned and came to appreciate critique.
When I moved to the mountains and found the Netwest group, I joined. That was thirteen years ago. I don’t think I’ve missed a dozen sessions since and I would be loathe to submit a piece of work for publication that had not first passed before the critique group.
Admittedly, and this may be more information than is necessary, there are times when the group reviews my work, that bring back memories of group therapy. Especially those times when it was my turn in the barrel. But, beyond the comments and suggestions, what are far more valuable to me are the sense I get after each session that “I can do this” and the inspiration to try.
I don’t always follow every suggestion or agree with every comment, but I know that these are given by other writers who have an objective eye for what makes writing better. It is this objectivity that I rely on rather that the well-intentioned comments of non-writing friends and relatives.
Support comes from the fact that even though the group knows me to be a poor speller with a limited knowledge of writing rules, they allow me to make comments and suggestions, too. And sometimes these suggestions are good ones because it’s all about learning. When you associate with smart people, some of it is bound to rub off.
A wise person (I believe it was Nancy Simpson) once said something like: you can learn to write on your own, but it is so much faster with a group. So, if you want to improve your writing, network with and learn from other writers – get thee to a critique group. After all, good things can grow from compost.





Richard Argo lives in Murphy, NC where he writes, teaches and leads the Netwest Critique group each month on the second Thursday. He will teach at JCCFS in early 2009. Check your catalog for dates or go online. http://www.folkschool.org/

Tipper of Blind Pig and the Acorn

Many thanks from Netwest to Tipper of Blind Pig and the Acorn for plugging our writing group in her article in Tri-State News where she listed www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com . Tipper writes an active and interesting blog with many, many comments on every post. We appreciate Tipper's support for our writers and poets. If you haven't visited her site, you should do yourself a favor and click on the above line.

Netwest Archives updated

We have made a change in the format of Archives for this blog. Hope this makes it easier for our readers to find some of the excellent posts from members over the past year and a half that we have been up and running.
If you are a member of Netwest and you read this blog, please take the time to comment. We are appreciative of folks like Gary Carden and Kay Byer who have taken time from their busy schedules to share with our readers, our members and the least we can do is let them know we appreciate their efforts.
Just click on comment and leave a few words. We've tried to make that process easier, also.
Thanks to those who regularly leave comments. We appreciate you!!

Netwest poets published in new anthology

We are proud to see some of our own Netwest poets in the company of the best poets in America in an anthology edited by Judith Kitchen , a new anthology about birds. It comes out in January 2009. Look for Nancy Simpson and Janice Townley Moore. If you read poetry, you will recognize many famous poets in the following list.


INSTANT POSTCARD
Dear Friends,“We hope this particular flock of poems succeeds in portraying birds in so many guises (or disguises) that one is forced to look more closely—as if through binoculars—to where these poets guide us.” Wish you were here . . .Yours, Judith Kitchen

The perfect gift for all the readers and/or birders in your life!
An anthology of poems
A dissimulation of birds
Betty Adcock, Kim Addonizio, Sandra Alcosser, Pamela Alexander, Linda Allardt, Christianne Balk, Rick Barot, Bruce Bennett, Boyd Benson, Wendell Berry, Linda Bierds, David Biespiel, Wendy Bishop, Ralph Black, Bruce Bond, Philip Booth, Marianne Boruch, David Bottoms, John Brehm, Geoff Brock, Van K. Brock, Fleda Brown, Rick Campbell, Hayden Carruth, Robert Cording, Stephen Corey, Deborah Cummins, Robert Dana, Philip Deaver, Madeline DeFrees, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Wayne Dodd, Stephen Dunn, John Engels, David Allan Evans, Amy Fleury, Richard Foerster, Chris Forhan, Erica Funkhouser, Tess Gallagher, Brendan Galvin, George Garrett, Frank Gaspar, Dan Gerber, Nancy Geyer, Kevin Goodan, Sally Green, Samuel Green, Jonathan Greene, Eamon Grennan, Pamela Gross, John Haines, Barbara Hamby, Michael S. Harper, Jeffrey Harrison, Jim Harrison, Lola Haskins, Robert Hedin, William Heyen, Jane Hirshfield, Jonathan Holden, David Huddle, Holly Hughes, Harry Humes, M.J. Iuppa, Gray Jacobik, Eve Joseph, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Robert Kinsley, Patricia Kirkpatrick, William Kloefkorn, C.L. Knight, Ted Kooser, Stephen Kuusisto, Steve Lautermilch, Donna Long, Denise Low, Peter Makuck, Jeff Daniel Marion, Dionisio Martinez, Dan Masterson, Jo McDougall, James McKean, Molly McQuade, W.S. Merwin, Lawrence Millman, Judson Mitcham, Janice Townley Moore, Jim Moore, Robert Morgan, Leonard Nathan, Duane Niatum, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ed Ochester, Carole Oles, William Olsen, Eric Pankey, Linda Pastan, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Jim Peterson, Carl Phillips, Stanley Plumly, John Poch, Joshua Poteat, Lawrence Raab, Keith Ratzlaff, James Richardson, Pattiann Rogers, Stan Sanvel Rubin, Marjorie Saiser, Peter Schmitt, Grace Schulman, Gary Short, Peggy Shumaker, Charles Simic, Nancy Simpson, R.T. Smith, William Jay Smith, Barry Spacks, Matthew J. Spireng, A.E. Stallings, Timothy Steele, Joseph Stroud, Julie Suk, Daniel Tobin, Natasha Trethewey, David Wagoner, Kathleen Wakefield, Ronald Wallace, Donovan L. Welch, William Wenthe, Tarn Wilson, Charles Wright, Robert Wrigley, Paul Zimmer, Lisa Zimmerman.

Publication date: January 2009 Price: $22.00 Early orders—25% discount ($16.50 each). Pre-order by December 1, 2008 for shipment before Christmas. Shipping fee: $4.00, plus $1.00 for each additional copy. Use Paypal option at http://www.anhinga.org/ordering.html or simply email your request to info@ahninga.org and you’ll receive an invoice. Or send orders to:Anhinga Press, P. O. Box 10595, Tallahassee, FL 32302.

This post was taken from Sheila Bender's blog:http://writingitreal.com/

Authors round the south and Rob Neufield

Please take a look at http://www.authorsroundthesouth.org/ and you will be pleased at all this site has to offer. Her ladyship does a grand job of keeping abreast of southern authors and books on the shelves in Independant book stores. Your local bookstore is likely to be listed. See if your book is mentioned.
Read and let me know here, under comments, what you think.


Rob Neufields's interactive site set up with Citizen-Times newspaper is interesting to read. Hopefully, those of us down in the southernmost part of NC will be able to participate and show that WNC is not limited to the Asheville area. Tipper, of Blind Pig and the Acorn, is a member as is Kathryn Stripling Byer. Get on and voice you views.

Book Review by Gary Carden

Stoner by John Williams

Stoner by John Williams
New York: New York Review Books
$14.95 – 278 pages – 1965 (reissued, 2003)



And so, providence, or society, or fate, or whatever name you want to give it has created this hovel for us (teachers) so that we can go in out of the storm. It's for us that the University exists, for the dispossessed of the world, not for the students, not for the selfless pursuit of knowledge.
- Stoner, p. 31

During the last sixty years, the “academic novel” has become an enduring genre in American literature. Even after half a century, a number of exceptional works still reflect the academic world with admirable authenticity: Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962); Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe (1964) and Bernard Malamud’s hilarious A New Life (1964). Invariably, American writers have found colleges and universities to be powerful microcosms – a kind of distillation of the best and worst of our culture and values.

Recently, the New York Review of Books named John Williams’ Stoner a “neglected classic.” Essentially, NYRB found the author’s depiction of the “outwardly undistinguished career of an assistant professor of English within the walls of a university” to be a kind of meditation on the rueful consequences of devoting one’s life to teaching. Stoner is, in many ways, a bleak and lonely sojourn; yet when Professor William Stoner comes to the end of his life, he judges himself to have been both fortunate and blessed.

Born to a poor farming family, young Stoner seems destined to follow his father’s example; however the advice of a county farm agent prompts the boy’s parents to send him to the University of Columbia “to study Agriculture.” William pays his tuition by working on a nearby farm and he plods numbly through his first year. However, a chance remark by his English teacher, Archer Sloan, sparks an interest in literature that, in turn, fills this ignorant young man with vague yearning for things he had not previously known existed. Eventually, William Stoner changes his major (a decision that leaves him guilt-ridden), and he begins the long and arduous pursuit of a doctorate degree in medieval literature. Eventually, under the guidance of Archer Sloan, he will acquire a full-time teaching position at Columbia University.

As the years pass, Stoner finds his dreams elusive. A close friend dies on a battlefield in France during WWI; another friend, Gordon Finch, becomes an academic dean and Stoner’s life-long friend. His marriage to Edith, a banker’s daughter turns into a loveless, bitter travesty and the grand ideals contained in the literature that he loves remain elusive specters. Stoner is rarely able to communicate the beauty that he perceives in poetry and drama, but he lives for those brief moments when he speaks clearly and his students hear him.

The birth of his daughter, Grace, fills Stoner with a momentary joy, but within a few years, he finds himself locked in a fierce struggle with his wife for Grace’s attention. His mentor, Archer Sloan dies and the University’s indifference to his passing shocks Stoner. A brilliant and arrogant department head becomes a bitter enemy and Stoner spends much of his time in his office immersed in his lecture notes and research.

Life passes, WW II comes and goes, taking another group of Stoner’s best students. Stoner is relegated to teaching freshman composition and students begin to comment on his eccentric behavior. However, it is at this point, when this middle-aged scholar is at his lowest ebb, he finds himself abruptly swept from his bleak, prosaic life into a world in which his “vague yearnings” are fully realized.

The agent of change is a woman, of course – Katherine Driscoll, a student that is twenty years his junior - a woman who shares his nearly incoherent love for literature. So all that has been denied to this lonely man is suddenly (briefly), realized. Stoner is swept into an affair that borders on being a cliché – an aging lover and a vital young woman who is the fulfillment of his secret dreams. However, the scenes between Stoner and Katherine are among the most vivid and vital episodes in this novel.

This is by no means the conclusion of Stoner. There are other indignities to be borne and other battles to lose. However, this brief episode changes Stoner in fundamental ways. Belatedly, he develops a survival strategy and adheres to it. He learns to accept “things as they are,” and begins to emulate the stoic fortitude of his parents.

On the first page of this novel, the author makes the following statement regarding the death of his protagonist: “Stoner’s colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound that evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves or their careers.”

When I finished this novel, I found myself remembering the numerous competent (dependable) instructors who passed through the corridors of my own alma mater – the ones who survive because of their low-key existence and “protective camouflage.” We remember the “campus characters,” but we soon forget the patient, dedicated yeoman who toil quietly and then make their exit silently. Were there, perhaps, Stoner’s among them?

Bobbie Jayne Curtis fell in love with Birdell the first time she saw her

The following review of the one act play Birdell, is from The Messenger, and written by: Jaine Treadwell.
Published Jun 07, 2008 - 20:06:32 CDT.

Brundidge Historical Society presents 'Birdell'
By Jaine Treadwell for The Messenger

Bobbie Jaynes Triplett Curtis, a 75-year-old mountain woman, who is much like the octogenarian that she plays, will perform "Birdell"."I have a garden with summer vegetables and, last year, I couldn't find anybody to plow it for me, so I took a mattock and dug it by hand," Curtis said.
When Curtis saw "Birdell" for the first time, she was so taken with the character that she had to play her."She is the most fascinating character that I have ever played," said Curtis, who has recently begun performing the role of Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn writer. "I feel that I'm really in Birdy's shoes and that I have been there."
Birdell is an 86-year-old Appalachian woman who has spent way too much time alone and she is a little crazy.She sits on the porch and listens to the rain crows, naps and dreams of when she had a family that sang on the porch in the moonlight.When the play opens, 'Birdy' is in her front yard trying to kill a snake. She looks up to see the audience, which she takes for a crowd of people trying to buy her land. She immediately begins talking and, for the next hour, she recalls her entire life, including her marriage to a man named Westley who has been known to "stretch the blanket" and make his share of moonshine.
Steed said all eight members of the BHS storytelling committee read the script and fell in love with it."'Birdell is the story of a woman's life in a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains," Steed said."But 'Birdy' is much like the women of strength and character of the rural South during the Great Depression. She is one of us. She'll make you laugh and she'll tug at your heartstrings. She is Birdy, plain and simple."

NCWN West and The Learning Center are sponsoring Birdell on September 19, 7:00 PM at the Learning Center in Murphy.Tickets are available in Murphy North Carolina at Curiosity Shop Books and at the Murphy Library.
$12.00 adults and $6.00 for children. Call 828-389-4441 to order tickets by mail.

Bob Greenwald co-chairs grand writing event in 2009

LITERARY SHOWCASE COMING TO HENDERSONVILLE

The Blue Ridge Book & Author Showcase is set to assemble a substantial cross-section of highly regarded writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children's books, many of them residing here in the North Carolina western mountains. Event dates are May 8-9, 2009. The gala celebration of authorship and creative writing will be staged in the magnificent new Technical Education & Development Center on the campus of the Blue Ridge Community College.

Free and open to the public, the event is planned and staffed entirely by volunteers. A diverse program of presentations by literary luminaries will be headlined by Henderson County native son and honorary chairman, Robert Morgan, along with keynoter Sharon McCrumb, North Carolina Poet Laureate Kay Stripling Byer, and widely applauded author, storyteller and balladeer, Sheila Kay Adams. Some 15 other popular authors and playwrights will present their works and discuss their writing experiences as they made their way on the typically long and challenging road to successful publishing.
There will be program components appealing to children, students, and their families. There will be lots of opportunities for shop talk, networking and socializing. Ample time during the program is set aside for the reading public to engage authors in one-on-one interaction.
Of special interest to commercially published and self-published authors who are not presenters is a display table program to accommodate a limited number of applicants who will be able to sell and sign their books and to interact with the reading public. The exhibit spaces will line the perimeter corridors of the venue's huge conference hall. All book sales will be channeled through a central point of purchase station operated by Malaprops Bookstore of Asheville.
The event is being financed in part through grant applications and in part through individual and business sponsorships. Principal sponsoring partners in early support of the program include the Henderson County Travel & Tourism Department, the Blue Ridge Community College, the Henderson County Education Foundation, and the area's daily newspaper, the Times-News. Other cooperating partners include the North Carolina Writers' Network and the NCWN West chapter of that organization, the Writers' Network of Asheville, and the Together We Read program to promote reading in the state's western counties.
Detailed information is available on request by contacting Bob Greenwald, Co-chair, 154 Timber Creek Road, Hendersonville, NC 28739; 828-698-1550, or email to patnbob2@gmail.com.