Chataugua AVE in Andrews, NC

7:00 pm -- "The Bright Forever" starring Bobbie Curtis -- Valleytown Cultural Arts Center in Andrews, NC.


A one-woman show written by Gary Carden and performed by Bobbie Curtis.

Fanny Crosby, the character that Bobbie portrays was blinded at six weeks of age by an incompetent doctor. Despite this handicap she wrote over 8,000 hymns and an equal number of poems. Almost every hymn book in use today will contain one of her hymns. In her lifetime she was one of the best known women in the United States. Her sacred songs were sung wherever the English language was spoken. She became a student at the first school for the blind, in New York City, at the age of fifteen. After receiving her education, she remained at the school for 28 more years as a teacher. One of her fellow teachers was Grover Cleveland who later became President of the United States. Never one to bemoan her blindness, her poetry expresses her joy of living.



Bobbie Curtis of the Foothills Little Theatre in Lenoir, N.C. will play Fannie. Bobbie grew up in eastern Caldwell County, NC. The tenth of eleven siblings. Born in the depression era, she longed to be an actress. But, money was a big issue and she was told that none was available to explore whimsical dreams. Pursuing a more practical career, she became a nurse at Grace Hospital and later in the field of public health. Now at the age of 75 she is realizing her dream of being an actress, playing to full houses and receiving accolades.

SIX POETS OF THE MOUNTAIN SOUTH: FORTHCOMING FROM LSU PRESS

(THIS WILL BE RELEASED DURING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH. )

By John Lang Southern Literary Studies Fred Hobson, Series Editor ISBN-13: 978-0-8071-3560-0 PAPER Page count: 240 Trim: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 Illustrations: none Published: April 2010 $24.95 An LSU Press paperback original In the most extensive work to date on major poets from the mountain South, John Lang takes as his point of departure an oft-quoted remark by Jim Wayne Miller: “Appalachian literature is—and has always been—as decidedly worldly, secular, and profane in its outlook as the [region’s] traditional religion appears to be spiritual and otherworldly.” Although this statement may be accurate for Miller’s own poetry and fiction, Lang maintains that it does not do justice to the pervasive religious and spiritual concerns of many of the mountain South’s finest writers, including the five other leading poets whose work he analyzes along with Miller’s. Fred Chappell, Robert Morgan, Jeff Daniel Marion, Kathryn Stripling Byer, and Charles Wright, Lang demonstrates, all write poetry that explores, sometimes with widely varying results, what they see as the undeniable presence of the divine within the temporal world. Like Blake and Emerson before them, these poets find the supernatural within nature rather than beyond it. They all exhibit a love of place in their poems, a strong sense of connection to nature and the land, especially the mountains. Yet while their affirmation of the world before them suggests a resistance to the otherworldliness that Miller points to, their poetry is nonetheless permeated with spiritual questing. Dante strongly influences both Chappell and Wright, though the latter eventually resigns himself to being simply “a God-fearing agnostic,” whereas Chappell follows Dante in celebrating “the love that moves the sun and other stars.” Byer, probably the least orthodox of these poets, chooses to lay up treasures on earth, rejecting the transcendent in favor of a Native American spirituality of immanence, while Morgan and Marion find in nature what Marion calls a “vocabulary of wonders” akin to Emerson’s conviction that nature is the language of the spiritual. Employing close readings of the poets’ work and relating it to British and American Romanticism as well as contemporary eco-theology and eco-criticism, Lang’s book is the most ambitious and searching foray yet into the worlds of these renowned post–World War II Appalachian poets. John Lang, professor of English at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia, is the author ofUnderstanding Fred Chappell and editor of Appalachia and Beyond: Conversations with Writers from the Mountain South.

IT'S PARTY TIME, BY DEBRA V. EDWARDS

(Debra V. Edwards)

Debra Edwards answered the call to submit her essay from Memories in Black and White, the anthology published by the Royal Scribblers of Cashiers, North Carolina. Enjoy!

And if you want to order a copy of this anthology, please go to City Lights Bookstore's website--www.citylightsnc.com.

It's Party Time

(Let the good times roll !!!)

By: debra v. edwards

My parents were very strict. In this day and age, I'm sure they'd be considered abusive. Especially Momma. We got the belt, slaps, (sometimes for just walking past her) hits, switches and restrictions. We were never allowed to go to the movies, dances, sleep-overs or drive-ins; definitely not drive-ins. We were, however, allowed pets. My refuge and sanity and best friends, were our pets. Otherwise, we were caged or chained to momma's watchful eye.

Very much like a dog that is chained, day in and day out, week after week, month after month, even years. But then some occurrence causes the animal to escape, or be freed, and it will run and run and run wild. It does not want to be caught. It will not listen to pleadings to come back. No. It knows that it will be chained again...harder, this time; or tighter. This dog needs to be free or with ‘his humans'. He was not designed to be ‘tied up'. Once given that freedom, he willingly, comes back and lays on the porch, if kindness is shown. Too many folks (or parents) don't understand this philosophy. I desperately needed some freedom.

To this day, I hate to see a chained dog.

The most revered and severe of our corrections, though, came from The Board of Education! It sickened us when Momma would laugh about that cleverly worded disciplinary rod, to us and to visitors. She boasted of her ‘authority' over us. It always got our attention. It was one inch by two inches and about two and a half feet long. It literally was a wood board.. The Board of Education stayed as a constant reminder in our kitchen, above our back door trim. It fit comfortably there. I remember it well. We all did. Mother had written in bold, black, magic marker on that simple piece of wood, The Board of Education! She was so proud of it. When it was used, we girls had to disobey school rules back then, that we could only were dresses or skirts to school. But when our legs were black and blue, we wore jeans or slacks.

I was the youngest of five siblings and often a witness to that board's use. When taken down, it was "going to be used" and someone was going to be the recipient. When we were in church or a restaurant or, any place where Momma thought we were being a little bit out of line, she simply snapped her fingers, clenched her jaws and with squinted eyes, she pointed to the culprit or at all five of us - sliding that finger down the line. If the response was not immediate and she had to snap again, we knew that was it. Our bodies would start trembling. Everyone thought we were such well-behaved, fine children. We were not allowed to show any hatred in her presence. But we all harbored it anyway. With five of us in seven years, Momma believed you couldn't love a child and discipline them at the same time; she chose discipline.

Daddy was an airline pilot, who was gone many days and nights. We never heard, "just wait till your father gets home." No, sir'ree, that discipline was given often and promptly and seemingly with great pleasure..

So in the summer before my senior year in high school, with my brother and sisters now gone and out on their own; (all leaving by various means of escape), Momma and Daddy decided they could trust me and they took a trip alone for the first time since their "babies started coming!"

I lived seven miles from my high school; boys never dated me. It was either my parents' reputation, the distance from town, the lack of transportation, or maybe as I often felt, it was me. Nobody wanted to date me. So, when my parents' trip was planned and departure time was imminent, I called several girl friends and asked them to come and stay with me. I had found a golden opportunity to taste a little freedom. We decided we would learn to drink and smoke.

The spend-the-night party was to be the Friday night my parents left. They did. I called my friends and said, "Come on, they're gone!" One of the girls was bringing some booze, another some cigarettes, and we were going to finally be ‘free from parental supervision'. Of course these ‘sins' were all coming from their own parents' stash.

Seven miles out, on our forty-five acre farm, distance suddenly was no longer a problem. One of my friend had an older boyfriend that drove and had his own truck. When she showed up, he was with her. The other friend had several guys with her, as well. Then car after truck, after truck, after car began a steady stream up, down, and around the long driveway to my house in the woods. Word had apparently gotten out fast!

The drinking and smoking began. I feverishly began trying to clean up the spilled beer bottles or cans and throw them into a trash can that was rapidly becoming full. The cigarette burns on my mother's fine rugs and carpet, where they were carelessly being tossed down and snubbed out with a boot or shoe. The burn spots were not clean up-able, as desperately as I tried.. cigarette ashes were falling onto the fine "seven different colors of green" sofa, that Momma was so proud of and repeatedly telling us and everyone that visited. "It was special made", she would say. Glass bottles were being christened together; "cheers" and "bottoms up"and one of those even broke as it was christened so hard.. The bottle parts found it's glassy way with tiny blood drops into the carpet below. The five bedroom doors on our main level, were now being closed. It became a hall of closed doors.

I was trying to be in the partying spirit, after all this was officially my first real party. One of the uninvited classmates said she and one of the guys were going back into town to buy more beer and booze; they'd be back soon. An hour or so later, a police car came up to the door and everyone just scattered into closets, under beds, and even ran out into the woods. It seemed that this friend and her fella had had an accident, and although they weren't seriously injured, he totaled his car. She convinced the cop, whom she knew well, as we all did, not to tell her parents. The cop brought her back to the spend-the-night-party and he joined us.

There were many people in my parents' home that I didn't know, as a matter-of-fact, most of them. The word had spread like wildfire, and I learned that night, when there are girls and booze and "cigs" to be had, everyone wants to party. There were older men and younger men and men with "pot". I didn't know what it was at the time, most of us didn't. But the ones who did, were sharing it, one puff at a time, around the room and back. It was disgusting to me to think that one "joint" with so much saliva on it, was passed around and then another would be lit up to follow. Even some of my closest friends were trying it for the first time. This was more than I could handle. I went downstairs to digest it all, as more vehicles seem to be joining us. I was stunned and in a state of stupor. The smell of pot alone was making my head swim. I had to stay more in control.

Our basement was a total apartment in itself as Daddy believed in paying cash for everything and the basement is where we all seven lived until he could afford the upper, main level of the house. It's also where our freezer was kept packed with food. I found the door wide open and the freezer empty. The small t.v. set was gone, the only one we had, as was the majestic clock that Momma cherished and said was an "heirloom". Anything that was toteable...was gone. I didn't cry. I don't remember being scared. I was feeling betrayed by friends and I was in total page shock as to how this could have so easily gotten out of hand.

The highway patrol had radioed ahead to be on the look out for Momma and Daddy in their Chevrolet station wagon. The cop that had joined us, I later understood, stayed just in case an

outcome such as this, would occur. He had disappeared from the party, and reported the accident and at the same time, had also reported "a party out of hand." He knew that my parents were strict and this would never have been allowed. Since it was my house, he could only "call the folks!"

Mom and Dad had turned around half way to Florida and drove back in our driveway in the wee hours of the morning. I had not had the first thing to drink or smoke. I was too busy cleaning up as my parents' home was being destroyed. I was disgusted that people could be such ‘users'; so callous and filthy, not caring where they snuffed out their cigarette, if the beer was spilled on the sofa, or the booze bottle was broken on the teakwood coffee table. How could someone steal from us? What kind of people do things like this? It was such a rude awakening for me. I learned a lot that night. Stuff that I was just not prepared to learn. How did their parents train them? I couldn't bare to look at the bedrooms. At least condoms were used. I saw my first in my own messed up bed, as was all the beds.

As friends were passed out in various places, I continued to make beds and clean up bottles, butts and glasses. I wrapped up the garbage bags and threw them in the back of a leftover truck still parked outside. My truck driver, brother-in-law, came through the door and just shook his head and then went straight to bed downstairs, for a layover. He said nothing.

As I was experiencing exhaustion and worry, I debated about just running away from home with some of the leftover partiers...and then they... walked in the door.

Face to face contact with disgust and pierced lips...I shuddered. But nothing was said. Mom started calling parents of my friends that were still there to come and get the girls, while daddy commenced to ‘escort' the male drunks down the steps and out the back door, telling them "I better never see you back on my property again!" I deserved whatever was coming to me.

I escaped to my bedroom but not a wink of sleep did I get. It was morning now. I kept awaiting that authoritative voice to soon be calling my name. It never came. Days later, nothing was said. Nothing.

To each of their dying days, it was never mentioned and I certainly didn't bring it up either. I'd hear mom talking to other parents about it, but not to me. It was just always referred to as "The Party." When one of my siblings inquired about the whipping that I must have gotten, Daddy just simply said, "She had already paid dearly."

The Party's Over................................

THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA

Davis, Tom. THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA. Fayetteville, NC: Old Mountain Press, Inc. 2010. 83 pages, trade paperback. $14.00. www.OldMountainPress.com.

THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA, compiled by Old Mountain Press, includes poetry and prose by 61 writers. This anthology features authors who wonder at the beauty and mystery of the sea.

A colorful photo of two adorable children graces the cover of this book. Thomas Fielding Dunn stands beside his big brother, Lewis, looking over the sound in Wrightsville Beach, NC. They are waiting for their uncle Lewis to pick them up in his boat flying the US and North Carolina flags.

The poetry ranges from "The Sea Calls to me," by Ann Fogelman; "Shipwreck," Catherine Murphy Haymore; "Reflections in a Pond," Margaret L. Parrish; "The Old Lighthouse Keeper," D. Davis Phillips and to "The Perfect Shell," by Nancy Sollosi.

"Night Sea," by Joanna Catherine Scott describes the lure of the sea: roar of a wild wet beast/ hissing, whispered/ summons to a drowning

Dylan Atkins' imagery of "The Sea," paints a landscape: The deep blue sea is a beautiful sight/ We are happy every night.../I love all sea creatures/I love all bodies of water...

Besides poetry, the prose ranges from "Sea Call," by Tonya Staufer," to "She Who Went Down to the Farm Pond," by Martha O'Quinn.

THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA is the 12th anthology printed by Old Mountain Press.

Editor Tom Davis acknowledges the contributions of the following authors whose work has appeared in this and all eleven past anthologies: Sandra Ervin Adams, Ed Cockrell, KD Kennedy, Jr., Jo Koster, Brenda Kay Ledford, and Glenda S. Wilkins.

Finally, James Gibson best describes the mesmerism of the sea in, "The Ocean in Me": I stood in the surf/Ocean rhythm in my blood/It never left me.

To order copies of THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA, go to: www.OldMountainPress.com.

Book reviewed by: Brenda Kay Ledford
www.brendakayledford.com
http://blueridgepoet.blogspot.com

These Blue Ridge Mountain gals love the sea, too. Brenda Kay Ledford, Blanche L. Ledford, and Barbara Ledford Wright, have work in the anthology, THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA.

Second Fridays of Each Month

Mountain Perk in Hiawassee, Georgia, will host writers on the second Friday of each month beginning on April 9. Glenda Beall is the first reader of this series.
Check back later for  more information.

MEMORIES IN BLACK AND WHITE

MEMORIES IN BLACK AND WHITE: A Collection of Childhood Memoirs, by the Royal Scribbler's, Cashiers Writers Group, was published in 2009 by Main Street Rag Press. Here's how they describe themselves:

The Royal Scribblers is a group of writers who are about as well-adjusted as any creative community can be.

They have been getting together twice a month since 1996 in Cashiers, NC. Meetings are called to order by a quacking duck and a squawking chicken--two wind-up toys that dance simultaneously to different tunes.

And that pretty much describes the Royal Scribblers.

Now, I ask you, what would you expect from a writers group like that? I'd expect to have some fun with them, to enjoy their meetings and their work. And I did--not the meetings, since I've not been to one yet, though I'd like to (if only to hear the duck and the chicken!), I mean this anthology that begins with Foreword by my friend Joyce Foster, a fine poet whose work I featured on my Laureate's Lasso blog last year.

"Time tumbles down the stairs two by two in this last spiral of my life. I have stories that want to be told. They sneak around corners and slide sideways, like naughty imps, into my poetry. For my children, for their father; for my brother and family long gone; for friends here and there; for dreams and for life, I remember and write. Our lives touch and come apart. Through poetry I heal. Through poetry I celebrate the gift of this fragile moment."

I haven't read a better testimonial to the power of words than this in a long time. Besides Joyce, other contributors include Netwest members Ben Eller, Bob Fahey, and Deanna Klingel, as well as Kathie Blozan, Bill Christopher, George Cowan, Debra Edwards, Stephen J. Fischer, Karen Gilfilllan, Elsie Sameulson Haight, Eva Hanson, Jeanne Larimore, and Alicia Savino. Contributors' notes at the end feature photos of the authors, as children and as well-adjusted creative adults!

Perhaps if some of these well-adjusted folks will email me their memories from this book, I will post them on our Netwest blog. Is that a deal?

NAZIM HIKMET POETRY FESTIVAL DEADLINE: FEB. 19

THE NAZIM HIKMET POETRY FESTIVAL DEADLINE IS UPON US! Please go to http://www.nazimhikmetpoetryfestival.org FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK TO THIS FESTIVAL. Submitting is free, online, and shouldn't be much of a hassle.

Give it a try!

NEW POET LAUREATE CROWNED

(At the state Capitol with Linda Carlisle, Head of the Dept. of Cultural Resources, and new Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers)

On Wednesday Feb. 10, Cathy Smith Bowers was officially installed as North Carolina Poet Laureate. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xAk6fOzaNE )I was delighted to place the laurel wreath on her head. My Lasso blog will now be archived here, so please visit it as often as you wish. The NC Arts Council will be setting up its own laureate website soon and will link to this blog.

Thank you for visiting this blog. Please visit my other blog now--Here, Where I Am, where I will be now and then featuring poets and new books from NC and elsewhere.

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE

Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers
Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains, the anthology everyone is waiting for, is growing closer to the day of publication.

We are proofing the final copy this week. As soon as any little glitches are corrected, the book with over 200 pages and several photos, will go to the printer. We will have one more chance to proof the manuscript when the printer sends us the galleys.

We cannot give a definite release date at this time. As most know, the proofing and copyediting has been and is being done by NCWN West volunteers, and because of the volunteers, we will be able to offer this book at an affordable price.

We ask that the contributors and those who can't wait to read this terrific book, be patient a few more weeks. We are planning for a spring release and a book party. Our contributors and those who made donations for the printing, the photographers whose work is on the cover and inside the book, will be notified  and all will receive their free copies when we have the finished product in hand.

We can assure you, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge will be worth the wait.

In January, Coffee with the Poets, held at Phillips and Lloyd Books on the square in Hayesville, NC was, as usual, fun for all. Clarence Newton was featured poet. We welcomed back Estelle Rice, seen above on right, along with Joan Howard, far left and Mary Mike Keller. Most of our group moved on down to The Cottage Deli and Salad Station for lunch and more talk about writing. We were happy to welcome two visiting poets in January and hope they will return and others will join us on Wednesday.

                                                                                                                                       

Clarence Newton read to a full house last month.

Nancy Simpson enjoys hearing poetry read at CWP last month and we were all happy to see her tear herself away from her writing desk to be with us.

Glenda Barrett, author of the poetry chapbook, WHEN THE SAP RISES, published by Finishing Line Press, brought her mother to CWP in January and both enjoyed the delicious snacks served by Elizabeth Rybicki of Crumpets Dessertery.

COFFEE WITH THE POETS FEATURES ELLEN ANDREWS

Wednesday, February 10, at 10:30 a.m. Netwest member, Ellen Andrews, who lives in Robbinsville, NC, will read her poetry at Coffee with the Poets.
Ellen's poetry reflects the things that fill her day with delight and awe. I am not surprised she is a gifted writer. She is also an excellent photographer.

Daylillies by Ellen Andrews

I look forward to hearing Ellen's poetry on Wednesday at Coffee with the Poets at Phillips and Lloyd Books on the square in Hayesville, NC.

Her reading will be followed by open mic. Everyone is invited to participate or come and listen to others read. It is always a day of fun.

REDROOM.COM

For those of you interested in having a presence online, with access to hundreds of visitors, go to redroom.com, "Where the Writers Are," and register, either as a member or an author. (This is explained on the site.) Or if you don't wish to become a member (it's free) you can browse the contents. Redroom will occasionally give topics for its members/authors to blog about. Last time it was "my favorite poem." Here is my entry. It was selected as one of the top entries that the editors liked.

Two weeks ago, redroom.com asked its members to blog on the topic of "my favorite poem." How could I choose? One poem from all the ones I love? Then I took a look at our Aero garden and knew. Verde, que te quiero verde!

---------------------

GIVING MYSELF OVER TO GREEN

Poets are fickle creatures. We fall in love over and over again.We can never remain faithful to only one poet. I began to understand this the day I forsook Wordsworth in my college Spanish class. My poetic guide. My first love. How could I?

What was I doing in a Spanish class anyway? Hadn’t my father instructed me to take either French or German, the latter being his grandmother’s native tongue?

He would have found it silly, the way my infatuation began, with a 75 rpm record bought during my senior year in high school. The Music of Spain. I listened at night after lights out to “Granada” and “Malaguena.” The hair on the nape of my neck trembled. The dark outside my windows beckoned.

And so, on the first day of classes in a small woman’s college in Georgia, I sat down to learn Spanish from a short rotund woman who demanded we call her La Senora, although she had never married. I read the classics of Spanish literature, moving inexorably toward the 20th century where in the anthology’s last section, I found Romance Sonambula and, and in the burst of a verde viento, the English Romantic poets became as dust to me. I fell in love with Federico Garcia Lorca. In Spanish. No matter how many translations of his work I’ve read over the years, the original Spanish has never lost its seductiveness, whether I read it silently or, better, aloud.

Verde que te quiero verde.

Verde viento. Verdes ramas.

El barco sobre la mar

y el caballo en la montaña.

Con la sombra en la cintura

ella sueña en su baranda,

verde carne, pelo verde,

con ojos de fría plata.

Verde que te quiero verde.

Not that I agreed with La Senora that everything sounded better in Spanish. Shakespeare? Wordsworth? Keats? No, I already knew that the language of poets is beautiful, no matter what it is. Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, French, English....Cherokee.

Garcia Lorca’s poetry spun me around, gave me a new way of experiencing language, my own language, which was now infused with the cante jondo of Andalusia.

Even now, years later, I recite those lines as a kind of mantra, Verde, que te quiero verde... and I still love the feel of them in my mouth. I love the deep song of them in my viscera. I have dreamed of trying to save Lorca in the olive grove, with only my child’s fingers pointed like guns at his assassins.

Verde, que te quiero verde.

Not even these lines can stop bullets. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. I know that.

But they live on in our daily lives, these words we love. They wait patiently for us. I had to reach middle age before Garcia Lorca’s duende found its way into my own poems.

Gone

Long before I could read Lorca

I wanted to give myself over to green

as he had and be lost like a sleepwalker

in it. I wanted to hide in the honeysuckle

and never come home if it meant I must stay

by the telephone, waiting for someone

to call with the doctor’s pronouncement,

my mother then turning to us saying

over and over again in my memory, Gone.

Such a word I would never repeat

to the oaks that held sway round my favorite pasture,

or blackberry bushes I dreamed would stay

unscythed by road crews sent forth to claim

right of way. Verde, que te quiero verde,

I’d gladly have cried if I could,

but where are such beautiful words

when we need them? And what if that’s all

this poem means now I’m middle-aged: words

as a way to want green back again

and myself in the throes of it,

even though I’ve learned enough about Lorca

at last to be quite sure that no verde

anywhere spending its June on this earth

could have outstayed for one blessed

second what waits at the end

of the line, always some bloodless voice

trying hard to sound human across so much

distance, its words still escaping me.

(from The Store of Joys, NC Museum of Art)

W.H. Auden said that art is a way of breaking bread with the dead. Each time a poet begins to write, or to read a poem, she takes the bread of those gone before and places it in her mouth. She does this over and over again. With one poet. Another, and yet another, living or dead. She loves the taste of the bread they share. So many poets. So many poems. By the end of her life she will contain, like Whitman, multitudes, and will never again try to answer the question, “What is your favorite poem?”

Jeff Biggers - Reckoning at Eagle Creek:The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland

Jeff Biggers awed his audience at the Blue Ridge Bookfest in Flat Rock last year. We learn now he has a new book Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. If you are in Asheville be sure to put the following dates on your calendar. When Biggers performs his work, you sit on the edge of your chair caught up in his passion for the subject.

Coal Free Future events in Asheville:


Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 7pm, Malaprops:

Jeff Biggers performs excerpts from Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland

http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp;jsessionid=bacyse99yw3Lp6toSKOys?s=storeevents&eventId=433405

Website: http://www.jeffbiggers.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeff-Biggers-Reckoning-at-Eagle-Creek/277990564288

Friday, Feb. 5th, 8pm, Asheville Community Theatre:

Asheville Premiere of "Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal"


Coal Free Future Project

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=247728060735&ref=mf

Website: http://www.coalfreefuture.org/

JENNIFER MCGAHA

Read an excellent non-fiction piece by Netwest member, Jennifer McGaha here.
Jennifer also has work in the upcoming anthology, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, edited by Nancy Simpson.

WRITING FOR CHILDREN - a Promotional Give-Away Class

John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C. has offered two free seats to the class WRITING FOR CHILDREN, to be taught by author and instructor Faye Gibbons. A $25.00 registration fee is required. One of the promotional give away classes has already been assigned. There is one left. If you want it call now 1 800 Folk Sch.

Class Description:

Writing for Children

Writing

February 7-13, 2010

Instructor: Faye Gibbons

Tuition: $527.00

Wonderful stories surround us. Tap into them! Discover techniques for using real-life experiences to create children's fiction. Write each day and share positive feedback. The instructor will offer comments and suggestions on at least one assignment and one final story for each student. All levels

If you are interested in more writing classes at John C. Campbell Folk School, click below.

https://www.folkschool.org/index.php?section=subjects&subject_id=47