Save the Date - Brevard Writers Group

Save the Date-Brevard Writers Group,
Tuesday, January 4th,
3:00-5:00 PM, First Presbyterian Church

Remember, we agreed to talk about query letters at this meeting after we have had our readings and reviews, bring one to share if you have it. Also bring rejection letters to share if you have one. I will have some guidelines for query letters.

Join us.

Wayne Drumheller, writer, photographer, storyteller
NCWN-Western North Carolina Board Representative
260 Frank's Cove Road
Brevard, NC 28712
Phone 704-287-9806 cell
Phone 828-877-5133
Email mystory@citcom.net

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER GIVE BOOK SIGNING

Brenda Kay Ledford and Blanche L. Ledford will sign copies of their book, SIMPLICITY, at Mountain Regional Library in Young Harris, GA on Saturday, January 15; 11:00 AM—2:00 PM.

Step back to a simpler time with this mother and daughter. Meet the folks they loved, capture the beauty of Appalachia, feel the old-time ways. Experience planting by the signs, storytelling on the front porch, possum hunting, wearing sinful red shoes, shindigs, and mountain politics.

Their work has appeared in Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Southern Mist, and other publications.

Brenda is listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. She received the Paul Green Award from North Carolina Society of Historians for her three poetry chapbooks.

SIMPLICITY was released by Catawba Publishing Company of Charlotte, NC in December. For more information, go to: http://catawbapublishing.com/bookstore/book/179.

You Show Up -- Inspiration Provided!

Sing and Paint with Words, JC Campbell Folk School
Jan 30 – Feb 5 ($546/ask for half price!)

Our very own talented Karen Paul Holmes is teaching the class Sing and Paint with Words. This class will inspire your writing through music and other arts. You’ll hear music that ranges from Beethoven to Elvis, you will view paintings by Monet or Finster, and read literary masters or contemporary writers - all to generate ideas for poems, fiction, or essays. You'll receive editing tips and one-on-one critiques to make your work stronger and more readable. This class is open to anyone who needs inspiration and help perfecting the art of writing.

Karen Paul Holmes, an award-winning writer, has work published in business magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. Her enthusiasm for teaching has given her top ratings for her writing workshops at international conferences. She also taught poetry to students through the Georgia Poetry Society's "Poets in the Schools" program. Karen is a writing coach, poet, freelance writer, and the editor of the North Carolina Writers' Network's Netwest News.

Want to Nominate a 2010 Poetry or Fiction Book For an Award?

To all of you who value southern poetry and fiction please consider nominating books you have read and want to honor that were published in 2010. 

Readers can nominate a book by listing a book store that is a member of Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance  (SIBA) such as City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

Poetry was dropped from awards last year,  but this year the general public can nominate.  If you care about poetry, please take the time to nominate your favorite poetry book of 2010.

http://www.sibaweb.com/siba-book-award/nomination-form

CONTEST DEADLINES - GET YOUR SUBMISSIONS IN SOON

BYRON HERBERT REECE SOCIETY POETRY CONTEST

Deadline: June 4, 2011

Open to poets from North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia

The Byron Herbert Reece Society is having its first-ever poetry contest. The Byron Herbert Reece Society exists to preserve, perpetuate, and promote Appalachian writer Byron Herbert Reece. Guidelines on website.


ROSE POST CREATIVE NONFICTION COMPETITION

Postmark Deadline: January 5, 2011

Submissions accepted November 15-January 5

The Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition encourages the creation of lasting nonfiction work that is outside the realm of conventional journalism and has relevance to North Carolinians. Submit an original and previously unpublished manuscript of no more than 2,000 words, typed (12-point font) and double-spaced. Full contest guidelines: http://www.ncwriters.org/


THOMAS WOLFE FICTION PRIZE

Postmark Deadline: January 30, 2011

Submissions accepted December 1 - January 30

Submit an unpublished fiction story of 12 pages or less, double-spaced. Full contest guidelines: www.ncwn.org

SIMPLICTY

Blanche L. Ledford and Brenda Kay Ledford have published a new book. SIMPLICITY is a collection of prose and poetry about Clay County, NC. Step back to a simpler time with this mother and daughter. Meet the folks they loved, capture the beauty of Appalachia, feel the old-time ways. Experience planting by the signs, storytelling on the porch, possum hunting, wearing sinful red shoes to a mountain church, shindigs, and mountain politics.

The book is available at Phillips & Lloyd Book Shop on Main Street in Hayesville, NC; The Book Nook in Blairsville, GA; or you may order online at: www.catawbapublishing.com for only $16.00 per copy.

This beautiful book would make a wonderful gift for Christmas.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER CO-AUTHOR BOOK

Award-winning writers, Blanche L. Ledford and Brenda Kay Ledford, have collaborated a collection of prose and poetry about the culture of Clay County, North Carolina.

This book coincides with the sesquicentennial celebration of Clay County in 2011. The county was established in 186l.

At 89, Blanche writes with knowledge about growing up in Clay County during the Great Depression. She recalls planting her vegetable garden by the signs, and wearing sinful red shoes to a mountain church. Her stories about the Blue Ridge Mountains will bring back memories of by-gone days.

Her daughter, Brenda Kay, is a member of North Carolina Storytelling Guild. She’s won awards telling stories at the annual Lies & Pies Jamboree held on the square in Hayesville, NC. She’s told stories at the John C. Campbell Folk School, at festivals and when she gives poetry readings throughout the Southeast.

Brenda writes about her experiences as a native of Clay County. She’s received the Paul Green Award from NC Society of Historians for her poetry chapbooks: Patchwork Memories, Shew Bird Mountain, and Sacred Fire. She also won the award for collecting oral history on Velma Beam Moore, a prominent citizen of Clay County.

This book, Simplicity, describes the culture of Clay County, NC honestly and with humor. It brings the reader back to a slower-paced period, when folks sat on the front porch swapping tales with neighbors, and savored the good sense of a simple lifestyle.

Simplicity is available at Phillips & Lloyd Book Shop on Main Street in Hayesville, NC; The Book Nook, Blairsville, GA; or you may order online at: http://www.catawbapublishing.com/ for only $16.00 per copy.

This heart-warming book would make a wonderful gift for Christmas. It’s a treasure that people may keep and read many times to experience the beauty and culture of Appalachia. There has been an overwhelming response to our book. Everyone who purchases it just loves the book and colorful cover. There’s a limited number of books. We do not plan to reprint, so get your copy while the supply lasts!

COFFEE WITH THE POETS: LAURA HOPE-GILL, DEC. 16, IN SYLVA, NC

WHAT COULD MAKE A MORE BEAUTIFUL SEASON'S GIFT THAN THE SOUL TREE, A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY LAURA HOPE-GILL AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN FLETCHER? COME MEET LAURA on DEC. 16 AT CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE IN SYLVA. SHE WILL READ FROM HER WORK AND SIGN HER BOOK FOR HOLIDAY GIVING.

(Published and printed in Asheville, North Carolina by Grateful Steps Publishing. )

LAURA HOPE-GILL will be at CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE THIS THURSDAY, DEC. 16TH, 10:30 a.m. to discuss her work. Please join us for coffee, tea, and pastries----and poetry by both Laura and attendees.

-- To say that Laura Hope-Gill and John Fletcher, Jr. have put together one of the most stunning books I've ever seen would be an understatement. Here is a collaboration that expands the definition of that word. It's a seamlessly interwoven collection of words and images that invite and inspire, in the the original meaning of that over-used term. Laura's poems show the depths of her poetic "inseeing, " as Rilke calls it, and Fletcher's photographs open up the landscape that Laura sings into being with her words. The Soul Tree speaks to the landscapes of internal and exterior reality. In this collection those two landscapes have found harmony through two artists working together in celebration of what they love.

Laura Hope-Gill is in the process of being certified as a Certified Applied Poetry Facilitator by the National Federation for Poetry Therapy, working under the mentorship of poet and psychotherapist Perie Longo. The Director of Asheville Wordfest, a free poetry festival which presents poetry as Citizen Journalism, she consciously pursues ways of revealing poetry’s relevance to every-day life and not merely an “art form” whose only use is to beautiful. The Soul Tree: Poems and Photographs of the Southern Appalachians (Grateful Steps, Asheville) is a collaboration with local photographer John Fletcher, Jr. and is an application of her vision of poetry as a conversation between inner and outer worlds. Renowned photographer John Fletcher has this to say about the beginnings of their collaboration. "After visiting my landscapes website in the spring of 2008, Laura replied with an email containing an attachment titled, 'The Soul Tree.' I was stunned after reading the poem, then I noticed that there were 35 more pages to the document. My jaw dropped a little lower each time I scrolled to the next poem…36 in all. I was speechless.Not only was her writing beautiful and poignant, but her poetry brought new life to the photographs. I was also quite overwhelmed by her choice of photos…not the pretty sunset pictures that most people like. She was inspired by the photos that were my favorites…the mysterious and more abstract images that I feel personify my experience and observations. Today I continue this pursuit by working as a staff photographer for the Asheville Citizen-Times, shooting weddings, and freelancing for regional and national clients including, USA Today, The Associated Press, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Asheville Chamber of Commerce."

Images and poems from The Soul Tree may be found at http://www.thsoultree.org/, along with ordering information and more about the two artists who have brought this lovely book into existence.

Here are two pages from the book.

BOOKS FOR THE WRITER ON YOUR GIFT LIST

WRITERS MARKET is a necessary tool. Sooner or later every writer must sit down  and do the research necessary to get writing published in the correct place.  A lot of postage is wasted when writers send their poems, stories, and essays to the first publication they hear of or think about.  Check out Writers Market at the local library you say.  That is not always possible here in the heart of Appalachia. The local library in my town does not have Writers Market.  

I do not work for Amazon.com. They pay me nothing.  Poets and Writers pay me nothing. Some of you know I care about writers and have given my time and energy to the writing community. In my December blog, I've offered some suggestions for buying books for your loved ones.  If you have a writer on your list, you might consider buying them a dictionary or printer's ink or copy paper, or a copy of the most recent Writers Market in their genre of writing. There is the thick book that covers all and the smaller books that zero in on Poets Market for Children's Writing and Illustrators, or for Poetry or Christian Writers or Novel and Short Story.

Want to buy Writers Market for yourself or for a writer on your list?  click on blue URL below.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_19?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=writers+market+2011&sprefix=writers+market+2011

THANKS TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS

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Poetry Contest to Consider

Byron Herbert Reece Society Announces Inaugural Poetry Contest

As Program Coordinator, I want to let all poets know that there is a new poetry contest that those living in NC and GA (and other Appalachian designated states) may participate. For those of you not familiar with Byron Herbert Reece, you may learn more here and also find out about the contest: http://www.byronherbertreecesociety.org/. As a board member, I am not able to enter, but I certainly encourage all of you to consider -- there is a $300 cash prize for the winner.

THE GIFT OF POETRY FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Janisse Ray's " A House of Branches"

Before she became the acclaimed author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Wild Card Quilt and Pinhook, Janisse Ray was a poet, a calling she has never abandonedd. Nor has it abandoned her. How heartening, therefore, to see her first love given its full-throated voice in Waking in the Forest! These poems are indeed about waking up, looking around at the world, and discovering how to live within it. Often they seek relationship with that world, speaking to the birds, for example, and begging of them, "Oh kinglet, Oh oriole/tell us what you know.” Janisse Ray know show to listen to what our world has to tell us, and she knows how to transform that listening into language that kindles our imagination, which after all desires nothing less than to be utterly alive in our landscape. “No matter how rich/we become, or old,/ or unable, won’t /some part of us desire to weave/a basket in which to forage/the last of the grapes? “ the poet asks. Ray’s poems weave for us such a basket. They show us how to gather and cherish the things of this world.

Born in Southeast Georgia, Janisse has given many presentations in the WNC mountains and is a frequent lecturer at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa.

To order this book, go to Wind Publications, where Charlie Hughes, poet and editor, runs one of our best regional small presses. Or for a signed copy, order directly from Janisse Ray, 895 Catherine T. Sanders Rd., Reidsville, GA 30453. $16 for paperback, $27 for hardback (includes shipping.)

(Janisse Ray talking with my brother, Charles Stripling, at the Joseph F. Jones Ecological Center in Baker County, Georgia)

Riding Bareback Through the Universe

The earth does not move steadily,

spinning at one speed through the heavens,

but with the motion

of a wild stallion at full gallop

across a painted desert,

which is sweep and fall, sweep and fall.

The earth is waltzing.

Its cloud-tail streams behind like a comet’s.

Not only the earth. Every heavenly body

once thought steady, plodding even,

flings itself along with senseless joy.

In the sky an ecstasy of stars

stampedes through the universe.

You and I ride standing

on the back of earth,

feet firmly planted, side by side,

our love for this life

so thunderous and billowing

so wild and powerful

we finally understand celestial motion.

Around us thousands of leaves

leap up and down on their stems

and summer flowerheads

surge with the wind.

B

New Announcement for Prose Writers from Peg Russell

Make your Plan for Dec.9, 2010. NetWest Prose Group will meet 7PM, Tri County CC, Enloe Bldg Conference Room 108.  The Enloe Bldg is second on the right, enter and turn right, first room on right after the restroom.
 
Even if you can't make the meeting, while the decorations and Christmas cards are out, this is a perfect time to make notes for future articles, poems, etc.  Locally the Cherokee Scout called for submissions,and online Yesterday's Magazette also requested holiday related submissions.


The NCWN West Monthly Prose group meets the second Thursday night at 7:00 pm at Tri County Community College. Members can bring a short story, essay or excerpt (with copies for critique to share.) Observers are welcome. Contact Peg Russell for more information.

Christmas Stories published by Sisters

CONGRATULATIONS TO TWO SISTERS,
Brenda Kay Ledford and Barbara Ledford. Their stories of Christmas were published in Yesterday's Magazette.

http://www.yesterdaysmagazette.com/page_11.html#previous-photo
http://www.yesterdaysmagazette.com/Page13.html#previous-photo

THE GIFT OF POETRY FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Nancy Simpson's "Living Above the Frost Line"

December first and time to begin to think seriously about holiday gift-giving! Over the next two weeks I will be making recommendations for poetry lovers--and for those who think they don't like poetry but will change their minds once they read these books.

I will begin with my longtime friend and sister in the art, Nancy Simpson, whose Living Above the Frost Line: New and Selected Poems was published this fall by Carolina Wren Press. It's a beautiful, elegant book, with French flaps (a shawl-like dust jacket/cover) and cover image that is gorgeous. Just click on the image above to enlarge and see what I mean.

Nancy Simpson has enriched the literary community of North Carolina for over thirty years. Her work was first heralded by the late Richard Hugo when he read and celebrated her poems at the Callanwolde Literary Festival in Atlanta, shortly after she began to show her poetry around to friends and readers in the far reaches of western North Carolina. He praised her rich inner life and her ability to give expression to it as it manifested itself in her everyday life. Whether driving over the Nantahala Gorge in “Night Student,” expressing the complexity of self in “Driven into the interior,” or documenting the carnage of the first Gulf War in “Voices from the Fringe,” she brings the inner and outer worlds of her experience into a harmony that resonates like the current giving voice and shape to the mountain creeks she loves. Living Above the Frost Line: Selected and New Poems traces the growth of a poet determined to survive despite the obstacles raised by age, mortality, and the inevitable losses that come from being alive in this world. Through her poetry she greets that half-drowned woman, harking from her Florida girlhood, who appears as her muse in “Bridge On the River Kwai, “ bearing gifts of memory and sustaining images. In return the poet gives her “a mountain, the safest place to be.” Rarely has the relationship between poet and muse been so beautifully expressed.

Nancy, on the porch of her Cherry Mountain home.

I'm delighted to be able to offer several of my favorite poems.

Tanfastic

At 12:17 this Sunday

he is uninhibited

in front of God and

everybody traveling

I-75 South, a man

lounging in the bed

of his red pickup truck.

He is getting his tan

the fast way, 80 mph

stretched out

on his chaise lounge,

his black bikini

drawing the sun down.

He is holding a blue

tumbler in his hand.

I can only guess

what he is drinking.

I want to make a pass,

I mean, get past him

in this god-awful traffic.

I want to see

the face of the woman

at the steering wheel

who is taking him for a ride.

The Gleaners

In the last days of the age

word went out that women

therefore must be allowed

to participate in creation.

And there came forth an artist

calling to us, Come hither!

In the center of a cornfield

in Brasstown Valley,

she sculpted an assembly

of corn women. She fashioned

husk bodies, worked six days

making in her image. She dressed

the corn women in gauze gowns

and entwined eglantine in their

cornsilk hair. Come hither!

We entered the cornfield,

our capes waving

in the evening breeze. We

circled the corn women,

lit a circle of small fires

and danced in firelight.

In the morning we came forth

to sculpt, to paint, and to write

the story that is left to tell.

Looking For the Sons of My House

I am looking for the sons of my house,

grown from babies into boys,

three of them with dark brown eyes.

Where are they now? The one

who brought a snake down the hall

into my room. The one who

had to fall off the porch, to test every rule?

The young one who flew half-way

around the world to be my son?

Their bikes are wrecked, tossed

in the landfill with their outgrown shoes.

One day I saw they were no longer boys but men,

the one who drove me to night class in Asheville

when he was a teen, the same one

I stood with as mother of the groom.

Where are they now?

One whistles on a hillside, feeds his dogs.

One is stuck in rush-hour traffic, stuck

in a marriage I blessed. The young one

climbs today on a mountain in Switzerland.

All of them far from the mother house.

Skin Underwater

1.

From the top of the mountain we see

Town Valley submerged in clouds.

You say the word ‘ocean’ and a gull

flies from the branch of an oak,

squawks his squawk.

I know a lie when I see one.

Seagulls do not live in the mountains.

It is the woodpecker men call extinct,

alive, soaring above oaktops.

Now driving through fog in the valley

you show me things not seen before.

Men are swimming on the courthouse lawn.

Women stare fish-eyed from their gardens,

their mouths turned up.

2.

Barnacles collect on the pier.

Count one for every life you were young:

the schoolgirl, mute,

who spoke only underwater

hoping no one could decipher.

In water memories converge.

Shell is sharp to touch.

Seaweed is soft as hair, and skin

is the large sensor. Skin

keeps its own record of the day

you slit your forearm, diving

into green ocean at South Beach.

Look how barnacles bashed by waves

hold on. Some are encased in stone.

They could cut you bloody, Girl.

3.

Looking back I see my mother

was misinformed, promised an abortion

though it was illegal, five doctors

dead sure I was damaged, and certain

she would die if she gave birth.

She did sort of die, seeing me hideous

in her dream, seeing a ball of hair

bouncing in the room, in the afternoon

when she tried to rest.

I heard from her lips

how she fell down praying.

My mother was devout. I knew

she could not kill. Don’t you see?

I was in the best possible position.

A voice from a dream

Sleep again.

Dream yourself

on the north bank of the river

inconspicuous as deadwood.

Drift ashore

where grass glows at sunrise,

where light is found all day.

Dream a new body.

a blue robe, and you

walking home.

We stand over the carcass of a jellyfish.

It has given up the ghost, grown opaque.

Moon Jelly, I say, we knew you when

you lit the sky of the underworld.

And we count out loud the lines on its body

as if in counting we might learn

how long it lived in the ocean.

Gulls show interest in our arithmetic.

They circle. They fly down

to the sound of our voices.

Are we going to reach the end

of the island? Are we moving in a circle?

Light-headed we walk.

6.

It interests me seeing

the hermit scuttle away

with a moon shell for a new house.

Look how furrows of silt create

a frontal lobe. We are walking,

don’t you think, on gray matter?

I will always say yes

to almost everything you ask. Yes,

it is possible to imagine

intelligence beneath our feet.

7.

Evening turns out just as imagined.

We walk the length of the beach

and lie on the sand. We enter

the surf, our bodies submerging.

In hearing distance of a wave’s yes,

earth is a woman with plans.

What She Saw and What She Heard

On the mountain a woman saw

the road bank caved in

from winter’s freeze-thaw

and April rain erosion.

Trees leaned over the road the way

strands of hair hung on her forehead.

She gaped, her face as tortured

as the face she saw engraved in dirt.

Roots growing sideways shaped brows,

two eyes. Humus washed

down the bank like a nose.

Lower down, where a rock

was shoved out by weathering,

a hole formed the shape of a mouth.

The woman groaned, Agh!

Her spirit toppled

to the ground, slithered

under the roots of an oak.

She stood there asking

What? Who?

Back to reason, back home

she finished her questions:

What can one make of the vision, that face

on the north side of the mountain?

Reckoning comes, a thought:

It is not the image of a witch nor a god,

but Earth’s face, mouth open saying,

Save me.