Don't Miss This Workshop

What: Workshop, "Elements of Storytelling"

Where:  7540 Hwy 64 West (Grove Enterprise Building), Brasstown, NC 

When: Saturday, August 2, 10:00 am -12:30 pm

Have you ever agonized over a plot? Or wondered what difference choosing the correct tense or point of view will make to your story? Or maybe you know your characters, but have struggled with bringing them to life for your readers.

The workshop, "Elements of Storytelling", has been designed to help writers at all stages of development in creating and editing fiction, nonfiction, drama and narrative poetry. 

The workshop provides exercises that review the definitions and uses of basic elements of storytelling, such as story and plot, theme, character, setting, tense, voice and point-of-view, imagery, dialogue, and pacing. Participants are asked to bring examples of their work for use in these exercises. Course content materials will be provided. 

The instructor is one of the NC Writers' Network's Regional Representatives, Patricia Vestal, a retired publisher and educator, who has developed a writing course and workshop which she has presented at Hendersonville’s Opportunity House and other western NC locations. During her career, Patricia taught playwriting, film & game scripting, poetry, prose and journalism through theater groups and IADT (International Academy of Design & Technology) in Orlando, Florida. She also worked in New York City as an editor, writer and editorial and image researcher for major encyclopedia, textbook and newspaper publishers and earned her B.A. in Media Communications and her M.A. in Drama. 

Fees for the workshop, sponsored by NC Writers' Network-West, are $15 for NCWN/NetWest members and $25 for non-members. It will be held at the Grove Enterprise building at 7540 Hwy 64 West, between Murphy and Hayesville, on Saturday, August 2, from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm. Although fees will be payable at the door, and walk-ins will be welcome, pre-registration is requested. To register, please contact the instructor, Patricia, at patriciavestal@gmail.com.

Come Hear Lucy Cole Gratton, July 12 Writers' Night Out

Don't miss Lucy!

She writes poetry and short essays of interest and misadventures about activities around her property on Lake Apalachia. The program begins with a social hour at 6 p.m. (dinner available for purchase) and reading following at 7 p.m.. There’s also an open microphone for those who’d like to read their own writing (limit 3 minutes of prose or poetry).

Union County Community Center

129 Union County Recreation Rd., Blairsville, Georgia 30512 

Behind Holiday Inn Express near the intersection of US 76 and Highway 129
phone (706) 439-6092

We usually meet in the upstairs ballroom (alternate location is A-B conference room on first floor). Click here for the map.

Is Hubris a Bad Thing?

By Bob Grove, NetWest Prose Critique Group Facilitator

I’m proud to be a writer and I enjoy reading my works to an audience; I think most of us do. That subject came up recently at my prose critique group, and the question arose, “Why is public display of our talent so important to us?” Without a moment’s hesitation, I impulsively answered, “Hubris!” Now that’s an interesting word, and I have no idea why it came out so abruptly. In retrospect, I was somewhat surprised by my spontaneous reply, so I decided to look it up. 

Webster defines hubris as “excessive self-pride; arrogance,” and Greek etymology refines its origin as “an excess of ambition.” But this sounds more like narcissism.

If admiration, or even adulation, is a requisite, am I a narcissist? I pondered that for a while until a psychoanalytical reference informed me that narcissism is “erotic gratification derived from admiration of one’s own physical or mental attributes.” I must admit that I am gratified by applause at a reading, but not that gratified.

There is, however, a more comfortable label. Egoism (not egotism) “emphasizes the importance of oneself in reference to other things...to understand one’s central place in the universe.” Now that sounds pretty good. 

Perhaps writers do share this very useful mechanism in an age of global disharmony. We have the ability to express ourselves and understand our place among our fellows. I like that. It’s a sign of contentment, reflection and introspection; all positive, beneficial characteristics. With this in perspective, egoism seems to be an admirable aspect of hubris. 

Reading our works in front of an audience is a performance art. Perhaps the Greeks were too critical in their disdain for ambition. As writers, we don’t expect to receive lavish monetary rewards. Appreciation is enough, and hubris may be the drive we need to get there.

Ridgeline Literary Alliance Announces the Winners of the 2014 Young Writers Contest

Ridgeline Literary Alliance (RLA), a newly organized association to encourage writers in Western North Carolina and North Georgia, is proud to announce the winners of the 2014 Young Writers contest, which was sponsored by RLA and the Young Writers of Western North Carolina. 

Winners have been invited to read their work at the RLA/North Carolina Poetry Society (NCPS) reading in Franklin, NC, on July 19, beginning at 2:00 p.m. The event will be held at the Community Facilities Building, 2:00 p.m., July 19. In addition to the winning students, North Carolina poets Glenda Beall and Susan Lefler will read. 

Directions are as follows: From Hwy 64 in Franklin, exit at Hwy 441, go south about 1 mile, see facility on left across from Whistle Stop Mall. This event is free and open to the public.

All the winning prose and poetry from the contest will be published on RLA's website, and as a special student section in a printed anthology that RLA is planning. More details on the anthology will be available on the website soon.

Mary Ricketson, President, of Ridgeline Literary Alliance, said she hoped that all who entered, will enter their submissions again next year. “Not every entry can win, but every entry was a privilege to read. Keep writing.” was her advice to the students.

Winners of the 2014 RIDGELINE LITERARY ALLIANCE Student Writing Contest

Poetry High School winners:

1st Place: Misty Morin, Hayesville High School, "Silence"
2nd Place: Stephanie Howe, Murphy High School, "Senses"

Poetry Middle School winners:
1st Place: Skyler Crubaugh, The Learning Center!, untitled “the early year celery . . .”

2nd Place: Nolan McRae, The Learning Center!, untitled “I work so hard . . .”

3rd Place: Sydney Bolyard, The Learning Center!, “The Girl I Am”

Prose High School winners:

1st place: Kenyon Marasco, Tri-County Early College, “My Proving Ground”

2nd place: Morgan Yigdal , Northwood High School, “Saying Goodbye” 

3rd: Haley Garrett, Hayesville High School, “The Way to Hayesville”

Prose Middle School winners:

1st place: Lucille Crayton, The Learning Center!, “Finding Home”

2nd place: Katelyn Jones, Murphy Middle School, also entitled “Finding Home”

3rd place: Brie Dube, The Learning Center!, “A Journey Out of My World”

North Carolina Writer Announces New Book

Wayne Adams announces his fictional book titled: The Universe Wept. American astronomers discover an asteroid made entirely of gold. Thus begins a tale of international intrigue. Published by Publish America of Frederick, Maryland.

CONTACT: Wayne Adams

TEL: 910-428-9779

EMAIL: tipper1234@embarqmail.com

July's Coffee With the Poets and Writers

Coffee with the Poets and Writers meets Wednesday, July 9, at 10:30 a.m. at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill on the corner of Hwy 141 and Hwy 64 in Cherokee County, NC. The community is welcome and visitors are invited to participate at open mic by signing up to read a short prose piece or a couple of poems.

Featured this month is Glenda C. Beall, poet and writer from Hayesville, NC. Beall's poems have appeared for the past nineteen years in literary journals and magazines such as Main Street Rag, Appalachian Heritage and Journal of Kentucky Studies. Her work can be found online in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Your Daily Poem as well as in anthologies, Kakalak, Carolina Poets 2009 and On Our Own, Widowhood for Smarties. Recently a poem was selected for the Reach of Song anthology published by the Georgia Poetry Society, and another is forthcoming in The Southern Poetry Review VII, North Carolina.

She is author of Now Might as Well be Then, a poetry chapbook, published by Finishing Line Press. Her nonfiction has been published in Reunion Magazine, Bereavement magazine, and in several anthologies including Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers.

Beall's writing is influenced by her rural upbringing with six brothers and sisters. Like most poets and writers she observes people, nature, and happenings around her. She uses these observations to create images in her poems, stories and essays. She says she writes to communicate her thoughts and feelings with her readers. She believes poetry should be accessible to the non-writer as well as to other poets. 

A former Program Coordinator for the NC Writers' Network-West, she continues to volunteer as Clay County Representative and facilitator of Coffee with the Poets and Writers. For the past five years she has been owner/director of Writers Circle around the Table, where she has brought outstanding writers and poets from Atlanta, Charlotte, and Hickory, NC as well as the best local writers to teach at her studio. Beall will teach a writing class in August at Tri-County Community College.

For more information about Coffee with the Poets and Writers, call 828-389-4441.

HERE, WHERE I AM

HERE, WHERE I AM

Janice Moore, Patricia Spinkle at Writers' Night June 14

for directions, see http://www.uccommunitycenter.com/location.html

Netwest Members offered discount on classes before deadline

Netwest members - take advantage of this opportunity to attend a workshop with well-published Atlanta author, Patricia Sprinkle.

Saturday, June 14 - Take individual classes, 10 - 1:00 and 2 - 5:00 p.m.,  or take both classes for $60. This writer speaks to large groups, teaches workshops and we are fortunate to have her come to our area. If you write fiction or nonfiction, you don't want to miss out on this one-time opportunity. We will have lunch together and you will have the opportunity to network with other writers and with Patricia.


Each class fee is $45 or both classes for $60.00 Netwest members - $40 for individual classes. 

Light lunch included for those who register for all day session 

 Deadline for registration: Thursday, June 11

Call 828-389-4441 or email glendabeall@msn.com 

Visit www.glendacouncilbeall.blogspot.com for class description.

The Literary Hour at JC Campbell Folk School

On Thursday, June 26, 2014 at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and N.C. Writers Network-West are sponsoring The Literary Hour, a monthly hour of poetry and prose reading held at Keith House on the JCCFS campus. The reading is free of charge and open to the public. 

This month presents an exceptional opportunity to meet and listen to the featured readers, Nancy Simpson and Brenda Kay Ledford, whose poetry mostly centers around the mountains.

NANCY SIMPSON

 

Nancy Simpson is the author of three poetry collections: Across Water, Night Student, and most recently Living Above the Frost Line, New and Selected Poems (Carolina Wren Press, 2010). She also edited Echoes Across the Blue Ridge (anthology 2010). She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a BS in education from Western Carolina University. She received a NC Arts Fellowship and co-founded NC Writers Network-West. For more than 30 years, young writers have known her as “beloved teacher.” Simpson’s poems have been published in The Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, Seneca Review, New Virginia Review, Prairie Schooner and others. Her poems have been included in anthologies, Word and Wisdom, 100 Years of N.C. Poetry and Literary Trails of N.C. (2008). Her poems have also been featured in Southern Appalachian Poetry, a textbook anthology published at McFarland Press.

Nancy lives in Hayesville, NC. Through 2010 she served as Resident Writer at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Presently she teaches Poetry Writing at the Institute for Continued Learning at Young Harris College.

BRENDA KAY LEDFORD

Brenda Kay Ledford is a seventh generational native of Clay County, NC, and holds a Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University.

She writes about her heritage and has done post-graduate work in Appalachian studies. Brenda received the Paul Green Multimedia Award from North Carolina Society of Historians seven times for her books, collecting oral history, and blog, Historical Hayesville.

Her work has appeared in Our State, Carolina Country Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Appalachian Heritage, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Asheville Poetry Review, Country Extra Magazine, Blue Ridge Parkway Silver Anniversary Edition Celebration, and many other journals.

Finishing Line Press published Brenda’s award-winning poetry books: Shewbird Mountain, Sacred Fire, and Beckoning. She co-authored Simplicity with Blanche L. Ledford. These books are available at the John C. Campbell Folk School Craft Shop. 

Coffee with the Poet and Writer, Estelle Rice

Estelle Rice, author of Quiet Times, a book of poetry, will be featured at Coffee with the Poets and Writers on Wednesday, June 11, 10:30 a.m. at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill. 

Rice is a well-published writer whose short stories have appeared in The Appalachian Heritage Journal, the Journal of Kentucky Studies, and in anthologies and magazines, including Lights in the Mountains and Echoes Across the Blue Ridge.

She is a native North Carolinian, born in Rocky Mount and raised in Charlotte. She now lives in Marble, NC. Estelle received her BA in psychology from Queens University in Charlotte and a MA in counseling from the University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama. She is a retired Licensed Professional Counselor.

Although she is a full-time caregiver for her husband now, she still attends writing workshops and continues to create poems and stories. Her poetry has been published in The Back Porch, the Freeing Jonah series and others.

Estelle has been a member of Netwest for as long as I have known her, around twenty years. Her positive personality has always endeared her to those who know her and is reflected in her poems such as the one below from Quiet Times.

Silence

When I am silent,

thoughts surge onto the shore

of my consciousness.

There is no place to hide

or deny my fears.

Silence endures my frailties,

nudges me toward the paths

where I will meet myself.

Silence encourages me

to listen to the universe,

that I may hear

the songs of angels.

             ---Estelle Rice

Come out to Blue Mountain, on the corner of Hwy 141 and Hwy 64 near Murphy Medical Center, and hear Estelle’s reading as well as participate in our regular open mic session. Stay for lunch. We pull the tables together and enjoy a social hour. This event is sponsored by NCWN West and is open to the public. Contact Glenda Beall, 828-389-4441 or nightwriter0302@yahoo.com for further information. 

Untying the Knot is here... a book of poems by Karen Paul Holmes

Now Available

Untying the Knot by Karen Paul Holmes is a memoir in poetry about the end of a long marriage and the healing process.

“… . About half the people who have ever been married would be eligible to write on the subject but very few, if any others, could with such grace, humor, self-awareness, and without a dollop of self-pity, as Karen Paul Holmes has in Untying the Knot. This is a courageous deeply human book.” –Thomas Lux

Published by Aldrich Press, a division of Kelsay Books.

Available from Amazon (search for "Karen Paul Holmes") or through the publisher/Amazon at
http://astore.amazon.com/kelsbook-20/detail/0615998984

or order a personalized copy for $14, check or Paypal. Email kpaulholmesATgmail.com (replace AT with @) for details.

 

Karen Paul Holmes grew up in Michigan and has an MA in music history from the University of Michigan. She eventually moved to the warm south and worked her way into a career that involved her love of writing: She became Vice President-Marketing Communications at ING, a global financial services company. After 20-some years in the corporate world, she now leads a gentler life as a freelance writer and poet, mother of a smart adult daughter, and owner of two naughty Welsh Terriers. 

Karen finds joy participating in poetry readings and supporting poetry through the Side Door Poets group she founded/hosts in Atlanta and the Writers’ Night Out she founded/hosts in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In 2012, she received an Elizabeth George Foundation emerging writer grant for poetry. Her poetry has been published in a number of journals and anthologies, including Poetry East, Atlanta Review, Main Street Rag, Caesura, POEM, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, American Society: What Poets See (FutureCycle Press), and the Southern Poetry Anthology Vol 5: Georgia (Texas Review Press).

You may contact her through her web site: www.simplycommunicated.com.

Meet Angela In a 28 Minute Video

Angela Leigh Tucker is the inspiring person whose recovery from a severe traumatic brain injury was the subject of Bill Ramsey's new book, "Me Now - Who Next?"

She is almost six years along and still making progress as this video will demonstrate: http://youtu.be/9EwgdcsP4bY. 

Bill invites you to invest 28 minutes in order to meet her and to better understand how brain injuries change lives. For those wishing to know still more, the book is available on all e-readers and in paperback from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com. The audio book, read by the talented professional voice of Scott Pollak, will be available soon. If you have never tried an audio book, consider starting with this one. Hearing Scott and Angela read it will take the story to the next level for you. Audio books can be enjoyed on your computer or any other device used to deliver entertainment. Amazon, Audible and iTunes will be offering it.

Bill has often said that Angela changed his life and she can do the same for you. Her determined fight to recover proves that there is always hope.

Bill blogs at: www.billramseyblog.wordpress.com

For information about his books: www.LifesWrite.com

Lawrence Thackston Returns with a New Mystery

Lawrence Thackston, author of  the locally set, The Devil’s Courthouse, will visit City Lights Bookstore to present his new mystery, Tidal Pools on Friday, June 6th at 6:30 p.m.

 Making the most of incredible plot twists, dark settings, and the use of ancient religious rituals, Tidal Pools will keep readers on the edge of their seats through the final pages. In the Galeegi Islands along the coast of South Carolina, the former prime suspect in a 40-year-old, controversial murder case is found dead of a questionable suicide. Tyler Miles, a newly recruited patrolman with the Galeegi Police Department, becomes an unlikely part of the investigation and is immediately swept up in a tidal wave of violence and deceit that threatens to impact the entire Lowcountry. Working side-by-side with Chloe Hart, a research biologist for the EPA, Tyler must find a connection between the suicide and the old murder, all the while facing a new rash of killings and an imminent, destructive threat to the islands and the surrounding marshlands. From behind the screen doors of the island's most impoverished hovels to the marble floors and crystal chandeliers of its finest plantation homes, Tyler will race to unravel the mystery behind the chilling case. And, in his search for justice, he will come face to face with an evil as old as hatred itself, cryptically finding his answers only in what the tide leaves behind.

Born and raised in the palmetto state, Lawrence Thackston is a writer of Southern tales of mystery, suspense, loss, and redemption. His first novel, The Devil's Courthouse, was well-received by critics and has generated a faithful following among his readers. To reserve your copies of his books please call City Lights Bookstore at 828-586-9499.

COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS

2014 updated schedule 

Second Wednesday of each month, 
10:30 a.m. Blue Mountain Restaurant in Peachtree near Murphy Medical Hospital and Tri-County College in Cherokee, County, NC. You might take home one of the door prizes offered each month. 

Stay for lunch when we pull the tables together and visit.

MARCH  12  Deanna Klingel

APRIL 9– Brenda Kay Ledford

MAY 14  -- Lucy Gratton and Joan Howard

JUNE 11 – Estelle Rice

JULY 9 -- Glenda Beall

AUGUST 13  -- Staci Bell and Linda Smith

SEPTEMBER 10 – Carole Thompson

OCTOBER 8 – Mary Mike Keller and Bob Grove

NOVEMBER 12 -- Karen Holmes – Paul Schofield

DECEMBER – open mic  and sign up for next year