The North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Fall Conference

The North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Fall Conference will be held November 21-23 at the Sheraton Charlotte Hotel, in Uptown Charlotte. If you've already registered: thank you! If not, can you really miss an opportunity like this, happening in your own backyard?

The North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Fall Conference offers something for almost every writer, at any level of skill or experience. Your best route to getting the most out of the weekend depends on where you are right now as a writer, where you want to go as a writer, and how you want to get from here to there.

Are you a NOVICE writer? Good workshop options for newbies include Chantel Acevedo’s “All Shapes and Sizes: A Workshop on Novel Structure”; “Poetry 101” with Anthony S. Abbott; and “First Impressions in the First Few Pages” with Sarah Creech.

Are you an EMERGING writer? You may want to mix some of the craft workshops—maybe “Poetry and Time” with Julie Funderburk; “Making Their Stories Your Own” with Rebecca McClanahan; or Zelda Lockhart’s “The Mirror Exercise: Producing a Whole Short Work in Less Than an Hour”—with some of the appropriate business-of-writing workshops like Sunday’s panel discussion on “The Many Paths to Publication” with Kim Boykin, John Hartness, and Karon Luddy.

Are you an EXPERIENCED writer? You may be ready to concentrate on the “business of writing” workshops: “The Art of the Pitch” with Betsy Thorpe and Carin Siegfried; “Crafting Your Message: Beginning an Interactive Publicity Campaign” with Priscilla Goudreau-Santos; “The Many Paths to Publication” panel discussion; maybe even “Creating a Poetry Community” with Scott Owens and Jonathan K. Rice.

And if you're an AUTHOR, well, why not register for the conference just to brag? And of course to enjoy the keynote address by Allan Gurganus; Saturday's luncheon featuring North Carolina's seventh poet laureate, Joseph Bathanti; and Saturday night's annual banquet featuring the inimitable Wilton Barnhardt.

The North Carolina Writers' Network Fall Conference changes locations each year, in order to better serve the writers of this state. We won't be back in Charlotte until 2018, at the earliest. We don't want to wait that long to see you.

Register now.

Who are the writers you need to see read live?

http://flavorwire.com/487668/50-writers-you-need-to-see-read-live

I read an article on 50 Writers You Need to See Read Live and it made me think about all our Netwest writers. How many of us take time to work on our readings so they will entertain our audience and keep them wanting to hear more? How many of us say the work must stand on its on and we don't worry about the presentation?

I noticed in the article that almost every single person listed used humor in his/her presentation. Does that mean we can't read about serious subjects? I don't think so.

Read the original article and see what the author thinks makes a good reader.

Netwest holds open mic and featured reader events in our region. Send us the names of those
you think do a very good job of reading their work.
We can help each other by telling what we enjoy from our writers and poets when they read.
Send your thoughts to me by Email: glendabeall@msn.com

Judy Pierce Will be Signing her New Book on November 22

Judy Pierce will be signing copies of the second book in the Tales from Farlandia series, Ozette's HeartStone, on November 22 from 1-3pm at the White Squirrel Shoppe at 2 West Main in Brevard, NC. during their 26th annual Christmas Open House. Copies of her first book, Ozette's Destiny, will also be available.

More about Judy and her books can be found on her website, or on her Amazon page.

Interview on You Tube with award-winning Netwest Poet

Brenda Kay Ledford, award-winning poet from Hayesville, NC was interviewed by Pam Roman of  the Clay County Chamber of Commerce regarding her new book, Crepe Roses.

See the complete interview here.

Congratulations, Brenda Kay.

November 8: Last Writers' Night Out for 2014

Local favorite Bob Grove and formerly local, award-winning Eva Nell Mull Wike will entertain us with their stories.

Please Note: There's been a slight change to Writers' Night Out: We no longer have a formal dinner service. Many of us just meet in The View Grill upstairs at the Union County Community Center for dinner or drinks. Then we have our program in the Ballroom (or other room as directed by signs) at 7 p.m.  For directions to the event, click here (the Holiday Inn Express on the map is now a Comfort Suites). As always, you can sign up at the door to read for 3 minutes in the open mic.

Nancy Purcell's poem accepted for Anthology

Kudos to Nancy Purcell, former Transylvania County Representative for Netwest. Her poem, Hard Frost was accepted for inclusion in the anthology, Life is a Roller Coaster from Kind of a Hurricane Press. http://www.kindofahurricanepress.com/

Nancy’s prose has been published in various print media, and she teaches Creative Writing  at Brevard College in their Creekside program for adults. She also facilitates a writing group made up of her students.

A Southern fiction writer, Nancy has learned to tap into readers’ emotions and keep them riveted right up to the final sentence. As a student of relationships, she explores family dynamics that include romance, old age, deceit, even murder. She is also a prose judge for the Carl Sandburg Home Writer-in-Residence program at Flat Rock, NorthCarolina.

Congratulations, Nancy. We look forward to seeing more of your poetry. Visit Nancy online here.

Paul Schofield, novelist, reads at Coffee with the Poets and Writers

Coffee with the Poets and Writers meets the second Wednesday of each month. Murphy resident, Paul Schofield, novelist, is featured November 12 at 10:30 a.m. at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill on the corner of Hwy 141 and Hwy 64 in Cherokee County, NC. This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West (Netwest), and the community is welcome. Visitors are invited to participate at open mic by signing up to read a short prose piece or a couple of poems. 

Paul’s vocation is architecture, but he is also a writer. He has written The Trophy Saga, an action-packed, pure science-fiction trilogy, in the classic style. The Saga features time-travel, chase and battle scenes, fusion powered star-ships, a computer-controlled society, tender moments and scary episodes. Exciting and refreshing to read, the Saga is free of explicit sex, profanity, graphic violence and paranormal themes.

Born and raised in Montana, immersion in the natural world around him was inevitable. As he grew up he learned the complexities of language, and the joy of humor, by the daily exchange of witty puns with his father. An avid reader, Paul’s favorite genre was science fiction.

His interest in the night skies sparked a love for amateur astronomy. Coming of age during the time of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Babylon V, his love of science fiction grew, and his desire to craft and share his own stories was ignited.

When he became chilled to the bone in Montana, he moved to Florida, where he became quite well done…seasoned. Now he and his wife Ellen live in western North Carolina with their highly intelligent cats, contentedly fulfilling their role as “halfbacks.” Learn more about Paul Schofield and his books at his website, http://www.paulmschofield.com/

For more information about Coffee with the Poets and Writers, call 828-389-4441. Visit the NCWN West website, www.ncwriters-west.org 

Randolph P. Shaffner, Netwest member has a new book

“A fascinating, well-researched and long overdue biography of the Virginia Military Institute’s most unheralded founder and underappreciated champion of educational reform.”

       ̶ Dr. Bradford A. Wineman, Marine Corps University

 

Read more about Randolph Shaffner on his website. 

"This is a fascinating and extremely readable book, deeply researched but never pedantic. It presents a thorough and persuasive defense of Col. Preston’s unique role in the founding and preservation of V.M.I. and paints a vivid and often surprising picture not only of this one eccentric, determined reformer—schoolmate of Edgar Allan Poe and brother-in-law of Stonewall Jackson—and his family, but also of Virginia society before, during, and after the Civil War."

       ̶ J J. B. McAfee, Richmond, Virginia

 

"This biography from McFarland Publishing has the type of massive bibliography and expansive scholarly documentation seen in quality original works. I can't say I am familiar with this particular fellow (Civil War readers encounter a lot of Prestons), but, as the title indicates, he was a key figure in the institutional development of VMI. Preston and Stonewall Jackson both married Junkin sisters, and the professor would also serve on Jackson's staff during the war."

     –"New Arrivals," Booknotes IV, Oct. 11, 2014, by Drew at Civil War Books and Authors

Brenda Kay Ledford's Poetry Book Published

Brenda Kay Ledford's poetry book, CREPE ROSES, was published by Kelsay Books, Aldrich Press in October, 2014.

The following blurbs describe the book:

CREPE ROSES, by Brenda Kay Ledford, is tithed to the deep mountains of the poet's beloved western North Carolina.  This stirring collection is the plat of the heart, a litany of memory that becomes palpable as the land itself.  Indeed memory, along with the Adamic impulse to name every signpost-to list those names in sorrow and triumph, to wander among them, crying out, as if they are lost, though they remain underfoot-is this book's constant, thrumming trope.  As the speaker attests in the poem, "Ceaseless Verse," "The poetry of the earth never ceases."  Nor does the reader's pleasure with these elegant poems.

--Joseph Bathanti, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina

CREPE ROSES by Brenda Kay Ledford is a patchwork quilt of experiences and memories pieced together with the skillful words of an established poet.  The multi-hued fragments give a view of the Blue Ridge where "moments tick like hours on the wrap-around porch."  The ancient Appalachians come alive in her poems as a "breeze ricochets across the porch resurrecting buried dreams."  A dedicated writer, her remembrances bring much to us all.  Settle down and visit Chunky Gal Mountain, Winding Stairs Gap, and Shewbird Mountain where a Full Wolf Moon spills honey.  A delightful read!

--C. Pleasants York, North Carolina Poetry Society President, Author of "Pleasantries, Weaver of Destiny" and "Dream Within A Dream

Brenda Kay Ledford's poetry book, CREPE ROSES, is available on www.amazon.com.

Writers' Night Features 2 Young Harris College Poets

October 18: Please come hear the newest poets in town! 

Chelsea and Jim both teach at Young Harris College and are award-winning poets.

Please Note: There's been a slight change to Writers' Night Out: We no longer have a formal dinner service. Many of us just meet in The View Grill upstairs at the Union County Community Center for dinner or drinks. Then we have our program in the Ballroom at 7 p.m.

Click here for James May's wonderful poem that just placed in the prestigious Rattle Poetry contest. 

And read a fun Chelsea Rathburn poem here. 

Keller and Gratton read at JCCFS October 16

Thursday, October 16^th 7:00 p.m.
John C. Campbell Folk School
Brasstown, N C

Mary Mike Keller and Lucy Cole Gratton
will read their poems and stories 

The reading is  free and open to the public.

Netwest Scholarships for Fall Conference

The NCWN-West Scholarships are open to applications from NCWN members in NetWest counties who need aid to attend the conference. For more information, please e-mail mail@ncwriters.org.

Why is it important to attend writers' conferences?

Quotes from Tony Abbott who will teach a poetry workshop at the NCWN Fall Conference:

Why do you feel it's important for writers to attend conferences such as the NCWN Fall Conference?
"When I first started writing, I had almost no contact with other writers, with people like me. Conferences give us a chance to be with one another and feel the support of others like ourselves. In North Carolina, especially, writers are a genuine community. You might meet someone at a conference who will become a true friend…."

What does it mean for writers to "Network?" Any tips? 
"When we founded the North Carolina Writers' Network we realized that many writers lived in communities where they felt isolated from many of the important things going on in writing centers like Raleigh, Durhm, Chapel Hill. To Network really means to be in touch with what is going on and to become a part of it. If Sharon Olds is coming to Duke, I want to know about it even if I live two or three hours away. A network can help keep me alive as a writer."

Can writing be taught? 
Yes. You can’t teach talent or genius. A gift is a gift, but we can always help people improve. We can teach people to be better writers than they are.

Registration for the fall conference is now open. To register, click here.

COFFEE WITH THE POETS AND WRITERS OCTOBER 8

Coffee with the Poets and Writers, a monthly literary event held at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill, 30 NC Hwy 141, Murphy, NC will hold a reading at 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, October 8. Two members of NCWN West, Bob Grove and Mary Michelle Brodine Keller, are featured on the program this month. The public is invited.


Bob Grove was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but now lives in the mountains of North Carolina. He earned his Bachelor of Arts at Kent State University and his Master of Science at Florida Atlantic University. His diversified curriculum enabled him to teach courses in English, journalism, creative writing, physics, chemistry, biology and psychology.

Bob has been an ABC-TV public affairs director, an on-air personality, and the founder and publisher of Monitoring Times magazine. A prose critique facilitator for the North Carolina Writers’ Network West and an officer with the Ridgeline Literary Alliance, he has published seventeen books and hundreds of articles in sixteen national magazines.

Now retired after 35 years as founder of Grove Enterprises, an international supplier of radio communications equipment, Bob has more time to write. Most recently, he has published a mystery novella (Secrets of Magnolia Manor), his memoir (Misadventures of an Only Child), a collection of children’s stories (Adventures of Kaylie and Jimmy), and has written several flash fiction stories as well as some forgettable poetry. Bob’s public readings are popular as a performance art form, typified by his annual December reading, in costume and dialect, of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the John C. Campbell Folk School.His collected writings on technical topics are now available online, as is his Abnormal Psychology which he uses as a teaching text in continuing education classes. As an experienced auctioneer, he has also published a collector’s guide, Antiquing. All Bob’s publications are available on Amazon Kindle. Visit his website at www.bobgrove.org.

Mary Michelle Brodine Keller, a published poet and writer, and a seasoned genealogist lives in Hiawassee, GA. She served as publicity director for NCWN West and is on faculty at Writers Circle around the Table where she teaches a class, Bones to Flesh, writing about your ancestors.

In her writing, she draws inspiration from something she has seen or an incident that intrigues her — a casually spoken phrase becomes the cornerstone of an essay, short story or poem. She is a visual artist and paints in oil, water color and pastels. She is also a musician and plays piano, guitar and dulcimer.

Known to her friends as Mary Mike, her poems have been published in The Mountain Lynx, Freeing Jonah III and IV, and Lights in the Mountains. Her poem "As The Deer" was published in ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers is open to the public at no charge. Bring a poem or short story and read at Open Mic. Those attending are invited to join the writers and poets for lunch and to enjoy a social hour.

This event is sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network West. Contact NCWN West Representative, Glenda Beall, at 828-389-4441 or gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com  for information.

Writers Night This Saturday: Scott Owens, Staci Bell

September 13

Featured on Writer's Almanac and winner of many poetry awards, Scott Owens once again travels from Hickory, NC to read for us. He'll also teach a workshop at Writers Circle in Hayesville on Saturday.

Joining him at Writers' Night Out on September 13, will be writer and former talk-show host, Staci Bell, from Murphy.
An open mic follows the featured readers. Sign up at the door.

We meet at the lovely Union County Community Center in the heart of Blairsville.  Come early for dinner and drink (optional, for purchase).

Important Update (/12/14): This month, we will meet in the A/B Conference Rooms on the ground floor where we were last month. Dinner is optional and served upstairs in the View Grill (great view of the golf course and mountains!). There will be complimentary iced tea and water served in our room. You can bring food and a drink (alcohol included) down with you if you'd like, but there will be no waitress service in our room.  

Program starts at 7:00, so please plan enough time to order/eat if you're having dinner there. The Union County Community Center is gracious enough to not enforce a minimum food order for our group, so you don't need to feel obligated to have anything (but the socializing is fun!).

For more info: kpaulholmes@gmail.com