Diversity at the conference

For lunch on Saturday, we picked up box lunches, took them to the large room upstairs which overflowed with writers. Nancy Sales Cash and I found a table near the stage. Close by were Cynthia Barnett, her husband who kept his camera ready at all times, Nicki Leone, Ed Southern and our own Al Manning.

The program consisted of a dramatic and startling monologue by black screenwriter and performer Nathan Ross Freeman, who discussed the problem of children coming home after school with no one there to talk to about their day. Freeman said the time between the end of school and bedtime was a vast void in the lives of many young people today and that was a particularly important time. He thinks all kids, regardless of race or economic status are at risk during those hours. He works with the Winston-Salem Youth Arts Institute. He brought five sharp, poised teens, 14 - 17, on stage. They did not want to be called performance poets, but I enjoyed their "performance." They wrote their own material and the words, rhyme, and rhythm in the stories they told, some brutal and some poignant, drew me into their poetry.
They recited together and individually. Then Mr. Freeman explained "rifs" to the audience and had each student give him a rif with no planning or preperation. "Peace" he said and one child stepped forward and said something like, "lying on the grass and staring at the sky." " Joy." Another stepped forward. "getting an A on my math test."

When the writers understood the rif, voices called out from the audience. "Watching my daughter sleep," a man said. And the process went on and on until it was too late for me to meet with Nicki and Al as I had planned. We postponed until 6:30 p.m.

Saturday morning I began my day with a full breakfast at the Bayberry restaurant in the Hawthorne Inn. I felt I'd need it in order to accomplish everything on my schedule for that day. JC Walkup invited me to sit with her and another young woman. JC and Buffy Queen had gone to an expensive place for dinner Friday night instead of joining us at the Bayberry. I'm sure they had better food, but I couldn't have had better dinner companions.


Valerie Nieman was instructor for writing narrative poems. Michael Beadle, poet from Canton was in that group. I like Val and found the class interesting. I am a story teller and most of my poetry is narrative.


The class, held in the hospitality room with several large round tables was not the best setup. The room was filled with people of all levels of writing. Val had us do some association of words which gave me ideas of subjects for poems I'd not thought of before.


I wish I'd had time to take all the poetry classes and there were a number of them. Keith, of Asheville Poetry Review, and Tony Abbot among many other poets, led classes.


My second class for the day was with Marjorie Hudson, author of The Search for Virginia Dare. Marjorie led us in a marathon writing class. Nancy Cash and I sat together. Pat Davis was also in the class and she hated it. Nancy and I discovered some issues we plan to write about someday. Poor Nancy lost her notebook with all her notes from THREE conferences in that class. That ruined her day. Marjorie invited us to join her for breakfast on Sunday to discuss publishing. That was a generous gesture on her part. Her class turned out to be much larger than she had expected with 48 students. I found the timed writings fun and helpful.
She used Haven Kimmel's books to illustrate her subjects and Haven is one of my favorite authors.

The biggest problem at the conference was the class rooms were separated and on different floors. Our folders had no instructions as to were they were located. We ran up and down stairs a good bit, but it was good for me, I'm sure, since sitting for long hours is the worse thing for me to do.


Later, I realized there was an elevator I could have used. But my adrenaline was super high and the stairs became easier and easier.


We picked up box lunches in the lobby and found seats in the large room where we had met the night before. Nancy Cash and I ended up sitting together again. She is good company, but was still worried over her lost notebook. I'll tell more about the lunch program in my next post. Hope to learn how to include photos by then.

Trip to Winston-Salem

Normally I wouldn't have gone to this conference since it was such a long distance, over six hour drive, but I felt, as the Netwest Program Coordinator I should attend. I'm very glad I did. Much was accomplished for our group, I think, and I'm confident the Network is doing well and on the right track.

Friday afternoon, I met Mary Jo Dyre from Murphy and hooked her up with another western NC native, Pat Davis who lives in Pennsylvania now. Both these ladies were there to pitch their novels. And this was the place to do it. So many publishers, agents and programs for meeting the people authors need to know.

I met Debbie McGill, Literary Director of the NC Arts Council as soon as I entered the registration area. Debbie is a long time friend of Netwest and attended our Lights in the Mountains Conference when it was held in Hayesville. She was interested to hear all that is going on with our group. I had a few of our online newsletters, The Netwest News, with me and I gave her one. Nicki Leone, president of NCWN arrived and I made arrangements to meet with her and Al Manning on Saturday to go over our revised guidelines and mission statement.

Sara Claytor, a member of the NC Poetry Society stood near the NCPS table. She was excited to have her first poetry book published. I meant to buy one later, but never got back to pick it up. We talked about the possibility of "swapping writers" from her area in Raleigh to our area in western NC for readings, workshops, and other events. She said the poetry society talked about our "Coffee with the Poets" at one of their meetings and they would like to look into doing the same thing in their area. Ed Cockrell, publisher of the NCPC Correspondent, included an article on CWP this year.

I had invited Netwest folks attending the conference to join Barry and me Friday night for dinner. I was delighted to have Ken Kinnett and Lana Hendershott of Henderson County, Mary Jo, and Nancy Cash, author of Ritual River, join us along with our new friend Pat Davis. Although Nancy lives in Asheville, she is a native of Murphy, NC. Mary Jo and Pat seemed delighted to have Nancy tell them of her experiences in the publishing world.

After dinner, Jill McCorkle gave the keynote speech and entertained us all with her humor and insight into making your charactors believeable, even if you have to use some bad language to do it.

Jill is one of our outstanding southern writers who hails from Lumberton, NC.

As I left the jam-packed hall after Jill's speech, I was tired but exhilerated from so much creative energy in that room.