You are invited to hear Martha O. Adams, Glenda Barrett, and Loren Leith, at The Literary Hour, Thursday, September 19, 2019, 7:00 PM, at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC

On Thursday, September 19, 2019, at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and NC Writers' Network-West will sponsor The Literary Hour. At this event, NCWN-West members will read at the Keith House on the JCCFS campus, in Brasstown, NC. This event is now held in the community room. The Literary Hour is held on the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise indicated. This reading is free of charge and open to the public. This month's featured readers will be Martha O. Adams, Glenda Barrett, and Loren Leith.

Raised in Ohio, Martha O. Adams graduated from Bowling Green State University with a major in education and minor in music. Her poetry arises from wide roots in ten states, though she has lived in Hendersonville, NC for nearly 2 decades. She has worked as an educator, a mother of four children, retreat leader and reverent farmer in her vegetable garden. In this day of dawning realization that the Earth will suffer only so much before leaving all life diminished, Adams believes poetry, art and beauty may save us with their wake-up call. Her poems, like mirrors, reflect the scale and impact of our human lives within the interconnectedness of all things. 

Adams is author of a non-fiction book for caregivers of the Alzheimer afflicted, Courage for Those Who Care, United Church Press, 2nd edition, 1999. She has published, with House of Myrrth, three collections of poems: Buried Seed; 2015, What Your Heart Needs to Know; 2008, and Peeling the Rind; 2000. Her Readers’ Theatre Play epic poem, “She Rises Through the Sickle Moon” from Peeling the Rind, has been performed from New England to Florida.

Glenda Barrett, a native of Hiawassee, Georgia, is a poet, writer, and visual artist. Her work has been widely published since 1997 and has appeared in: Woman's World, Farm & Ranch Living, Country Woman, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Journal of Kentucky Living, Nantahala Review, Rural Heritage, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Kaleidoscope Magazine and many more.

Barrett is the author of two poetry books, When the Sap Rises, published by Finishing Line Press, in 2008 and The Beauty of Silence, published by Aldrich Press, in 2017. Both books are available on Amazon.com. Glenda's artwork is online at Fine Art America. She is very grateful to be able to devote her time to the two things she loved as a child, painting and writing. She has two grown children and two grandchildren, and lives with her husband of forty-two years in the North Georgia mountains.

Loren Leith is the author of MOSQ, by Shepherd Graham (pen name), winner of the Silver Royal Palm Literary Award and the Pascoe Award for Best Thriller of 2011.  In 2018, she won first place in the RPLA competition for her nonfiction short story, “Basement Level.” She has also received an award for her short, nonfiction story, My Box Top Cat from God, and two of her other stories are finalists in a national competition.   Leith is known for her powerful, poignant, and often humorous nonfiction short stories, soon to be published in book-collection format and CD formats.  She recently transformed three of her works into scripts for live-performance Old Time Radio Shows.  She lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, surrounded by nature and wild animals, which are often the subjects of her writing.

Leith is also a Licensed Professional Counselor and Criminal Justice Specialist in private practice for 34 years.

For more information on The Literary Hour event on September 19, 2019, please contact Mary Ricketson, at maryricketson311@hotmail.com.

Dana Wildsmith author of new book, One Light, will teach at John C. Campbell Folk School

I just received Dana’s new poetry book, One Light, published by Texas Review Press, a memoir in poetry. It seems that she and I have walked the same path in life. She was burned terribly as a fourteen year old and writes about the anguish of almost losing her hand, and describes the pain. She sings and has a poem on page 30 titled Hymns.

I watched my husband’s face and listened to him sing hymns while nurses pulled off the layers of dead skin from his cancer-ridden leg. I felt his pain as she described the painful scraping of dead skin from her burned arms and hands.  

Read the title poem below.

A single light can lead you home. One light

is all you need to break the back of night

when darkness seems to weigh  more than it has

on all the nights before, and nothing’s as

it was. Bit by bit, the lighter shades

of night you used to trust have faded as

you stopped believing in relief. The dark

goes on forever, and begins right where you are.

But when your eyes can’t guide your steps, you learn

to trust your heart instead. You rise and turn

toward where you need to go, and in the dark

you think you see a glimmer like a star

that wasn’t there until you headed home

through darkness, trusting that a light would come.

In the poem, Hospital Days, Dana writes about a few good memories she had from those weeks in the hospital; hot dogs from the deli, her friends who came to see her and to sing with her. Her mother took care of her through this time knowing her daughter could lose her hands. She was Dana’s rock, always. You can’t read Dana’s work without knowing her Mama.  Sadly the time came when Dana became the care-giver when her mother’s mind began to fade. Her Mama died from an aneurysm. 

Balancing on the precarious rock trying not to do or say too much, but needing to say and do so much. The poems about her mother at ninety broke my heart, and filled me with memories as I thought about my mother who lost her short term memory after an aneurysm damaged a part of her brain.

As Fred Chappell said, “Here are some of the strongest poems I have ever read. I am grateful for this truest of books.” I am grateful, too.

Dana will be teaching “What’s in Your Writing Folder?” Sunday, September 8 – Saturday September 14.

Dana has been a Folk School instructor since 2004. Her environmental memoir, "Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South," was finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. She is also the author of five collections of poetry, including "Christmas in Bethlehem." Her newest collection of poems, "One Light," is a memoir in poetry. Dana has served as artist-in-residence for Grand Canyon National Park and Everglades National Park; as writer-in-residence for the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska; and she is a fellow of the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. She teaches English Literacy through Lanier Technical College.

Visit Dana's website