Writers and poets in the far western mountain area of North Carolina and bordering counties of South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee post announcements, original work and articles on the craft of writing.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
FASHIONS FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT
Among the writers I know in this book are Nancy Sales Cash, author of three novels and she is working on number four. Nancy is a native of Murphy, NC and spends much time in the Cherokee and Clay county areas. We met at the Daily Grind and Curiosity Shop Bookstore, had a cup of coffee and discussed readings of Clothes Lines and my poetry book Now Might As Well Be Then.
Some of the writers in the far southwest area of North Carolina and north Georgia who have work in Clothes Lines are Kathryn Stripling Byer, Joyce Foster, Nancy Sales Cash, Karen Paul Holmes, Carole R. Thompson, Glenda Barrett, Jo Carolyn Beebe, Janice Townley Moore, Blanche Ledford and Brenda Kay Ledford, and Peg Russell.
A number of our Netwest members throughout the region also appear in this interesting book by 75 western North Carolina Women.
Celia and Nancy published Christmas Presence last year through Catawba Press and used the same press for Clothes Lines. The book is made more interesting by the use of a few black and white pictures all done by Mary Alice Ramsey.
Be on the lookout for readings from this anthology in your town.
Friday, October 9, 2009
A Reflection on the Summer of 1968 - Remember?
A Girl's Take on Summer of '68
by Lana Hendershott
I was in love with a boy I dated during my freshman year at Northwestern, and I was not excited about returning to Enid, Oklahoma. Going home meant trading an active social life for monastic mores and gainful employment.
The employment angle didn’t pan out. Boys harvested wheat, mowed grass or had paper routes. Their jobs paid well and left time for swimming at Champlin’s pool. My choices were babysitting, waitressing, or car hopping in miniskirts and roller skates at the A&W.
Babysitting paid fifty cents an hour and entailed caring for a neighbor’s three children all under the age of seven. I’m talking ten hours a day, Monday through Friday, with laundry service and ironing thrown in as freebies for Mrs. T. I actually slaved away at that job the previous summer and decided surrogate motherhood was not my gig.
I was eager to carhop or wait tables. Those jobs offered shorter hours and paid three times better than babysitting even if customers didn’t tip. I began fantasizing about my soon-to-be-earned wealth. Managers, however, expected experience, and I had zero. They questioned whether a ninety-eight pound novice, regardless of enthusiasm and robust health, was a good fit for transporting weighty platters of food and drinks. My mother ended my job search by declaring, “She’s worth more than $1.50 an hour to me.” I suspect she didn’t like the miniskirt idea.
Plan B was attending summer school at Phillips University and helping Mom with errands, meals, and housework. I enrolled in General Psychology taught by Dr. Jordan, Biblical Religion with Dr. Simpson, and U.S. Government, a requirement. I don’t remember anything about government—not the teacher, not classmates, not one discussion. I had no interest in politics. Dr. King was murdered in Memphis, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in California, and the evening news was all about Viet Nam. The violence appalled me, but the broadcasts were like watching movies or events happening in a parallel universe leaving me uninvolved.
Psychology class started at seven o’clock A.M. Sipping coffee, I watched the sky lighten as I drove east on Broadway with the windows rolled down. I listened to Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” on WKY and looked forward to watching Dark Shadows in the afternoon.
An earlier version was printed in the Enid News and Eagle on Sunday, July 13th, 2008.
Lana Hendershott represents NCWN West in Henderson County. Anyone who lives there can contact her for information about Netwest and writing events in that area.
CLOTHES LINES IS HERE!
Finding Our Line
Every day
we shape our clay
from the inside out
giving it cachet.
But sometimes
it’s the clothes we wear
that give us away
that give us sway
Curves, straight lines
diagonals, in-your-face style
au courant, de rigueur
faux, retro
Similarly
we define ourselves as writers
shape our style
The curve of the plot
the turn of the phrase
the tone of the prose--
it’s the pattern of patter that matters
We preen, we pose
give color to character
and landscape
decorate and align
weaving a provocative story
stitching a tall tale
spinning a yarn
threading a theme
piecing a poem
with precision and panache
punctuating with élan
finding our line
Nancy Dillingham
CLOTHESLINES
Edited by Celia H. Miles and Nancy Dillingham ISBN 978-1-59712-355-690000
THE CLEANSING, NEW NOVEL BY BEN ELLER
Coffee with the Poets features Maren O. Mitchell, poet
Maren's poetry has appeared in the Red Clay Reader, The Arts Journal, Applachian Journal, and Journal of Kentucky Studies. One of her poems is forthcoming in Southern Humanities Review. She has worked as a proof reader, was a house manager of a group home in Brevard NC, taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College, Flat Rock, NC and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historical Site. She teaches origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. A North Carolina native, she has lived in France and Germany and throughout the southeastern part of the United States. Presently, she lives with her husband and her two cats in Young Harris, GA.
Coffee with the Poets was begun in 2007 as a networking and reading event sponsored by North Carolina Writers Network West (Netwest) to promote poetry and poets in the mountain area. Anyone who writes poetry is invited to come and share their work at open mic. A delicious array of desserts is available from Crumpets Dessertery, along with numerous flavors of tea and a pot full of coffee.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS BOOKFAIR
The Great Smoky Mountains Book Fair is ready to meet your needs, and then some. Go to http://www.gsmbookfair.org/ to find out what to expect--authors, presentations, animals--yes, we will have some, maybe a hound dog or two--and lots of folks wandering around looking at books. I'll be writing poems on demand; there will be a bookmaking table, ongoing story-telling, good music, and, we hope, fine fall weather.
I'll have more about all this a little later. VISIT OUR WEBSITE!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Netwest member, Pat Workman writes a beautiful blog
Cup Of Comfort is excellent place to submit essays
Calling all Love Birds and Golf Lovers! The submission windows for A Cup of Comfort for Couples and A Cup of Comfort for Golfers are still wide open. We're most interested in well-crafted narrative essays that convey a universal truth in a personal and creative way. Stories can be humorous or serious, but always uplifting or inspiring.
You'll find complete details in the online Call for Submissions and in the Writers Guidelines.
Submit your stories now!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Poetry Workshop and Critique Session
Friday, September 18, 2009
fresh is new literary magazine
fresh…stories, ideas, poetry
What is fresh?
It is a new quarterly literary magazine distributed in selected locations in five counties of Western North Carolina and soon to be available on the internet. Thanks to our advertisers and generous sponsors such as John Buckley and Dr. Darryl Nabors the first issue is free.
Our mission is to present fine writing through stories, ideas and poems from excellent writers across the nation and our region. Contributing writers in the first issue include Robert Morgan, prize winning author of Gap Creek, Boone and others; Keith Flynn, publisher of The Asheville Review, and prolific author of poetry; Kathryn Magendie, author of Tender Graces; and Eric S. Brown, author of World War of the Dead, plus hundreds of short stories. We believe it is important to offer a publication for fiction, essays and humor which reflect contemporary ideas and opinions.
fresh will be available in locations where people gather…restaurants, bookstores, coffee shops, libraries.
Comments and recommendations from readers are welcome. Future issues will have space for a readers’ forum. If you wish to participate, please e-mail your thoughts to: jcwalkup@bellsouth.net.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
SOUTHWESTERN TRIBES CULTURAL ARTS CELEBRATION
SOUTHEASTERN TRIBES CULTURAL ARTS CELEBRATION WILL TAKE PLACE RAIN OR SHINE!! September 18-19.
SCHEDULE AT http://www.cherokeemuseum.org/events-set.html
Monday, September 14, 2009
CATHERINE CARTER: NETWEST ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING CONTEST
Catherine Carter, who lives in Cullowhee, is one of the most interesting poets writing today. Also one of the best. Her poems about the environment go beyond cliche into the biological realities of the world around us without missing a lyrical beat. "Swarm" pulls us into the universe of a honeybee swarm with language that connects us with the real living "other" around us. When you read her first book, The MEMORY OF GILLS, that won the Roanoke-Chowan award from the NC Literary and Historical Association, your learn a lot about the natural world. I hope we have more poems of this caliber submitted to Netwest's Environmental contest. This is a contest we mustn't let die.
CATHERINE CARTER
(Third Place Winner)
SWARM
Twenty-five years back, at home,
the summer hour was late when the afternoon
light began to hum, and a thousand
specks came arrowing out of the west,
the air waxed thick with honeybees up in swarm.
They crept and crawled on our closed
screens, stormed and boomed around the old
maple: one of the things you remember
forever, a sign you can’t read, alien,
and yet down in your bones you know
you want this. Want to open the screen and go
out there, breathe the wind of gauze
wings, pet striped velvet, feel
the sisters’ feet prick your skin.
I didn’t know then that swarming
bees don’t sting, and working bees hardly
sting, and bumblebees let you stroke
their black satin as they drink the blooms.
I didn’t know how little harm
most things mean, how even the dangerous
snake tries to slide away, how safe
we were. But I think of it now, stirring
the soft bees barehanded, shaking
down this week’s thrumming swarm,
hoping they’ll come home. The summer
hour is late, but not too late.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
JOHN EHLE READING IN ASHEVILLE
John Ehle Reading in Asheville, NC
Internationally acclaimed author and Asheville native, John Ehle, will read and sign books on October 10 at 2 pm. The event, sponsored by The Writers' Workshop, will be held at the West Asheville Public Library at 942 Haywood Street. It is free and open to the public. A reception follows, hosted by Friends of West Asheville Library. Books will be available for purchase at the book-signing.
Mr. Ehle is the authorof seventeen books, including Winter People; The Journey Of August King; and Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. He will read from his novel, Last One Home, first published in 1984 and recently re-issued. It is the last in a seven-book series about the settling of the Appalachian Mountains in Western North Carolina.
Ehle is a member of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, and has received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Thomas Wolfe Prize and the Lillian Smith Award for Southern Fiction. He is a five-time winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, and has received the Mayflower Award; the Governor's Award for Meritorious Service; and the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities. Mr. Ehle holds honorary doctorates from UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Asheville, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and Berea College.
He also serves on the Advisory Board of The Writers' Workshop, a non-profit organization founded in 1985. A luncheon for Mr. Ehle will be held at noon, prior to the reading. For more information about the reading or luncheon, please email writersw@gmail.com, or call 828-254-8111.
CONNOTATION PRESS FIRST ISSUE NOW ONLINE
John Hoppenthaler has just notified me that the first online issue of Connotation is up. This is a free-wheeling e-zine that features drama, essay, poetry, fiction, as well as visual art. Give it a looksee. One of the poets in this first issue is Catherine Carter, 3rd place winner in Netwest's Environmental Writing contest. Her three poems are well worth your reading time. Catherine is a Roanoke-Chowan Winner; one of her poems won the recent Randall Jarrell Poetry Award from NCWN. She teaches at WCU.
Connotation Press accepts submissions in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, play writing, screenplay, graphic or visual arts, interview, book review, music review, video (for spoken word or music or…), etc. Basically, we′re looking at virtually every genre or crossover genre you can create.
Connotation Press only accepts online submissions, and we read submissions all year long. We generally will respond to submissions within six weeks; if you don′t hear back from us by then, feel free to inquire about the status of your manuscript. Please wait for a response before sending a second submission in any one genre.
We encourage simultaneous submissions, but please inform us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We only accept original, previously unpublished work. Translations should be submitted with original texts. Indicate that you have copyright clearance and/or author permission.
If your work is chosen for publication, we may ask for a brief interview, conducted by one of our editors, in addition to or in lieu of a traditional author′s bio, and a photograph.
What Digital Formats We Accept
Text Submissions: .doc, .pdf or .rtf files.
Visual Art Submissions: .jpg, .png, .pdf
Video Submissions: AVI, MPG, MP4
Guidelines by Genre
POETRY: Please submit not less than three and not more than five poems per submission.
FICTION: Please submit one short story or chapter at a time, or 1-5 flash fiction pieces.
CREATIVE NONFICTION: Please submit one piece or segment of a piece at a time.
DRAMA: Please submit one complete play, act, or segment thereof.
SCREENPLAY: Please submit one complete screenplay, act, or segment thereof.
GRAPHIC/VISUAL ART: If sending Images - Send at 72 DPI and no wider than 800 Width.
INTERVIEW: Submit a short treatment about the subject before submitting
REVIEWS: We will read all unsolicited reviews. However, if you would prefer to submit an inquiry first, we welcome that as well.
VIDEO: Please submit one at a time due to file size restrictions on attachments.
UNDERGRAD: For the undergrad section we are asking writing teachers around the world for their best and brightest new writers. Our hope is that the teacher will nominate the undergrad and work with the undergrad to compile a submission. For some new writers this will be their first submission process, and we gratefully welcome those writers.
When documentation is required for any submission, please use MLA style format.
Connotation Press holds first serial rights for material that we publish. The copyright automatically reverts to the author upon publication. We do not require that material be copyrighted prior to submission.
Second Place winner of the Netwest Environmental Contest
Think of a forest,
Think of a vaulted cathedral forest
So thick with trees there is only filtered sunlight,
No sunny meadow or grasses.
Think of boulders,
Boulders big and strong enough to hold back a glacier
Yet an ideal place to sit and listen
for deer
for a small bubbling stream
or a wild turkey to come by,
so cool you put on a mid-June jacket.
Think of a forest floor
So piled with leaves that it's clean to walk in,
With a scattering of brave hardwood seedlings,
a few hardy ferns,
three holly bushes.
Think of forest beauty worthy
of being preserved for a nation.
Eden's address is Ebenezer Road, Murphy.
Peg and Mike live in a Hanging Dog area log cabin. She compiled a history of Murphy Presbyterian Church, is active in Murphy Library Writers Workshop and Richard Argo's NetWest Prose critique group. She will teach an OASIS mythology class in September and will read at the John C. Campbell Folk School November 19.
Monday, September 7, 2009
POETRIO: SEPT. 13 at Malaprops
On Sunday, September 13, 2009, 3:00 p.m., Malaprop's Bookstore/Café
(55 Haywood Street in downtown Asheville, NC) welcomes poets Terri
Kirby Erickson, author of TELLING TALES OF DUSK; Linda Annas Ferguson
reading from DIRT SANDWICH; and John Hoppenthaler with ANTICIPATE THE
COMING RESERVOIR.
A North Carolina native who now lives in Charleston, South Carolina,
Linda Annas Ferguson has published five collections of poetry,
including BIRD MISSING FROM ONE SHOULDER (2007), STEPPING ON CRACKS IN
THE SIDEWALK (2006), LAST CHANCE TO BE LOST (2004), and IT'S HARD TO
HATE A BROKEN THING (2002). She serves on the Board of Governors of
the South Carolina Academy of Authors, was recognized as the 2005
Poetry Fellow for the South Carolina Arts Commission, became a
featured poet for the Library of Congress Poetry at Noon Series, and
was named the 2003-04 Poet-in-Residence for the Gibbes Museum of Art
in Charleston, S.C. She is also a former recipient of the South
Carolina Academy of Authors Poetry Fellowship. Her work is archived
by Furman University Special Collections in the James B. Duke Library,
and her poetry is included in several anthologies. Linda Annas
Ferguson's most recent book, DIRT SANDWICH(2009), is a Tom Lombardo
Poetry Selection from Press 53. Fellow poet Chris Forhan writes of
DIRT SANDWICH, "[Linda Annas Ferguson's] work exists at the shimmering
mid-point between an urge to celebrate the world's beauty and a pained
recognition that this beauty is mutable. . . . She has given us a book
of tender, clear-eyed, complex meditations, a lovely book by a poet
whose vision we can trust."
Another poet North Carolina born, Terri Kirby Erickson has traveled
extensively and lived for a time in Louisiana, Virginia, and Texas,
but she has spent most of her life in North Carolina. Her first
collection of poetry, THREAD COUNT, was published in 2006. Her
writing has appeared in numerous literary reviews and other
publications, including Pisgah Review, the Christian Science Monitor,
Paris Voice, Smoking Poet, and Wild Goose Poetry Review, among several
others. In 2006 and 2007, The Northwest Cultural Council selected her
work for an international juried poetry exhibit; and in 2009, her poem
"Oak Tree" earned a 2009 Best of the Net nomination. Pisgah Review
editor Jubal Tiner has praised Terri Kirby Erickson as "an exciting
new voice in American poetry." He admires the fact that "Her subject
matter spans the width between a lone Ferris wheel at a county fair,
where 'Coal dust fine and black as pulverized midnight, / covers
everything for miles,' to the vagaries of aging in the face of youth
. . . Erickson's verse is filled with spot-on similes and metaphors,
dotting its distinct and lucid structure with apt and artful
alliteration, telegraphing image upon finer image to the nexus of who
we are."
John Hoppenthaler's career in letters began when he served for several
years as personal assistant to Toni Morrison, whose work has been
recognized with both a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize. John Hoppenthaler
is currently a member of the writing faculty at East Carolina
University, and he served as poetry editor of Kestrel for eleven
years. His reviews, interviews, and essays are widely published, and
his poems frequently appear in such distinguished The Southern Review,
Virginia Quarterly Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Laurel Review, and
Chautauqua Literary Journal, among many others. He has frequently
earned prestigious writing fellowships and grants. His first book of
poetry, LIVES OF WATER, was published in 2003, and his second poetry
collection, ANTICIPATE THE COMING RESERVOIR, appeared in 2008. Poet
Natasha Trethewey makes the following observations about his recent
book: "In this aptly titled new collection, ANTICIPATE THE COMING
RESERVOIR, John Hoppenthaler grounds an exploration of longing and
loss in a firm sense of place. From upstate New York to the Florida
coast, to the landscapes that exist only in memory and dream,
Hoppenthaler knows well the geographies he traverses, and he maps the
lives of the people who inhabit these places with tenderness."
Poetrio: Terri Kirby Erickson, Linda Annas Ferguson, John Hoppenthaler
Sunday, September 13, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
Malaprop's Bookstore/Café
55 Haywood Street
Asheville, NC 28801
(828) 254-6734
www.malaprops.com
Saturday, September 5, 2009
SHADOW BOX: Fred Chappell
GREETINGS FROM YOUR NEW PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Poets:
Are you interested in compiling a book of your poetry and submitting it to a contest? Check out the links below.
Coal Hill Review Poetry Chapbook Contest: $250 and Publication
Postmark Deadline: November 1
The 2009 Coal Hill Review Poetry Chapbook Contest is now open. Please submit your manuscripts online at www.coalhillreview.com. Reading fee: $15 to be paid via PayPal (major credit cards accepted). Submit 10-15 pages of poetry, either a group of poems or one long poem. Poems may be previously published. Include an acknowledgements page.
The winning chapbook will be published electronically in Coal Hill Review, as well as in a paper edition. All finalists will be considered for publication in Coal Hill Review. The final judges for the competition are Anna Catone and Philip Terman, poetry editors of Coal Hill Review (see bios). Please address any questions to msimms@autumnhouse.org with the words "CHAPBOOK COMPETITION QUERY" in the subject line.
MYSTERY WRITERS WORKSHOP
Friday, September 4, 2009
POETRY OUT LOUD: CALLING ALL HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS IN THE NETWEST AREA
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The North Carolina Arts Council is a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency.
Linda A. Carlisle, Secretary; Beverly Eaves Perdue, Governor