Poetry Contest from Carolina Wren Press

2011 Poetry Book Contest

Carolina Wren's next poetry book contest will take submissions with a deadline of 2/15/2011. The final judge for this contest will be Lee Ann Brown and we anticipate results in September 2011. The new postmark deadline is February 15, 2011. This will give you time to visit our booth at AWP and pick up something special from us (hint hint!).

Download full guidelines.

Blue Ridge Writers' Conference in its fourteenth year

Blue Ridge Writers' Conference will be held in Blue Ridge, Georgia just south of the Western NC line on April 1 and 2 .

Go to their beautiful website to see the schedule of presenters and to complete an application.
http://www.blueridgewritersconference.com/

Some Netwest members will be signing books at the Friday evening Reception which is a special Meet and Greet event for writers to meet the presenters.

Carol Crawford, one of the leaders of Netwest years ago, leads this conference each year and brings in outstanding speakers. This year Hope Clark of Funds for Writers will be on hand to personally give us some of the advice she doles out in her newsletter and on her blog. Scott Owens, poet from Hickory, will speak about online journals and talk from his experience as an editor.
For other presenters, visit the website.

Meet Maren Mitchell

Thanks goes to Paula Canup, who intereviewed several writers in NCWN-West and has provided transcripts. Featured today is Maren Mitchell.

Maren O. Mitchell started writing poems when she was eighteen-years-old. Friends and family encouraged her to keep writing. She eventually taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, NC. Her poems have appeared in such publications as the Red Clay Reader, The Arts Journal, Appalachian Journal, and Journal of Kentucky Studies, and Southern Humanities Review.

A native of North Carolina, Maren has lived in France, Germany, and throughout the southeastern United States. She has worked as a proofreader, served as the house manager of a group home in Brevard, NC, and cataloged at the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC. She now resides in Young Harris, GA, with her husband and two cats.

Maren does not limit herself to poetry. She has a non-fiction manuscript, children’s stories, and essays she hopes to publish in the future. She has other interests besides writing. For the past twenty years, she has taught origami, the Japanese art of paper-folding.

“The most difficult part of writing is continuing to believe that what one has to say is worth hearing. Once you have that licked, stop worrying about what others might think, it’s a lot easier and much more fun,” says Maren. She writes one to two hours every day. She benefits from the feedback she receives from critique meetings with the North Carolina Writers Network – west (Netwest), Shallow Enders in GA, and one-on-one with individual writers. Her advice to aspiring writers is to “just write – at great length and in detail about all you know, wish to learn, and can imagine.”

Maren recently contributed to Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains, edited by Nancy Simpson and published by Winding Path Publishing. The book is available at local bookstores and on-line at http://www.ncwriters.organd at www.amazon.com.

THE COMMON CUP TV PROGRAM

Brenda Kay Ledford will appear on the program, "The Common Cup," over Windstream Communications' channel 4 cable television.

The program will feature Brenda for two weeks: Monday, January 31--Friday, February 11, 2011. The show airs three times each day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at: 9:30 a.m., 4:00 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.

Jim Geer is the host of "The Common Cup." He interviewed Brenda about her book, SIMPLICITY, that she co-authored with her mother, Blanche L. Ledford.

Windstream Communications is a local cable TV station that covers northern Georgia and western North Carolina. It also provides Internet and telephone service. For information, go to: www.windstream.com

Brenda and Blanche's book, SIMPLICITY, is available at the Book Nook, Blairsville, GA; Cherokee County Museum, Murphy, NC; and Phillips & Lloyd Book Shop, Hayesville, NC; or online: http://catawbapublishing.com/bookstore/book/179.

Coffee with the Poets, Hayesville NC

Coffee with the Poets meets the second Wednesday of each month at Phillips and Lloyd bookstore on the square in Hayesville, NC. This event, sponsored by NCWN West, features a local poet and opens the floor to anyone in the community who wants to read an original poem. Begun in 2007, Coffee with the Poets is popular with those who write poetry and those who come to listen and enjoy coffee, tea and delicacies from Crumpett’s Dessertery.

Featured on Wednesday, February 9 at 1:00 p.m., will be Linda Smith, poet and writer from Hayesville. Her poetry is inspired by the mountains that surround this area. Her inspiration also comes from memories of the past. Linda has published poems, essays and fiction in various anthologies such as Lights in the Mountains, Mountain Time, Sand, Sea and Sail, the Freeing Jonah series, and in Night Whispers and Looking Back. Her work also appears in the new anthology Echoes Across the Blue Ridge. Linda Smith is the new publicity chair for Netwest.

Coffee with the Poets provides a comfortable and casual atmosphere for meeting writers and poets and sharing news and information about literary events in Clay, Cherokee, Towns, Union and surrounding counties. Come and join us at Phillips and Lloyd books.

Poets Meet for Lunch

The best  cure for cabin fever in the dead of winter is to meet for lunch with fellow poets. That is what some NC Writers Network Poets did today. They met at the Copper Door in Hayesville, NC, shared a delicious meal and shared some of their recent publications.

Rosemary Royston, NCWN West Program Coordinator (below)

Janice Townley Moore Leader of the Monthly Poetry

Critique Group, Nancy Simpson co founder of Netwest,

and Linda M. Smith Publicity Chairperson. (below)

 

Glenda Beall former Program Coordinator and 

Echoes Across the Blue Ridge Marketing Manager

(below)

Carole Thompson NCWN West Georgia Representative

(below)

Peg Russell monthly Prose Group leader and Linda M. Smith scheduling readers 

for Poets and Writers Reading Poems and Stories, at John C. Campbell Folk School

(below)

The poets passed around copies of their most recent poetry publications.

(below)

Maren Mitchell shared her recent publication in Southern Humanities Review.

(below)

More pictures www.nancysimpson.blogspot.com

Randall Jarrell Poery Competition Open!

2005 JARRELL WINNER TO JUDGE 2011 JARRELL CONTEST

Poet and editor Dan Albergotti, the winner of the 2005 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition, will judge this year’s Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition.

Submissions for this year’s Jarrell contest are now open, until the March 1 deadline. The winner will be announced in May.

A graduate of the MFA program at UNC Greensboro and former poetry editor of The Greensboro Review, Albergotti currently teaches creative writing and literature courses and edits the online journal Waccamaw (www.waccamawjournal.com) at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. He is the author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008), selected by Edward Hirsch as the winner of the 2007 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the Small Presses.

The Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition honors the work and legacy of the poet and critic Randall Jarrell, who taught at what is now UNCG for nearly eighteen years. The contest accepts one-poem submissions. The winner receives $200, publication in The Crucible literary journal, and an invitation to read his or her poetry at UNCG’s Founders Day activities.

The competition is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network and administered by Terry L. Kennedy and the graduate program in creative writing at UNCG, and is open to any writer who is a legal resident of North Carolina or a member of the NCWN. Questions may be directed to Kennedy at tlkenned@uncg.edu. Full guidelines are below.

Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition
Postmark deadline: March 1 (annual)

Eligibility and Guidelines
• The competition is open to any writer who is a legal resident of NC
or a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
• Submissions should be one poem only (40-line limit).
• Poem must be typed (single-spaced) and stapled in the left-hand corner.
• Names should not appear on the poem but on a separate cover sheet along with address, phone number, and poem title.
• Poem will not be returned. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a list of winners.
• An entry fee must accompany the poem. Multiple submissions are accepted, one poem per entry fee: $10 for NCWN members, $15 for nonmembers. You may pay member entry fee if you join the NCWN with your submission. Checks should be made payable to the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Send submissions, indicating name of competition, to:

Terry Kennedy
MFA Writing Program
3302 MHRA Building
UNC Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170

Save the Date - Brevard Writers Group

Save the Date-Brevard Writers Group,
Tuesday, January 4th,
3:00-5:00 PM, First Presbyterian Church

Remember, we agreed to talk about query letters at this meeting after we have had our readings and reviews, bring one to share if you have it. Also bring rejection letters to share if you have one. I will have some guidelines for query letters.

Join us.

Wayne Drumheller, writer, photographer, storyteller
NCWN-Western North Carolina Board Representative
260 Frank's Cove Road
Brevard, NC 28712
Phone 704-287-9806 cell
Phone 828-877-5133
Email mystory@citcom.net

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER GIVE BOOK SIGNING

Brenda Kay Ledford and Blanche L. Ledford will sign copies of their book, SIMPLICITY, at Mountain Regional Library in Young Harris, GA on Saturday, January 15; 11:00 AM—2:00 PM.

Step back to a simpler time with this mother and daughter. Meet the folks they loved, capture the beauty of Appalachia, feel the old-time ways. Experience planting by the signs, storytelling on the front porch, possum hunting, wearing sinful red shoes, shindigs, and mountain politics.

Their work has appeared in Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Southern Mist, and other publications.

Brenda is listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. She received the Paul Green Award from North Carolina Society of Historians for her three poetry chapbooks.

SIMPLICITY was released by Catawba Publishing Company of Charlotte, NC in December. For more information, go to: http://catawbapublishing.com/bookstore/book/179.

You Show Up -- Inspiration Provided!

Sing and Paint with Words, JC Campbell Folk School
Jan 30 – Feb 5 ($546/ask for half price!)

Our very own talented Karen Paul Holmes is teaching the class Sing and Paint with Words. This class will inspire your writing through music and other arts. You’ll hear music that ranges from Beethoven to Elvis, you will view paintings by Monet or Finster, and read literary masters or contemporary writers - all to generate ideas for poems, fiction, or essays. You'll receive editing tips and one-on-one critiques to make your work stronger and more readable. This class is open to anyone who needs inspiration and help perfecting the art of writing.

Karen Paul Holmes, an award-winning writer, has work published in business magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. Her enthusiasm for teaching has given her top ratings for her writing workshops at international conferences. She also taught poetry to students through the Georgia Poetry Society's "Poets in the Schools" program. Karen is a writing coach, poet, freelance writer, and the editor of the North Carolina Writers' Network's Netwest News.

Want to Nominate a 2010 Poetry or Fiction Book For an Award?

To all of you who value southern poetry and fiction please consider nominating books you have read and want to honor that were published in 2010. 

Readers can nominate a book by listing a book store that is a member of Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance  (SIBA) such as City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

Poetry was dropped from awards last year,  but this year the general public can nominate.  If you care about poetry, please take the time to nominate your favorite poetry book of 2010.

http://www.sibaweb.com/siba-book-award/nomination-form

CONTEST DEADLINES - GET YOUR SUBMISSIONS IN SOON

BYRON HERBERT REECE SOCIETY POETRY CONTEST

Deadline: June 4, 2011

Open to poets from North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia

The Byron Herbert Reece Society is having its first-ever poetry contest. The Byron Herbert Reece Society exists to preserve, perpetuate, and promote Appalachian writer Byron Herbert Reece. Guidelines on website.


ROSE POST CREATIVE NONFICTION COMPETITION

Postmark Deadline: January 5, 2011

Submissions accepted November 15-January 5

The Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition encourages the creation of lasting nonfiction work that is outside the realm of conventional journalism and has relevance to North Carolinians. Submit an original and previously unpublished manuscript of no more than 2,000 words, typed (12-point font) and double-spaced. Full contest guidelines: http://www.ncwriters.org/


THOMAS WOLFE FICTION PRIZE

Postmark Deadline: January 30, 2011

Submissions accepted December 1 - January 30

Submit an unpublished fiction story of 12 pages or less, double-spaced. Full contest guidelines: www.ncwn.org

SIMPLICTY

Blanche L. Ledford and Brenda Kay Ledford have published a new book. SIMPLICITY is a collection of prose and poetry about Clay County, NC. Step back to a simpler time with this mother and daughter. Meet the folks they loved, capture the beauty of Appalachia, feel the old-time ways. Experience planting by the signs, storytelling on the porch, possum hunting, wearing sinful red shoes to a mountain church, shindigs, and mountain politics.

The book is available at Phillips & Lloyd Book Shop on Main Street in Hayesville, NC; The Book Nook in Blairsville, GA; or you may order online at: www.catawbapublishing.com for only $16.00 per copy.

This beautiful book would make a wonderful gift for Christmas.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER CO-AUTHOR BOOK

Award-winning writers, Blanche L. Ledford and Brenda Kay Ledford, have collaborated a collection of prose and poetry about the culture of Clay County, North Carolina.

This book coincides with the sesquicentennial celebration of Clay County in 2011. The county was established in 186l.

At 89, Blanche writes with knowledge about growing up in Clay County during the Great Depression. She recalls planting her vegetable garden by the signs, and wearing sinful red shoes to a mountain church. Her stories about the Blue Ridge Mountains will bring back memories of by-gone days.

Her daughter, Brenda Kay, is a member of North Carolina Storytelling Guild. She’s won awards telling stories at the annual Lies & Pies Jamboree held on the square in Hayesville, NC. She’s told stories at the John C. Campbell Folk School, at festivals and when she gives poetry readings throughout the Southeast.

Brenda writes about her experiences as a native of Clay County. She’s received the Paul Green Award from NC Society of Historians for her poetry chapbooks: Patchwork Memories, Shew Bird Mountain, and Sacred Fire. She also won the award for collecting oral history on Velma Beam Moore, a prominent citizen of Clay County.

This book, Simplicity, describes the culture of Clay County, NC honestly and with humor. It brings the reader back to a slower-paced period, when folks sat on the front porch swapping tales with neighbors, and savored the good sense of a simple lifestyle.

Simplicity is available at Phillips & Lloyd Book Shop on Main Street in Hayesville, NC; The Book Nook, Blairsville, GA; or you may order online at: http://www.catawbapublishing.com/ for only $16.00 per copy.

This heart-warming book would make a wonderful gift for Christmas. It’s a treasure that people may keep and read many times to experience the beauty and culture of Appalachia. There has been an overwhelming response to our book. Everyone who purchases it just loves the book and colorful cover. There’s a limited number of books. We do not plan to reprint, so get your copy while the supply lasts!

COFFEE WITH THE POETS: LAURA HOPE-GILL, DEC. 16, IN SYLVA, NC

WHAT COULD MAKE A MORE BEAUTIFUL SEASON'S GIFT THAN THE SOUL TREE, A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY LAURA HOPE-GILL AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN FLETCHER? COME MEET LAURA on DEC. 16 AT CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE IN SYLVA. SHE WILL READ FROM HER WORK AND SIGN HER BOOK FOR HOLIDAY GIVING.

(Published and printed in Asheville, North Carolina by Grateful Steps Publishing. )

LAURA HOPE-GILL will be at CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE THIS THURSDAY, DEC. 16TH, 10:30 a.m. to discuss her work. Please join us for coffee, tea, and pastries----and poetry by both Laura and attendees.

-- To say that Laura Hope-Gill and John Fletcher, Jr. have put together one of the most stunning books I've ever seen would be an understatement. Here is a collaboration that expands the definition of that word. It's a seamlessly interwoven collection of words and images that invite and inspire, in the the original meaning of that over-used term. Laura's poems show the depths of her poetic "inseeing, " as Rilke calls it, and Fletcher's photographs open up the landscape that Laura sings into being with her words. The Soul Tree speaks to the landscapes of internal and exterior reality. In this collection those two landscapes have found harmony through two artists working together in celebration of what they love.

Laura Hope-Gill is in the process of being certified as a Certified Applied Poetry Facilitator by the National Federation for Poetry Therapy, working under the mentorship of poet and psychotherapist Perie Longo. The Director of Asheville Wordfest, a free poetry festival which presents poetry as Citizen Journalism, she consciously pursues ways of revealing poetry’s relevance to every-day life and not merely an “art form” whose only use is to beautiful. The Soul Tree: Poems and Photographs of the Southern Appalachians (Grateful Steps, Asheville) is a collaboration with local photographer John Fletcher, Jr. and is an application of her vision of poetry as a conversation between inner and outer worlds. Renowned photographer John Fletcher has this to say about the beginnings of their collaboration. "After visiting my landscapes website in the spring of 2008, Laura replied with an email containing an attachment titled, 'The Soul Tree.' I was stunned after reading the poem, then I noticed that there were 35 more pages to the document. My jaw dropped a little lower each time I scrolled to the next poem…36 in all. I was speechless.Not only was her writing beautiful and poignant, but her poetry brought new life to the photographs. I was also quite overwhelmed by her choice of photos…not the pretty sunset pictures that most people like. She was inspired by the photos that were my favorites…the mysterious and more abstract images that I feel personify my experience and observations. Today I continue this pursuit by working as a staff photographer for the Asheville Citizen-Times, shooting weddings, and freelancing for regional and national clients including, USA Today, The Associated Press, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Asheville Chamber of Commerce."

Images and poems from The Soul Tree may be found at http://www.thsoultree.org/, along with ordering information and more about the two artists who have brought this lovely book into existence.

Here are two pages from the book.

BOOKS FOR THE WRITER ON YOUR GIFT LIST

WRITERS MARKET is a necessary tool. Sooner or later every writer must sit down  and do the research necessary to get writing published in the correct place.  A lot of postage is wasted when writers send their poems, stories, and essays to the first publication they hear of or think about.  Check out Writers Market at the local library you say.  That is not always possible here in the heart of Appalachia. The local library in my town does not have Writers Market.  

I do not work for Amazon.com. They pay me nothing.  Poets and Writers pay me nothing. Some of you know I care about writers and have given my time and energy to the writing community. In my December blog, I've offered some suggestions for buying books for your loved ones.  If you have a writer on your list, you might consider buying them a dictionary or printer's ink or copy paper, or a copy of the most recent Writers Market in their genre of writing. There is the thick book that covers all and the smaller books that zero in on Poets Market for Children's Writing and Illustrators, or for Poetry or Christian Writers or Novel and Short Story.

Want to buy Writers Market for yourself or for a writer on your list?  click on blue URL below.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_19?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=writers+market+2011&sprefix=writers+market+2011

THANKS TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS

Thanks to our Subscribers who have every new post on Netwest Mountain Writers and Poets delivered to their Inbox . If you want to see each new post in your Inbox, click on the link below and follow directions.

Subscribe for Free to Netwest Mountain Writers and Poets by Email

Poetry Contest to Consider

Byron Herbert Reece Society Announces Inaugural Poetry Contest

As Program Coordinator, I want to let all poets know that there is a new poetry contest that those living in NC and GA (and other Appalachian designated states) may participate. For those of you not familiar with Byron Herbert Reece, you may learn more here and also find out about the contest: http://www.byronherbertreecesociety.org/. As a board member, I am not able to enter, but I certainly encourage all of you to consider -- there is a $300 cash prize for the winner.

THE GIFT OF POETRY FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Janisse Ray's " A House of Branches"

Before she became the acclaimed author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Wild Card Quilt and Pinhook, Janisse Ray was a poet, a calling she has never abandonedd. Nor has it abandoned her. How heartening, therefore, to see her first love given its full-throated voice in Waking in the Forest! These poems are indeed about waking up, looking around at the world, and discovering how to live within it. Often they seek relationship with that world, speaking to the birds, for example, and begging of them, "Oh kinglet, Oh oriole/tell us what you know.” Janisse Ray know show to listen to what our world has to tell us, and she knows how to transform that listening into language that kindles our imagination, which after all desires nothing less than to be utterly alive in our landscape. “No matter how rich/we become, or old,/ or unable, won’t /some part of us desire to weave/a basket in which to forage/the last of the grapes? “ the poet asks. Ray’s poems weave for us such a basket. They show us how to gather and cherish the things of this world.

Born in Southeast Georgia, Janisse has given many presentations in the WNC mountains and is a frequent lecturer at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa.

To order this book, go to Wind Publications, where Charlie Hughes, poet and editor, runs one of our best regional small presses. Or for a signed copy, order directly from Janisse Ray, 895 Catherine T. Sanders Rd., Reidsville, GA 30453. $16 for paperback, $27 for hardback (includes shipping.)

(Janisse Ray talking with my brother, Charles Stripling, at the Joseph F. Jones Ecological Center in Baker County, Georgia)

Riding Bareback Through the Universe

The earth does not move steadily,

spinning at one speed through the heavens,

but with the motion

of a wild stallion at full gallop

across a painted desert,

which is sweep and fall, sweep and fall.

The earth is waltzing.

Its cloud-tail streams behind like a comet’s.

Not only the earth. Every heavenly body

once thought steady, plodding even,

flings itself along with senseless joy.

In the sky an ecstasy of stars

stampedes through the universe.

You and I ride standing

on the back of earth,

feet firmly planted, side by side,

our love for this life

so thunderous and billowing

so wild and powerful

we finally understand celestial motion.

Around us thousands of leaves

leap up and down on their stems

and summer flowerheads

surge with the wind.

B

New Announcement for Prose Writers from Peg Russell

Make your Plan for Dec.9, 2010. NetWest Prose Group will meet 7PM, Tri County CC, Enloe Bldg Conference Room 108.  The Enloe Bldg is second on the right, enter and turn right, first room on right after the restroom.
 
Even if you can't make the meeting, while the decorations and Christmas cards are out, this is a perfect time to make notes for future articles, poems, etc.  Locally the Cherokee Scout called for submissions,and online Yesterday's Magazette also requested holiday related submissions.


The NCWN West Monthly Prose group meets the second Thursday night at 7:00 pm at Tri County Community College. Members can bring a short story, essay or excerpt (with copies for critique to share.) Observers are welcome. Contact Peg Russell for more information.