Updated CWPW -see date change for May

Please note a correction to Schedule for Coffee with the Poets and Writers 2014.

http://netwestwriters.blogspot.com/2014/01/coffee-with-poets-and-writers-schedule.html

A library with no books?

A public library with no books is now operating in San Antonio. At the cost of 2.3 million, the country's first and only paperless public library is providing patrons with rows of iMacs for use there and tablets to loan for those who want to do their reading at home. This library is expecting over 100,000 visitors in the first year. Libraries with no printed material are said by many to be "the future." If this is true, one has to ask what it means for the future of agents, publishers and even for writers. What do you think?

 

A Man For All Seasons Going Out Of Business

This article about NCWN/NetWest member Bob Grove appeared in the December 18, 2013 edition of the Cherokee Scout newspaper. Bob is the facilitator of the NetWest sponsored Prose Critique Group that meets the second Thursday of each month at 7 pm at Tri County Community College near Murphy. I knew Bob was a man of many talents, but I learned even more of them from the article. 

Here it is, in its entirety, courtesy of the Cherokee Scout newspaper and writer, Dwight Otwell.

By DWIGHT OTWELL

dotwell@cherokeescout.com

Scott Wallace/swallace@cherokeescout.com

Brasstown – Bob Grove moved to Cherokee County and began teaching in 1978, but he soon began his own business that would become one of the most respected in the industry.

After 35 years, Grove Enterprises, a standard in the shortwave and radio equipment business, closed at the end of November along with his longtime magazine, Monitoring Times.

“Judy and I decided to finally take real retirement,” the Brasstown resident said. He will be missed. “Grove radio has been a national institution to shortwave and other radio enthusiastsfor many years,” Bellview resident Hugh Williamson wrote to the Cherokee Scout. Grove taught science and math for two years at Hiwassee Dam High School beginning in 1978. He had been living in Florida and became disillusioned with the fast growth and crime.

“I was establishing the business,” he said. “I loved the kids, but it became clear that my destiny was to go into business for myself.” It began as a mail order business for radio receivers of all kinds. Its specialties are radio scanners, shortwave receivers, antennas, database and control software, listening accessories and a full spectrum of publications. Grove Catalogue is mailed to the company’s database of customers each year.  

However, Grove is a man of many interests. It took him six years to get a four-year college degree because he changed his major 12 times. He taught a wide variety of subjects in public schools – including every science, English, journalism and creative writing.

Grove grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and taught in Ohio and then Florida. He was named director of the South Florida Museum & Bishop Planetarium in Bradenton, Fla. He later went back into teaching, but became curator and interim director of a museum in Palm Beach County,Fla.

Grove was noticed by a local ABC television affiliate and began working a few jobs for them before being named public affairs director. He hosted some programs and was seen on air by more than any other person in southeast Florida. His favorite guest was famous movie star and dancer Ginger Rogers, who he called “delightful.” His most irritating guest was Eddie Albert,actor and star of the television show Green Acres. “He was just snarly,” Grove said of Albert. “He looked around at the studio and asked, ‘What is this – the city dump?’ ”

His memories of his time at the studio are both touching and humorous. Grove gave tours of the facility, and one day some kids were fascinated at the height of the transmission towers. Grove pointed to the tower, and at that moment lightning hit it. The kids asked him how he did that.

Grove hosted the television show Now World and was known as Mr. Science. Grove and wife Judy had always cared deeply for animals and wildlife. After moving to Brasstown, they had a tree cut down that had a nest with squirrels. A wildlife official told Grove they weren’t allowed to keep the animals, but they could designate them as the Brasstown Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. “We have kept anything that walks on two or four legs,” he said, including hawks, owls, deer, oppossums, groundhogs and mink.

Grove and Judy gave talks to schools and groups. Once, Judy was telling a group that you can’t get close to wildlife because you have to eventually set them free. You can’t make pets of them. Just then, a squirrel they had rehabilitated ran up, jumped on the table and onto Judy’s shoulder. Grove was surprised that they have received well wishes from hundreds of present and former customers and subscribers who sent in congratulations about their retirement.

“It is very gratifying. There were no negative comments about our closing,” he said. Although both Grove Enterprises and Monitoring Times are being retired, the chief editor and practically all of the writers will begin a new magazine, Spectrum Monitor, on Jan. 1. 

Grove is 75, but he isn’t going to just sit back in an easy chair. He will write for the new magazine and do original writing for publications and more books. He has already written an e-book, Misadventures of an Only Child, which he calls his autobiography. It’s for sale at Curiosity Shop Bookstore in downtown Murphy.

Grove will also continue teaching adult continuing education classes. Through John C. Campbell Folk School and Young Harris (Ga.) College, he teaches local geology, including field trips with students. His latest enterprise is being president of the new Mountain Community Orchestra. The orchestra is assembling serious musicians from the region and hope to begin performing after the first of the year. “I don’t play an instrument. I am a drummer,” Grove quipped. 

At 7 p.m. today (December 18, 2013) at the folk school, Grove will do his annual reading of A Christmas Carol, which is a special arrangement by the author Charles Dickens. Grove will do the entire reading himself, in costume. He said it’s fun but exhausting. “It is all British, but I have no problem with that,” he said."My father was born in England. I love life, and I have had a great time of it.”

My Favorite Authors "Know" Me

By Bill Ramsey

As a reader, after completing a novel or a collection of poems, I am often left feeling that the book's author "knows" me. Oh, I don't mean that we are personally acquainted. It just seems that the book must have been written about me because it so accurately describes my life. 

When that happens, I ask myself if the author may have been reading my mail or even my mind. Was there a camera hidden in my home? Were my friends and family talking too loudly about me in a public place. What else could explain it? 

Then it came to me. Authors are people too, ordinary people with a finely developed and special skill. They observe, understand, and are able to describe real life in the printed word. They are honest and open, willing to make themselves vulnerable. As a reader, I appreciate what they write - even when it strikes so close to home.

Review of "East African Odyssey", by Emilee Hines

Review by Lana Hendershott:

I enjoyed reading Emilee’s personal account as a young American woman teaching in Kenya. In the early 1960s many young college graduates were joining the Peace Corps, but Ms. Hines focused on teaching young adult Africans to become teachers themselves while she learned about the country in the process. The author's honesty and naiveté shines through as she admits her misgivings, social blunders and her love affair with two very different men: Rico, a jealous Italian and Ray, an Englishman. The afterward offers closure as the reader learns the fate of her friends years later. The author's love and respect for Africa is revealed in her physical descriptions of the country but is balanced by the reality of the country's problems. One has the sense this East African teaching experience had a lasting influence on the author. 

Click on the titles, East African Odyssey, and The Proposal, to listen to the author's books on Audible.com.

The Wordsmiths of Macon County

The Wordsmiths of Macon County met December 5,2013, at the Macon County Library and had a great time, from the sounds of this report from our Macon County Representative, Shirley Cole. 

"Sixteen guests  and poets were present, and 12 to 15 pieces of original  poems were read and discussed. We had four young guests, who heard Eugene Field's poem "The Duel' about the gingham dog and the calico cat. Everyone giggled and afterward the children approached me and thanked me for inviting them and sharing our  gingerbread cookies with them. We may be on to something! Mrs. Moe, the head of the library, suggested to me that perhaps we would like to share our poetry with the children often. I agreed and am going to include  a section of our next meeting for our children to bring us ''LOVE  POEMS'' AND will send the Library small posters to display. OUR NEXT READING IS IN February and I am searching for  funny poems to read to our children. I will encourage them to write some cursive if they so desire. The library received  another donation from us as a thank you for allowing us to read. But, I think that they are very thrilled to have us."

Thank you, Shirley, for this great report, and for all you are doing to increase literary awareness, especially for children, in Macon County. I've no doubt that the library is very appreciative.

Call For Submissions For a New Anthology, "Mountain Writings"

Submissions of poetry and flash fiction for the next anthology, Mountain Writings, part of the Old Mountain Press Anthology Series, will be accepted beginning March 1, 2013. 

The anthology’s theme is anything about the mountains, the people, the places, the activities or other applicable subjects. To submit, writers must have been previously published in an OMP Anthology or be recommended by a writer who has been previously published in an OMP Anthology. Names and bios of contributors can be found on any of the books' web pages which are linked to the OMP Anthology Books in Print web page, found here. 

Coffee with the Poets and Writers Schedule for 2014

The Hayesville/Murphy Coffee with the Poets and Writers will not be held in January and February because we can't depend on the weather. This past week has been proof of that. As most things slow down and stop these two months in the mountains, we can stay in and compose more poems and work on our writing.

We will meet 10:30 a.m. March 12 at Blue Mountain Restaurant for our first meeting of 2014.
Netwest member, Deanna Klingel from Cashiers will be featured. Bring something for Open Mic and plan to stay for lunch.
Most of the schedule was filled at our December meeting, but we still have a few places left if anyone wants to sign up as a second reader or for August. Contact me, nightwriter0302@yahoo.com to be put on the schedule.
See the present CWPW Schedule below.

March 12 -- Deanna Klingel
April 9 -- Brenda Kay Ledford
May 14 -- Lucy Gratton and Joan Howard
June 11 -- Estelle Rice and Staci Bell
July 9 -- Linda Smith
August 13 --
September 10 -- Carole Thompson
October 8 -- Mary Mike Keller and Bob Grove
November 12 -- Karen Holmes and Paul Schofield
December -- Open mic meeting

See you in March.

Four Writing Contests to Enter Now

Visit these sites and read the guidelines. Some are for North Carolina residents only and some are open to all. Get your work in now before the deadlines.  

1.       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. Subjects may include traditional categories such as reviews, travel articles, profiles or interviews, place/history pieces, or culture criticism. The first-, second-, and third-place winners will receive $300, $200, and $100 respectively. The winning entry will be considered for publication by Southern Cultures magazine. The deadline is January 17.

2.       The Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize honors internationally celebrated North Carolina novelist, Thomas Wolfe. The winner receives $1,000 and possible publication in The Thomas Wolfe Review. The deadline is January 30.

3.       The Doris Betts Fiction Prize awards the first-prize winner $250. Up to ten finalists will be considered for publication in the North Carolina Literary Review. The deadline is February 15.

4.       The Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition awards the winner publication in storySouth and $200. This contest opens January 15 and run through March 1.

An Observation From Bill Ramsey

We recently received this observation from Bill, with a request to post it: "Maybe it is just the anticipation that a new year brings, but it does seem that the writers in NetWest are increasingly energized these days. There are more opportunities to communicate and to meet. This is important because we all know that the act of writing can feel desperately lonely sometimes. Thanks to Ellen and others for providing the spark needed to get us all fired up."

Bill is the author of three books. You can read more about him here.

Google+ and Search Engine Optimization

In searching for information about Google+, I ran across this post to "The Moz Blog" (www.moz.com/blog/google-plus-correlations) by Cyrus Shepard. Here are some excerpts that I found enlightening.

"Intentional or not, the engineers who made Google+ built it for SEO. Consider the factors that make sharing content on Google+ far different than sharing on other social networks:

1. Posts are crawled and indexed almost immediately

One of the original goals for Google+ was using it to power real-time search after Twitter cut off Google's firehose access to its data in 2011. Since then, Google has been using Google+ to discover new content, and many web professionals have discovered that URLs shared on Google+ are crawled and indexed very quickly.

Compare this to Facebook, where because of privacy settings and restrictions on data sharing, it's not uncommon for posts to never be crawled or indexed by Google at all.

Unlike Facebook, which hides data from Google, or Twitter, which directs Google not to follow most of its links, Google+ data is immediately and fully accessible to the company that built it.

2. Google+ posts pass link equity

Pages and posts on Google+ not only accumulate PageRank, but because links to posts are followed, they pass link equity on as well.

When you share a link on Google+, the anchor text becomes the title of the page you are sharing. Some important things to remember about followed links within Google+:

• Only "shared" links (the links that show up beneath your post) are followed. Any external links you add withing the post body itself are nofollowed, so these don't pass any link equity.
• For obvious reasons, uploaded images don't pass external link equity. Some people like to upload a screenshot of a page and then link to it in the body of the post. While a good image may increase post popularity and click-through rate, these posts do not pass link equity.
• Certain links in your Google+ "About" page are also followed and pass link equity.

3. Google+ is optimized for semantic relevance

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, each post you make in Google+ has most of the characteristics of a full-blown blog posting.

• Each post has its own URL.
• The first 45-50 characters of the post appear in the title tag.
• Just like a blog post, entries can be long and complex in order to explore a subject deeply. Various correlation studies have show a strong relationship between longer pages and higher rankings.
• If a post is reshared, it can accumulate internal links from the Google+ platform, all with relevant anchor text.
• Because of these factors, each post has the potential to send strong semantic signals to Google's search algorithm. This not only helps the post itself to rank in Google's search results, but potentially sends relevancy signals to a URL shared by the post.

Taking advantage of Google+ for SEO

While there are hundreds of ways to optimize your Google+ experience, the most important activities can be summed up by these nine points:

1. Start building relationships now on Google+

It's never too late to start. Google+ is a social network. Following great people, commenting on posts, and sharing great content not only helps to increase your own influence, but it can be extremely educational as well.

2. Post share-worthy content on Google+ to attract natural links

When you share content, don't just post a link and walk away. Add additional value with commentary and relevant information.

Consider these examples of long Google+ posts. Each acts like a mini blog post and adds highly shareable, linkable context. I don't recommend replacing your personal blog with Google+ entirely, but sometimes a few lines of context makes all the difference.

3. Add Google authorship information to your online content

Adding rel="author" to your website is a no-brainer. If you guest post or otherwise contribute content to other high quality sites, ask the publisher if they will add author markup to your bio. Kane Jamison recently did this for me when I contributed content to his blog.

4. Link out to all relevant profiles from your Google+ "About" page

Think of Google+ as a primary hub of your online virtual identity. Google offers you several places to link to other online profiles, sites that you contribute content to, and simply sites that you want to share.

5. Take advantage of rel="publisher" by connecting your website to your Google+ brand page

6. Make your content easy to share on Google+ with relevant social sharing buttons

You would think everyone wants to add social sharing buttons to their content, but some folks are just stubborn. Don't be stubborn.

7. Completely fill out your Google+ profile with relevant and engaging information

The information you provide in your profile influences how you show up in Google+ search results and also plays a role in whom Google suggests others to follow.

8. Make it easy for people to add you to your circles

Use Google's easy-to-create badges, or create your own to place on your own online profiles so that others can easily add you to their circles.

9. Make your posts public.

Posts shared privately don't pass the same juice as publicly shared post. For SEO purposes, you likely want your posts spread as wide as possible. Philipp Steuer made this great Google+ infographic simplifying the complexities of who sees your posts:

Additional resources for success

Entire books can now be written on using Google+ to boost your SEO efforts. In reality, there are exactly 3 articles that contain 99% of everything you need to know:

Google Plus SEO: Everybody Talks About It – How Do You DO It? by Mark Traphagen
Google+ SEO by AJ Kohn
10 Dead Simple Tips to Take Advantage of Google+ for SEO"

Many thanks to Cyrus for this helpful post. And, btw, the article has a "Follow Me" button so that you can keep up with the information Cyrus shares, along with graphs, images and comments that I didn't copy here.

Why Writers Need to be on Google Plus.

Many of us, myself included, have been struggling our way through Google+. As this post explains, it's definitely a good idea for writers to become familiar with the platform, and excel at it. Please watch for these points as you read this:

• Anne's four Google+ tips
• Book Launch via Hangouts
• Google Authorship
• Semantic Search: per this article,  http://goo.gl/1TuPTu, it's already killing keyword search
• Google+ for writers community

Anne R. Allen's Blog: Why Writers Need to be on Google Plus…Plus a FREE ...: A lot of writers seem to find Google Plus as mysterious as I do, so when I met Google guru and  SEO expert Johnny Base  in a Google Plus g...

Maybe Google+ would be a good topic for workshops in 2014. What do you think?

New iBook by Laurence Holden

New iBook. Just published by Laurence Holden. "A book for this season, the season of wintering - an interactive book of my poems, paintings, photographs, video, and spoken word. A meditation on winter, and wintering. These words and images - two sides of the same coin, tumbling in a great river - bearing witness to the Creation. I’ll meet you there."

This book is available for download with iBooks on your Mac or iPad, and with iTunes on your computer. Multi-touch books can be read with iBooks on your Mac or iPad. Books with interactive features may work best on an iPad. Click here for Laurence's page on iTunes: http://goo.gl/vw1JSO. 

Great Gift Item - Laurence Holden's Christmas Book

A book where vision and poetry gather, where sound and sight converse. These paintings and poems share something very important - a concentrated form of paying attention - paying attention to what is! And what is, is both moving and still, both seen and unseen, heard and unheard. The paintings are still, yet move in our minds, thoughts, and feelings. The poems move in our minds, our thoughts, our feelings, and yet they form pooling echoes of the still and eternal present. Paintings and poems - two sides of one coin.


This electronic version includes two additional videos and is developed and adapted by Louis Leon from a handmade limited edition book the artist created and gave for a Christmas gift to friends and family in 2009.

Ten Poems And Eleven Paintings, Christmas 2009 is especially designed for iPad and is available for purchase on iTunes for $4.99: http://goo.gl/BeOKJC.

Poets, What do you think?

This post is from an article by Nancy Simpson, “Writing Free Verse: Some Questions and Answers,” posted on this blog December 17, 2011.

3) QUESTION: Do I have to punctuate?

ANSWER: No. This is your choice. Once in a while, in the literary magazines, I read poems that have no punctuation. However, it is as if the poem were punctuated and then the poet lifted out the punctuation marks. There is no rule, but caution would say, help the reader all you can. If there were a rule regarding punctuation, it would be: Do not lose your reader.

4) QUESTION: What is the rule for line breaks?

ANSWER: There is no rule. Line breaks are completely your responsibility and your choice. Some free verse poets work in unrhymed meter, some count syllables, some spoon feed the reader one thought on one line and the next bite on the next line. There are no rules, but there are a few guidelines.

A.) End the line with a strong word, not a weak word such as a, and, or the.

B.) Be aware of your one-word lines. That one word you want to use will draw attention to itself. It had better be great, for it will provoke questions, and it will slow your reader.

C.) If your line is too wide for a narrow page, it will wrap, and you will lose whatever it was you were trying to accomplish. Editors shun the wide line that wants to wrap.

D.) If there were one rule to line breaks, it would be, work your lines.

Read the entire article here.

What Questions Do You Ask?

We began this blog in 2007. Looking through our Archives tonight, I realize we have many posts that are worth repeating. This one from Maureen Ryan Griffin is one I think our readers will enjoy.

Monday, January 21, 2008
Good Advice From Maureen Ryan Griffin
I asked Maureen Ryan Griffin to guest post today, and she sent me the following:


What Questions Do You Ask? 

As a writer, the questions that you ask matter. Why? For one thing, they are important clues to the context you have for your writing. This context affects, not just the way you feel, but also what you choose to write about, how hard you're willing to work, and how tenaciously you seek publication.

I've had well over a thousand students in my writing classes and workshops, and there's one question I get asked over and over. Want to guess what it is?

The question is some variant of Do I have talent? Sometimes it comes out Is my writing any good? or Do you think I can get published? Regardless, what students are really asking for is a measurement of their innate ability. This is dangerous. And not particularly useful.

Of course, we all want to know, beyond all doubt, that we are brilliant. Of course, some people have more raw talent than others. But think about it-the correlation between talent and success is not particularly high. There are extremely talented writers who never publish a word, for reasons that range from practical to heartbreaking. Conversely, there are moderately talented writers who publish profusely. You've read their books, poems, and/or articles. You've said, "How could this get published? My stuff is so much better!"

I'll tell you how. The writer did what it took to write it and get it out there. Sure, he or she may have had connections, but forging those connections took effort, too. The focus was not on Am I talented? but something more akin to What will it take to get this published? or What's the next step?

Asking Am I talented? keeps the focus on you. And you will be much better served if your focus is on the writing, or on the reader. Remember J.K. Rowling's Dumbledore telling Harry that our choices say more about us than our abilities do? Talent is far less important than commitment.

One of my early successes was the publishing of an article, "Faith Lessons from a Dying Woman," in a Catholic magazine called Saint Anthony Messenger. It was about Lynn Tucker, a woman in my church who died of cancer, leaving behind a family, including a son who, at eight, was only a year older than my daughter. One evening several months after her death, our parish priest, the Father Burke I spoke of earlier, gave my daughter an angel filled with candy that Lynn had made and given him. The circumstances of that evening, coupled with my memories of Lynn's loving generosity, so inspired me that I was determined to share the story.

I'd never written an article like this before. My husband told me later that when he read my first draft, his heart sank because it was so bad. I don't remember how long it took me to prepare that piece for submission. I do remember that I turned to my mentor, Irene Honeycutt, for constructive feedback. And I'll never forget the day I revised and polished it for over four hours, only to have my dedicated word processor (a precursor to the desktop computer) lose every word. Of course I was discouraged. But I didn't let even that stop me. I rewrote the whole thing.

My husband was surprised when Saint Anthony Messenger took my story, but I wasn't. "Faith Lessons from a Dying Woman" made it to publication because the question I was asking was What will it take to get this story in print to show Lynn's family my gratitude? and I was willing to do whatever it took. My context was love and honor, not talent.

Instead of focusing on your talent, or lack thereof, ask questions such as How can I become a better writer? and What's possible for me if I throw my whole heart into my writing? What juicy, fascinating person, place, or thing can I write about? What can I write that will touch, or entertain, or inspire someone else? Your chances for happiness-and success-will multiply.

What questions will you ask?
Keeping in mind that the questions you ask are the foundation of your whole relationship with writing, which will you ask? Choose a question or questions from the paragraph above, or create a question or questions of your own.

From Spinning Words into Gold by Maureen Ryan Griffin

To order a copy, see www.maureenryangriffin.com.

All Open Mic in December for Coffee with the Poets and Writers

Coffee with the Poets and Writers meets Wednesday, Dec. 11, 10:30 a.m. at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill in Murphy, NC. 

This monthly reading series is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network West, and is open to interested writers and poets. The community is invited to participate.

Bring a poem or story, holiday theme if you have one. There will not be a featured reader this month. The program will be all Open Mic. Sign in for a chance to win a door prize. We will begin scheduling readers for next year.

Stay for our social time when we pull tables together and have lunch.

This event will not take place in January and February, but will resume in March, 2014. Contact Glenda Beall, Clay County Representative for NCWN West, 828-389-4441 or nightwriter0302@yahoo.com for information.

See some of the writers and poets who participated this year.

Lucy Cole Gratton

Eva Maiden from California

Joan Howard

Paul M. Schofield

Estelle Rice

Don Long

Brenda kay Ledford

Mary Mike Keller

Maren Mitchell

Bob Grove

Re-print of Interview with Ellen Schofield, Program Coordinator for NCWN West

Earlier this year, Rosemary Royston, program coordinator for the past couple of years, resigned due to a heavy workload and family issues. NCWN West was without a leader for a couple of weeks, and then an interim program coordinator was named.

It was chaotic for a while as weeks passed while we waited to see who would be chosen. Some of us wondered about the future of Netwest.

I am here to say that we can all rest well. 

The future of NCWN West is in the good hands of Ellen Schofield, Murphy resident, originally from Big Sky Country, Montana. It has been my pleasure to get to know Ellen in the past few months. I learned more about her when she attended one of my classes at Tri-County Community College.
Her ancestors were brave pioneers who headed out west to make new starts. She writes about her interesting family history and about her travels.

She was gracious to answer questions for the following interview.

Ellen Schofield

GB: Thank you, Ellen, for this opportunity to ask you some questions that will help our members know you better. You have recently been appointed Program Coordinator for the North Carolina Writers’ Network West, the only chapter of NCWN, state literary organization.

A detailed job description was created for this position. When you read this, did you find it challenging in any way?

ES: Yes, I found it challenging because I want to live up to it while serving the entire Netwest area (nine WNC counties, north GA, TN and SC).

GB: Your resume is impressive but you also have letters from former employers who highly praise your abilities. What do you see as your strengths that will enable you to best serve the writers and members of NCWN West?

ES: I feel that my experience with non-profits, including the legalities of being a 501c3 entity, along with my technical writing experience, analytical abilities and attention to detail will allow the writers and members to create their magic while I take care of the more mundane details.

GB: How have you prepared yourself to take over the leadership of Netwest?

ES: I’ve done this by meeting members and familiarizing myself with the entire organization. However, I am still in the process of preparing, and I do hope that the members will bear with me during my learning curve.

GB: Have you set any goals for NCWN West or for yourself as Program Coordinator?

ES: I believe that education is never wasted. That’s why I would like to continue with the successful programs already in place while adding new ones to meet other needs. I’d also like to institute an enjoyable and instructional annual Writers’ Conference for the Netwest region.  

GB: I understand you plan to travel throughout the region, meet members and talk with the Netwest representatives. Why do you think this is important?

ES: Travel was a specific request from Ed Southern, our Executive Director. I'm in total agreement, because I don’t know how I can best serve the membership if I don’t know them and their unique issues. Also, I enjoy travel and meeting new people, especially writers.

GB: What message do you have for the members of NCWN West?

ES: I believe that I have been placed in a position of responsibility and trust, and I want you all to know that I am very sincere in my desire to help all writers spread their wings and fly. I am convinced that each of our members is a valuable gem, and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better. I appreciate the many welcoming comments and emails that I have received, and I look forward to being a part of this very talented group.

In closing, I would like to quote the NC Writers’ Network statement of belief because it articulates in a wonderful way why we are unified in our quest to express ourselves in writing, no matter our genre:

“We believe that writing is necessary both for self-expression and community spirit, that well-written words can connect people across time and distance, and that the deeply satisfying experiences of writing and reading should be available to everyone."

GB: My thanks to Ellen for her candid response to my questions. Look for Ellen at Netwest gatherings, invite her to your writers’ groups, and take the time to get to know her. I think we will see positive growth for NCWN West as we move forward under the leadership of Ellen Schofield.

(This post was previously posted August 2013 on now defunct Netwest website)

Glenda C. Beall is Clay County Representative for NCWN West and former Program Coordinator. She is Owner/Director of Writers Circle, and teaches writing at Tri-County College in Murphy. Her website is: www.glendacbeall.com

A November Poem

November is here again, cold and cloudy. I want to share a poem that was published on Your Daily Poem by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer    - November Trees
When you visit this site, you will see the variety, quality and quantity of poetry Jayne has published on Your Daily Poem. If you want her thousands of readers to see your poetry, submit it to Jayne. You can subscribe and receive her poetry in your Inbox. 

Below is another November poem, a little more somber this time.
  

  November Evening

Sky cradles a sliver of  moon.

Saturn in the West, the only star.

Humpbacked mountains crouch.

Trees point leafless limbs above me.

Cold stings my cheeks, chills fingers

searching for warmth inside my coat. 

The white dog trots ahead

and pokes his nose into bushes

left bare by last week's freeze. Snow will fall

before dawn, dress firs, pines and oaks,

hills and houses in winter's wrapping.

I stop, savor the closing moments of dusk,

loath to go within and face the truth.

Will my brother see another autumn's gold?

Or does Eternity wait like the glistening

days of December, beckoning light

so bright he is drawn forever away?
               --- Glenda Council Beall

LEDFORD RECEIVES PAUL GREEN AWARD

Brenda Kay Ledford received the Paul Green Multimedia Award from North Carolina Society of Historians for her poetry book, BECKONING.

The NCSH held their annual awards ceremony in Hilton Garden Inn at Mooresville, NC on October 19, 2013.

A distinguished panel of judges selected Ledford's book to win the Paul Green Award.

According to the judge's collective comments:  "A trip down memory lane is what one will take while reading this poet's work.  She writes in a free-verse style, quite popular with modern poets.  Subject matter deals with people, places, animals, daily life in the 1940's to the present, with a concentration toward earlier times in Clay County, NC.

"Ledford's book is beautifully produced and the cover 'beckons' one to pick it up and read.  The poetry, words from the soul recalls many old traditions that are being lost to 'progress,' being lost to generations who will learn about them through poetry such as this."

Finishing Line Press in Georgetown, KY published Ledford's book.  It's available at Clay County Chamber of Commerce, John C. Campbell Folk School Craft Shop, Hayesville Centennial Exhibit, FinishingLinePress.com, Amazon.com, and City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC.

For more information:  www.ncsocietyofhistorians.org.