April is poetry month and there is no finer way to
celebrate than attending Coffee with the Poets, a monthly event held at Joe’s Coffee Shop and Trading
Post, 82 Main Street, Hayesville, NC. North Carolina Writers Network-West sponsors this event which
meets at10:30 a.m., Wednesday, April 8, 2015.
Recently a visitor to our area said, "This should be on a list of things to do here!"
Two widely published local poets, members of NCWN West, Brenda
Kay Ledford and Nancy Simpson, are featured on the program this month. Coffee with the Poets and Writers is open
to the public at no charge. Bring a poem or short prose, 1000 words or less,
and read at Open Mic. Joe’s Coffee shop serves fine coffees and teas, and
snacks can be purchased.
Brenda Kay Ledford is a well-known poet and native of Clay
County, NC. She holds a Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina
University. She has done post-graduate work in Appalachian Studies, and the theme
of most of her writing is her Appalachian heritage.
Brenda received the Paul Green Multimedia Award from the North
Carolina Society of Historians seven times for her books, her collections
of oral history, and her blog Historical Hayesville. Her work has appeared in Our
State, Carolina Country Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Appalachian
Heritage, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Asheville
Poetry Review, Country Extra Magazine, Blue Ridge Parkway Silver
Anniversary Edition Celebration, and many other journals.
Finishing Line Press published Brenda’s poetry books: Shewbird
Mountain, Sacred Fire, and Beckoning. She co-authored Simplicity with Blanche
L. Ledford. She is also an outstanding photographer as you can see on
her blog, Blue Ridge Poet.
Nancy Simpson lives in Hayesville, NC. Through 2010 she
served as Resident Writer at the John C. Campbell Folk School. She taught
many of the poets and writers in this area in her classes there and at
Tri-County Community College. She also taught poetry for ICL at Young Harris
College.
Nancy is the author of three poetry collections: Across
Water, Night Student, and most recently Living Above the Frost
Line, New and Selected Poems (Carolina Wren Press, 2010). She also
edited Echoes Across the Blue Ridge (anthology 2010). She holds an MFA
from Warren Wilson College and a BS in education from Western Carolina
University. She received a NC Arts Fellowship and co-founded NC Writers
Network-West.
Simpson’s poems have been published in The Georgia Review,
Southern Poetry Review, Seneca Review, New Virginia Review, Prairie Schooner and
others. Her poems have been included in anthologies, Word and Wisdom,
100 Years of N.C. Poetry and Literary Trails of N.C. (2008).
Her poems have also been featured in Southern Appalachian Poetry, a
textbook anthology published at McFarland Press.
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