Maren O. Mitchell's Poems to Appear in Appalachian Heritage and Iodine Poetry Journal

Maren O. Mitchell

Maren O. Mitchell’s poem, “Cougar, Blue Ridge,” will appear in Appalachian Heritage; and her poems, “Catching the Flu after a 10 Year Hiatus” and “Hank, Clarinetist, The Platinum Lounge, Chicago, 1932,” will be published by Iodine Poetry Journal.

Brenda Kay Ledford Graduates From Stratford Career Institute

Brenda Kay Ledford earned a diploma of highest honors in Creative Writing from Stratford Career Institute.  She maintained a 96% grade average in the course. 

This institute offers more than 60 courses online for adults who wish to further their education.

For more information:  www.scitraining.com

http://blueridgepoet.blogspot.com

http://historicalhayesville.blogspot.com

Brenda Kay Ledford Published in ENO

Brenda Kay Ledford's poem, "Reece Farm," appeared in ENO.  This magazine is published by Duke University, the Nicholas School of Environment.  The poem was included in Issue 4/2015.
For information:  www.enomag.org

Steven Harvey Class, The Mnemonics of Memoir, June 27, 10 AM–1 PM, Hayesville, NC

Steven Harvey, Instructor

Memory coming to us as a strange concoction of thought and dream is the source of memoir, personal essays, and other forms of creative nonfiction. Some memories come unbidden, others emerge in the writing process, and some reluctant ones need to be teased out.


What tools can the writer use to access these memories, even the shy ones, and see them vividly enough and in enough detail to use in a memoir or essay? In this class we will begin by looking at a range of techniques that can be used to access memories.


Then, through a series of exercises, we will apply a number of these techniques to a single memory to enrich our experience of it. Finally, we will offer suggestions to use these techniques, in our writing, to make our personal texts more powerful.
Students should bring paper and a pen even if they plan to use a computer to write. Interested parties should contact Glenda C. Beall, at Hayesville, NC.

glendabeall@msn.com

Upcoming Anthology for WNC Women, "It's All Relative" - A Reminder from Celia H. Miles and Nancy Dillingham

To those who have submitted and those who may submit poems and prose for the fourth anthology: "It’s All Relative"

A reminder and a request from Celia H. Miles and Nancy Dillingham

· The deadline for submitting is June 1.

· Publication is planned for the fall with a party and perhaps a reading at a local bookstore

· If you know a Western North Carolina woman writer who may not have received our announcement, pass on the information or have her contact Celia or Nancy.

· All those whose submissions are published will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology. But…

· You may reserve additional copies—to help us determine the initial print order—at the tentative price of $16.00 per copy. Your reserved copies will stay at that price, but since we don’t know the cost yet of the printing, the final price may be higher (though we hope not).

· Please let us know if you wish to reserve one or more additional copies.

· We are also offering Women’s Spaces Women’s Places at $10.00 per copy to contributors. Clothes Lines is now out of print.

We are looking forward to an interesting compilation of family stories and situations.

Contact Celia Miles - celiahoopermiles@gmail.com

Congratulations to Bob Grove

Bob Grove, author of several books, has been awarded three gold medals for his  entries in the Cherokee and Clay County Silver Arts writing competition.

The first-place medals were for his short story, The Switch; his essay, A moral Conundrum; and his performance reading of The Follies of Youth, also written by Bob and delivered at the closing ceremonies of the Senior Games on May 16.

Bob Grove, medal winner

His recent memoir, Misadventures of an Only Child, can be found on Amazon.com. Bob is facilitator of the NCWN West Prose group that meets monthly at Tri-County Community College in Murphy, NC. He is known locally for his humor, his tales of the antics of his youth and his annual Christmas season performance of Dickens' A Christmas Carol at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

Just one more day - Kakalak submission due May 15

Submit now to Kakalak 2015. 

 Poets and Artists of the Carolinas, this is from editors of Kakalak 2015. 

 

Thanks to everyone who has already entered the KAKALAK 2015 poetry and art contests. If you haven't, this is a gentle reminder that we need your poems, your inside art (photography or photos of your artwork) by May 15.

Please visit the Main Street Rag web site for guidelines ( www.mainstreetrag.com, click on Kakalak 2015).    

A Large Turnout For Karen Holmes, Poet, at Coffee with the Poets and Writers, Hayesville, NC

Coffee with the Poets and Writers met Wednesday at Joe’s Coffee House in Hayesville, NC. We had an overflow crowd. Our hostess, Cindy, brought in chairs from outside to seat everyone as they continued to enter.

A lovely day here in the Appalachian Mountains invited us all to get out and enjoy the sunshine, low humidity, and a poet who has blossomed this past year.  Karen Paul Holmes, a resident of Atlanta and Hiawassee, Georgia, published her first book of poetry, Untying the Knot, last year. Reviewers praised her work and she has read to large groups in Atlanta as well as other places. Her book is for sale online. To get an autographed copy, find Karen locally at Writers Night Out in Blairsville, GA on the second Friday night of the month. The event takes place at the Union County Community building at Butternut Creek Golf Course.

After Karen’s reading today, we held Open Mic, a time for our guests to read a couple of poems or a short story. Paul Schofield chose to read a chapter from the upcoming fourth book of his Trophy series. Paul writes Future Fiction. Find his books on Amazon.com.

Dr. Eugene Hirsch was with us today and read two poems. Dr. Hirsch, along with Nancy Simpson and Janice Moore, were major players in the creation of NCWN West. Nancy read two poems from her most recent book, Living Above the Frost Line published by Carolina Wren Press.

NCWN West (Netwest) appreciates Joe Powell of Joe’s CoffeeHouse, 82 Main Street, for giving our writers a place to meet. We thank Cindy who is the perfect hostess.

After our meeting several of us walked down the block and had lunch at Angelo’s, on the corner of the town square. We discussed Hayesville, Netwest, and plans for the future. Our literary community in the far western part of North Carolina is thriving.

We invite others to join us on the second Wednesday of each month, 10:30 a.m. at Joe’s. In June our featured readers are Joan Gage and Mary Ricketson. We look forward to another enjoyable day.

Joan Ellen Gage

Mary Ricketson

Laurence Holden's poem "Only the River Now" in June issue of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel & at "Seedtime on the Cumberland" Celebration

Laurence Holden will read his poem "Only the River Now" at the June 6th launch of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel: Volume 18, The Dead, held at the Southern Appalachian Writers Collaborative Summer Gathering/Reading.  This will be Appalshop's 29th annual Seedtime on the Cumberland in Whitesburg, Kentucky, celebrating Appalachian people, music, arts, and culture.

You can listen live to this reading June 6th at 12 noon on WMMT-FM 88.7

Laurence's poem in this issue "Only the River Now" was inspired by the nearby river, the Chattooga, the surrounding mountain community, and the way things pass there. The author says that it is the only poem he has ever written that comes close to being a story. After he had written it, he put it away in a drawer very unsure about its "narrative arc," or even what that really meant. Several writers told him it was very important to have this arc. So months later he had an opportunity to ask his poet friend Mildred Greear, who writes ballads, what a story needs. She said - it only has to be true! Without her saying that, this poem would never have seen the light of day. So, of course, Laurence dedicated the poem to her.

Change in Prose Group date in May

We have a change in the schedule for the Netwest Prose Group that meets at Tri-County College in Cherokee County.

That group will meet on the third Thursday, May 21 at 7:00 p.m. for this month only.

Bob Grove leads those writers who write fiction and nonfiction and they usually meet on the second Thursday of each month.
Because of a change in the John Campbell Folk School reading in May, prose writers meeting was changed. 

Anyone in the area of Murphy, Hayesville, Robbinsville, Blairsville, Young Harris, or Hiawassee are within driving distance. 

This is a small group of writers who want to improve their writing skills by sharing their work with other writers. Feedback is gentle but honest, and many of us have honed our skills around the table with others who write short stories, personal essays, memoirs, and all kinds of writing that is not poetry.

Contact Bob Grove for more details -  bobby.grove@gmail.com

Contest Winner JC Walkup

We are happy to post the publishing success of JC Walkup whose short story, Sin, about the woman who got revenge on her milk-toast husband and his greedy son, won first place in the Haywood County Silver Arts Contest. Driving West, the post-apocalypse story, took Honorable Mention.

This the fifth First Place win and the first Honorable Mention since she began submitting to contests several years ago. She also has won Second Place three times.

JC Walkup is the author of a novel, Partners, about Texas and Texans.  She lives in Haywood County and served as Haywood County Representative for NCWN West for a number of years.

She speaks of how important it is to belong to a writing critique group. “I'm grateful to my faithful critique group for reading and critiquing both stories. It helps so much to have their support,” JC says.

As most writers know, the fun is in the writing. The work is in the submitting and marketing of your work. JC said, “It is so much more fun to write than it is to do the contests and marketing stuff. My husband, the constant support of my work, reminds me often that it is necessary to expose my work to the world to get better.”

Congratulations, JC for your publication successes, and send us all your good news in the future. 

Writers' Night Out Friday, May 8

Mary Ricketson to Read from Her New Book, Hanging Dog Creek

On Friday, May 8, Writers’ Night Out will feature Mary Ricketson of Murphy, NC reading poems from her second collection, Hanging Dog Creek (Future Cycle Press). An open microphone follows for those who’d like to share their own writing. The event is free and open to the public at the Union County Community Center in Blairsville, GA.  Food and drinks are available for purchase, but attendees should arrive by 6 pm to allow time to be served before the program starts at 7 pm.

Ricketson has been writing poetry for 20 years. She says she writes, “to satisfy a hunger, to taste life down to the very last drop.”  Ricketson is inspired by nature and her work as a mental health counselor. Her award-winning poems have appeared in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Freeing Jonah, Red Fox Run, and her chapbook, I Hear the River Call My Name. 

Friday, May 8
6 pm social hour (the View Grill is open with a new menu -- food and drink available for purchase -- and you can bring it to the ballroom if you like)
7 pm featured readers in the ballroom
7:45-ish open mike for prose or poetry, limit 3 mins (please time yourself at home and make us want MORE)

Union County Community Center (at Butternut Creek Golf Course in the heart of Blairsville)
129 Union County Recreation Rd.
Blairsville, Georgia 30512
here's a map but note that the Holiday Inn on the map is now a Comfort Inn

Netwest member, Laurence Holden publishes in Oregon journal

Laurence Holden, poet and visual artist, lives in north Georgia and has been a member of NCWN West for a number of years. It is always good to see what our members are up to. The following is an email he sent to us this week.

"Two of my poems, "We Are All Vagabonds," and "Channelling" appear in the upcoming Spring issue of Elohi Gaduga: Narratives for a New World, a journal in Oregon.

"Elohi gaduga" is their version of the Cherokee "e-lo-hi ga-du-hv" ᎡᎶᎯ ᎦᏚᎲ meaning the earth together in community.

I have read "We Are All Vagabonds" at many venues over the last several years, and it's one of my favorite ones to read before groups. It grew out of reflecting upon several day hikes to the Chattooga  River with Georgia Forest Watch where we would gather around a campfire at the river's edge for a poetry reading and some of Marie Dunkle's rousing Celtic fiddle playing. Around that campfire we were from many far flung places, and after our brief gathering around what was an ancient circle, no doubt we would scatter again to perhaps never to meet in just this way again. Every life is its own journey. We humankind have been doing this for millennia.


My poem "Channelling" explores a poignant moment I shared with my father in the last year of his life. I created an image to accompany this poem:

To subscribe to this journal go to http://egjournal.org/ "

Blue Ridge Bookfest in Henderson County this weekend

The  annual Blue Ridge Bookfest held at Blue Ridge Community College in Henderson County, NC promises to  be another  big success for  authors and attendees. The venue is perfect - large indoor space where simultaneous events happen all day Saturday. 

One of the writers you will see at the Bookfest this year is Karen White, a favorite of women who like "grit lit" or stories set in the south and geared toward women. I've read one of her books and really enjoyed it.  

 Karen White

• Saturday, April 25, 2015
• 10:00 - 10:45 am
• TEDC Classroom 311
• A Long Time Gone  

After playing hooky one day in the seventh grade to read Gone With the Wind, Karen White knew she wanted to be a writer—or become Scarlett O'Hara. In spite of these aspirations, Karen pursued a degree in business and graduated cum laude with a BS in Management from Tulane University. Ten years later, after leaving the business world, she fulfilled her dream of becoming a writer and wrote her first book. In the Shadow of the Moon was published in August, 2000.  Her books have since been nominated for numerous national contests including the SIBA (Southeastern Booksellers Alliance) Fiction Book of the Year, and has twice won the National Readers’ Choice Award.

Karen currently writes what she refers to as ‘grit lit’—southern women’s fiction—and has also expanded her horizons into writing a bestselling mystery series set in Charleston, South Carolina. Her eighteenth novel, A Long Time Gone, was published in June 2014 and debuted at #24 on the New York Times bestseller list.  Her next novel, The Sound of Glass, will be published in May 2015 by New American Library, a division of PenguinRandomHouse Publishing Group.

Karen hails from a long line of Southerners but spent most of her growing up years in London, England and is a graduate of the American School in London. When not writing, she spends her time reading, scrapbooking, playing piano, and avoiding cooking.  She currently lives near Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two children, and a spoiled Havanese dog (who appears in several of her books), Quincy.

To see who else will be presenting on Friday and Saturday, visit this site

Brenda Kay Ledford Published in Angels on Earth Magazine

Brenda Kay Ledford's article, "Angels Over Iraq," appeared in ANGELS ON EARTH MAGAZINE, May/June 2015 issue.  This is a publication by "Guideposts."

www.guideposts.org/Angels-on-Earth/Magazine

Hendersonville Open Mic Welcomes Guest

Patricia Vestal hosted the monthly Open Mic at the library in Hendersonville recently.

They had a special guest this month. Lisa Lopez Snyder, the current Writer-in-Residence at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, read from her first novel, which she is finalizing.  

Pat thanks OM supporters Ken Fitch and Lana Hendershott who had met Snyder at a reception and told her about the event. Accompanying her, and providing some information on their program was a Ranger who works with the program. She is also a writer who is eager to attend and read at future OM events. For information on the program and Lisa Lopez Snyder go to http://www.nps.gov/carl/learn/news/wir.htm

Despite the smaller number of readers this month, the material read was excellent, some of it hilarious, some quite powerful, as is usually the case with this diverse group.

Announcements were made about the upcoming Bookfest at Blue Ridge Community College this week-end, April 24 and 25.  

The next Open Mic reading will be held at the library May 18.  To receive the monthly announcement for reader registration,  email opmiclit1@gmail.com.  Notices go out about a week prior to the reading which is the third Monday of each month.

Poet and visual artist, Laurence Holden featured in Shellman, Georgia exhibit

CENTER FOR ART AND REHABILITATIVE ENERGIES

SHELLMAN, GEORGIA

March 8 - May 3, 2015

Paintings and Illustrated Poems

"We  spend so much of our lives seeking to understand the patterns around us.

This I do too.

And then there is the gravity that bears upon all of them,

and us,

as well as the desire for ascension.

These paintings and poems are my way to understand this. "

- Laurence Holden

Here are a few selections from the exhibit:

"Rainy Mountain Dreaming," 2012

oil on canvas 49"h. x 39"w.

"Of Wintering Willows," 2013
acrylic on birch plywood.
48"h. x 36"w. x 2 3/4"d. 

"Seedlight:Under December Moon, Dreaming," 2014

oil on canvas  20”h. x 16”w. 

 

 

"Seedlight: In Winter's Evensong," 2014

oil on canvas 14"h. x 12"w.

"As We Pass Our Words"

Video: A Poetry Reading

Brenda Kay Ledford Featured Poet

Brenda Kay Ledford was the featured poet in "Westward Quarterly Journal," spring issue, 2015.

www.wwquarterly.com.

Brenda Kay Ledford's latest poetry book, CREPE ROSES, was published by Kelsay Books, and available on Amazon. com.

Poems by Maren O. Mitchell to Appear in "Hotel Amerika", and another Poem Appearing in "The Georgia Center for the Book"

Maren O. Mitchell’s two poems, “T Is Totally Balanced,” and “X Is a Kiss on Paper,” will appear in an upcoming issue of Hotel Amerika. Her poem, “One for the Road Show” is one of the poems selected for April publication by The Georgia Center for the Book, posted on their Facebook page.


Her poems have appeared in Southern Humanities Review, The Classical Outlook, Town Creek Poetry, Appalachian Journal, Red Clay Reader #4, The Arts Journal, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain and elsewhere. Her work is included in The Southern Poetry Anthology, V: Georgia, Sunrise from Blue Thunder; Nurturing Paws, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and is forthcoming in Hotel Amerika. In 2012 she received the 1st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society.

Congratulations to Martha O. Owens on the publication of her book of poetry, "Buried Seed"

Martha O. Adams’ new poems resonate with melodic sounds, pounding rhythms and soulful meaning. Each poem, a buried seed sprouting from hospital rooms and circle dances, from wilderness and swirling galaxies, invites us to marvel at life’s wonders. In the spirit of Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry, she champions unforgettable images wrapped in ancestral wisdom challenging us to care for Earth and our own buried seeds. Karen Luke Jackson, Ed.D, poet, spiritual director, retreat leader with the Center for Courage and Renewal.

Easiest way to order is simply click here on Martha’s new book. Or you can go to Amazon.com, click on “books,” type on the search line, Buried Seed. Your copy(s) will be shipped to you and you’ll be billed by Amazon.