Reminder: Call for Submissions North Carolina Writers’ Network–West Summer 2016 Flash Fiction Contest, ends August 31, 2016

Who’s Eligible: Members of NCWN-West whose dues are paid up to date.   

Original Work: The entry must be the author's original work and not previously published.

Eligible Genres: All fiction except children’s fiction. 

Dates: Submissions will be accepted beginning June 1, 2016. All entries must be emailed or postmarked by August 31, 2016.

Entry Fees: An individual writer may enter up to three submissions. A fee of $5.00 must accompany each entry. Entry fees will be used for awarding prizes to the winner or winners.

Length: The word count (excluding the title) may not exceed 300 words.

How to Enter: No entry form is required. Electronic and paper entries are acceptable. Handwritten copies cannot be accepted.

To submit by email, copy and paste the manuscript into the body of an email or send the manuscript as an email attachment to novelistapproach@gmail.com.

Checks for email and paper entry fees, as well as paper manuscripts, should be submitted by mail to Pat Meece Davis, 23 Tutor Lane, Brevard, NC 28712.

Author’s Identifying Info: The author's identifying information and manuscript title should appear on the subject line of the email or on a separate sheet of paper if entering by mail.

You may enter up to three manuscripts, but each entry must be submitted separately with a $5.00 fee for each.

Judges: Judging will be non-biased. Writers’ identities will not be shared with the judges.

Agreement: By entering this contest, the author agrees NCWN-West may publish the winning entry/entries on its website. Polish and proofread your work.  

The winner will be asked to provide a short paragraph biography to accompany the published manuscript.

NEW Poetry Class for New and Intermediate Level Writers

NEW!!

Poetry Class for Beginning and Intermediate Poets

Instructor: Glenda Beall, well-published poet, author of Now Might as Well be Then with poems published in many journals and magazines.

Mondays, 4 - 6 p.m., June 20 - July 18

Classes will be held at Writers Circle studio in Hayesville, NC.
Call 828-389-4441 or Email for directions.

For anyone who writes poetry and wonders, "Is this really a poem?"
For anyone who writes verses and is not sure if they are good.
For anyone who has been writing a while, but has never submitted anything for publication because they are not sure how to do that and if they should.
For anyone who has submitted their poetry to journals or magazines, but they have not been accepted.
Take time for yourself and learn basics of this craft. There is  more to good poetry than pouring out your thoughts on paper. Learn  how to make your work professional looking and catch the  eye of a publisher or editor.

Fee for 8 hours of class - $25.00


To read some of Glenda Beall's poetry, visit
www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com

John C. Campbell Folk School Reading June 16th, 2016, will feature Jo Carolyn Beebe & Brenda Kay Ledford

JOHN CAMPBELL FOLK SCHOOL

On Thursday, June 16, 2016 at 7:00 PM, John Campbell Folk School and N.C. Writers Network West are sponsoring The Literary Hour, an hour of poetry and prose reading held at Keith House on the JCFS campus. This is held on the third Thursday of each month unless designated otherwise. The reading is free of charge and open to the public. Brenda Kay Ledford and Jo Carolyn Beebe will be the featured readers, both of whom are accomplished poets and writers and well known in the area.. Brenda Kay Ledford is a seventh-generational native of Clay County. An honor graduate of Hayesville High

Brenda Kay Ledford

School, she earned her Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University. She studied Journalism at the University of Tennessee and was editor of "Tri-County Communicator" at Tri-County Community College. She holds a diploma of highest honors from Stratford Career Institute in Creative Writing.
Ledford's prose and poetry have appeared in many publications including "Angels on Earth Magazine," "Our State," "Asheville Poetry Review," "Poem," "Woman's World Magazine," "Chicken Soup for the Soul," "Country Extra," "Blue Ridge Parkway Celebration," "North Carolina Civil War Museum," and 30 Old Mountain Press anthologies. Finishing Line Press published three award-winning poetry chapbooks. Aldrich Press printed her poetry book, Crepe Roses, that won the 2015 Paul Green Multimedia Award from North Carolina Society of Historians. She has received the Paul Green Award seven times for her literary works and collecting oral history. She was featured on the "Common Cup" on Windstream Communication's cable television. Ledford blogs at: Blue Ridge Poet. Jo Carolyn Beebe is a native of Mississippi. Many of her poems and stories are based on her recollections of

Jo Carolyn Beebe

conversations with her grandparents. Her Grandmother Anderson said, "The Bartletts are kin to Daniel Boone. They came through the Cumberland Gap with him." Great-grandfather Ricks showed her a greasy circle in his front yard where no grass would grow. "This is where the Indians cooked their food," he told her. Beebe also has her own memories of life in a small, rural town. Her story, "The Way You Hypnotize a Chicken," really happened when she and a friend hypnotized one of Grandmother's hens. And where else but in a small town could two little girls play in the funeral home and pick out their everyday casket and their Sunday casket?
Jo Carolyn has been published in "Main Street Rag," "Clothes Lines," "Women's Spaces Women's Places," "Lonzie's Fried Chicken," "Lights in the Mountains," Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and by Abingdon Press. She has been most gratified with her family history book THE BEEKEEPERS AND SONS OF ANDER. Beebe is a graduate of Miami University, Oxford, and has been a resident of Towns County for 21 years. 

Coffee with the Poets & Writers features Karen Paul Holmes & Bill Ramsey, Wed. June 15, 2016, 10:00 AM, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC

Karen Paul Holmes splits her time between Atlanta and the Blue Ridge Mountains, and her two Welsh Terriers do too. With an MA in music history from the University of Michigan, she eventually made her way to the warm south and became Vice President-Marketing Communications at ING, a global financial services company.

Karen now leads a kinder gentler life as a freelance writer and poet. She finds joy participating in poetry readings and supporting poetry through the Side Door Poets group she founded/hosts in Atlanta and the Writers’ Night Out she founded/hosts in Blairsville, GA (second Saturday of the month at the Union County Community Center).

A member of the North Carolina Writers' Network, the Atlanta Writers Club, and the Georgia Poetry Society, she has studied with poets Thomas Lux, Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, William Wright, Carol Ann Duffy, and Nancy Simpson (whom she counts as her first poetry mentor).

Karen has a full-length poetry collection, Untying the Knot, forthcoming from Kelsay Books (California).
Her poetry credits include Poetry East, Atlanta Review, Main Street Rag, Caesura, and The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review. Poems have also appeared in anthologies such as American Society: What Poets See (FutureCycle Press), and The Southern Poetry Anthology Vol 5: Georgia (Texas Review Press).

In 2012, Karen received an Elizabeth George Foundation emerging writer grant for poetry. She has taught writing at national business conferences, at ICL through Young Harris College, and at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

Karen's Poetry on Facebook
Karen's website: Simply Communicated, Inc.

Bill Ramsey: Says, "writing is never easy but it helps when you have done it all your life." In his high school years, Bill Ramsey wrote sports columns for the local newspaper. During his forty year professional career, he wrote advertising copy, technical manuals, magazine articles and business newsletters.

Now seventy one years of age, his small town upbringing continues to influence his thinking. Like many older citizens, Bill enjoys reflecting on life experiences and being free to share his thinking in complete candor. This has served as a bridge into retirement from writing for pay to writing as play.

With three books published, he has two more in the development stage. A strong supporter literacy and literature, he is involved with readers and writers in the mountains of western North Carolina where he lives with his wife of forty eight years. Bill is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network-West, and is on the board of the North Carolina Writers' Network.

Learn more about Bill and his books at his websites:

www.authorbillramsey.com

www.billramseyblog.wordpress.com

Photos from the John C. Campbell Folk School/NCWN-West's reading on May 18, 2016, with Gene Hirsch and Maren O. Mitchell

Reading at John C. Campbell Folk School

Camaraderie st John C. Campbell Folk School

Maren O. Mitchell

Gene Hirsch

Maren O. Mitchell and Gene Hirsch

Maren O. Mitchell, Lucy Cold Gratton, and Gene Hirsch

Jackson's Netwest Open Mic: June 10, 7:00, City Lights Bookstore in Sylva

Jackson County's Open Mic night for June will be this coming Friday, June 10, at Sylva's City Lights Bookstore, 7:00 p.m.--prose, poetry, and a little music are all welcome. So far, we've had an excellent variety of nonfiction, fiction, and verse, with a very supportive audience.  As always, we'll open signups at 6:45, and there will be beverages and desserts; readers are asked to keep their readings under ten minutes (if we have a larger group, under five minutes.)  Come on out! 

All-Star Lineup on June 10: Ron Moran & Jonathan K Rice

Two Well-Published NC Poets to Read at Writers' Night Out, Blairsville

Ronald Moran, former Clemson professor, dean, and a Fulbright Lecturer, joins editor Jonathan K. Rice to share their work at Writers’ Night Out on Friday, June 10. The 7 p.m. reading will be followed by an open microphone for those who’d like to share their own work. The event is free and open to the public at the Union CountyCommunity Center in the heart of Blairsville, GA

Moran has published 13 collections of poetry. The most recent, Eye of the World, was just released by Clemson University Press. Of it, Poet David Kirby writes, “…this grateful, gifted poet teaches us how to burrow into and recognize the riches in our own lives.” Moran has also written two books of criticism (one coauthored) and has had more than 500 poems, essays, and reviews published in many journals, including Connecticut Poetry Review, Emrys Journal, Evening Street Review, Louisiana Review, Northwest Review, South Carolina Review,  Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Thomas Wolfe Review, and The Wallace Stevens Journal.  He has won several awards and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Moran’s writings and memorabilia about them are archived in Special Collections of the James B. Duke Library at Furman University.  He lives in Simpsonville, SC. 

Rice is founding editor and publisher of Iodine Poetry Journal, as well as co-editor of Kakalak 2016. His latest poetry collection is Killing Time (Main Street Rag, 2015). Other books include Shooting Pool with a Cellist (Main Street Rag, 2003) and Ukulele and Other Poems (Main Street Rag, 2006). His poetry has appeared in many publications. He’s also been a longtime host of poetry readings in Charlotte, NC, where he lives with his family. In 2012 he received the Irene Blair Honeycutt Legacy Award for outstanding service in support of local and regional writers, awarded by Central Piedmont Community College. As a visual artist, Rice’s work has been featured as cover art on books, as well as in online magazines.

The next day, June 11, Rice will teach a poetry class from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Writers Circle in Hayesville. For more information on the class, please see http://www.glendacouncilbeall.com/p/schedule.html - .V07szmZrUpI

Writers’ Night Out is sponsored by NC Writers Network-West and takes place on the second Friday of the month. Prose writers or poets wishing to participate in the open mic can sign up at the door to read for three minutes. The Union County CommunityCenter hosts the event at 129 Union County Recreation Rd., Blairsville, Georgia 30512, off Highway 129 near the intersection of US 76, phone (706) 439-6092. Food is available for purchase in The View Grill, but please arrive by 6 pm to get served.  For more information, please contact Karen Holmes at (404) 316-8466 or kpaulholmes@gmail.com

Fourteenth Annual Dogfish Head Poetry Prize (2016) open for submissions

SUBMISSION PERIOD FOR THE
FOURTEENTH ANNUAL DOGFISH HEAD POETRY PRIZE OPENS MAY 15, 2016!
Submission Guidelines

The fourteenth annual Dogfish Head Poetry Prize for the winning book-length manuscript by a poet residing in the Mid-Atlantic states (DE, MD, VA, PA, NJ, NY, WVA, NC and District of Columbia) will consist of $500, two cases of Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Beer*, manuscript publication by Broadkill River Press, and 10 copies of the book (in lieu of royalties).

The rules are: Manuscripts must be received by midnight, August 15, 2016.  Manuscripts received after the closing date will not be considered.  Eligible poets must reside in the above listed states and be twenty-one years of age by the date of the award. *  The manuscript is to be submitted electronically in one MS Word document attachment.  Send to Prize coordinator Linda Blaskey at dogfishheadpoetryprize@earthlink.net.  Snail mail submissions will not be accepted.

 Send two title pages with each submission: the first with the title of the manuscript, author’s name, address, phone numbers and e-mail address; the second with just the manuscript title.   No manuscript is to have any author-identifying information other than the one title page and will be rejected if it does. Judging is blind and double-tiered. The manuscript must be book-length (between 48 and 78 pages of original work – no translations) and no more than roughly thirty lines to a page, including the poem’s title and two line-spaces between the title and the body of the poem.  A poem may be more than one page.  The book’s dimensions will be 8.5 inches by 5.5 inches, with a minimum of half-inch side margins, and printed in 12 point type, so avoid very long lines.  One submission per entrant.  There is no entry fee.

The award will be presented to the winner on Saturday evening, December 10, 2016 at the Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware.  The winner must agree to attend this event and to read from their winning book at a reception honoring the winner.  The prize will be officially awarded by Sam Calagione, Founder and CEO of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and Distillery, or by another company official.

The author of the winning manuscript also agrees to provide, within ten days of notification, a color head-shot photograph, with photographer’s credit, for the back cover and a dedication page for the interior of the book. Also, an acknowledgement page of poems previously published, and in which publications and/or websites they appeared will need to be provided. The winner agrees to travel to Delaware at the winner’s expense for awarding of the prize.   Dogfish Head will provide the winner two nights lodging at the Dogfish Inn in the beach resort town of Lewes, Delaware.

Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales retains the right to use any of the winning work in promotional materials.
Co-workers of Dogfish Head and their families are ineligible to enter.  Previous winners of the prize are ineligible to enter.

For questions and more information contact Linda Blaskey, Prize coordinator, at linblask@aol.com
or at dogfishheadpoetryprize@earthlink.net

HERE, WHERE I AM: WHEN I STOPPED WANTING TO BE EMMYLOU HARRIS

HERE, WHERE I AM: WHEN I STOPPED WANTING TO BE EMMYLOU HARRIS

Interview with editor of Iodine Poetry Journal

Recently I asked poet, editor, painter and publisher, Jonathan Kevin Rice for an interview. I was pleased with his response. After reading his remarks, I find that I have much in common with him, his likes and how he spends his time. He also has a sense of humor.
I appreciate him taking the time to answer my questions.

 Glenda Beall: Thank you, Jonathan, for taking time to answer my questions.

Tell us, please, about your family and where you live and work?

Jonathan Rice: I live with my wife and youngest son in the University area of Charlotte, NC. I’m a working artist and editor/publisher. I manage to make a few bucks doing that.

Glenda: Your education was in religious studies. Are you a minister or have you been a minister?

Jonathan: I am not a minister, although many years ago I worked with an inner-city ministry. That was a very busy and fulfilling time working with families in public housing, elderly, as well as the homeless and incarcerated. I became a bit burned-out though and moved on to other things.

Glenda: I know you have been editor and publisher of IodinePoetry journal since 2000. Why did you begin this publication?

Jonathan: Around that time I was getting published in small press mags and, upon looking at the various inexpensive (and sometimes cheap) formats, I thought, “I can do this!” So I went to my good friend Scott Douglass, editor and publisher of The Main Street Rag and Main Street Rag Publishing. I told him my idea, so with a few hundred bucks I started Iodine as a 32 page saddle-stitched mag with a card stock cover, priced at $4. I was also hosting readings at the time. It was a year into those readings when I decided to start Iodine, so getting poetry was easy. Much of what was in that first issue was poetry I heard at the mic. I hosted the readings for fifteen years until the café closed. I miss that café (Jackson’s Java) and those readings.

Glenda: Iodine has published some notable poets over the years. Tell us about them and some of the  universities that subscribe to Iodine.

Jonathan: Well, some of those poets found us, like Virgil Suarez, for example. I never knew what was going to be in the mail box. Also, I was always meeting poets at readings and conferences, so I made it a habit of asking them to submit. Not everyone did, but those who did helped to make Iodine what it is.  

A letter or email goes a long way in reaching out to poets to submit as well. I was thrilled to publish work by Fred Chappell, someone I greatly admire. He was kind enough to write a blurb for my collection, “Ukulele and Other Poems.”

We’ve published Kim Bridgford, Peter Cooley, Kim Garcia, Jaki Shelton Green, Colette Inez, Ron Koertge, Dorianne Laux, Karen An-Hwei Lee & R.T. Smith.

We have poetry by Kim Addonizio, Cynthia Atkins, Joseph Bathanti, Patrick Bizzaro, Cathy Smith Bowers, Mary Carroll-Hackett, Okla Elliott, Jane Ellen Glasser, Lola Haskins, Peter Makuck, John Stanizzi, Shelby Stephenson, John Tribble & Virgil Suarez among many other emerging and established poets slated for our final issue.

Ron Koertge’s poem “Found” was selected for inclusion in Best American Poetry 2006.

A handful of university libraries subscribe, such as Brown University, Davidson College, Furman University, University of Arizona’s Poetry Center, University of Buffalo (SUNY), University of North Carolina at Chapel, University of Wisconsin at Madison and a few others. Iodine is also archived at The Poets House in NYC.

Glenda: Many poets will be disappointed that you are discontinuing Iodine. 

Jonathan: Actually, just picked up the last issue a few days ago. I have other things  I’d like to do. I would like to have more time to write and paint, but I couldn’t say no to being offered a co-editor slot of KAKALAK 2016, so I’m still wearing the editor’s hat. I also do some select reading for Main Street Rag, so I’m staying busy. I thought about exploring the possibility of transitioning Iodine to an online mag in 2017, but that idea is pretty low on my priority list, if I go there.

Glenda: In 2002, you co-edited a chapbook, Celebrating Life, a project funded by Barnes and Noble. Tell us about it, please.

Jonathan: This was a little anthology of poetry that was put together in honor of Dorothy Perry Thompson, who was a wonderful poet and instructor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.

Glenda: Your latest poetry book is titled Killing Time. Interesting title.

Jonathan: My publisher, Scott Douglass at Main Street Rag, had been bugging me for the past few years (maybe longer) to put a new collection together. My last book came out in 2006, so I was a bit overdue for a new book. It just wasn’t high on my priority list, but I bumped it up the list after a lot of prodding from him and other friends. 

I took a variety of work from the past nine years and assembled it, hoping Scott would like it. I sent it to him and I was pleased that he suggested few edits, so I felt like I must have done something right. I blame the title…or should I say give credit to Scott, because he would call me from time to time wondering what I was doing (as if I wasn’t doing anything), and, more often than not, I would say Killing Time.

Glenda: You won the Irene Blair Honeycutt Legacy Award. That is not for writing or painting, is it? How did you feel about receiving this recognition?

Jonathan: That award is given to individuals for “outstanding service in support of local and regional writers,” so that was basically for my editing/publishing Iodine for so long along with the hosting of readings in the area all these years, which I still do. I was surprised and very honored to receive this award. The literary community in Charlotte and the state is by and large a very supportive one.

 Glenda: You are a visual artist, also.Tell us about that part of your life. When did you begin painting?

Jonathan: I began painting in high school, but my interests were all over the place, so I didn’t paint continuously over the years. I had some art instruction in high school, but I have basically learned from other artists and from just doing. I had always been attracted to abstract work and loved the art of Robert Motherwell, de Kooning, Pollock, Rauschenberg and others, so I naturally was drawn to experiment in that realm. I also painted seascapes, beach scenes, some landscape, although they were a little abstract. I just prefer to work in the abstract. I paint practically every day, although lately I’ve been pretty busy with the poetry side of things and doing readings around the state.

Glenda: At one point you began using your own paintings for the covers of Iodine. Why did you do that and how was that idea received by your subscribers?

Jonathan: Five years into editing the magazine, Scott had suggested we do a full color cover for the five year anniversary edition, which he designed from a surreal image of me, that another friend had created from a photograph. I call that cover the Warhol-Peter Max cover. Scott did a great job designing that. After that issue came out, readers said, “You can’t go back now!” Nobody wanted me to go back to the simple card stock covers and some friends suggested I start putting my art on the cover, so I did. Readers loved it. Not long after that I set up a studio in a local gallery and I was painting more, and selling my work. The covers brought new attention to my visual art.

Glenda: Which do you most enjoy, painting or writing poetry?

Jonathan: I can’t say I enjoy one over the other. John Lee Hooker once said, “If the boogie is in you, it’s gotta come out.” That’s how I feel about the creative act. Whatever is in me has to come out, whether it’s on the page or canvas.

Glenda: With more free time, where do you plan to exert your energies?

Jonathan: Free time? I exert it with the stuff that I do, like answering these questions for you in this interview.  

I always have something to do: walking my dog in the woods (the most important thing I do at the beginning of the day), reading, writing, editing, painting, booking readings, hosting readings, going to readings, art exhibits, booking exhibits, marketing my art, doing coffee with friends, wine with friends, beer with friends, etc etc. I am very fortunate to have wonderful friends in the arts. I try to look at everything I do from a creative aspect. Everything I experience leads to the next creative act.

Glenda: Can you tell us something personal that is not in your bio?

Jonathan: I love music. I play guitar. I’m not great at it, but I love to play and sing. I love listening to music and I love live music, whether it’s a busker on a street corner or a band in an arena. Love it all.

Glenda: Thank you, Jonathan. I like the humor in your answers. I feel I know you, and you and I have much in common. 

Jonathan Rice will teach a poetry and poetry marketing workshop at Writers Circle around the Table in Hayesville, NC on June 11, 10:00 - 1:00 p.m. 

Contact Glenda Beall at 828-389-4441 or glendabeall@msn.com for more information. You may go to www.glendacouncilbeall.com for a class description and fees.

Jonathan is one of the featured readers at Writers Night Out in Blairsville, GA at the Union County Community Center on Friday evening, 7:00 p.m. The public is invited to meet him and hear him read his poetry. 

In case you missed him, here is a video of Bob Grove reading a selection of his prose at Coffee With The Poets and Writers, May 18, 2016, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC.

Bob Grove

Here is a video of Bob reading a selection of his prose from the May 18, 2016 meeting of Coffee With the Poets and Writers, at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC. This program was sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network-West.

HERE, WHERE I AM: Greening Up the Mountains Student Poetry Celebration, 2016

HERE, WHERE I AM: Greening Up the Mountains Student Poetry Celebration, 2016