Poetry and Song-writing Lyric Contest for Clay County Schools, NC, renamed Simpson Beck Poetryand Song-writing Lyrics Contest

Nancy Simpson

Reba Beck

The Clay County Historical and Arts Council and the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West, in an effort to promote the arts in our community, are again co-sponsoring a poetry writing and a song-writing lyric contest for Hayesville High and Middle Schools this month. The writing contest has been renamed the Simpson Beck Poetry and Song-writing Lyrics Contest, in honor of its founders Nancy Simpson and Reba Beck. 

 

The winners will be announced Monday, April 16, 2018, and the award ceremony for them will take place on Monday, April 23, 2018, at 7:00 PM at the Hayesville High School Lecture Hall. The public is invited to attend this event, and their will be refreshments and cookies.

The poetry judge for the contests is Rosemary Rhodes Royston. She is the author of the book, Splitting the Soil, a widely published poet, a representative of the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West, and a professor of English at Young Harris College.

Songwriting Lyric judges include Rob Tiger, local songwriter and singers, Brian Kruger, and Wyatt Espalin.

For more information, please contact Joan Ellen Gage, at: iamjellen1953@gmail.com

Shelby Stephenson, Poet Laureate of NC and Mary Ricketson to read at the Curiosity Shop Books and Gifts, Murphy, NC, Friday, May 4, 2018

Curiosity Shop Books and Gifts of Murphy, NC and North Carolina Writers' Network West will host a poetry reading with special guest Shelby Stephenson, the North Carolina Poet Laureate, along with Mary Ricketson, local poet and mental health counselor. The readings will be followed by an open mic with local poets, on Friday May 4, 3:30-4:30 pm in the bookstore, 46 Valley River Ave, Murphy NC 28906. 

Both of the featured poets are often inspired by nature and give lively literary presentations.  Poets are invited and encouraged to participate and share their poems aloud with the NC poet laureate.

Stephenson’s work is widely published and often influenced by heritage, his early life on a hog farm in costal NC, and his exquisite observations of ordinary life.  The famed Fred Chappell, former NC Poet Laureate, compares Stephenson to Walt Whitman, saying “a poet like Stephenson will hear words as poetry, every syllable salted with the soil, every sentence a redolent wake of the plowshare.”

Ricketson currently merges her poetry with the healing and empowerment related to her profession as a counselor.

Shelby Stephenson of Benson NC, is Professor Emeritus, UNC-Pembroke, serving as editor of Pembroke Magazine from 1979 until his retirement in 2010.  He received the Distinguished Alumnus Achievement Award, 2015, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison.  His recent books are Paul’s Hill:  Homage to Whitman (Sir Walter Press); Our World (Press 53); Elegies for Small Game (Press 53), winner of Roanoke-Chowan Award; Fiddledeedee (reissue, Press 53); Family Matters:  Homage to July, the Slave Girl (Bellday Books), the Bellday Prize; Maytle’s World (play). 

Mary Ricketson, local mental health counselor and blueberry farmer, has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Old Mountain Press, Whispers, and her books, I Hear the River Call My Name, and Hanging Dog Creek.  She placed first in 2011 Joyce Kilmer national poetry contest.  She writes a monthly column, Woman to Woman, for The Cherokee Scout and has recently released a new collection of poetry, Shade and Shelter, published by Kelsay Books.

Our Membership - Where are our members?

Tonight I spent much of my time correlating names of NCWN West members with their proper email groups. When new writers join us, in order to keep up with them, I make sure their names are in my contact list and in the right place.

When I want to send an email to local members in Cherokee County, I need all the members in that county to be listed in my contact list for Cherokee County. I do the same for Clay and all the other counties that make up our region. 

Barb Haynes, Mike Keller, Linda Smith and Estelle Rice at Joe's Coffee house in Hayesville, NC where we met for Coffee with the Poets and Writers.

 

We have members that live in Georgia. I have a GA members list of contacts. That is part of my job as NCWN-West program Coordinator. No one says I must do this. I do it in order to organize members in a way I can easily contact them by email.

Because our region covers such a wide area, geographically, events in Clay County might not be of interest in Henderson County north of Clay. With the terrain we have in the mountains, some writers will not want to travel one hundred miles to attend a conference or another literary event if they have to drive on winding roads and over steep mountains.

That is why our program, NCWN-West, was created back in the early 90s. Travel is just not easy here even with good highways. Weather can play havoc on a trip if it is icy on top of Franklin Mountain. Folks in Highlands or Brevard will not likely head down to Murphy when it is snowing and the roads might be slick.

Thankfully, we now have the Internet and e-mail to connect us. It is not the same as attending an event and networking with other writers, but it helps fill the void of isolation that writers can feel when they don’t have someone to talk to or someone who will listen to them read their work.

We don’t have enough members in Swain County or up in Bryson City to create a community at this time, but I hope we can do so soon. There are writers in that area who travel down to Sylva, NC to attend meetings at City Lights Books. We would like to have them become a part of NCWN-West so we could reach out to them and see how we might be of service to them. Our mission is to support writers in the mountain area, but if we don’t know the writers and if they don’t reach out to us, we cannot be of use to them.

Glenda Beall, Wayne Drumheller, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, Lana Hendershott, Nancy Simpson, Nancy Purcell, and JC Walkup at the Book Festival in Hendersonville a few years ago.

I hope before too long I will have a contact list for Swain County and for Graham County members. If anyone reading this post lives in those areas, please email me or call me. Our community of writers here in the mountains is growing and up to 94 members at this time. With that many writers I’m sure all kinds of genres are represented and all kinds of creative minds are fulfilling their goals or at least working toward fulfilling them. Perhaps we can point you in the right direction. It is easy to join us. Just visit www.ncwriters.org and join online. When you become a member of NCWN, you are automatically a member of NCWN-West and will not pay any extra dues. You get two for one and that doesn’t happen often.  See our contact info on the sidebar of this page.

NCWN-West members are known for their generosity toward each other. Instead of competition, we embrace community and helping other writers in whatever way we can.

Meeting in Regional Room at City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC