Leave a Written Legacy, Write Your Family Stories will be taught by Glenda Beall

This writing class is for you if you have wanted to write about your family but have not had the time to do it. This class is for you if you have a story to tell but have not known how to begin.

Maybe you have already started, but your writing folder is full of unorganized papers.

Give yourself a week to focus only on writing. Leave your chores behind. Spend a week studying with Glenda Beall at John C. Campbell Folk School. Glenda Beall will give you direction. Class begins on Sunday, February 21 and ends on Friday evening February 27, 2010.

CLASS DESCRIPTION:

Recover old memories using family photos and keepsakes. Write stories and personal essays about your unique life experiences for your children and grandchildren, and then fine-tune your work by sharing with classmates in a safe, comfortable atmosphere. Beginners to intermediate writers--join us to get your start or for motivation and ideas to organize your work.

https://www.folkschool.org/index.php?section=class_detail&class_id=3538

Or call 1-800 FOLK SCH, (828) 837-2775 Local Residents may get half price.

Ask when you call.

READING AND SIGNING: CHEROKEE LITERATURE

Reading and Book Signing: Cherokee Literature in Appalachian Heritage .

(Please go to http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2009/11/appalachian-heritage-special-cherokee.html to see the post on this special issue.

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian will host a reading and book signing Sunday afternoon January 17 from 2-4 pm in the Multi-purpose room of the Education and Research Center. Michell Hicks, Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, will introduce Cherokee writers featured in the new issue of AppalacAppalachian Heritage: A Literary Quarterly of the Appalachian South. This issue features works by twenty-one members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, with cover artwork and illustrations by Sean Ross, (EBCI.) Featured author of the issue is Robert Conley (Cherokee Nation) who is also Distinguished Sequoyah Professor at Western Carolina University and keeps office hours at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian as well.

This volume is the largest collection to date of contemporary literary efforts by members of the Eastern Band, and includes poetry, prose, essays, stories from oral tradition, and artwork. The Editor, George Brosi of Berea Kentucky, will attend the event, where Conley will read from his work. Authors will be available to sign copies, which will be sold through the Museum Store at $8 each.

ABOVE THE FROSTLINE - NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

Congratulations to my mentor and my friend, Nancy Simpson. Her book, Living Above the Frostline – New and Selected Poems, will be published by Carolina Wren Press, Durham, NC.
 Nancy’s poetry collection spans thirty-two years and is the first book chosen by Kathryn Stripling Byer for Carolina Wren’s Laureate Series.

For over thirty years, Nancy’s poetry has been published in the best literary magazines. Early on in her writing career, Nancy published two books, Night Student and Across Water. But Nancy, working at the time as a special needs teacher, was also quietly dedicating herself to other writers in her home area of western North Carolina. She took on the leadership of the writing organization, NCWN West, and she taught writing and poetry in night classes at Tri-County Community College.

Before she knew it, the years had flown and she had not published another book. When she retired from her job, she put her efforts into a new manuscript. Through family tragedies and health problems she endured, never wavering from her goal of publishing a complete collection of her poetry.

This book is a landmark, in a way. We all know that youth reigns in this country. Older men are revered for their achievements, but often women over fifty are dismissed, no matter how talented or special their work. That is why I applaud Carolina Wren Press and Kathryn Stripling Byer for choosing this book to publish as the first in the Laureate Series.

Osondu Booksellers merges with Blue Ridge

January 2010 Calendar

January 2nd-23

50 % off all books sale at Osondu Booksellers on 184 North Main Street.

Monday, January 18th

@ 7:00 pm: Non-fiction Book Club @ Osondu’s on 184 N. Main St.

Tuesday January 26th

@ 7:00 pm: All Gender All Genre Book Club @ Osondu’s on 184 N. Main St

Jan. 26-28

Blue Ridge @ 152. S. Main St. will be closed for integrating and a face-lift.

Friday, Jan. 29th

Come in and have a cup of tea or coffee, browse the books and say hello to some new and some familiar faces. This is the beginning of a great bookselling team. Magazines, newspapers and the café will all be fresh and fabulous.

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE

Best selling writer and poet, Robert Morgan wrote the introduction to

Echoes Across the Blue Ridge

Other North Carolina authors have endorsed the collection including Lee Smith and more comments are forthcoming.


NCWN West Program Coordinator Kathryn Stripling Byer, Thomas Rain Crowe, Steven Harvey and Bettie M. Sellers were asked and they generously conributed their work for the anthology.
The book is dedicated to the memory of our Appalachian ballad poet
Byron Herbert Reece.


Other contributors who have work forthcoming in Echoes Across the Blue
Ridge:

Ellen Andrews
Richard Argo
Glenda Barrett
Glenda Beall
Jo Carolyn Beebe
Janet Benway
Joan Thiel Blessing
Rachel T. Bronnum
John T. Campbell
Gary Carden
Nancy Sales Cash
James M. Cox
Paul Donovan
Robert Edward Fahey
Jayne Jaudon Ferrer
Debora Kinsland Foerst
Joyce Foster
Karen Gilfillan
Gerri Wolfe Grady
Lana Hendershott
Eugene Hirsch
Sam Hoffer
Karen Paul Holmes
Tom Hooker
Kitty Inman
Carl Iobst
George Ivey
Mary Michelle Brodine Keller
Eileen Lampe
Blanche Ledford
Brenda Kay Ledford
Susan Lefler
StarShield Lortie
John Malone
Gail Maye
Marshall McClung
Jennifer McGaha
Mary Lou McKillip
Dick Michener
Maren O. Mitchell
Janice Townley Moore
Clarence Lee Newton
Arnie Nielson
Nancy Purcell
Betty Jameron Reed
William V. Reynolds
Estelle Rice
Mary Ricketson
Judy Roney
Rosemary Royston
Peg Russell
Linda M. Smith
Susan Snowden
Dorothea Spiegel
Wendy Richard Tanner
Carole Richard Thompson
Shirley Uphouse
J.C. Walkup
Cecily Hamlin Wells
Eleanor Lambert Wilson
Charlotte Wolf
Jane J. Young

Congratulations to Philip Sampson of Young Harris, Georgia whose photograph was chosen for the cover.
Katja Holmes formatted the manuscript and designed the book and the cover.

After release, this book will be available to book stores and individuals by contacting
Glenda Beall - writerlady21@yahoo.com

Check here later for pre-order options.

Here is Why it Takes Forever to Get Your Book Published

If anyone wonders why it takes months and sometimes more than a year to publish a book, please read this post. The author is Debra Dixon  of Bellebooks which published Maggie Valley, NC author, Kathryn Magendie's
novel, Tender  Graces.  I've followed Kathryn's blog as she wrote her first book, and kept her readers up to date on her publishing process.

On the post titled Why Does it Take So Long to Publish a Book, Debra gives us a list that is mind boggling and opens eyes to why it takes forever, after a writer finishes a manuscript, to get it into the hands of the reader.

Makes me even more appreciative of the work being done by Nancy Simpson and other members of NCWN West as we put together what promises to be an excellent anthology of work by writers living in and inspired by the southern Appalachian Mountains.

CLARENCE NEWTON WILL READ AT "COFFEE WITH THE POETS"

Coffee with the Poets was cancelled for Wed. the 13. CWP will meet on Wednesday, January 20 at 10:30 p.m. at Phillips and Lloyd Books in Hayesville, NC.

Clarence Newton of Hiawassee, Georgia will be the featured reader at Coffee with the Poets. Clarence puts both humor and wisdom into his writings. Once a guest writer for several newspapers, he has turned his love of writing toward poetry. He has studied under local poets Nancy Simpson and Betty Sellers . After a long career in aviation, Clarence now finds inspiration in the things of retirement, fishing, gardening, birding ect.

Please come for a morning of reading pleasure on Wednesday, January 13^th. Clarence will be followed by an open mic, an opportunity for anyone who would like, to read and share their work. Coffee with the Poets is sponsored by Netwest and hosted by Phillips and LLyod Book Shop on the square in Hayesville North Carolina. Coffee, tea and morning pastries are served for a small fee by Crumpets Dessertery.

CLOTHES LINES BOOK SIGNING

Local writers Nancy Sales Cash, Celia Miles (standing), Peg Russell, Brenda Kay Ledford, and Blanche Ledford (from left) whose work appeared in CLOTHES LINES attended a book signing on December 12, 2009 at the Curiosity Shop in downtown Murphy, NC. They thank all who attended to make the event a success.