Meet the Cracker Queen at Osondu's

This week's events at Osondu's Book Store in Waynesville, NC
Thursday the 30th at 7:00 p.m. meet the author
Lauretta Hannon author of The Cracker Queen will be here to talk and sign her books. Come and meet this fabulous writer.


Saturday the 2nd of May
@ 11:00 a.m. meet the author
Terry Rollins author of Married to the Military will be here to talk and sign her books. If you want to hear some great stories of men and women who give to their country come and meet Terry Rollins.

@ 7:00 p.m. music
Chris Minick will be here. Join us for great music, tea, wine, company, and coffee.

Netwest News, the online newsletter published and edited by Karen Holmes has been e-mailed. If you did not receive your May edition, please let us know. All members on our most current membership list receive this excellent update on NCWN West (Netwest).

If you do not reside in the Netwest are, but you are a reader of this blog and wish to receive a copy of Netwest News, please send your name and e-mail address to writerlady21@yahoo.com

Kudos is a column in the newsletter that lists names of members who recently published poems, essays, fiction or books. Karen spotlights events held in the Netwest area or close enough for our Netwest members to drive.



If you have news or articles on writing and you are a member of Netwest, please send them to Karen karen.holmes@comcast.net, or to writerlady21@yahoo.com. Deadline for the next issue is July.

ASHEVILLE WORDFEST ON WEBCAM

(Li-Young Lee)


ASHEVILLE WORDFEST IS COMING, APRIL 30-MAY 3. Go to their website for all the information you could possibly want: schedule, poets, history, and a photo archive of last year's festival. WordFest live webcasts the evening (7-9 pm) readings from this site so everyone with access to wifi, dial-up, ethernet and telepathic powers can "attend" this intercultural, international, inter-aesthetical (!) poetry event. With a line-up including Quincy Troupe, Liz Bradfield, Li-Young Lee, Valzhyna Mort, Frank X Walker, you don't have to wonder what to do next Thursday, Friday, Saturday evenings.

Below is your schedule of readings. Here also is the Asheville WordFest promo video produced by Kurt Mann at American Green. http://vimeo.com/4296487

SCHEDULE
7 pm Thursday April 30 at Jubilee! 46 Wall St.
Lee Ann Brown, Patrick Rosal, doris davenport, Ross Gay


10 and 11 pm departing from Jubilee!
LaZoom Poetry Bus Tour presented by Catalyst Productions

4 pm Friday May 1 at Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center:
Caroline Mercurio, Holly Iglesias, David Hopes

7 pm Friday May 1 at Jubilee!
Elizabeth Bradfield, Gary Copeland Lilley, Quincy Troupe

10 pm Friday May 1 at Bobo Gallery at 22 Lexington Ave
Thomas Rain Crowe & the Boatrockers w/ Coleman Barks followed by Wordfest Wide Open Mic. . .

Saturday Morning 10 a.m. May 2 Bookworks 428 1/2 Haywood Road
West Asheville 828.255.8444
Poetry and Citizens Journalism w/ Laura Hope-Gill and Wally Bowen

2 pm Saturday May 2 at Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center at 56 Broadway
Keith Flynn, Pat Riviere-Seel, Ekiwah Adler Belendez

7 pm Saturday May 2 at Jubilee!
Valzhyna Mort, Frank X Walker, Li-Young Lee

10 pm Saturday May 2 Hookah Joe’s at 38b North French Broad
Poetix Lounge featuring The Poetix Vanguard w/ an open set

Sunday Morning May 3 10 a.m. Bookworks 428 1/2 Haywood Road
West Asheville 828.255.8444
Writing the Imaginative Storm Workshop with James Nave

3 pm Sunday May 3 at Malaprops Bookstore/Café at 55 Haywood St.
Debora Kinsland Foerst, Landon Godfrey, Paul Allen followed by Closing Reception

Netwest Members Attend Spring Conference

It was a delight to see some Netwest writers attending the Spring Conference in Greensboro today. Wayne Drumheller, James Cox, Michael Beadle and our old friend, Al Manning were there.

Wayne is from Brevard and this was his first conference. Although we had met by e-mail, it was nice to put a face to the name. James Cox who is one of the editors of The Hod, a new literary magazine urged me to let our readers know that he needs submissions now. Send him poems, stories, or essays and don't worry that they might not fit. You won't know what works here until you send him work and his editors make decisions about content. I promised I'll send him some of my work. They are planning a June publication date.

I ran into Michael Beadle, one of my favorite poets and one of my favorite people networking in the exhibitors hall.

This was an excellent time to meet and get advice on submitting to the publications and small presses like Press 53 and Main Street Rag. Finishing Line Press was also there but no one was sitting at the table when I was there.

The day was packed chock full and I didn't get to visit all the tables, but did talk to the folks representing Snake Nation, a literary journal from Valdosta, Georgia. I'm especially happy I met them.

Tomorrow I'll review my notes and post about the Publishers Panel, one of the most enlightening and interesting sessions of the Conference.

Thanks to Ed Southern and Virginia Freedman who organized this conference. I think the nearly one hundred registrants, including me, came away motivated, more informed and excited about writing.

Support Our Local Bookstores

Two Independent Book Stores - in Andrews NC and in Murphy, NC

This Friday (April 24th), the merchants in downtown Andrews will be having great sidewalk sales and displays for Earth Week. The Curiosity Shop Bookstore is having special sales, so please stop in and see them!

Saturday (April 25th), downtown Murphy merchants are featuring a town-wide sidewalk sale to benefit Relay for Life.
Stop in at The Curiosity Shop Bookstore and check out the special sale tables and purchase luminaries in honor of loved ones.

Songwriter and poet Bruce Piephoff will perform Friday, May 1st in Murphy - 7 to 9pm
He will perform Saturday, May 2nd in Andrews - 7 to 9pm
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Murphy hosts musicians from 5-7 pm on Fridays (other than music nights)

Book Clubs - Murphy meets Tuesday, April 28 to discuss Still Alice, by Lisa Genova. (Call 835-7433 for details)
Andrews Book club will meet Thursday, May 7 at Book Store to discuss Wicked, by Gregory Maguire.
(Call 321-2242 for details).

ASHEVILLE WORDFEST: Coming Our Way VERY Soon

Last year Asheville Wordfest took its inaugural flight. A festival devoted solely to poetry landed in town. Asheville, that is. Two of the guiding spirits, as well as the corporeal organizers, were Laura Hope-Gill and Sebastian Matthews. Now the second landing of Wordfest is about to take place, beginning next Thursday. Go to the Wordfest site for more information, including schedules and list of poets. Headliners include Quincey Troupe and Li-Young Lee, but the roster of lesser-known poets is just as dazzling.



(Asheville WordFest organizers Laura Hope-Gill and Sebastian Matthews are bringing together poets from a variety of traditions. Photo by Anne Fitten Glenn.)

I asked Laura to share her vision of Asheville Wordfest with me. She said that was a dangerous thing to ask! She could talk about it for hours, her hopes for its growth, her reasons for devoting so much of her life and energy to it. What follows is an unexpurgated version of her email to me, interspersed with photos of some of the featured poets.


Glenis Redmond, Patricia Smith, and Laura at last year's Wordfest.)


I think the really important thing to convey about Wordfest is that it is product of many years of Asheville poets' legacy-building. From the early nineties until now, there's been a strong poetry community. (I see it as a healing of what happened to poor Thomas Wolfe whose words won him exile from his city.) James Nave, Glenis Redmond, Bob Falls, Allan Wolf, Keith Flynn and more recently Graham Hackett, Sebastian Matthews, Jeff Davis, and too many more to list, have stoked the fires for a free poetry festival for this town. Back in the early 90's there was a poetry event every weekend evening, in some crazy location, ranging from the Green Door to the Diana Wortham, which back then, like the Green Door, allowed local performers to use the mainstage (!) for a mere 20% of the door. The town came out for these events.



(Debora Kinsland Foerst, from Cherokee)

Wordfest was dreamed up at a table at Malaprops, where I think all of us have read at one time or another. James Nave, Jeff Davis, Glenis Redmond and I sat around after a broadcast of Wordplay and up it bubbled. It's interesting that three of us are rooted in the performance scene--we've always had that drive to make poetry public, to literally give it away. That's the spirit of creativity, so we keep that at the heart of Wordfest. Lewis Hyde's book *The Gift* is one of the most important books in my world. In that book, the poet explores the creative economy, one based on circulating energy, rather than trapping it in place. For Whitman, poetry was currency. He spent it generously and in return he received it generously. He devoted hours to writing letters for wounded soldiers. For him, there was no difference between service and poetry. Hyde also studies ancient economies and folktales, revealing that cultures have survived quite well on this circular economy. It's interesting to me that we're witnessing the end of the linear economy (however many bailouts we attempt in order to put off the inevitable). It's a perfect time for creativity to rise, for people to give things away for free, such as a poetry festival, and enjoy seeing how it comes back to them in other forms. So, it's about much more than poetry for me. It's about restoring things to a more natural economy.



(Keith Flynn, founder and editor of Asheville Poetry Review and widely published poet)

We invite local businesses and groups to sponsor poets as way of integrating poetry into the marketplace. For the amount it costs to buy a paper ad in one issue of a magazine, a business or group can actually pay for the poet's airfare and (part of) a reading fee and give much more life to the money, and reach many more people (through our website, press and the actuall event itself) in a much more human way.



(doris davenport, formerly of NC, now teaching at Albany State University)

Also, WordFest presents poetry as Citizens Journalism. This is simply an emergence from my experience of watching Dr. Maya Angelou on Nightline on September 11. She was talking about how we need to "feel" what has happened, how we need to grieve, and Ted Koppel said, "Well, thank you for that poetic reflection, Dr. Angelou. And now for a more realistic perspective." And gone was the poet and up came a general or colonel. That was it. Neither of those perspectives is more realistic than the other. There are two realities--the active and the reflective. Asheville Wordfest, by presenting poetry as Citizens Journalism, explores this.




(Pat Riviere-Seel)

We are funded by the North Carolina Arts Council and the North Humanities Council, two amazing examples of circular economy in the way they return taxpayers money to the taxpayer in a higher form, that of art. My own company, The Healing Seed, picks up the rest of the tab along with Amy Mandel, Shiner Antiorio, Katina Rodis, Laurie Masterton, Grateful Steps Press, Maggie Wynne and many other members of our community. As the years continue, I envision more businesses and friends will "sponsor-a-poet" by donating money. It can happen, We can change the economy into a creative one, and see how everyone benefits. Asheville Wordfest is one model for doing this.

Coming Events at City Lights Bookstore

Dear Friends,

City Lights will host two local authors for separate programs this weekend.

First, Jim Costa, Professor of Biology at WCU and Director of the Highlands Biological Station, will be at the store on Friday, April 24th at 7:00 p.m. to present a program on Charles Darwin. He is author of the just-released critical edition, The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species. His discussion will focus on making Darwin's legacy understandable and relevant for the general public.



On Saturday afternoon, April 25th at 2:00 p.m., we will welcome Cashiers resident Joyce Foster, who will read from her new illustrated collection of poetry, entitled Painted Leaves. The book includes stunning watercolor illustrations by Jane Smithers, who will also be in attendance.

Please call 818-586-9499 for more information.

THE CLOTHES WE WEAR: A Call for Submissions

We are soliciting
Material from women writers in western North Carolina
For a second book project

Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham want your stories, memoirs, essays/reflections, poems for an anthology about the garments we wear—metaphorically, symbolically, literally---from hair bow to bra to Birkenstocks, from christening gown to prom dress, from waitress uniform to nine-to-five stiletto heels.

We expect an October 2009 publication date, in time to market the book alongside the 2008 Christmas Presence.



General Guidelines


Submit no more than 2000 words
Previously published material is fine–as long as you provide acknowledgments
You retain all rights to your material
Send in an email attachment (or contact us)–in Ms Word or RFT
Formatting for submissions:



Double space with one-inch margins
Left justify only
Center or left justify title



Use 12-point font (Times New Roman preferred) for body and title

Editing is a “given,” but we will try to ask about changes
DEADLINE: MAY 2, 2009
In return for your effort and creativity, you will receive

A complimentary copy of the book
An opportunity to buy additional copies at reduced cost
A publication party and potential readings/signings

Contact Information:
Celia Miles (277-6910)> celiamiles@fastmail.fm
Nancy Dillingham (254-3143)> nandilly@earthlink.net

We are excited about compiling an interesting and entertaining collection of theme-related work from women writers in this region. We know you’re out there! So, we invite you to look into your clothes closet (past or present), and if you have a story to tell, a memory to share, a point of view to espouse, send it along. We promise to treat it with care.

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day?

The Shoppes of Brasstown Celebrate Earth Day.

April 25, 2009, 10 am to 5 pm.



Arts & Crafts, food, demos, green vendors, organic produce and live music.

The shops are in Brasstown, NC, just south of Clay's Corner where the famous Possum Drop takes place every New Year's Eve.

Shoppes of Brasstown give a flavor of the hand made quality items found in the mountains.

How Much Time Should You Spend on Marketing?

I hear writers constantly say they hate self-promotion and can not do it.
It goes against their upbringing.
"Don't toot your own horn." "Be humble. Don't brag on yourself."
Sadly, if the author doesn't promote his work, his excellent book may sit on the shelf instead of resting in the hands of a reader.
More and more it has become the responsibility of the writer to "build a platform" for his book and for his name. In the past few years it has been my pleasure to promote our mountain writers, to make them known to the public through newspaper articles, E-mail, and on this blog. We held blog classes for writers and poets who will take the time to network online. Of course, as soon as we learned to "blog" we learn that Facebook and Twitter are now the the places everyone is using.

Sam Hoffer of Murphy, NC produced an excellent site, http://www.mycarolinakitchen.blogspot.com/ which links to another site for the memoir she is writing. The writer must take the time to learn how to use the Internet to her advantage. Sam's readers come from all over the country and around the world. You can tell by the comments on her posts.

Nancy Simpson set up a most pleasing site at http://www.nancysimpson.blogspot.com/ . Her theme, of course, is poetry. Nancy posts the work of other poets and links to their sites. While Nancy is well known in literary circles for her published works, her blog is a way to reach people who might never have known her poetry or the work of other writers she features on Above the Frost Line, the title of her blog..

Kathryn Stripling Byer, our next Netwest Program Coordinator, posts on three blogs, http://www.kathrynstriplingbyer.blogspot.com/ her personal site, http://www.ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com the site set up for her poet laureate work, and here at Netwest Writers.

Maria Schneider, former editor at Writers Digest, writes on her blog,
http://editorunleashed.com/2008/12/03/the-6040-rule-of-self-promotion/ and tackles the question of how much time to spend marketing our work and how much time we should spend writing.
She espouses the 60/40 rule.

Maggie Bishop, successful author of mystery and romance novels said at the Blue Ridge Writers Conference that she spends two hours each day on the Internet marketing herself. She has websites, a blog and, I'm sure visits the sites of others. Leaving comments on other sites she reads makes it easy for readers to come and visit her.

The sixty/forty rule sounds plausible to me. But how wonderful it must have been for those writers who came along before the Internet, the computer, and social online networks. They could spend 100 percent of their time writing. The publisher bought the book, sold the book, and sent the checks. The writer sat in his room, in his P.J.s if he wanted, and pecked away on his typewriter, or scribbled away on his next book.

Successful writers can't be shy in today's world. A writer can't hole up and expect someone else to market his books. If he is serious about selling his work, he should take every opportunity to read, speak, sign his books and network with people. We never know when the right person will come along, like what we write, and put us in touch with the person who can made a difference in our writing career.

Maggie Bishop's Top Ten Don'ts for Book Signings

Maggie Bishop and Glenda Beall at Blue Ridge Writers conference

Maggie Bishop, North Carolina writer of mystery and romance novels, was a presenter at the Blue Ridge Writers Conference in Georgia on March 27-28. She has given permission for her top ten tips for things you should not do for book signings to be listed here. Maggie says she is available for teaching workshops.

Top Ten Don'ts for Book Signings

10. Arrive late and show disrespect for the staff’s efforts. Show up without confirming the signing at least the day before. That way, if your signing has been overlooked, the staff has time to be prepared.

9. Limp handshake. Be proud of your writing and show it through a firm handshake.

8. Forget own supplies such as a pen, name tag and water. Demand free coffee or food as your reward for showing up.

7. Chatting on cell phone or talking with friend when a customer approaches. Don’t become that store clerk you complain about. Give the reader the respect they deserve.

6. Grab a customer by the arm and demand they "buy my book," put down other authors and books, use a guilt trip "I need the money to feed my kids," or steal another author’s customer when at a group signing. These are ways to make a reader avoid you and the store in the future.

5. Eat onions, garlic or tuna before a signing or chewing gum during a signing. You want customers to cry over your prose and not your breath.

4. Sit behind the table, do crossword puzzles or read, and ignore customers. Get over being shy and develop an outgoing persona for your moment before readers.

3. Wear revealing clothing, shorts, old shoes. Dress as you would for an interview–one level higher than the customer. You want to invite people into your space through your appearance.

2. Ignore or be rude to the help or, worse yet, blame the staff for low sales; if asked to sign stock, sign more than requested. The store needs to make money in order for you to get paid. The staff will chat about you after you leave so make sure they feel good about your visit.

1. Attitude that you are doing the store a favor, signing only because the publisher demands it, or that the reader is lucky that you appear in person. The reader is royalty, not you.

Contact Maggie at these links below.
Website http://maggiebishop1.tripod.com/
Blog http://damesofdialogue.wordpress.com/
Speaker http://www.blogger.com/

PHILLIPS AND LLOYD BOOKS HOST MILLER

Phillips and Lloyd books on the square in Hayesville hosts former Georgia governor and senator, Zell Miller, Saturday, May 9th, 11:00 AM until 1:00 PM, as he signs his new book, Purt Nigh Gone.

Gainesville Times newspaper says Miller’s forthcoming book, "Purt Nigh Gone: The Old Mountain Ways," is part history lesson and part mourning of the loss of a way of life that Miller dearly loves. The title is mountain speak for "pretty near gone," Miller’s assessment of the current state of things.


To reserve a signed copy, call 828-389-1493

The Place to Be May 8 - 9

BLUE RIDGE BOOK AND AUTHOR SHOWCASE

When: May 8-May 9

Where: Technology and Education Development Center at Blue Ridge Community College

The event will feature more than fifty authors and their works as well as displays, book signings, group conversations, readings, socializing, and a meet-and-greet reception.

One hour sessions will be held Saturday, May 9 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Topics will include poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays, and Appalachian literature.

Sharyn McCrumb and Robert Morgan are two of the fifteen presenters. For more information go to http://www.blogger.com/ or call Robert Greenwald at 828-698-1550.

Julia Ebel to read at City Lights in Sylva

Julia Ebel to Read from New Appalachian Works
Time: Saturday, April 18, 2009 2:00 p.m.
Location: City Lights



(Julia Ebel)

Novelist, poet, and non-fiction writer Julia Ebel will be at the store on Saturday afternoon, April 18th at 2:00 p.m. to read from several new books. Her new title for children is The Picture Man, which tells the story of an Appalachian farm girl’s curiosity about the itinerant photographer who offers to make her family’s portrait. Ebel is also editor of a new collection entitled Jack Tales and Mountain Yarns as Told by Orville Hicks. Her first poetry collection is also new, entitled Dresses, Dreams and Beadwood Leaves, which is an Appalachian growing-up story told in a series of poems. You may go to My Laureate's Lasso to find more about this book.






The Picture Man(Hardcover (Cloth))
by Ebel, Julia Taylor, Canter, Idalia
Format: Hardcover (Cloth)
Price: $16.95
Published: Parkway Publishers, 2009
Inventory Status: On Our Shelves Now


In the first half of the twentieth century, itinerant photographers known as "picture men" traveled the backroads of Appalachia and made their living taking photographs of the local farmers and their families. These picture men come to life in this story of an Appalachian farm girl who is intrigued by an offer to photograph her family. Gentle brown-toned watercolors hint of old photographs, while poetic text leads readers from the picture man's arrival to the taking of the photograph. The story culminates with the actual 1940s photograph that inspired this story.

SPRING CONFERENCE IN GREENSBORO

Kevin Watson of Press 53, 2008 Spring Conference

I hope to see many of our Netwest members at the NCWN Spring Conference in Greensboro on April 25. Although I've wanted to go all along, we could not make definite plans until today. I think the presenters will be excellent and it is always fun re-connecting with writer friends and making new friends.


I will be helping at the registration desk so when you come in, let me know if you are a Netwest member. This will be my last conference as Program Coordinator for Netwest and I'm so happy we will be able to make the trip.

See you there.

Glenda Beall

PAINTED LEAVES: Poems by Joyce Foster, Art by Jane Smithers

(For copies, contact Painted Leaves, P.O. Box 2332, Cashiers, NC 28717)

Joyce Foster's Painted Leaves, with art by Jane Smithers, is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen, if not THE most beautiful. I met Joyce several years back in a workshop. She had just begun to write poetry, and I could tell that she had the gift for it. Her "Imprimatur for Pleasure" was one of the first poems she showed me, so you can see why I was impressed. As she says in the Afterword, "I was in my mid-60's and looking for the courage to make a profound change in my life. Poetry, or perhaps I should say the Muse of poetry, found me. ...Now I can't imagine life without it."

Joyce was born in Oklahoma of Cherokee, English, and German stock. She graduated from Emory University with a degree in Nursing and has worked for years in Public Health, as well as training and showing Morgan horses. She also worked for awhile as a model when she lived in Florida! She lives in Cashiers, NC, with her dog Wynston.



The artist whose work illuminates these pages is Jane Smithers (www.janesmithers.com). A self-taught artist, having chosen art "relatively late in life," she has lived in New York, London, Houston, and now in Cashiers, where she paints and teaches. Visiting Jane's website is like stepping into a world vibrating with image and color.

If you go to my ncpoetlaureate blog, you will find a display of the pages from PAINTED LEAVES. I hope you enjoy the visual feast. This would make a lovely Mother's Day gift, by the way. I'm giving a copy to my own mother.

EASTER MORNING ON THE HAIRPIN CURVE

Easter Morning on the Hairpin Curve
Smoky Mountains

Is it water or
phacelia that tumbles
down the banks,
overflowing its rocky
creel, water
or trillium,
merging this morning
in one brim-
ful flagrant
resounding of
yes, She lives,
does the Earth,
our longsuffering
handmaiden raising
up dipper
by dipper the day
for us out of
her dark womb.

----KS Byer
(first published in Kakalak)

LOOK WHO IS READING, SIGNING AND WHERE

The Curiosity Bookstore in Murphy, NC and in Andrews, NC welcomes author, Paralee Dawson this Saturday, April 11th
The book is Living A Dream -- reflections of her Appalachian Trail odyssey.

Paralee lives at our end of the trail for part of the year and the other end (Maine) for the rest of the year.
She will be showing videos and signing her book in Andrews NC from 11:am - 1:00 pm and in Murphy from 1:15 pm -3 pm.

Aaron Gwyn will be at Osondu's in Waynesville, NC on Saturday April 25th @ 11:00 a.m. The World Beneath is an eerie and deep mystery. In this book a 15 year old boy is missing and the sherrif is trying to find him.
Spaces are filling up for Kathryn Magendie's Book Launch reception on April 17th at Osondu's from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Kathryn's novel is Tender Graces. Looks like a most appealling book. Please call Osondu's to reserve your book and your spot at the reception.

Freeing Jonah V Includes Estelle Rice

Dr. Gene Hirsch, a resident of North Carolina and Pennsylvania, teaches poetry classes at John C. Campbell Folk School. He has published five volumes of Freeing Jonah. The anthologies are collections of poetry from students in workshops at the Folk School and from poets in the region.
Tonight I picked up my copy of Freeing Jonah V, published in 2007. Listed among the forty-five poets featured are a number of NCWN West members: Glenda Barrett, Janet Benway, Joyce Foster, who has a new poetry collection, Mary Michelle Keller, Brenda Kay Ledford, Mary Ricketson, Nancy Simpson, Linda Smith, Dorothea Spiegel and many more.
My good friend, writer and poet, Estelle Rice of Marble, NC will be reading at the John Campbell Folk School next week. See sidebar. The following poem touches me in a special way.

Goodbye

In my heart, there is a lingering scent
of Johnson’s wax
pickled peaches,
Evening in Paris perfume,
Mennen’s After Shave,
smoke from a Dutch Master’s Cigar.

I can almost taste the Brunswick stew,
Melton’s barbecue,
fruitcake and eggnog,
chocolate-peanut butter cookies,
and homemade peach ice cream.

Bookshelves are empty,
and there is no piano
in the sun parlor.
No voice or human sound,
I hear the echo of my footsteps
in halls and hollow rooms.

Lilacs Mother planted
are blooming.
I pick a flower
to press for safekeeping.

Cardinals have returned to their nest
in the Talisman rose.
Outside the breakfast room window
squirrels chatter in the oak tree
unaware of my tears.

I shut the door and turn the key.

My Nuts and Bolts for Good Writing Seminar

I will hold a one day seminar, Saturday, April 18 at TCCC. 9:00 - 12:00 and 1:00 - 4pm. Bring your lunch. We will cover intriguing beginnings, holding the reader's interest throughout, development of characters and much more.
All writers are welcome, beginning or experienced. Students will take an active part throughout the class. I promise you will have fun and y ou will probably go home with at least one valuable tool for your writing and probably many more. Call TCCC Continuing Education to pre-register 835-4313. The fee is $35.00.
Shirley Uphouse 828-837-6007 or shirl@dnet.net