Writers’ Night Out starts its fourth year by featuring two local writers: poet Mary Ricketson and novelist Paul M. Schofield. The event takes place on Saturday, March 15 in its new location, the Union County Community Center at Butternut Creek Golf Course in Blairsville, GA. A social hour starts at 6 p.m. with the reading at 7 p.m. and open microphone following. Writers’ Night is free (food available for purchase) and open to the public. Writers can sign up at the door to read poetry or prose for three minutes in the open microphone.
Ricketson, of Murphy, NC, has been writing for 20 years. She is inspired by nature and her work as a mental health counselor. Her poetry has been published in her chapbook, I Hear the River Call My Name, as well as in Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Freeing Jonah, Red Fox Run, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Your Daily Poem, andJournal of Kentucky Studies. She won medals for poetry in the Cherokee County Senior Games/Silver Arts, and won first place in the 2011 Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest 75th anniversary national poetry contest. Ricketson writes a monthly column, “Woman to Woman,” for The Cherokee Scout, is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network, and is president of Ridgeline Literary Alliance.
Schofield’s three action-packed books make up The Trophy Saga, based on ideas that are theoretically feasible. They feature time-travel, chase and battle scenes, fusion powered star-ships, a computer-controlled society, tender moments and scary episodes. Refreshing to read, they are free of explicit sex, profanity, graphic violence and paranormal themes. Schofield was born and raised in Montana and now lives in Murphy, NC with his wife Ellen.
Writers’ Night Out is sponsored by NC Writers Network-West and is now at its new location: The Union County Community Center, located 129 Union County Recreation Rd., Blairsville, Georgia 30512, off Highway 129 near the intersection of US 76, phone (706) 439-6092. Come to the upstairs banquet room, which is accessible via stairs or the elevator. Starting April 2014, Writers’ Night Out will move to the second Saturday of each month. For more information, please contact Karen Holmes at (404) 316-8466 or kpaulholmes@gmail.com.
