Friday, August 8, 2014

"Writers on the Writing Process," an Interview with Karen Paul Holmes

A chance meeting on Facebook results in a San Fransisco writer interviewing a Netwest member. 


Writer, Laura E. Davis, who lives in San Fransisco, and Netwest Rep for Georgia, Karen Paul Holmes, met through an international women's writers' group on Facebook. Learning of Karen's new book, Untying the Knot, Laura offered to interview her for the series called "Writers on the Writing Process."  Read the interview here

The Lake Chatuge view that inspires Karen Paul Holmes to write
Untying the Knot is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle, and also at City Light Bookstore in Sylva, NC.

On August 9, Karen Paul Holmes and Co-Netwest Rep, Rosemary Royston, will be the featured readers at Writers' Night Out in Blairsville. Rosemary also has a new book, Splitting the Soil (available on Amazon and from Finishing Line Press). The two poets plan to try a new approach to their reading: They will pair their poems in some logical/artistic way and read them alternately, rather than each poet reading alone. The event takes place at the lovely Union County Community Center at Butternut Creek Golf Course (map here). Food and beverages (including alcohol) are available for purchase at 6 pm during the social hour. An open mic follows after the reading. Sign up at the door to read 3 minutes of prose or poetry. Writers' Night Out takes place on the second Saturday of every month.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Poet Cecilia Woloch to teach the workshop, “Deep Waters, Sturdy Craft” at Lake Logan

Who: Poet Cecilia Woloch 
What: "Deep Waters; Sturdy Craft" Workshop & Retreat for Writers, September 15 - 21, 2014
Where: Lake Logan Retreat Center, Canton, NC - 40 miles West of Asheville 

Enjoy seven days  of refreshment for your creative spirit while immersed in an intensive poetry workshop with internationally acclaimed poet Cecilia Woloch.

Supplementary to the workshop are nature walks, fire circles, mindfulness sessions and movement sessions. Massages can be scheduled in  the late afternoons. Participants will stay in charming private cottages and cabins on the 85-acre  lake, with rocking chairs on the back porches and vistas of wilderness and serenity.

Poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen said, “If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.” Where have you not gone, yet, in your writing — that place that seems beyond language, perhaps, but that language might take you, still?

This workshop will focus on using the craft of poetry to move into deeper waters in the creative process, in order to achieve both precision and depth in our writing. Suitable for those just embarking on a creative journey as well as for accomplished, practicing poets who are searching for new sources of creative energy and new challenges, the workshop will be geared toward exploring both the mysteries of the creative process and the discipline of the writer’s craft. Workshop participants will read and discuss the work of master poets for inspiration, then engage in a series of generative writing exercises designed to take each poet toward deeper sources of material and new approaches to using language. 

They will share that work with one another and offer feedback on revision aimed at bringing the writing to its fullest fruition. The workshop environment will offer a safe place for creative risk-taking and a rigorous but compassionate community. Participants will work together with an awareness of and a respect for each writer’s individual voice and unique vision, also helping each writer to clarify that vision and look toward the body of work that might emerge from the individual poems. They'll replenish the creative well each day and then dive back into it, refreshed, replenished, emboldened to go farther still, to do their truest, most authentic and most compelling creative work.

Cecilia Woloch is an NEA fellowship recipient and the author of five acclaimed collections of poems, most recently Carpathia (BOA Editions 2009), which was a finalist for the Milton Kessler Award, and Tzigane, le poème Gitan (Scribe-l’Harmattan 2014), the French translation of her second book, Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem. Her novella, Sur la Route, is forthcoming from Quale Press in 2015. Recent awards include the Indiana Review Prize for Poetry (2014). The founding director of Summer Poetry in Idyllwild and The Paris Poetry Workshop, she has also served on the faculties of a number of creative writing programs and teaches independently throughout the U.S. and around the world. 

For more information about this Cullowhee Mountain Arts sponsored event, click here.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Estelle Rice and Glenda C. Beall To Read At JC Campbell Folk School

On Thursday, August 21, 2014 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 being held on the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise notified. The reading is free of charge and open to the public. Poets Estelle Rice and Glenda Council Beall will be the featured readers, both of whom are well established poets in the mountain area. 

ESTELLE RICE

Estelle Rice, author of Quiet Times, a book of poetry, is a well-published writer whose short stories have appeared in The Appalachian Heritage Journal, the 
Journal of Kentucky Studies, and in anthologies and magazines, including Lights in the Mountains and Echoes Across the Blue Ridge

She is a native North Carolinian, born in Rocky Mount and raised in Charlotte. She now lives in Marble, NC. Estelle received her BA in psychology from Queens University in Charlotte and a MA in counseling from the University of South Alabama. She is a retired Licensed Professional Counselor. Although she is a full-time caregiver for her husband now, she still attends writing workshops and continues to create poems and stories. Her poetry has been published in The Back Porch, the Freeing Jonah series and others. 

Estelle has been a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network West for many years and has endeared herself to her friends and co-writers alike.



GLENDA COUNCIL BEALL

Glenda C. Beall’s poems, essays and short stories have been published in numerous literary journals and magazines including Reunions Magazine, Main Street Rag, Appalachian Heritage, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, The Dead Mule, School of Southern Literature and Wild Goose Poetry Review. Her poems have been anthologized in Lights in the Mountains, The Best of Poetry Hickory Series, 2011, Kakalak: North Carolina Poets of 2009, and Women’s Spaces, Women’s Places, among others.

Glenda enjoys writing articles for newspapers on subjects that are important to her such as indoor air pollution and spaying and neutering pets. She supports animal rescue shelters with her articles. She has taught memoir writing at John C. Campbell Folk School for several years. She also teaches writing at Tri-County Community College.

Glenda served as program director of North Carolina Writers’ Network-West in 2007 and 2008, and is now Clay County Representative for NCWN-West. Glenda is author of Now Might As Well Be Then, poetry published by Finishing Line Press, and she compiled a family history, Profiles And Pedigrees, 
Thomas Charles Council And His Descendants, published by Genealogy Publishing Company.

Glenda is Owner/Director of Writers Circle where she invites those interested in writing poetry or prose to her home studio for classes taught by some of the best poets and writers in the area. Find her online at: www.glendacouncilbeall.blogspot.com and www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com

Rosemary & Karen to do Antiphonal Reading from their New Books


Thursday, July 31, 2014

Staci Bell will read at Coffee with the Poets and Writers August 13

Each month the North Carolina Writers’ Network West sponsors Coffee with the Poets and Writers and invites the public to attend. Staci Lynn Bell, accomplished writer, will be featured on Wednesday, August 13, 10:30 a.m. at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill located at the intersection of Highway 64 and Highway 141 in Cherokee County, NC.

Bell began writing commercials, editorials and public service announcements for TV and radio. In 1988 her environmental essay won statewide acclaim in Florida. More recently her short stories and nonfiction have been published in the online journal, 234, and in Show Dog Magazine. Her poetry has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, a popular online literary journal.
Staci Lynn Bell will read at Coffee with the Poets and Writers

For twenty-five years, Staci Bell worked in radio and television as a broadcaster, host and emcee for numerous events and concerts. Originally from Chicago, today Bell lives in Murphy, NC with her husband and three dogs. She is a member of NCWN West and the Ridgeline Literary Alliance.

An Open Mic session follows the featured reader, and anyone who brings an original short story or personal essay or poem, is invited to sign up to read. This event is open to all who like poetry and enjoy short prose whether or not they are a writer. Visitors are also invited to join the writers as they  pull tables together and eat lunch. A drawing is held for door prizes.

GlendaBeall, Clay County Representative for NCWN West, facilitates this event. Contact her at nightwriter0302@yahoo.com or call her at 828-389-4441 with any questions.