New Administrator for the Netwest Writers Blog

Recently Joan Ellen Gage moved to Warne, NC which is in Clay County where I live. Joan is now an administrator for the Netwest Writers Blog. I asked Joan for an email interview and she was gracious enough to take time to answer a few questions.

I hope our readers will take note and let Joan know we appreciate her helping us with the website and blog.

GB: Joan, I appreciate your helping with the Netwest Writers Blog. I know you have been blogging for a long time. Tell us when you started.
Joan:  I started blogging in 2009. I met you at Coffee with the Poets in Hayesville, which was at Phillips and Lloyd Bookstore. We had a conversation and you suggested that I start a blog on Google Blogger. I started my first blog shortly after, and called it: Traveling at the Speed of Now.

GB: Give us the URL for your blogs, please.
Traveling at the Speed of Now: http://www.joanellengage.com/

A Redhead Blogs at 60: http://:joanszoneblogalicious@wordpress.com

GB: Before you moved here, what kind of work did you do?
Joan: I worked as a dental hygienist from 1991 until recently. Before that I managed dental offices.
So much of the inspiration for my writing came from working with my patients and listening to their stories. I have had the pleasure of getting to know many fine people over the years.


GB: I know you recently moved to Warne, NC in Clay County. But you were a member of NCWN before you built your beautiful home and moved here, weren’t you?
Joan: Yes, I have been a member of NCWN for a while, now. What a great organization!

GB: What has been your experience with the members you have met in Netwest?
Joan: Very positive! Everyone has been so helpful and kind, especially yourself and Nancy Simpson.

GB: It is always good to find a member who will volunteer to help enhance our writing community. Were you active in a writing group in Florida?
Joan: No, there were a couple of groups and I considered joining. I can be a bit of a hermit, sometimes. Once I came home from work, I stayed home.

GB: I think you have published a couple of books. Do you want to tell us about them?
Joan: Thank you, Glenda. I have two self published books, which are poetry and photography. I write predominately for women in midlife. My books are humorous and inspirational. The first book is, Water Running Downhill! Words of Empowerment for Women in Midlife.
The second book is Embracing Your Inner Cheerleader! I have a third book that I am ready to publish, called A Redhead Looks at 60. It is in the same vein as the first two books, although it has more photography.

GB: Thank you so much, Joan, for the interview and especially for helping with the Netwest blog.
Joan: My pleasure, Glenda! I’m glad to be of help.

We want our readers to continue to send articles, your good news, your publications and readings to us at glendabeall@msn.com
 Joan and I will see that your information is posted and shared. 

Mary Ricketson, poet, reads at Coffee with the Poet March 19 in Sylva

Coffee with the Poet at City Lights Books Features Mary Ricketson

The Coffee with the poet series continues on Thursday, March 19th at 10:30 a.m at City Lights Books in Sylva, NC
The March gathering will feature Cherokee County resident, Mary Ricketson.  She will read selections of poetry from her first full-length collection Hanging Dog Creek.  

Her poems include topics about fear, hardship, courage and the joys in everyday life.  Ricketson has been writing for over 20 years.  Her work is inspired by nature and her profession as a mental health counselor. She won the gold medal for poetry in the 2011 Cherokee County Senior Games/Silver Arts and silver medal for 2012 and 2013, and first place in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest 75th anniversary national poetry contest. 

The Coffee with the Poet series meets the third Thursday of every month and is cosponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network--West, the mountain chapter of the North Carolina Writers' Network. 

For more information on the Coffee with the Poet please call City Lights Bookstore at 828-586-9499.

City Lights Books
3 E Jackson St.
Sylva, NC 28779

Seedlight and More - an exhibit of paintings and poems by Laurence Holden

CENTER FOR ART AND REHABILITATIVE ENERGIES
SHELLMAN, GEORGIA

OPENING RECEPTION
SUNDAY, MARCH 8, 2 - 6 P.M.
POETRY READING 3 P.M.

"We  spend so much of our lives seeking to understand the patterns around us.This I do too.And then there is the gravity that bears upon all of them,and us,
as well as the desire for ascension.These paintings and poems are my way to understand this. "
- Laurence Holden

"Seedlight: In the Mothering of All Things," 2015

oil on canvas

FACES

All things show their faces when we do.

All things speak when we do.

All things appear when we do.

The first face, the first word,

they blossom into all the others.

They all are true.

Best Wishes to Lana Hendershott first Henderson County Representative for NCWN West

Lana Hendershott has resigned as representative for Netwest and NCWN. 

She served the writers in Henderson County since 2008 and proved to be a loyal volunteer for our western region. Her conscientious efforts to sell the Netwest anthology, Echoes across the Blue Ridge, to book stores and other retail shops in her area made her a role model for others. Lana participated in a panel discussion by Netwest at the Blue Ridge Bookfest and at other times, she sat at the table at the bookfest and signed and sold Echoes. She enabled her fellow writers to meet and stay connected.

I met Lana when I was Program Coordinator in 2007 – 2009. The leadership of Netwest had decided to make Henderson County a part of the NCWN West region because we had heard from numerous people in that area wanting to know if there was a writers’ group or were there any other writers in Hendersonville, Fletcher or Flat Rock. They had no way of connecting to each other and therefore did not know of other poets and writers in the area.

As Program Coordinator, I talked with Ed Southern about holding a meeting at the library and sending out invitations to all members of NCWN that lived in Henderson County. I asked Nancy Purcell and J.C. Walkup to come to the meeting and talk about their duties and responsibilities in Transylvania and Haywood Counties. We needed a representative for Henderson County, but we had no volunteers. Susan Snowden suggested that I ask Lana. Susan said Lana was one of the most serious writers she knew.

It took some persuading, but Lana agreed that evening to become a representative for her county. She has been one of the easiest people to work with and once her name was known to the members there, she was available to them when they had questions or needed her advice. Even though she felt on several occasions that she would have to resign because she was needed to care for elderly parents, she persevered and, once she reached out and asked others to help, she was able to continue.

Last year when she and Pat Vestal began the open mic event they hold each month, it immediately became a success. At the present time, I believe Henderson County has more writers and poets who are members of NCWN than any county in the far western region.

I am confident that those writers would not have become the community they are now had it not been for the efforts of Lana Hendershott and Netwest.

Personally, I want to tell Lana how much she is appreciated by me and by all the members of NCWN West. Caring writers like Lana make a big difference in the lives of others. We need more members like Lana throughout NCWN West to become leaders and supporters of writers in their counties. 

Thanks to Lana Hendershott

From Pat Vestal, NCWN Representative for Henderson County, North Carolina

Lana Hendershott, Henderson County NCWN West Representative at the Bookfest 
at Blue Ridge Community College

A few weeks after I moved to Hendersonville in 2011, I attended BookFest at Blue Ridge Community College, a bit nervous since I knew no one in the writing community. By the end of the conference I felt like I really was a part of that community. I was warmly welcomed by several NetWest members and introduced to Lana Hendershott, the Henderson County representative.  

Everyone obviously liked and respected her, and I soon discovered why. She is a genuinely good person who had already worked tirelessly as representative for several years. She made a point of introducing me to others and inviting me to events. Lana’s helpfulness included caring for her elderly parents, which consumed a great deal of her time and energy.

I joined Lana as a co-rep. in 2013 and together we developed a monthly Literary Open Mic at the Hendersonville Library, which has become very popular. It was great to have a reliable and efficient partner with whom to facilitate the monthly event and take over when I couldn’t attend. The event attracted many local readers, a number of whom are not network members and didn’t know us.  We soon became like a big family, to which, fortunately, new members are frequently added.                     Lana’s warm, welcoming and fair attitude contributed a great deal to this. 
 
Late in 2014 after many years, she finally decided to relinquish her position in order to spend more time with family.  Obviously, she received warm accolades and appreciation at her last meeting as representative in December.  

As the January “meet and greet” prior to the reading was underway, big smiles and welcomes broke out as Lana quietly entered the auditorium to relax in the audience, still supporting local writers.   

Women Who Have Made A Difference

Jack J. Prather has interviewed and written a most interesting book on Six Notable Women of North Carolina. Our own NCWN West member, and first woman Poet Laureate of North Carolina, Kathryn Stripling Byer is one of them. A number of Byer's poems are included with her memories of growing up in southwest Georgia and moving to the mountains as an adult.  

Photographs of the subjects' families and their peers throughout their careers create even more interest in each woman's story. The journey of Kay Byer begins with her childhood years and moves on to her school years. She discusses her marriage, her family and, of course, poetry. I like that she gives advice to young poets. "I think writers should imitate and assimilate what they love, and what speaks to them, and then innovate." A sense of place is most important in poetry according to Byer. 

I found the interview with Sharon Decker, former NC Commerce Secretary and Duke Power VP, one of the most intriguing. Decker is one of the women who broke the glass ceiling in the man's corporate world and political arena. Her energy and ambition to make a difference makes her an excellent role model for young women of today. She says she loves negotiating and bringing divergent ideas to the table where opinions can be changed or resolved into a peaceful solution. 

Kathy Reichs is a successful novelist and the inspiration for the television show, Bones. She studied physical anthropology at Northwestern and earned a Ph.D. She became an anthropology professor and one of only two women to attain full professorships in that department at UNC Charlotte.
"Blending science and crossing boundaries is a recurring theme for me," Reichs says.

It was her interest in physical anthropology which combines the human people studies with the hard sciences of biology, biomechanics and physiology that led her eventually to forensic anthropology.

Another woman of note, Reichs is one of only 101 forensic anthropologists to ever be certified. She began thinking about writing a novel in 1990, but in 1994 she completed her debut novel, Deja Dead, which found its way to a junior editor at Scribner. Publisher Susan Moldow offered Reichs a two-book deal worth 1.2 million, and the rest is history. She stays busy with book tours, writing novels and producing scripts for the TV show, Bones.

Other notable women in Prather's book are Jennifer Pharr Davis, World Appalachian Trail Record Hiker, Anne Ponder, Chancellor Emerita, UNC at Asheville, and Millie Ravenel, Founder, Center for International Understanding.

Jack Prather does an outstanding job of asking the right questions and editing the stories he collected. I hope this book is in our libraries and in our schools. These women have blazed trails that younger generations will now find easier to follow. Life doesn't always run the course we plan, but we make choices, and that is where Prather reveals the humanistic side of each of his subjects in this book.

See the podcast of Jack's interview on Your Carolina:

http://www.wspa.com/story/27892091/six-notable-women-of-north-carolina

This book can be ordered on Amazon.com
Jack J. Prather
prathergroup@aol.com
828-808-0660
www.futurenowpublishing.com



Review by Glenda Council Beall,
writer, interviewer, and director of Writers Circle around the Table
www.glendacouncilbeall.com 

Hat's Off to Laurence Holden

	Congratulations to Laurence Holden, poet and artist who lives in north Georgia. See more about Laurence's work at the  links below.

Laurence Holden will have recent poems appearing in March issues of Snapdragon: a Journal of Art & Healing, and “Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel,” vol 18, 2015.



The Artist's Path: On The Trail Between Art & Nature
Laurence Holden: Portfolio
NEW!   TEN POEMS AND ELEVEN PAINTINGS (iBook for iPad)

UPDATED LIST OF 2015 COUNTY REPS FOR THE NCWN-WEST REGION

NCWN–WEST 2015 COUNTY REPS

Cherokee County

Mary Ricketson maryricketson311@hotmail.com

Lucy Cole Gratton lgratton@hughes.net



Clay County 

Glenda Beall glendabeall@msn.com

Janice Moore janicem@yhc.edu



Henderson County 

Patricia Vestal patricia.vestal@gmail.com

Nancy Jane Zelman jazele@live.com



Jackson County 

Kathryn Stripling Byer ksbyer@aol.com

Newton Smith smithnewton@gmail.com



Georgia

Rosemary Royston rosemary28rr@gmail.com

Karen Paul Holmes kpaulholmes@gmail.com

NCWN Executive Director Ed Southern to receive award

The North Carolina Writers' Network Executive Director, Ed Southern has been awarded the prestigious Ethel N. Fortner Writer and Community Award, 

"St. Andrews University will present the 2015 Ethel N. Fortner Writer and Community Award to North Carolina Writers’ Network Executive Director Ed Southern on March 5."

Ed has headed NCWN since 2008 and the organization has grown and served more writers over the years.
Read more about Ed and the award at this link:   http://www.ncwriters.org/whitecross/

On a personal note, I was program coordinator for NCWN West, (Netwest) when Ed came on board. I had heard good things about him and was excited to know we were going to be in good hands. Right away, I asked Ed to come to our far western area and meet all the writers and poets scattered in these mountains. And for the first time since the early 90s, the  Executive Director of NCWN came out here and talked with us. Even more important, he listened to us. Our promised funding sanctioned by the  NC Arts Council had been terminated, but Ed promised he would see that it was resumed. He did as he promised.

I know all of our members and readers join me in congratulating Ed Southern on receiving the Fortner Award.

Three Poems from Peg Bresnahan, poet from Transylvania County, NC

Peg Bresnahan’s second poetry collection, In a Country None of Us Called Home, was published by Press 53. Peg is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. She received her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpeliar. Her work has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies.  She lives in Cedar Mountain, NC with husband, sculptor, Dan Bresnahan.  Kathy Smith Bowers, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina said of Peg’s latest book, "This is one of the most beautifully crafted and moving collections I have read in a long time."

At the Jordan Street Cafe'

I didn't know who she was and I don't
know who asked her but suddenly
this woman standing at the restaurant door

about ready to leave in raincoat and boots
was singing Puccini's "Vissi D'arte" from Tosca.
Someone turned off the CD player

and we all listened as Tosca's torment
for her dead lover took flight. Questions
to the God she felt had left her, soared 

over tables and bar stools, cruised down a hall
to the kitchen where even the chef paused.
It didn't matter we couldn't speak Italian,

each heart knew its own breaking,
every face translated its grief.
The aria froze us like a tableau—forks 

in midair, a waiter with full tray held high,
the bartender in front of the mirrored wall
of bottles and glass about to pour a draft.

Everyone heard her music.
Some from cages. Some winged.
Some tethered to a fire, to ropes of ash.

At the Sunny Ridge Retirement Center

During Harriet's memorial service,
Frances leaned, put her head
on my shoulder and died—quietly 

as if she didn't want to interrupt 
Harriet's program. 
The minister didn't see us,

no one knew except me. At the piano,
Mary played the introduction 
to Going Home. Everyone thumbed

their hymnals for page two hundred forty-three.
I didn't know what to do, since Frances
still looked like Frances, only not quite

and she was ninety-five. I put my arm
around her so she wouldn't fall
and waited for someone to notice.

Through the French doors 
finches squabbled at the bird feeder.
The squirrel we call Rocky

contemplated his next move.
A laundry truck rolled by. 
I looked down at Frances' navy blue crocs,

the ones she claimed felt so much
like bedroom slippers
she could wear them anywhere.

Slipstream

Yesterday you asked if our life would change
because of your heart attack.
I grabbed the sheet of air between us
and gave it a good shake
to make a commotion
jump-starting the no that roared from my throat,
poured off the walls of our house.

Today I can't seem to finish anything,
my trail littered with little piles of intentions.
I could blame it on what I dreamed last night—
you know how in a dream
you need to talk to someone
and that person's always out of reach,
just leaving? If you do go before me

I will give away your empty shoes,
walk the dogs until we're all exhausted,
buy half a bag of groceries.
But for now I lie beside you, listen
to you breathe each breath, hitchhike
a ride with them into our future.

You can order Peg's book from Press 53.
http://www.press53.com/bioPegBresnahan.html