Brenda Kay and Blanche, Ready for Christmas

Brenda Kay Ledford and her mother, Blanche Ledford

The picture above was first posted on Brenda's blog, She gave me permission to share it with all of  you. Brenda Kay Ledford has been a member of NCWN and therefore, a member of NCWN-West for as long as I have been here, about twenty years or more. She lives with and cares for her mother, Blanche, also a published writer.

Brenda Kay's poetry books have won the Paul Green award from the North Carolina Society of Historians several times. She began writing poetry in Nancy Simpson's writing classes and began publishing her work very soon after. She is dedicated to promoting her community in various ways and we often see articles by Brenda Kay in the local newspaper. She's a retired educator and earned her Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University. She studied Journalism at the University of Tennessee and was Creative Writing Editor of "Tri-County Communicator."

Blanche Ledford has not been able to get out much lately due to a fall and a broken hip earlier this year, and we have missed seeing her at our writing events, but she is doing better. Several of Blanche's stories of growing up in Appalachia were published in anthologies by Old Mountain Press. She and Brenda Kay co-wrote a book, Simplicity, about their lives here in Clay County NC. She won the Paul Green award for that book.

The new anthology edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham, It's All Relative, Tales from the Tree, includes one of Blanche's stories, Planting by the Signs.  Curiosity Shop Books in Murphy, NC  carries this book.

Brenda Kay and her mother preserve the old ways of the mountain people by writing about them.
Brenda Kay's most recent book of poetry is Crepe Roses published by Kelsay Books. This book also won a Paul Green Multi Media Award.

Besides posting photography that is a feast for the eyes, Brenda writes on her blog about interesting places to visit. Read about this goat farm right down the road from where I live in Clay county.

The Christmas picture of Brenda Kay and her mother, Blanche, warms my heart because I know they have the same loving relationship I had with my mother.
 Visit Brenda Kay's blog to learn more about them.

Writers and poets seem to have one question these days. NCWN-West will answer on December 12, 2015 at a Panel Discussion in Hayesville, NC.

Wally Avett

Deanna Klingel

“How do I get my writing published?” And then they have another question. “How do I sell my book?”

We hope to have some answers for them on Saturday, December 12, 2015 from 1 – 3 p.m. at Moss Memorial Library, 26 Anderson Street, Hayesville, NC.  No charge to attend.

We will have a panel of three novelists and me, Glenda Beall. Cherokee County resident, Wally Avett, journalist and author of four novels, Deanna Klingel, of Sapphire, NC, author of nine books for young and young at heart readers, and Tom Davis, who lives in western NC, an author who also owns Old Mountain Press. Each of these writers will have a story to tell about their publishing experiences and the way they promote their writing careers.

Glenda Beall, moderator of the panel discussion

Recently I asked Scott Owens, well-published poet and teacher from Hickory, NC to share his publishing experiences and his ideas on marketing and publishing. He publishes a new book of poems about every two years. His latest is from Main Street Rag Press. 

Scott Douglas, owner of Main Street Rag Press, was generous with his answers to questions I posed to him on these topics. He has built his small press into a well-established business with some of the best poets on his author list. He once told me that he publishes books for people he is confident are good readers who can promote their books. That is one thing a writer will not get from a small press – book promotion. They don’t have the staff or time to do that. It is up to the author to build a readership and promote his work.

Kevin Watson, founder of Press 53, in Winston-Salem, NC  answered my questions as well and gave me great insight into what it takes for a small press to accept your manuscript and publish your book. 

Press 53, which opened in 2005, quickly began earning a reputation as a quality publishing house of short fiction and poetry collections.

With all the information from Scott Owens, Main Street Rag and Press 53, I will be able to speak to those who want to publish poetry books as well as short fiction.

Today, writers are often in a hurry to get their first book out to the public. They can do this by paying for the publishing or printing themselves. Tom Davis helps people self-publish, and his website fully explains what a writer needs to know about that process.

We ask that everyone hold their questions until the end when we will have a question and answer session. Nothing is more irritating to the audience than people who interrupt the speakers with personal questions.

We will have a short break when audience members can talk with the panelists.

We hope all local writers will mark December 12, 2015 on their calendar. Our speakers will have their books for sale and will be happy to sign them for you.

This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network—West, a program of the state literary organization, the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

The Mountain Writers, January Jumpstart XVI - January 8-10, 2016, Morristown, TN

Mark your calendars for The Mountain Writers' January Jumpstart XVI on January 8-10, 2016. It will be at the Best Western Morristown Conference Center in Morristown, TN, at Exit 8 off I-81. By popular demand, Pamela Duncan will lead Fiction and Connie Jordan Green returns to lead Poetry. Saturday session will run 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. and Sunday session 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. (EST).



Additional Information: Contact Sue Richardson Orr at theorrs@usit.net

Curiosity Shop Bookstore, Murphy, NC, to host book signing Sat. 11/28/15, 11 AM to 3 PM for: It’s All Relative: Tales from the Tree, from 50 WNC Women Writers

Celia H. Miles and Nancy Dillingham, are co-editors and contributors of a new anthology by 50 women writers from western North Carolina, entitled: It’s All Relative: Tales from the Tree – celebrating the lives of women and their connections with their families.

Celia Miles, a native of Appalachia, was a long-time English instructor at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. She is retired and living in Asheville, does freelance editing and writing in various genres.

Nancy Dillingham is a writer, educator and a sixth-generation native from Big Ivy in Western North Carolina. She currently lives in Asheville, NC.

Local authors who contributed to It's all Relative, are from Clay County, Glenda Council Beall, M.C. Brooks, and Blanche L.Ledford. Cherokee County authors who contributed are, Lucy Cole Gratton, Mary Rickertson, and Peg Russell.

The Curiosity Shop Bookstore in Murphy, NC will host the book signing this Saturday, 11/28/2015, from 11 AM to 3 PM. Please come out and show your support for these local authors!

Glenda Council Beall, a Georgia native, lives in Hayesville, NC, and is the owner and director of 'Writers Circle Around the Table', a studio for writers. She also teaches writing in the continuing education department at Tri-County Community College in Murphy, NC. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and in anthologies. Beall has also published short stories and personal essays. She has a poetry chapbook, entitled: Now Might as Well be Then, and a family history book Profiles and Pedigrees.
 
M.C. Brooks was a student in one of Glenda Council Beall's memoir writing class at Tri-County Community College in Murphy, NC.

Blanche L.Ledford is a native Appalachian poet, who co-authored the book Simplicity with her daughter Brenda Kay Ledford. Her work has been in many Old Mountain Press Anthologies, and the NCWN-West anthology, Echos Across the Blue Ridge. She also wrote the book, Planting by the Signs, which won the Paul Green Multi-media award from the NC Society of Historians, in 2012.

Lucy Cole Gratton, a native of Decatur, Georgia, has been writing for herself for many years, only lately seeking to publish with some success both nationally and internationally. She has been published in the Wild Goose Poetry Review, is the editor of the book, Red Fox Run, and has a chapbook published entitled, Inagehi.
 
Mary Ricketson has had her poetry published in many journals, has a chapbook called, I Hear the River Call my Name, and is the author of Hanging Dog Creek. She is also published in the NCWN-West anthology, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge and in the book, Red Fox Run. She also has a chapbook, I Hear the River Call My Name. Mary is the Cherokee County Representative for the North Carolina Writers Network-West and is the president of Ridgeline Literary Alliance.

Peg Russell is a poet and writer. She is the former Prose leader for the NCWN-West Prose Workshop and is published in the NCWN-West anthology, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge. Russell also writes short essays.

Retired Mountain Journalist Writes Mystery/Thriller Novels

          Murphy, NC novelist Wally Avett got a Christmas surprise early this year, when he was notified that Amazon will include two of his books in their annual  Holiday Gift Guide listing.

          MURDER IN CANEY FORK and LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE will be among books recommended by Amazon as downloads at $1.99 each during the entire month of December.

          “I’m very happy about the opportunity for sales and exposure,” Avett said this week. “Last year Amazon picked CANEY FORK for its Daily Deal for just one day and it spiked for a week, selling several thousand copies.”

          A graduate of the UNC Journalism School, Avett worked on several Tar Heel daily newspapers before settling in the extreme southwestern tip of the state as editor of the weekly CHEROKEE SCOUT newspaper for the decade of the 70’s.

          He served as Murphy’s town manager during the 1980’s and then pursued a career in sales – outdoor advertising, manufactured housing and then real estate, selling mountain homes to Florida retirees.

          Along the way he did some magazine writing but always dreamed of writing fiction.  He still writes a regular column, HILLBILLY   RANGER, for the local paper in Murphy.

          In the past three years he found an agent, Jeanie Loiacono of Houston, and his four completed novels were published.  They are available at Amazon Books and also at several sites in Murphy.

          “I love a good story,” he says.  “And therefore all my writing is inspired by true incidents, molded to fit my fiction.  CANEY FORK , for example, is based on the true story of a vigilante slaying in a Southern state during World War II.”

          BIGFOOT is a wild rollicking tale written for the homefolks in Murphy with a gentle love story, a little humor and a cast of characters often recognizable to local readers.

          REBEL BUSHWHACKER and COOSA FLYER were both published in 2015, both heavily inspired by local history.

          BUSHWHACKER is a bloody tale of the partisan raiding in the mountains during the Civil War, a number of true incidents included in the fictional treatment, especially the atrocities of real-life southern guerilla, John P. Gatewood.

          FLYER is pure fiction but was inspired by the life of pioneer Georgia aviator Micajah Clark Dyer, who invented and flew a primitive aircraft at least 20 years before the Wright Brothers.

          Avett lives with Dean, his wife of 52 years, on a large creek just outside Murphy. He is a gardener, outdoorsman, Sunday school teacher, gospel singer and reluctant handyman who sometimes tells funny stories.

Avett has joined NCWN, and we welcome him to NCWN-West.

On December 12, Saturday, 1 - 3 p.m. at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC, Wally along with Tom Davis and Deanna Klingel and Glenda Beall will present a panel discussion on publishing and marketing. This is a free event held by NCWN-West and is open to the community at no charge. 

         

          

Vicki Lane Mysteries: An Edible Blast from the Past --

Vicki Lane Mysteries: An Edible Blast from the Past --

Poet John Hoppenthaler will be reading at Young Harris College, Young Harris, Georgia, Monday, November 16, 7:00 PM

Writers and lovers of the written word, note that Poet John Hoppenthaler will be at Young Harris College, Monday, November 16, 7:00 PM, in the Hatcher Room, Rollins Campus Center, Young Harris College, 1 College St, Young Harris, GA 30582..

The event is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow.

John Hoppenthaler's first book of poems is Lives of Water (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2003). His poetry appears in Ploughshares, Southern Review, Pleiades, 5 AM, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney's, Barrow Street, and elsewhere; his essays, interviews, and reviews in Arts&Letters, Southern Review, Chelsea, Bellingham Review, and the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry. The Poetry Editor of Kestrel, he teaches at East Carolina University in Greenville.
Here's a link to some of John's poems:http://www.versedaily.org/2008/aboutjohnhoppenthaleratcr.shtml

2 Very Cool Poets at Writers' Night Out--Tonight, Lucky Fri. 13th

Katie Chaple & Travis Denton from Atlanta

Poets, Editors, Professors, Great Readers. Cool Couple

7 pm, Union County Community Center, Blairsville, GA

Open mic follows: sign up at door, 3 minutes each reader for poetry or prose

Map (note, the Holiday Inn on map is now a Comfort Inn): http://www.uccommunitycenter.com/location.html

Water Running Downhill, Words of Empowerment Rose Edition, by Joan Ellen Gage, dedicated to Rose Helena Macedo Kull

Rose

Joan Ellen Gage has published an edition of Water Running Downhill!, the Rose Edition,  which is dedicated to her friend Rose. She had wanted to feature her as one of her photo creations, but never got to do that. So, the next best thing was for her to honor Rose in this book.

Rose was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on her 60^th birthday. She was a fighter, and eventually was on a monthly chemo regimen. Rose was determined to be there for her family. They lost her much too early.

So here’s to Rose, one of Joan's heroes! Here is a poem from Water Running Downhill!, the Rose Edition:

ONE TRIBE

 Have you felt

With passing years

A more pressing

Need to connect

With other women

To share observations

And laughter

To offer advice

Or garner wisdom?

Do you feel drawn

As if by a magnetic force

To be with your own kind?

For these women

Are a tribe, your tribe.

No one else will ever

Understand your struggle

As they will.

Women are our people.

When we come together

We feel a oneness

A sisterhood united.

When we come together

We are at home.

Joan Ellen Gage is an author of humor and inspiration written from her own unique perspective. Her recipe for her writing focuses on staying upbeat and laughing at her own foibles. Joan’s photos are the spice in the mix that serve to punctuate the writing and add that special garnish to her creations. 

Bio:  

Joan has written and published five books, Water Running Downhill!, Embracing Your Inner Cheerleader!, A Redhead Looks At 60, Trinity's Adventures in Imagination, and a special edition of Water Running Downhill! the Rose Edition as a tribute to her friend Rose Helena Macedo Kull. All available as eBooks.

Joan has given several author talks, and had several radio interviews. She is a member of her area’s writing group, NC Writers’ Network-West, serving as an administrator for their blog. Additionally, Ms. Gage has two blogs, Traveling at the Speed of Now, www.joanellengage.com,and A Redhead Blogs at 60!, https://joanszoneblogalicious @wordpress.com.

Joan lives in Western North Carolina with her husband and their Belgian Tervuren dog, Magnolia.

Martha O. Adams to have a poem appear with a review of her book, Buried Seed, in the Dec. 2015 issue of WNC Woman Magazine

Martha O. Adams will have a poem that will appear along with a review of her book, Buried Seed, in the Dec. issue of WNC Woman magazine. Here is one of her poems from Buried Seed:

Words
 

Words
Disappear
In flame and marrow
Deaf ears can’t protect
Survive a while woven into linen
Linger in a last goodbye unsaid
Hover over pain stifled lips of the dead
Like cold dread hidden
In a curled leaf
Traces remain
Glued to a slap, a strap
A haunt, a swoon; that scent
A name
Fitful ghosts
Under the tongue.