Five Brothers in the Civil War

Brenda Kay Ledford and Barbara Ledford Wright's essay, "Five Brothers in the Civil War," was published online at the North Carolina Civil War Center.

You may view their story at:  www.nccivilwarcenter.org/stories

A Christmas Poem

Snow at Christmas
by Glenda C. Beall

Silent December snow covers
grey mountain forests, clings
to thin bare branches of oaks,
poplar and ash.

It mounds on brown wide leaves
still hanging on to stubborn trees
that, until now, denied winter’s presence.
Holly bushes crowned with snow

create photo ops for Christmas cards.
Rooftops iced in white, frosted
gingerbread houses, await
Santa's footsteps.

Red ribbons on our mailbox
collect crystal flakes
within curving bows,
on bunched pine boughs.

Kayla hangs her stocking, dreams
of Barbie dolls, gift wrapped boxes
piled high beneath her brilliant
Christmas tree.

We light a candle in the snow.
Pray for children around the world,
who long for peace, a cup of soup,
an end to fear -- an end to
war.

http://netwestwriters.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-christmas-poem.html

Marketing/Selling a Poetry Book: 3 Ideas

Unfortunately, poetry can be a hard sell...

especially to audiences who don't read it because they think it is stuffy or impossible to understand. 

My book, Untying the Knot (Aldrich Press, 2014) came out 19 months ago, but it is just now picking up speed from a marketing perspective. What have I learned? Here are three ideas you might try:


1. Belong to special interest groups on Facebook or other social media. I don't really know much about social media except Facebook (FB) and LinkedIn. But I have found FB to be invaluable. I belong to poetry groups where I've made connections with poets and editors who have blogged about my book/poems and/or published reviews or interviews with me. See number 2 for other opportunities that resulted from FB. 

Me at a reading from 

Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems

2. Grab every opportunity to read from your book. Besides the usual poetry reading opportunities and open mics, I have read at a senior citizen's residential community, a women's event at a synagogue (a connection made through my neighborhood's FB, though I'm not Jewish), and a professional women's networking luncheon (also a neighborhood FB connection).

3. Promote yourself as a subject matter expert, and as such, find opportunities to guest blog for national publications. Your subject could be writing, which would be fine. But because my book is the story of my divorce and healing, I wanted to reach a broader audience, one that doesn't necessarily read poetry. I was prompted to do this because people kept telling me that my book helped them and that they bought it for friends who were going through divorce.  I found a way to reach non-writer audiences by connecting with divorce groups on FB and reaching out to the editors with my idea of sharing my story -- each article I wrote would include a poem and the true story of how the poem came about. DivorceMagazine.com said yes, so I have posted three articles now. They were the first divorce related publication on the internet -- 17,000 people follow them on Twitter, and their FB page has 6300 likes. 

And... the exciting thing is that my last article was picked up by Huffington Post and re-published in the divorce section of their online news site. Their site has 79 million unique monthly users. I don't know how many book sales this will result in (I know of 2 that happened immediately), but I'm happy for the wide reach, and if I can help people who are suffering, that's a wonderful thing. Secondly, if I can promote poetry (in general, not just mine) to an audience who thinks they don't like poetry and change a few people's minds about that... then I've done a good thing for all poets, and that makes me very happy.

Here's a link to the Huffing Post article: Forgiving the Other Woman

Good luck to you with your writing and the promoting of your work!
________

Untying the Knot by Karen Paul Holmes is a "courageous, deeply human" book, according to internationally known poet, Thomas Lux, told with "grace, humor, self-awareness, and without a dollop of self-pity." Available on Amazon 

 

Karen's website

 

Karen's poetry Facebook page

Sylva NC, Coffee with the Poet - City Lights Bookstore

Coffee with the Poet Featuring Randi Janelle

The Coffee with the Poet series continues on Thursday, December 17th at 10:30 a.m. at City Lights Bookstore. The December gathering will feature performance poet and novelist Randi Janelle. She will share her poetry and also read from her novel, The Story: Deviation. She has performed her poetry in New Zealand, Australia and regularly performs in Asheville.

The Coffee with the Poet series is cosponsored by NCWN-West, a program  of the North Carolina Writers Network and gathers on the third Thursday of each month. For more information about Coffee with the Poet please call City Lights Bookstore at 828-586-9499.

 

Event date: 

Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 10:30 a.m.

Event address: 

3 East Jackson St.

Sylva, NC 28779

December 16, 2015, 10:00 AM – Coffee with the Poets and Writers – Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC

 

Coffee with the Poets and Writers will have their annual holiday program on Wednesday, December 16, 2015, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC. It will be open mic, so bring your Christmas or holiday poems, short stories, or essays of your original work.

Refreshments will be served.

Everyone will take home a gift. This is the time our members can sign up to read for next year. We will not meet in January and February.

BOB GROVE PERFORMS A CHRISTMAS CAROL AT THE JOHN C. CAMPBELL FOLK SCHOOL

Bob Grove, author and member of NCWN-West is quite the performer. Wednesday evening at the John C. Campbell Folk School, he will gift us with his annual reading of A Christmas Carol.
 Bob always gives a wonderful performance. Come out and enjoy. See Bob's announcement below.

Just a reminder that tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 7 p.m. at the Folk School I wil be doing my annual performance reading of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I will be in period costume and do the best I can with a wide variety of character dialogues. This one-hour abridged version of his popular volume was actually written by Dickens himself to facilitate such readings.

My performance will be followed by a musical treat from the Folk School dancers. I hope to see you there.

Bob

BOB GROVE PERFORMING A CHRISTMAS CAROL

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.