Our Membership - Where are our members?

Tonight I spent much of my time correlating names of NCWN West members with their proper email groups. When new writers join us, in order to keep up with them, I make sure their names are in my contact list and in the right place.

When I want to send an email to local members in Cherokee County, I need all the members in that county to be listed in my contact list for Cherokee County. I do the same for Clay and all the other counties that make up our region. 

Barb Haynes, Mike Keller, Linda Smith and Estelle Rice at Joe's Coffee house in Hayesville, NC where we met for Coffee with the Poets and Writers.

 

We have members that live in Georgia. I have a GA members list of contacts. That is part of my job as NCWN-West program Coordinator. No one says I must do this. I do it in order to organize members in a way I can easily contact them by email.

Because our region covers such a wide area, geographically, events in Clay County might not be of interest in Henderson County north of Clay. With the terrain we have in the mountains, some writers will not want to travel one hundred miles to attend a conference or another literary event if they have to drive on winding roads and over steep mountains.

That is why our program, NCWN-West, was created back in the early 90s. Travel is just not easy here even with good highways. Weather can play havoc on a trip if it is icy on top of Franklin Mountain. Folks in Highlands or Brevard will not likely head down to Murphy when it is snowing and the roads might be slick.

Thankfully, we now have the Internet and e-mail to connect us. It is not the same as attending an event and networking with other writers, but it helps fill the void of isolation that writers can feel when they don’t have someone to talk to or someone who will listen to them read their work.

We don’t have enough members in Swain County or up in Bryson City to create a community at this time, but I hope we can do so soon. There are writers in that area who travel down to Sylva, NC to attend meetings at City Lights Books. We would like to have them become a part of NCWN-West so we could reach out to them and see how we might be of service to them. Our mission is to support writers in the mountain area, but if we don’t know the writers and if they don’t reach out to us, we cannot be of use to them.

Glenda Beall, Wayne Drumheller, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, Lana Hendershott, Nancy Simpson, Nancy Purcell, and JC Walkup at the Book Festival in Hendersonville a few years ago.

I hope before too long I will have a contact list for Swain County and for Graham County members. If anyone reading this post lives in those areas, please email me or call me. Our community of writers here in the mountains is growing and up to 94 members at this time. With that many writers I’m sure all kinds of genres are represented and all kinds of creative minds are fulfilling their goals or at least working toward fulfilling them. Perhaps we can point you in the right direction. It is easy to join us. Just visit www.ncwriters.org and join online. When you become a member of NCWN, you are automatically a member of NCWN-West and will not pay any extra dues. You get two for one and that doesn’t happen often.  See our contact info on the sidebar of this page.

NCWN-West members are known for their generosity toward each other. Instead of competition, we embrace community and helping other writers in whatever way we can.

Meeting in Regional Room at City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC

 

 

 

Loren Leith, Maren O. Mitchell, and Rosemary R. Royston to read at JCCFS, The Literary Hour, Wednesday, April 18, 2018

On Wednesday, April 18, 2018, at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and NC Writers' Network-West will sponsor The Literary Hour. At this event, NCWN-West members will read at the Keith House on the JCCFS campus, in Brasstown, NC. The Literary Hour is held on the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise indicated. This reading is free of charge and open to the public. This month's featured readers will be:  Karen Paul Holmes, Maren O. Mitchell, and Rosemary Rhodes Royston.

Loren Leith is the author of MOSQ, by Shepherd Graham (pen name), winner of the Silver Royal Palm Literary Award and the Pascoe Award for Best Thriller of 2011. She is the recipient of the RPLA award for her short, nonfiction story, My Box Top Cat from God. Leith is known for her powerful, poignant, and often humorous nonfiction short stories, soon to be published in book-collection format.

Leith has published numerous professional and scientific articles and authored speeches given to nation-wide psychology-conference audiences.

She is the Founder and Director of Wordsworth Editing, and previously held a position as Literary Judge for the University of Montclair.

Maren O. Mitchell: A prolific writer,Mitchell’s poems appear in POEM, The Comstock Review, Slant, A Journal of Poetry, The Pedestal Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Chiron Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Lake (UK), Skive (AU), The Classical Outlook, Town Creek Poetry, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Appalachian Journal, The Arts Journal and Red Clay Reader #4.

Her work is included in The Crafty Poet II: a Portable Workshop; The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins; The Southern Poetry Anthologies, V & VII; Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems; Sunrise from Blue Thunder; Nurturing Paws; and Echoes across the Blue Ridge.

Poems have been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize by the contributing editors of Pushcart.

Mitchell's nonfiction book, Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide, is available on Amazon and through www.lineofsightpress.com.

Rosemary Rhodes Royston: Her chapbook, Splitting the Soil, is currently available through Finishing Line Press and amazon. Her poetry and flash fiction have been published in the following journals: Southern Poetry Review, Appalachian Heritage, NANO Fiction, The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, The Museum of Americana, Razor Literary Magazine, The Kentucky Review, Town Creek, *82 Review, KUDZU, Coal Hill Review, STILL, Literal Latte, New Southerner, Flycatcher, Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V: Georgia, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Motif version 3, and Alehouse. 

Two of Royston's essays are included in the anthology Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets (McFarland). Books reviews have been published in Prairie Schooner and, most recently, Appalachian Heritage. 

She holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University. Read an interview with Rosemary at Writer’s Digest. Royston blogs at: https://theluxuryoftrees.wordpress.com/.

Brenda Kay Ledford to read at Coffee with the Poets and Writers, April, 18, 2018, at Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC

Brenda Kay Ledford, local poet, will read at Coffee with the Poets and Writers, on Wednesday, April 18, 2018, at the Moss Memorial Library, 26 Anderson Street, Hayesville, NC, 28904, at 10:30 AM. Admission is free, and the public is welcome to attend.

A seventh-generational native of Clay County, NC, Brenda Kay Ledford is a retired educator. She received her Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University and studied Journalism at the University of Tennessee. Ledford holds a Creative Writing diploma of highest honors from Stratford Career Institute.

She’s listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, North Carolina Literary Map, and Who’s Who in America. Ledford belongs to North Carolina Writer’s Network, North Carolina Poetry Society, Georgia Poetry Society, and is a charter member of Byron Herbert Reece Society.

Her work has appeared in many journals including Our State, Pembroke Magazine, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Asheville Poetry Review, Town Creek Poetry, Charlotte Poetry Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review, The Broad River Review, and 30 Old Mountain Press anthologies.

Finishing Line Press published her three poetry chapbooks:  Sacred Fire, Shewbird Mountain, and Beckoning. Aldrich Press printed her poetry book, Crepe Roses, that won the 2015 Paul Green Award from North Carolina Society of Historians. Ledford has won the Paul Green Award nine times for her poetry books, collecting oral history on the Southern Appalachian history, and her blogs.

Ledford blogs at:  http://blueridgepoet.blogspot.com

http://historicalhayesville.blogspot.com

http://claycountyyore.blogspot.com

Those who have heard Brenda Kay Ledford read her poetry understand her love for the mountains and the people who live here.

We urge those who plan to read at Open Mic, bring a poem by one of our co-founders, Nancy Simpson or Kathryn Stripling Byer if you can. We are honoring them this month, as it is National Poetry Month.

To participate in the Open Mic session, we request readings be limited to one or two poems or no more than three pages, double-spaced, prose writing. NCWN-West is a program of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, one of the largest state literary organizations in the country.

Contact Glenda C. Beall, glendabeall@msn.com for more information or phone: 828-389-4441.