Poet Maren O. Mitchell has poems published in Hotel Amerika and The Lake, Poetry journals

Maren O. Mitchell’s poems are published this spring in the following journals: “U for a Time,” and “An Amputated M,” in Hotel Amerika; “What matters is that I” and “What doesn’t matter to me” in the May online issue of The Lake (UK), the link: http://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk/poetry/maren-o-mitchell/ ; “Welcome home, meteor,” and “How to Grow Younger in One Night” in Tar River Poetry; “Hearing/Listening” and “Mourning Doves” in POEM; “Curriculum Vitae” in Slant, A Journal of Poetry; and “Dancing with the Refrigerator,” “Night Light” and “Travels in Good Sleeping Weather” in Poetry East, Barcelona 93/94 Issue.

Maren O. Mitchell: a North Carolina native, in her childhood Maren O. Mitchell lived in Bordeaux, France, and Kaiserslautern, Germany, attending local schools and learning French and German.  After moving throughout the southeast U.S., she now lives with her husband on the edge of a national forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.

Mitchell has worked in a variety of jobs, from proof reader to miller. She taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College, Flat Rock, NC, and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. For over thirty years, across five southeastern states, she has taught origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Due to spinal cord surgery when forty, she spent many years learning how to live well in spite of chronic pain.

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. 

 

Two poems, “X Is a Kiss on Paper” and “T, Totally Balanced,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes by contributing editors of Pushcart. In 2012 she received 1^st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society. Her nonfiction book, Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide, (Line of Sight Press, 2012) www.lineofsightpress.com is on Amazon. Interconnecting with writers throughout mountain towns in northern Georgia, she participates in monthly critique groups and public reading venues.

Local Students receive awards for Simpson Beck Poetry and Songwriting Lyric Contest, April 23, 2018, Hayesville, NC

On Tuesday, April 24, 2018, Hayesville Middle and High Schools received awards for their entries in the Simpson Beck Poetry and Songwriting Lyric Contests. The Clay County Historical and Arts Council (CCHAC) and the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West (NCWN-West) gave awards. Joan Ellen Gage had spearheaded the effort representing NCWN-West, along with Carla Beck, English teacher at Hayesville High School, and Reba Beck, retired teacher from Hayesville High, and a member of the CCHAC.The event was Emceed by Carla and Reba Beck. Ms. Gage was unable to attend.

The Copper Door Restaurant, Brothers Willow Ranch Restaurant, Rib Country in Hayesville, Chevelle’s in Hayesville, and Bowl of Asia, donated NCWN-West’s awards for the judges.

Winners of the Middle School Contest for Poetry were: 1^st place, Dierks Tolley, 2^nd place,  Jasmine Scheuler, and 3^rd place, Addison Bunch.

There were no entries for Songwriting Lyrics for the Middle school.

Winners of the High School Contest for Poetry were: 1^st place, Piper Snowdon, 2^nd place, Paula Murcia, and 3^rd place, Isabella Rogers.

Winner of the High School Contest for Songwriting Lyrics was: 1^st place, Emily Long.

Rosemary Rhodes Royston

Judges for the contests included author Rosemary Rhodes Royston, and musicians and songwriters Rob Tiger, Wyatt Espalin, and Brian Kruger, who were the song-writing lyric judges.. Royston read from her book, Splitting the Soil.

Rob Tiger

Wyatt Espalin

Brian Kruger

Reminder: the Celebration for Nancy Simpson is this Saturday, May 5, 2018, at 2:00 PM, at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC

Writers, please come to the Nancy Simpson Celebration is a show of support for all that Nancy did for the writing community in Western North Carolina, and beyond. It is at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC, in the Keith house in the Community Room, at 2:00 PM, Saturday, May 5, 2018. Here is the link for the event:

https://netwestwriters.blogspot.com/p/celebrating-nancy-simpson.html

https://www.folkschool.org/

Should we rid our work of all adverbs? Only the bad ones.

This is part of a blog post that I found especially interesting. I pound this advice into my students in every class. We all make these mistakes without realizing it. Kristen's post is a valuable one to keep handy and read often. http://authorkristenlamb.com/2018/04/self-editing-writers/

Her writing is humorous but dead on topic. I subscribe to her blog and am never disappointed in what she has to say about writing. In this post: Self-Editing:7 tips to Tighten the Story and Cut Costs, we learn how to self-edit and save money on hiring editors to do what we can do ourselves.

I am offering you just one of her tips here.

#1 DIY Adverb Removal

Despite what you might have been told, not ALL adverbs are evil. Redundant adverbs are evil. If someone shouts loudly? How else are they going to shout? Whispering quietly?

***Wow, glad the author explained how 'whispering' works.

Ah, but if a character whispers seductively? The adverb seductively gives us a quality to the whisper that isn't inherent in the verb. Check your work for adverbs and kill the redundant ones.

Either we need to choose a stronger verb, or we're treating the reader like an idiot.

If a character walks quickly to the train platform, then choose a verb that means 'to walk quickly' (stride, jog, hurry) and use that one instead. If a character yells loudly, ditch the loudly. 

We understand how yelling 'works.'

Send in your poems - deadline is April 30.

Here is a poetry contest our member poets can enter and possibly win a prize.
The North Carolina Literary Review is giving nice prizes to the winners. Check it out.

http://www.nclr.ecu.edu/submissions/applewhite-guidelines.html

James Applewhite Poetry Prize

the 2018 competition final judge will be Amber flora Thomas

First Prize $250 and publication in nclr

Finalists will also be considered for publication in NCLR and NCLR Online.

NCLR considers poetry submissions only through the James Applewhite Poetry Prize competition. New submission period: March 15 through April 30.

Poetry and Song-writing Lyric Contest for Clay County Schools, NC, renamed Simpson Beck Poetryand Song-writing Lyrics Contest

Nancy Simpson

Reba Beck

The Clay County Historical and Arts Council and the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West, in an effort to promote the arts in our community, are again co-sponsoring a poetry writing and a song-writing lyric contest for Hayesville High and Middle Schools this month. The writing contest has been renamed the Simpson Beck Poetry and Song-writing Lyrics Contest, in honor of its founders Nancy Simpson and Reba Beck. 

 

The winners will be announced Monday, April 16, 2018, and the award ceremony for them will take place on Monday, April 23, 2018, at 7:00 PM at the Hayesville High School Lecture Hall. The public is invited to attend this event, and their will be refreshments and cookies.

The poetry judge for the contests is Rosemary Rhodes Royston. She is the author of the book, Splitting the Soil, a widely published poet, a representative of the North Carolina Writers’ Network-West, and a professor of English at Young Harris College.

Songwriting Lyric judges include Rob Tiger, local songwriter and singers, Brian Kruger, and Wyatt Espalin.

For more information, please contact Joan Ellen Gage, at: iamjellen1953@gmail.com

Shelby Stephenson, Poet Laureate of NC and Mary Ricketson to read at the Curiosity Shop Books and Gifts, Murphy, NC, Friday, May 4, 2018

Curiosity Shop Books and Gifts of Murphy, NC and North Carolina Writers' Network West will host a poetry reading with special guest Shelby Stephenson, the North Carolina Poet Laureate, along with Mary Ricketson, local poet and mental health counselor. The readings will be followed by an open mic with local poets, on Friday May 4, 3:30-4:30 pm in the bookstore, 46 Valley River Ave, Murphy NC 28906. 

Both of the featured poets are often inspired by nature and give lively literary presentations.  Poets are invited and encouraged to participate and share their poems aloud with the NC poet laureate.

Stephenson’s work is widely published and often influenced by heritage, his early life on a hog farm in costal NC, and his exquisite observations of ordinary life.  The famed Fred Chappell, former NC Poet Laureate, compares Stephenson to Walt Whitman, saying “a poet like Stephenson will hear words as poetry, every syllable salted with the soil, every sentence a redolent wake of the plowshare.”

Ricketson currently merges her poetry with the healing and empowerment related to her profession as a counselor.

Shelby Stephenson of Benson NC, is Professor Emeritus, UNC-Pembroke, serving as editor of Pembroke Magazine from 1979 until his retirement in 2010.  He received the Distinguished Alumnus Achievement Award, 2015, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison.  His recent books are Paul’s Hill:  Homage to Whitman (Sir Walter Press); Our World (Press 53); Elegies for Small Game (Press 53), winner of Roanoke-Chowan Award; Fiddledeedee (reissue, Press 53); Family Matters:  Homage to July, the Slave Girl (Bellday Books), the Bellday Prize; Maytle’s World (play). 

Mary Ricketson, local mental health counselor and blueberry farmer, has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Old Mountain Press, Whispers, and her books, I Hear the River Call My Name, and Hanging Dog Creek.  She placed first in 2011 Joyce Kilmer national poetry contest.  She writes a monthly column, Woman to Woman, for The Cherokee Scout and has recently released a new collection of poetry, Shade and Shelter, published by Kelsay Books.