Poet Karen Paul Holmes to read at Coffee with the Poets & Writers, Wednesday, July 18, 2018, at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC

On Wednesday, July 18, 2018, 10:30 AM, Coffee with the poets and writers will feature poet Karen Paul Holmes. This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network-West, a program of the North Carolina Writers' Network. It will be held at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC, and is free and open to the public. An open mic will follow the reading. Holmes is a local favorite and will be sure to have an excellent following.

Karen Paul Holmes splits her time between Atlanta and the Blue Ridge Mountains. She is a former Vice President-Marketing Communications at ING, a global financial services company, but now leads a kinder gentler life as a freelance writer and poet. Holmes finds joy participating in poetry readings and supporting poetry.

A member of the North Carolina Writers' Network, the Atlanta Writers Club, and the Georgia Poetry Society, Holmes has studied with poets: Thomas Lux, Denise Duhamel, Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, William Wright, Carol Ann Duffy, and Nancy Simpson (whom she counts as her first poetry mentor).

Holmes has two full-length poetry collections, No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin Books, 2018) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich Press, 2014). In 2012, she received an Elizabeth George Foundation emerging writer grant for poetry. She was chosen as a Best Emerging Poet in 2016 by Stay Thirsty Media. Publications include Prairie Schooner, Valparaiso Review, Tar River Poetry, Poet Lore and other journals and anthologies. Holmes hosts a critique group in Atlanta and Writers’ Night Out in Blairsville, GA, which she founded. She also teaches writing classes at the Folk School, Writer’s Circle, and other venues. Please find Holmes' links here:

https://www.karenpaulholmes.com/

https://www.facebook.com/karenholmespoetry

Coffee with the Poets and Writers if sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network-West. For more information, please contact Glenda Beall at:

glendabeall@msn.com

FLASH FICTION CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Pat Meece Davis, NC Writers Network West member from Brevard has announced the winners of the Flash Fiction Contest for NCWN West members only.

Our winners:

    1. "The Gift" by Lorraine Bennett

Lorraine Bennett

Lorraine grew up in Murphy, NC, graduated with her high school class journalism medal and received a scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill.

   Her career began on the Atlanta Journal where she covered news and met her husband. His job took them west. She was hired by the Los Angeles Times and became the newspaper’s first woman to head a domestic bureau.

   The Bennetts returned to Atlanta and she joined fledgling CNN as a news writer. She became copy editor, producer and editorial manager before ending her career at CNN International.

   She retired in 2006 and built a farmhouse on Martins Creek family land. She still practices her craft by covering county government and copy editing for the Clay County Progress weekly.

   She is trying to leap from journalist to novelist and finished her first book, a psychological thriller, last year. She is writing a sequel and seeking an agent.

 

    2. "Show Me the Cache" by Bob Grove

Bob Grove

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Bob Grove earned his Bachelor’s degree at Kent State University and his Master’s degree at Florida Atlantic University. During his 17-year public school career, he taught courses in English, science, and psychology. He has published 19 books and hundreds of articles in 24 magazines, including his own, Monitoring Times. His writings have earned several gold medals in the North Carolina Silver Arts literature competition. 
 As a public affairs director for an ABC-TV station, he hosted numerous programs. Now retired, he is a prose critique facilitator for the North Carolina Writers Network and an officer for the Ridgeline Literary Alliance. Bob’s public readings are popular as a performance art form, typified by his well-attended annual reading, in costume and multiple character dialects, of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.  

 

     3. "Mother-Daughter Act" by Nancy Swanson

Nancy Swanson

Nancy Swanson is a retired educator living just outside of Brevard. She was a winner of the 2003 South Carolina Fiction Project, and her poetry has been published in English Journal, South Carolina Review, and Chattahoochee Review, among others. This year she won the Sidney Lanier Poetry Award for poetry. She and her husband, Ben, share four children, one grandchild, and a love for mountain trails. She thanks her writing mentors, Nancy Purcell and Darlene O'Dell, as well as her writing groups for their encouragement and support.

 

Congratulations to our winners and thank you to all who entered the contest.

A special thanks to Pat Davis who has facilitated this contest for the second time and to the judges who are not members of NCWN West, but are experienced and well published writers. 
 

 Pat Meese Davis, author of books for children

 

Local Poets will read their work that witnesses to “The Magic of These Mountains,” Friday July 6, 2018, at the Towns County Library, Hiawassee, GA

Friday, July 6, 2018, poets Glenda Barrett, Joan Howard and Mary Ricketson will read their poetry that witnesses to the magic of the mountains surrounding us. The event will be held at the Towns County Library, in Hiawassee, GA, from 3 to 5 PM. 

Glenda Barrett, a native of Hiawassee, Georgia, is an artist, poet, and writer. Her work has been widely published since her first writing class in 1997 and has appeared in: Woman's World, Farm & Ranch Living, Country Woman, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Journal of Kentucky Living, Nantahala Review, Rural Heritage, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Kaleidoscope Magazine and many more.

Barrett is the author of two poetry books, When the Sap Rises, from Finishing Line Press, and The Beauty of Silence, from Kelsay Books. Both books are available on Amazon.com. Barrett is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Mary A.Ricketson, of Murphy NC, has been writing poetry for 20 years; to satisfy a hunger, to taste life down to the very last drop. She is inspired by nature and her work as a mental health counselor. Her poetry has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and Freeing Jonah. 

Ricketson has three published books, I Hear the River Call my Name, from Finishingline Press, Hanging Dog Creek, from FutureCycle Press, and Shade and Shelter, from Kelsay Books. All books are available on Amazon.com. Ricketson is Cherokee County's Representative for the NCWN-West, and is the president of Ridgeline Literary Alliance.

Joan M. Howard’s poetry has been published in POEM, The Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry, the Aurorean, Lucid Rhythms, Victorian Violet, the Wayfarer and other literary journals. She has two books, Death and Empathy: My Sister Web, available on Amazon.com and  Jack, Love and the Daily Grail,  available from Kelsay Books and Amazon.com.   

Howard is a former teacher with an MA in German and English literature and member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Light refreshments will be available, and the public is invited to this free event. The Town's County Library address is: 99 South Berrong Street, Hiawassee, GA 30546; their phone is:  706-896-6169.

Popular NC poets to read on Wednesday, June 27, 2018, at the JCCFS, Brasstown, NC

At 7:00 PM on Wednesday, June 27, 2018, the John C. Campbell Folk School and the 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 usually 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 Linda Grayson Jones, Brenda Kay Ledford, and Maura Payne Way.

Linda Grayson Jones

Linda Grayson Jones has read and written poetry since childhood and recalls reading The Highwayman to her 3rd grade classmates. She has a B.S. in Biology from Stetson University, an M.A. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Pathology from Vanderbilt University. Her career path has been primarily in academic biomedical research, but in 2009 she returned to her first love—teaching. 

Jones is currently an Associate Professor of Biology and Dean of Math and Science at Young Harris College. She remains a reader and writer of poetry and is a member of North Carolina Writer’s Network.  She credits Nancy Simpson for encouraging her to use Grayson Jones as her published poet’s name.

Brenda Kay Ledford

Brenda Kay Ledford is a seventh-generational native of Clay County, NC.  She was an honor graduate of Hayesville High School, earned her Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University, and received a diploma of highest honors in Creative Writing from Stratford Career Institute. 

Her work has appeared in many journals.  Her latest poetry collection, "Crepe Roses," won the 2015 Paul Green Multimedia Award from NC Society of Historians.  She's won this award 10 times for her books, blogs, and collecting oral history of Southern Appalachia.

Her life-experience essay, "The Front Porch," won first place in the 2018 Cherokee/Clay County Senior Games Silver Arts Literary Contest.  She qualified for the State Finals that will be held this fall in Raleigh.

Maura Payne Way: Originally from Washington, D.C, Maura now makes her home in Greensboro, NC. Her debut collection, Another Bungalow, was released by Press 53 in 2017. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, O. Henry Magazine, Verse, DIAGRAM, and The Chattahoochee Review.

Payne studied poetry at Mary Washington College and Boise State University. In addition to her being a poet, Maura teaches 9th and 10th grade English at New Garden Friends School. She has been a teacher for twenty years.