Barrett and Paine Featured at Coffee with the Poets and Writers October 16

 

        

Glenda Barrett

Coffee with the Poets and Writers (CWPW) will feature poet Glenda Barrett and writer/ storyteller Roy Paine on Wednesday, October 16, at 10:30 a.m. at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC. The event is free and open to the public. An open mic will follow the presentations. Bring a poem or a short prose piece to participate. CWPW is sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network-West (NCWN-W) which also includes writers in Towns, Union, Fannin, and Rabun Counties in Georgia.

        Glenda Barrett is a native of Hiawassee, Georgia. She writes poems and essays that have been published yearly since 1997, including Woman's World, Country Woman, Now & Then Magazine, and Journal of Kentucky Studies. She is the author of two books, a chapbook titled When the Sap Rises, published by Finishing Line Press, and a full-length poetry book titled The Beauty of Silence, published by Aldrich Press.

        Glenda is an avid reader and also a visual artist. Her artwork is online at Fine Art America. She is retired from healthcare and feels fortunate to be able to do the things she loved as a child, painting and writing. She lives in Hiawassee with her husband of forty-six years.

Roy Paine

 

        Roy Paine was raised near Boston and lived his entire life within ten miles of his birthplace, except for four years when he was in the military. He served in the US Navy from 1981-1985 attaining the rank of Petty Officer Second Class (E5). During his time in the Navy, he earned the Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal.

        He moved to the mountains in Nantahala National Forest of North Carolina in 2016, and the relaxing atmosphere immediately inspired him to write. Besides writing stories, Roy likes telling them through the spoken word story as an art form. He won first place in the Amateur Division at the Stone Soup Storytelling Festival in Woodruff, South Carolina in 2017.

        Roy published his first book Bumbly Bee Can't Fly in December of 2017. When he is not writing, he enjoys hiking, camping, and fishing.

        For more information about this event, please contact Glenda Beall at: glendabeall@msn.com.

 

Submitted by Carroll S. Taylor

ATTENTION POETS:

CROSSWINDS POETRY IS CALLING FOR SUBMISSIONS

Crosswinds is pleased to announce that Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet and recipient of several notable literary awards,

will judge this year's contest.

Grand Prize - $ 1,000.00

Second Prize - $  250.00

Third Prize -  $    100.00

All winners will be announced in Poets & Writers Magazine, on our web-site, and in other announcements.

As a reminder, all poems will be considered for publication. A minimum of one hundred poems to be published in our Spring edition. 

For guidelines, sample copies

or to pre-order the upcoming issue

www.crosswindspoetry.com

Open Mic at City Lights, Sylva, 10/4, 7 pm

The Jackson County branch of the North Carolina Writers' Network-West is hosting its monthly Open Mic night tomorrow, 10/4/19, at City Lights Bookstore on Spring Street in Sylva, NC.  Come out to read with a small but diverse and supportive audience and have some wine and cookies at 7:00 p.m.!

Meet our Writers' Night Out Headliners: Linda Jones & Alan Cone

October 11, 7 pm

Union County Community Center

Blairsville, GA

Open Mic follows the reading

Join us for Linda's intelligent, heartfelt poetry; and Alan's smart, quirky prose. (Read his bio below for a sample). 

Linda Grayson Jones is an Associate Professor of Biology and Dean of Math and Science at Young Harris College. She has read and written poetry since childhood and recalls reading The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes to her third-grade classmates. With a B.S. in Biology from Stetson University, an M.A. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Pathology from Vanderbilt University, Linda's career path was primarily in academic biomedical research, but in 2009 she returned to her first love—teaching. She remains a reader and writer of poetry and is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. She credits North Carolina poet Nancy Simpson (1938-2018) for encouraging her to use Grayson Jones as her published poet’s name.

 Alan Cone is the author of many short stories and a novel, The History of the Decline and Fall of Roland Arnheiter. He explains that he “comes to North Georgia by way of Texas, on our nation’s frontier, where a man writes with both fists or perishes.” Alan's work is anchored always in a common man’s self-effacing humility. His penchant for dry humor and sarcasm is reflected in his artist’s statement: “With acuity and wisdom, with perceptiveness and whimsy, I usher audiences through an odyssey of freshman-level erudition and beyond. My quietly courageous abasement of the writer’s dais will leave you challenged, thoughtful, hungry for less.”  He also admits that he does not actually smoke a pipe.

Writing Classes and Writers You Should Know

If you have never spent a week or even a weekend at the John C. Campbell Folk School, then you want to take a look at the writing classes planned for the coming months.

My students in a Folk School class I taught a few years ago.

Here are some of the instructors that I know. Wish I could go and take classes with each of them myself.

If you write novels or fiction of any kind, check out Vicki Lane. Such a nice lady and a writer with so many followers and fans she has to keep them entertained with her blog and her photographs between books in the series she writes. June 7 – June 13, A Practical Guide to Writing Popular Fiction.

Carol Crawford, my dear friend, will teach again at JCCFS. Besides being the kindest and nicest person I know, she always teaches me something that helps me to write a little better. She is a poet, a wonderful essayist and an editor. If you haven’t had a class with Carol, register now for her Creative Writing class January 12 – 28. 

Some of you might not know, but Carol was our facilitator for the Netwest Poetry group when I first moved here to the mountains years ago. When I was too scared to read a poem out loud, she helped me find my courage.

Valerie Nieman is teaching again at JCCFS. Her books are filled with interesting characters and you will find her interesting and so knowledgeable about everything regarding writing and publishing. How fortunate we are in our area to have Valerie teach here each year. The Breath of Life: Discovering and Depicting Characters

Karen Paul Holmes, a poet whose work I know so well and enjoy so much will teach a weekend class, Love Songs and Poetry. I think I’ll sign up now to be sure I get in.

Darnell Arnoult, who taught classes for NCWN-West many times over the years, will teach at JCCFS in March. Mining the Mother Lode, Making the Most of Your Material. Sounds like a class I would like to take.

View from behind the Orchard House, the writing studio

Remember: If you are a local resident, you can often take classes for half the fee. Call and sign up for the waiting list or go online to www.folkschool.org