Ricketson and Davis Featured at Coffee with the Poets and Writers

Mary Ricketson

            Coffee with the Poets and Writers (CWPW) will feature poet Mary Ricketson and writer James F. Davis on Wednesday, November 20, 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.

            Ricketson, from Murphy NC, is inspired by nature and by her work as a mental health counselor. Her poetry is published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Red Fox Run, It’s All Relative, Speckled Trout, Old Mountain Press, Whispers, Voices, and Disorgananza. Her work also includes her chapbook I Hear the River Call my Name as well as three full length collections, Hanging Dog Creek, Shade and Shelter, and her newest, Mississippi: The Story of Luke and Marian, published  in 2019.

            She writes a monthly column, “Women to Women,” for The Cherokee Scout.  She is a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor in private practice and is also an organic vegetable, herb, and blueberry farmer.

James Davis

            James Davis lives in Clay County, NC. He is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network, Ridgeline Literary Alliance, North Georgia Writer's Club, and the Mountain Area Story Tellers. He won second place in a national literary contest. Most of his writing and stories have a humorous bent about personal experiences with people he met.

            Davis grew up working on a family farm. He earned a degree in economics from Cornell University. He earned an MBA in International Affairs and Business and served three years in the Army, leaving as a Captain. The major part of his working life was spent as an international banker.

            He traveled to over fifty countries while living in Europe and Latin America. Through his profession, he had the opportunity to meet world leaders.  Davis served as an elected representative for twenty years in Darien, CT. 

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

by Carroll S. Taylor, CWPW publicity chair and author of The Chinaberry Summer Series

Linda Grayson Jones, Meagan Lucas, and Janice Townley Moore to read at The Literary Hour at JCCFS, Brasstown, NC, on Thursday, November 21, 2019, at 7:00 PM

On Thursday, November 21, 2019, at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and NC Writers' Network-West (NCWN-West) will sponsor The Literary Hour, where NCWN-West members will read at the Keith House’s Community Room on the JCCFS campus, in Brasstown, NC. This event is typically held on the third Thursday of the month, is free of charge and open to the public. This month's featured readers will be Linda Grayson Jones, Meagan Lucas, and Janice Townley Moore.

Linda Grayson Jones, a poetry devotee since childhood, has a B.S. in Biology from

Stetson University, an M.A. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Pathology from Vanderbilt University. 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. 

Janice Moore is an Associate Professor Emerita of English at Young Harris College.  Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Connecticut Review, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, and The Journal of the American Medical Association.  

Moore's chapbook, Teaching the Robins, was published by Finishing Line Press. Among the anthologies that include her poems are The Bedford Introduction to Literature, and three volumes of: The Southern Poetry Anthology: Contemporary Appalachia, Georgia, and North Carolina, from Texas Review Press.  

Moore is coordinator of the NCWN-West’s poetry critique group and is on the poetry editorial board of The Pharos, publication of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.

Meagan Lucas teaches English at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and is the Fiction Editor at Barren Magazine. Meagan has a BA in History from Wilfrid Laurier University, an M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction from Ferris State University, and an MA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

Meagan’s stories have been published in a variety of journals including: Four Ties Literary Review, Santa Fe Writers Project, The Same Literary Journal, The New Southern Fugitives, Barren Magazine and Still: The Journal. Lucas  won the 2017 Scythe Prize for Fiction, was the runner up in the 2017 SNHU Fall Fiction Competition, and a Judge’s Choice finalist in the 2018 Still: The Journal Fiction competition. Her story “Voluntary Action” was nominated by Still: The Journal for a 2019 Pushcart Prize.

Her first novel, Songbirds and Stray Dogs was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in August 2019.

For more information on this event, contact Mary Ricketson at:

 maryricketson311@hotmail.com

 

Jackson County Rep Launches Third Poetry Collection, 6:30 pm, Wednesday, 11/13, City Lights, Sylva

Jackson County Netwest Rep Catherine Carter will launch her third collection of poetry with LSU Press, Larvae of the Nearest Stars, on Wednesday evening, November 13th, at 6:30 pm at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. 

Novelist and poet Ron Rash writes of Larvae, "I’'ve been an admirer of Catherine Carter’s poetry for over a decade, but this collection achieves a whole new level with its craft, vision, and urgency. Larvae of the Nearest Stars makes clear that she is one of our country’s finest poets, and her book deserves a place on the same shelf as collections by Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry. 'I will not cease telling,' Carter tells us in the final poem. May it long be so."  

Macon County Rep to hold meeting at Cowee School

Brent Martin, representative for NCWN-West in Macon County, has set a date and time for the first meeting for writers in Macon County.

November 14th at 10AM, Cowee School in Macon County, NC.

Brent and Angela are moving their business office to Cowee School Arts and Heritage Center at this time.
As you know, Brent and his wife, Angela, own and manage Alarka Expeditions and have been extremely busy this summer. We have 14 members in Macon County from Highlands to Topton.

All writers in Macon County are invited to attend the November 14th meeting whether you are a member of NCWN or not. If you live in surrounding counties and need a writing group, come and see what the future holds for the Macon County writers sponsored by NCWN-West.

I know all of our members want to support Brent and his efforts to make a difference in the lives of writers in his area.  Contact Brent at alarkaexpeditions@gmail.com

Many thanks to all of our county reps in NCWN-West. Everyone does an excellent job. And good luck to Brent and the writers in Franklin and Macon County.

Jackson Rep to Lead Workshop at NCWN Conference in Asheville

Dr. Catherine Carter, the NCWN-West representative for Jackson County, will be leading a workshop in revising poetry for sound, "It Looks Like a Hairball", from 9:00 to 10:30 Sunday morning, November 10th, at the NCWN fall conference at the Doubletree Hilton in Asheville.  27 are currently registered for the workshop, but walk-ins are are welcome as long the the room has space.

Carter will use contemporary poems to discuss a few of the ways in which a poem can be built around the sounds of single words, model one possible process for revising a poem in this way, and encourage participants to do this with their own works. Participants should bring a hard copy of one or two of their own shorter poems (under a page is preferable) to work on.

November Mountain Writers meeting

Charley says the next meeting of the Netwest Mountain Writers in Haywood county is coming up. 

1)  November 8-10 is the fall North Carolina Writers Network conference, at the Doubletree in Asheville (just north of exit 50 off I-40). Merry and I are attending. See some of you others there, perhaps? (check out https://ncwriters.org/ [programs and services; conferences] if you're interested)

2)  Our November Mountain Writers meeting will be Tuesday the 12th, noon, at Panacea Restaurant (room to the right). Merry and Susanna will talk about the Flatiron Agents thing they both went to.

3)  Then December is Xmas party. Merry asked Tom and Polly to do their He Said/She Said thing at the party. Not clear yet where we'll meet for that. Possibly Panacea for simplicity, but maybe people would like to try somewhere else.

The Netwest Mountain Writers is one of the groups sponsored by NCWN-West. Merry Elrick is the Netwest rep for Haywood County. 

For our many new members, Netwest stands for Network West "NC Writers' Network West".

Charley Pearson and Merry Elrick present excellent programs and many writers throughout the area attend. If you live near enough to drive over, they will welcome you. 

Contact Charley at charley.pearson@gmail.com    

 GCB

Book review of Brenda Kay Ledford's "Red Plank House"

Poems read aloud like music in "Red Plank House"

by:  Marcia Hawley Barnes

Reprinted by permission of Editor/Publisher, Becky Long: "Clay County Progress"
                                            Thursday, October 31, 2019


"Red Plank House" poems by Brenda Kay Ledford, opens a door to the present and past, weaving in glimpses of Southern Appalachia.  More specifically, Ledford's poetry is an intimate look at recent history in Clay County, NC and the beautiful lives of some of the territory's settlers, residents, and the author herself.

Ledford's poems read aloud like music.  There is beat, changing rhythms, a pronounced call to the reader to come close and see "sunsets blazing across Shewbird Mountain," where an old red plank house whispers welcome.

Thirty-four poems fill the pages of "Red Plank House" and verses from "Where I'm From" are certain proof that Ledford writes from the heart and her genuine Appalachian background.  "Mama's Love Offering" on the adjoining page sets the mountain dinner table; and "Apples" transport the reader to an orchard in the 1900s.

Inside the cover of "Red Plank House" eagles cut through the Appalachian sky and mourning doves coo with sounds and rhyme that escape prose.  Phantom storms snort and wild geese wend north.

Ledford patterned a poignant poem after Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day."  Titled "The Rock," the author questions our relationship with an inanimate object and draws the reader to look at pain and beauty in a walk that is circumspect.

Author, poet, blogger, Ledford is an acclaimed and well-recognized literary contributor to Southern Appalachia and beyond.  "Red Plank House" is available at:  www.amazon.com

                                                     Author Brenda Kay Ledford

Sam Uhl of Hendersonville, NC Shares Her News

Radio Interview with The Cheerful Word

Blaine Greenfield, host of Blainesworld on WPVM Radio Asheville (103.7) interviewed Sam Uhl of The Cheerful Word on October 23, 2019 about her work writing and publishing extraordinary stories for everyday people. 

Sam (a.k.a. The Book Doula) discussed how her early life influenced how she became a writer and publisher of memoir. She talked about the many ways she helps people write life story, whether for private family libraries or for profit—starting with as little as an idea or a completed manuscript. Sam described how, through giving voice to your story, you can discover how your life experience has shaped who you are today, and how writing it clarifies who you want to be for all your tomorrows.

Sharing books from her most recently published authors, she highlighted the variety of reasons people write their memoirs and she encouraged us to preserve our legacies while we are still able, just the way we want to be remembered.

Find the complete interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smib3gZZWsA&t=3s

Extraordinary stories for everyday people

CheerfulWord.com

Toll Free: 888-899-9218

Carroll Taylor's Poem published by Your Daily Poem

Congratulations to Carroll S. Taylor. Her poem “Final Wishes" is on  http://yourdailypoem.com 

Carroll lives in Hiawassee, Georgia. She was co-chair for A Day for Writers. She is a retired educator and author of two young adult novels, Chinaberry Summer and Chinaberry Summer: On the Other Side.

Carroll's novels emphasize generational storytelling and anti-bullying, and her stories and poems reflect her affection for reptiles, amphibians, spiders, and other critters. Learn more about her at chinaberrysummer.com.

Nov. 8: Last Writers' Night of 2019, Blairsville, GA, 7 pm

Diana Anhalt + Rosemary Royston + Open Mic

Please join us for the last Writers' Night Out of the year!

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Diana will read from her new book. 

Diana Anhalt of Atlanta (by way of Mexico) has two full-length  poetry collections, Walking Backward (Kelsay) and Because There Is No Return, (Passager), and two chapbooks, Second Skin, (Future Cycle) and Lives of Straw (Finishing Line). She has lived in Atlanta for nine years, yet her poems colorfully depict people and places in Mexico, where she lived most of her life. Many of her essays, short stories, and book reviews have appeared in both English and Spanish along with her non-fiction book, A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1948-1965. Her poetry as also appeared in Nimrod, Concho River Review, The Connecticut River Review, The Atlanta Review, and Spillway, among many others.

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Rosemary Royston of Blairsville has been a Writers' Night Out favorite with her intelligent and interesting poems and compelling reading style. She's a lecturer and Vice President for Planning & Research at Young Harris College, where she periodically teaches a creative writing course. Author of Splitting the Soil (Finishing Line Press), her poetry has also been published or is forthcoming in journals such as Split Rock Review, Southern Poetry Review, Appalachian Heritage, Poetry South, KUDZU, NANO Fiction, and *82 Review.

After this event, Writers' Night Out will take a break for the winter and resume in April, 2020 on the second Friday of every month. To be considered as a featured reader of poetry or prose, please contact Karen Paul Holmes (kpaulholmes AT g mail dot com) who will begin working on the schedule in January. 

Here's a link to the Union County Community Center. Sign up at the door to read at open mic for 3 minutes of poetry or prose. Come early if you'd like to enjoy The View Grill. You can bring drinks to the room where the reading takes place.