The Literary Hour at John C. Campbell Folk School - News Release

On Thursday evening, August 17, 2017 at 7:00 PM, John C. Campbell Folk School and North Carolina Writers Network West are sponsoring The Literary Hour, an hour of poetry and prose reading in the library of Keith House. This event is held on the third Thursday of the month, unless otherwise indicated.  It is free of charge and open to the public.  Glenda Beall, poet Glenda Barrett, and prose writer Jo Carolyn Beebe will be the featured readers. This month is unique in that we have three members of NCWN West entertaining during The Literary Hour.

Glenda Council Beall

Glenda Beall’s writing has been published in numerous literary journals including, Reunions Magazine, Main Street Rag Poetry Journal, Appalachian Heritage, Journal of Kentucky Studies and online, Your Daily Poem, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Wild Goose Poetry Review. Robert Brewer, editor at Writers Digest published one of her essays on his blog. She read her work with Carol Crawford on the Writer's Radio Program in Chattanooga, TN. 


Beall's poems have been anthologized in The Southern Poetry anthology: Volume VII: North Carolina 2014,  Lights in the Mountains, The Best of Poetry Hickory Series, 2011, Kakalak: North Carolina Poets of 2009, and Women’s Spaces, Women’s Places, among others. Her poems have won awards in the James Still Poetry Contest and the Clay County NC Poetry Contest. She serves as Program Coordinator of North Carolina Writers’ Network West and is also a Clay County Representative for NCWN West. In that capacity she hosts Coffee with the Poets and Writers once each month.


Glenda is Owner/Director of Writers Circle where she invites those interested in writing poetry or prose to her home studio for classes taught by some of the best poets and writers in North Carolina and Georgia.  Find her online at www.glendacouncilbeall.com and www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com 

 Glenda Barrett

Glenda Barrett, a native of Hiawassee, Georgia is an artist, poet and a visual writer.  Her work has been widely published in magazines, anthologies and journals.  These include Country Women, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Farm and Ranch Living, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Deep South Magazine, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Woman’s World, Greensilk Journal and others.  Her Appalachian artwork is for sale on fineartamerica.com and her poetry chapbook was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008.  She now has a full-length poetry book titled, “The Beauty of Silence,” that was published in July of this year by Aldrich Press on Amazon.com.

Jo Carolyn Beebe      

Jo Carolyn Beebe is a native of Mississippi. Many of her poems and stories are based on her recollections of conversations with her grandparents. Her Grandmother Anderson said, "The Bartletts are kin to Daniel Boone. They came through the Cumberland Gap with him." Great-grandfather Ricks showed her a greasy circle in his front yard where no grass would grow. "This is where the Indians cooked their food," he told her. 


She also has her own memories of life in a small, rural town. Her story, "The Way You Hypnotize a Chicken," really happened when she and a friend hypnotized one of Grandmother's hens. And where else but in a small town could two little girls play in the funeral home and pick out their everyday casket and their Sunday casket?


Jo Carolyn has been published in Main Street Rag, Clothes Lines, Women's Spaces Women's Places, Lonzie's Fried Chicken, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge and by Abingdon Press. She has been most gratified with her family history book The Beekeepers and Sons of Ander.

She is a graduate of Miami University, Oxford and has been a resident of Towns County for 21 years.