Literary Hour Finale for 2019 starred three outstanding writers.

Thursday evening was our last Literary Hour at the Folk School for 2019. Three NCWN members were featured. 

Meagan Lucas from Hendersonville, NC who is also our NCWN-West Rep from Henderson County led off the program with excerpts from her debut novel Songbirds and Stray Dogs. Some in the audience said they came especially to hear from a fiction writer. We hope to hear more from Meagan in the coming months. Her book has been very well received by readers and she has been acclaimed as a bright new southern writer.

Linda Jones is a teacher at Young Harris College, but,she is also an outstanding and provocative poet. She said she went through a bad divorce a few years ago and still finds inspiration for poetry in that experience. As with most good poetry, the author finds not only the somber, but the humorous in life's challenges. 

LINDA JONES, JANICE MOORE, MEAGAN LUCAS

Janice Moore, Clay County Representative for NCWN-West, taught for many years at Young Harris College. We were happy to see others who were on faculty there present for this reading. Janice should be a model for how to give a good poetry reading. Between poems she knows just what to say to pique the interest of the listener, and she might poke fun at herself or her poem before she reads.
Those of us who have known Janice and attended the critique she leads each month have been greatly influenced by her comments on our work and by her own writing.

Mary Ricketson

Mary Ricketson, former County Rep for Cherokee County, said this was her last evening to host the Literary Hour at the Folk School. She is extremely busy these days promoting her newest poetry book,  " Mississippi, The Story of Luke and Marian", a book of memory, conflicts and resolve. 

Everyone seemed to really enjoy the event on Thursday evening at the John C. Campbell Folk School. We are happy to promote the folk school in any way we can, and we appreciate their support of  writers in our state. 

Thanks Janice, Meagan, Linda and Mary for sending us out with thoughts to ponder as we made our way home through the mountains under the stars. 

WRITERS NIGHT OUT FEATURES TWO CAROLINA POETS

August 29, 2018 – Well-published poets, Janice Townley Moore and Robert Lee Kendrick, will headline Writers’ Night Out at the Union County Community Center in Blairsville, GA, at 7 p.m. on Friday, September 14. The event is free and open to the public. Following the reading is an open microphone where audience members can share their own poetry or prose.

Janice Townley Moore

Robert Lee Kendrick

Moore, who lives in Hayesville, NC, is an Atlanta native and Associate Professor Emerita of English at Young Harris College. Her poetry chapbook is Teaching the Robins (Finishing Line Press) and her work has appeared in esteemed journals including The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Connecticut Review, Southern Poetry Review, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and numerous others. Among the anthologies that include her poetry 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 serves as the coordinator of the North Carolina Writers Network - West poetry critique group, which meets at Tri-County Community College.

Robert Lee Kendrick grew up in Illinois and Iowa, but now calls Clemson, South Carolina home. After earning his M.A. from Illinois State University and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina, he held a number of jobs, ranging from house painter to pizza driver to grocery store worker to line cook. He now teaches. Kendrick’s poems appear in Birmingham Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Tar River Poetry, Louisiana Literature, and elsewhere. His first full-length collection, What Once Burst With Brilliance, was released in 2018 by Iris Press. His chapbook is Winter Skin (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2016)

Anyone wishing to participate in the open mic can sign up at the door to read three minutes of poetry or prose. Writers’ Night Out is sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network-West. The Union County Community Center is located at Butternut Creek Golf Course at 129 Union County Recreation Rd., Blairsville, Georgia 30512, off Highway 129 near the intersection of US 76, phone (706) 439-6092. Food and drinks are available for purchase in The View Grill, but please arrive by 6 pm to get served.  For more information on Writers’ Night Out, contact Karen Holmes at (404) 316-8466 or kpaulholmes@gmail.com.

 

www.karenpaulholmes.com 

www.simplycommunicated.com

www.facebook.com/karenholmespoetry