Great Classes both online and in person

I received an email from my friend, Carol Crawford, today and I must share it with you, my readers. Carol is a writer, editor, and teacher of writing. I have taken many classes with her over the years. I met her when I first moved to Hayesville, NC in 1995. She was then the facilitator for our NCWN-West Poetry critique group. She is the kind of instructor I always want when I take a class. She never makes you feel dumb and never hurts your feelings. She is an "encourager" as I am when I teach.

The classes she will be teaching are through the John C. Campbell Folk School. Last year I took one of her online classes and learned a great deal about my own writing and where I want to go with it.

One of Carol's classes will be taught at the folk school in Brasstown, NC. It is a weeklong class and I am going to do my best to participate. With so much going on in my life at this time, I am not writing much and I have two books I want to complete while I am still able to think and work at my computer. However, if my genes are as good as my sister, June's genes were, I will be sharp until the day I cross over.  

Check out the dates and see what appeals to you.

Dear Writers,

 I hope you are enjoying cooler temperatures as you plan your fall and winter.  I want to let you know about a couple of writing classes I will be teaching in the next few months.  

 An ONLINE class, Plot the Path to your Memoir, Part 1, will be November 4, 2023. 

 The follow-up class, also ONLINE, Plot the Path to your Memoir, Part 2, will be January 27, 2024.  Here's the link: 

https://www.lessonface.com/apply/Plot-Path-Memoir

 An IN PERSON class, Creative Nonfiction, will be January 14 - 19, 2024, on the John C. Campbell Folk School campus.  Here's that link.

 https://folkschool.configio.com/pd/1749/the-art-of-creative-nonfiction?st_t=2077&st_ti=2516&cid=2527&returncom=productlist&source=search

 

Please feel free to write to me with any questions about these classes.  I encourage you to check out other writing classes at the Folk School as well. They have some great offerings!

 

Carol

Website:  carolcrawfordediting.com

Email:  carol@carolcrawfordediting.com

 

Life Changing Experiences

Over a decade ago, I took a class at the John C Campbell Folk School that changed my life. I have learned that my experience is not unique. The Folk School is a place that changes many lives. No matter whether you take wood carving, weaving, cooking, painting or writing, it is likely you will never be the same. 

In later years when I taught writing classes at the folk school, I found that my classes often changed lives. One of my students, a retired dentist, told me he had decided to go back to school and study creative writing after spending a week at Orchard House, the photography and writing studio, writing and sharing his work with seven other people and me. 

Rebecca is on the back row in red

A young woman in her thirties discovered she could write and enjoyed writing while taking my class. She went on to earn money while writing about her walk on The Camino in Europe. She said now she is her family's historian as she writes about her life and her family for her blog, Renaissance Rebecca. She might never have done these things if she had not taken my writing class and others at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Presently she is living with her husband in Spain and her writing is filled with life there and the places she goes and the people she meets. 

She enjoys meeting and talking with strangers just as I do. She has that curiosity like me to learn about others because we all have stories to tell and I find them interesting. 

Today I read an interview with a man who visited the Folk School in Brasstown, NC to attend a wedding. Now he works for the school.

You can find a catalog online for the Folk School. Just go to their website, www.folkschool.org  

If you have taken classes there, write to me and tell me how it affected your life. It is almost a magical place.

Self doubt and second guessing

I am sharing an email conversation from years ago. Nancy  P. is no longer with us and I miss her. 

Glenda,

I received the notification for a workshop at Warren Wilson in late July
with the fiction workshop being taught by Tommy Hays. I want to go but
I'm truly lacking in confidence. I'm always afraid my work won't match
up with the other writers and so I hold back. I know Tommy Hays is good
and he's pretty sharp. Do you HONESTLY think I would do alright there? I
do have to submit a short story or the first chapter of my novella that
I'm working on as part of a collection. I guess I'm just asking you for
a pep talk. What do you think? Will he be way over my head?

Nancy P.


Glenda Beall wrote:
 Nancy, you don't have any reason to be afraid. Your writing is
 excellent and you have had many stories published. I was afraid the
 first time I signed on for a master class at NCWN Fall conference with
 Kay Byer. But when I got there, I found most of the writers were no
 better than I was.
And I can tell you Tommy Hays is just another writer with the same fears
and worries all writers have about their work. Don't hold back, Nancy.
I know you will do well and you'll enjoy it. That is the most important part - you'll enjoy it.

 If you spend time comparing yourself to other writers or worrying
 about what they think of your work, you'll do yourself a disservice by
 not taking the opportunity to study with this writer. I am so glad I
 took the master class with Kay Byer. Now that I know her so well, I
 realize she, like you and me, is not always confident and
 self-assured. I'm sure Tommy Hays is the same.
Go for it, Girl! You will be fine.

 I want to hear all about the workshop.
 Glenda

Thank you, Glenda. 

You are so right. I just put myself into a worry pot when I should realize 

most everyone has these same doubts and fears. I guess it comes from 

the sequestering of the writer within four walls for long periods of time. 

I will send in my registration and do what you recommend: Enjoy the journey.
Sincere thanks,
Nancy P.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nancy P. was a very good writer, but as you can see, like all of us, she had doubts. We are quick to second guess ourselves. Do you do that? Have you ever missed a great opportunity because you lacked the confidence to take a chance?

I almost did back in 1995 when I first moved to the mountains. Nancy Simpson (not the Nancy in my post) called me and asked if I wanted a scholarship for her week-long poetry class at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

It was free to me. I was brand new to the area and did not know any writers. The idea of taking a class with poets absolutely scared me to death. I had to make a big decision. I almost turned her down, but I pushed myself to overcome my fear and that decision changed my life.

What about you? What is your story? Did you overcome a fear or self-doubt to accomplish something important in your life?

Do you often second guess your decisions? 

Leave a comment or email me at gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com  

Folk School closed - My Classes at Home

John C. Campbell Folk School is closed due to Covid-19. A person who attended a dance there recently has been diagnosed with this virus. Now several more people have been found to be positive.

NCWN-West will not hold the monthly Literary Hour there in March or April. We will see what the future holds.

This illness is far more severe for those who are elderly and for anyone with high blood pressure or heart problems. Almost everyone I know over the age of sixty is taking blood pressure medicine.

The younger people can get this virus and will be very sick with possible long-lasting effects. But the young adults don't seem to be as careful about social distancing or following the guidelines. They can cause the death of someone simply by spreading the virus when they gather with their friends or any groups of people. 

Families are coming up to the mountains like it is vacation time. What are they thinking? Don't they realize this virus is in every state and no one is safe from it?

No matter what kind of treatment is found, and there is not one that has been proven to work, the only way to stop this virus is by stopping the spread of it.

I am self-isolating at my home, and it isn't easy because I usually have some help come in once or twice a week. Now I have no one come inside my home, and I am responsible for everything. I try to go for a ride and take my little dog to a place where we won't be near anyone. She gets in a walk and it keeps me from feeling like a shut-in. 

My Monday night classes are going really well. Although I have never before taught an online course, I think we are doing well. My students seem to like it. I am thinking about doing more of these in the future.

If you are a writer and would like to guest post here, please let me know. I welcome interviews and 300 word articles on how to deal with this virus, how to keep busy at home, or how to write a good story.

Stay safe, stay well.

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. 

Appearing Thursday evening, Glenda Beall, Michelle Keller and Jim Davis at JCCFS

I will be performing with my friend, Mary Michelle Keller  this Thursday, October 17, 7:00 PM at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.

We would love to see our friends in the audience at the Keith House, Community Room.

Mary Mike and I have prepared a program of poems on similar themes and we will take turns reading instead of one person reading for twenty minutes and the other person reading for an allotted time.

Jim Davis is also on the program that evening. Jim writes true stories about his eventful life.

The folk school students often turn out for our programs, and I hope they are present this week.

The Literary Hour, our monthly event at the folk school, has been ongoing for over twenty years. 

To read about me and the others on the program, click on this link:  https://netwestwriters.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-literary-hour-readings-this.html

Article by Lucy Gratton - Rice and Beall read at JCCFS

JOHN CAMPBELL FOLK SCHOOL

              On Thursday, August 21, 2014 at 7:00 PM, John Campbell Folk School and N.C. Writers Network West are sponsoring The Literary Hour, an hour of poetry and prose reading held at Keith House on the JCFS campus. This is being held on the third Thursday of the month unless otherwise notified.  The reading is free of charge and open to the public.  Writers Estelle Rice and Glenda Beall will be the featured readers, both of whom are well established poets in the mountain area. 

    

ESTELLE RICE

Estelle Rice, author of Quiet Times, a book of poetry, is a well-published writer whose short stories have appeared in The Appalachian Heritage Journal, the Journal of Kentucky Studies, and in anthologies and magazines, including Lights in the Mountains and Echoes Across the Blue Ridge.

She is a native North Carolinian, born in Rock y Mount and raised in Charlotte. She now lives in Marble, NC. Estelle received her BA in psychology from Queens University in Charlotte and a MA in counseling from the University of South Alabama. She is a retired Licensed Professional Counselor. Although she is a full-time caregiver for her husband now, she still attends writing workshops and continues to create poems and stories. Her poetry has been published in The Back Porch, the Freeing Jonah series and others.

Estelle has been a member of  the North Carolina Writers’ Network West for many years and has endeared herself to her friends and co-writers alike.

GLENDA BEALL

Glenda Beall’s poems, essays and short stories have been published in numerous literary journals and magazines including, Reunions Magazine, Main Street Rag, Appalachian Heritage, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, The Dead Mule, School of Southern Literature and Wild Goose Poetry Review. Her poems have been anthologized in 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.

Glenda enjoys writing articles for newspapers on subjects that are important to her such as indoor air pollution and spaying and neutering pets. She supports animal rescue shelters with her articles. She  taught memoir writing at John C. Campbell Folk School for several years. She also teaches writing at Tri-County Community College.

Glenda served as program director of North Carolina Writers’ Network West in 2007 and 2008, and is now Clay County Representative for NCWN West.  Glenda is author of  NOW MIGHT AS WELL BE THEN, poetry published by Finishing Line Press, and she compiled a family history,  PROFILES AND PEDIGREES, THOMAS CHARLES COUNCIL AND HIS DESCENDANTS, published by Genealogy Publishing Company.

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 the area.  Find her online at www.glendacouncilbeall.blogspot.com and www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com

Author Events - What Do We Want?

Have you published a novel or memoir or non-fiction book?

Do you want to promote your book to the public? 

This article on NCWN blog is excellent concerning author presentations whether in book stores or other venues.

http://www.ncwriters.org/whitecross/2013/06/27/the-vagaries-of-author-events/

My favorite is the author talks where there is interchange between the writer and the audience, similar to what Deanna Klingel did at John Campbell folk school Thursday night.

Read the above article and go on to read the original post (follow the link at the end of the article) and tell us what you think?

What do you want when you go to hear and see an author? 

Gread Reading at John C. Campbell last night

For the first time in a while, I went out to a reading last night. Nadine Justice, author of I'm a Coal Miner's Daughter, But I Cain't Sang, was delightful and the audience loved her. She has a sense of humor that comes through in her writing. 

Mary Ricketson, one of my very favorite poets, always brings me to tears when she reads poems about her only child, her son who is super smart and won a scholarship to MIT or one of those big colleges. I feel I've watched him grow up from a boy by reading and listening to Mary read her poems about him. 

I told her last night that, although I've not had a child, she touches my maternal instinct or maybe it is my growing up with a mother like Mary. I saw my mother go through all the angst of teenagers making mistakes she couldn't prevent, seeing hurts she couldn't heal, and just giving them all the love a mother can give. I know Mother prayed for her children. I was one of her main worries. Always wearing my emotions on my shoulders, I came to Mother to ease my pain when I was hurt. 

Mary's son is grown and on his own now, but her poems about him continue to show a strong bond between mother and son.
The Journal of Kentucky Studies has published one of Mary's poems, her first in a literary journal. That was the first literary journal that published one of my poems. In fact the editor, Gary Walton, has published a number of my poems over the years. And I am grateful.

Nadine's book, which I watched develop from the beginning, has memorable stories about her own childhood with a mother she couldn't relate to, and a father she adored. In her memoir about her life growing up in the coal camps, then her travels overseas, and her failed marriages, I see another strong woman like Mary. Nadine has two daughters and I'm sure she has prayed many times for her children. I find her book extremely interesting and by the mail she has received, others find it a good read, too. 

Anyway,  I am so glad I went out to hear these fine writers share their work last night. I appreciate all those who came and really appreciate the Folk School for hosting Netwest each month.

And thanks to Linda Smith who schedules the readings.
  

  

Mary Ricketson and Nadine Justice will read at JCCFS Thursday night

JOHN C. CAMPBELL FOLK SCHOOL

Mary Ricketson, Poet and writer

              On Thursday, February 21, 2013,  John Campbell Folk School  and  NC Writers Network West sponsor the monthly reading in the Keith House by members of NCWN. The reading is free of charge and open to the public.  Poets Mary Ricketson and writer, Nadine Justice will be the featured readers.  

Mary Ricketson’s poetry has been published in her chapbook, I Hear the River Call My Name, Lights in the Mountains, Freeing Jonah IV, Freeing Johah V, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press,Your Daily Poem, Journal of Kentucky Studies, various magazines and in Disorgananza, a private collection distributed among family and friends.  She won the gold medal for poetry in the 2011 Cherokee County Senior Games/Silver Arts.  She won first place in the 2011 Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest national poetry contest.

Mary writes a monthly column, Woman to Woman, for The Cherokee Scout.  She is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network, a mental health counselor, and a farmer.

Mary says she writes to satisfy a hunger, to taste life all the way down to the last drop.  She gains perspective from family and friends, her Appalachian home, and her life’s work as a counselor.

Writing poetry places her in kinship with her own life.

Mary Ricketson is a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor in Murphy, North Carolina.  She brings more than thirty years experience to her work, with twenty-five years in private practice.  She is a founding board member of  REACH.  She has a special interest in women’s issues, victims of abuse, and family and couple relationships.  She offers innovative ways to effect change in difficult life patterns, including Journey to Intuition and Neurofeedback.  She is listed in Who’s Who in American Women.

Nadine Justice

Nadine Justice divides her time between a mountain-top cottage in north Georgia and her home in Atlanta. For the past few years she has worked on a memoir which was published last year. Excerpts have been published in an anthology by the Georgia Mountain Writers Club. She also enjoys a successful career as an interior designer. Her design work has been featured twice in Better Homes and Gardens and in Atlanta Custom Home magazines.

Nadine grew up in West Virginia and is the daughter of a coal miner. She is married to a retired federal agent, and enjoys spending time with her four “perfect” grandchildren.

Nadine is a new member of the North Carolina Writers' Network. She will share portions of her book, I'm a coal Miner's Daughter, But I Cain't Sang, at the reading on Thursday night. 

POETRY CLASS AT JCCFS APRIL 12 - NEEDS MORE STUDENTS

Check out this poetry class at John C. Campbell Folk School on the weekend of April 12. Sounds amazing, doesn't it?

We hear it will get cancelled unless more students sign up. Take this opportunity, if you live in the local area, to get the 1//2 price fee. Here's the description:

MITAKUYE OYASIN: POETRY AND THE NATURAL WORLD 

"Mitakuye Oyasin" is a Lakota Sioux prayer translated, "We are all related." It's a prayer of gratitude for all living things. In that spirit, enjoy the poetry of Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, and others as we explore the poetic voices of the natural world. Using science and history, we'll investigate how writing poetry can reveal and deepen our relationship to this amazing planet. We'll gain inspiration from early spring in the mountains by taking our classroom outdoors on peaceful walks. All levels welcome. 

Instructor: Mary Carroll-Hackett: Mary earned her MFA from Bennington College in Vermont in 2003. She now teaches creative writing at Longwood University in Virginia, where she founded "The Dos Passos Review," edits for Briery Creek Press, and administers the Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry. Mary's fiction has appeared in "The Carolina Quarterly," "Clackamas Literary Review," "The Pedestal Magazine," and other literary journals. She is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently "The Real Politics of Lipstick" from Slipstream Press

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My Thoughts on JCCFS

Although I am not teaching at John C. Campbell Folk School this year, I encourage my readers to take one of the writing classes offered this summer or fall. JCCFS has influenced my growth as a writer and poet and as a teacher. Click on the link below and read my thoughts on this wonderful little place in Brasstown, NC.

http://blog.folkschool.org/2010/03/08/instructor-glenda-beall-and-the-folk-school-writing-program/

Tipper is Cooking this Week at JCCFS

My friend, Tipper Presley, of Blind Pig and the Acorn fame, is teaching a cooking class at John C. Campbell Folk School this week.

To enjoy her posts on the class, click on this link

I don't know where Tipper gets her energy. She never stops and has made her blog on Appalachian culture one of the most popular on the blogosphere.

Be sure to visit www.theblindpigandtheacorn.com 

Let me know if you like it. I have sent so many of my friends to this site and they all thank me and subscribe to Tipper's interesting blog.