CONGRATULATIONS TO JOSEPH BATHANTI

JOSEPH BATHANTI 

Congratulations to Joseph Bathanti, friend and poet from Western North Carolina. 

He has been our featured guest on Netwest’s Zoom programs and our one-day writing conference. Joseph is always so gracious when we invite him. He will be inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame along with Ron Rash and Kaye Gibbons two authors who have written many excellent books and received many awards. There are several more outstanding writers on this list.

Bathanti was the Poet Laureate of NorthCarolina from 2012 to 2014 and has received both the North Carolina Award for Literature and the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and criticism. Since 2001 he has taught at Appalachian State University in Boone.

I hope Joseph will teach a poetry class for our NCWN-West poets in 2024. We would all gain so much from having him with us even if on Zoom.

Poet, Michael Diebert is our guest today.

It is my pleasure to have back with us, Michael Diebert, Poetry editor for the Chattahoochee Review. His last post is very popular with my readers and I'm sure you will enjoy this one.

 

 

Gulf Shores, Alabama, January 19.  As I draft this, my feet are propped on a leather ottoman in a house not my own.  I face an empty fireplace.  I hear a pen scratching paper and the thwack of a knife chopping vegetables for dinner.  I see four fellow writers hunched over monitors and notebooks, in pursuit of the proper word.  Outside, Mobile Bay is our backyard.  There’s a pier over the water, a covered porch, a pool.  Pelicans roost on posts near shore.  Past the RV park next door is a little lagoon where mullet arc out of the water and herons troll the surface.  The Gulf of Mexico is near, but we’re not here for the big water or the beach.

I am here on a writers’ retreat with four dear friends; we have been retreating together since 2011.  Our travels have taken us to northeast Georgia and here to coastal Alabama.  We gather for a long weekend; we bring suitcases, food, and writing essentials.  We cook, laugh, go for walks, stare at the water, work on our writing, and share.  Sometimes we read other poets aloud.  Sometimes we fantasize about winning the Pulitzer.  One hard-and-fast rule: the TV stays off, and phones are set to silent.  The mood is relaxed, the body and the mind are receptive, and much gets done—more than can get done in our busy day-to-day lives.

The complaint is familiar: we live in a world where it’s hard to make the proper time for writing.  The common lament of our email correspondence to each other is “Man, am I ready for writing time!”  So we make the time.  We gather; we exit one world temporarily, and we enter another.  When we retreat, and when the writing is going well, we are, again, in that most exciting of places, the realm of receptivity.  And when I’m receptive, I’m nicer to others and to myself, and I become a better writer.

I was lucky to be asked to join this group eight years ago, and we have maintained the same core group since.  There have been necessary, regrettable absences—schedule conflicts, health scares, children moving off to college—but we continue to meet, write, and exist in each other’s company twice a year.  Chemistry, that ineffable ingredient, has been present in our group from the beginning. 

I write this post to encourage you to find your own group and cultivate it.  This takes time, but it’s essential.  You don’t necessarily need to retreat far—your house, your local coffee shop, a park.  The support of a few like-minded friends, engaged in the same pursuit you’re engaged in, can bolster your motivation and keep it going.  And above all, that’s the trick when our day-to-day comes calling again, all too soon: to keep the buzz alive, to be able to retreat to that place of receptivity even when we’re not there. 

Michael Diebert is the author of Life Outside the Set.  He serves as poetry editor for The Chattahoochee Review and teaches writing and literature at Perimeter College, Georgia State University.  In recent years he has led workshops for Writers Circle around the Table, the Chattahoochee Valley Writers' Conference, and the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference.  Recent poems have appeared in Free State Review and jmww.  A two-time cancer survivor, Michael lives in Avondale Estates, Georgia with his wife and dogs.

Bill Elliott's poem is about the record-breaking heat and what we have done to our world.

After one of the hottest summers ever, I am concerned about what is to come. William Elliott wrote about this today.

"In the midst of all the shouted lies that fog our public life these days, there is an unassailable fact, an “inconvenient truth.” The planet is heating up at an unprecedented rate. This is the third straight year of record-breaking heat."   

Read the poem and  more.

NEW - Poetry class beginning in June

New 

Poetry Class for beginning and intermediate poets

Texts used in this class 

The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Ted Kooser

In the Palm of Your Hand, Steve Kowit

Instructor: Glenda Beall

Mondays, 4 - 6 p.m., June 20 - July 18

Classes will be held at the studio in Hayesville, NC.

Call 828-389-4441 or  Email for directions.

Fee for 8 hours of class - $25.00

To read some of Glenda's poetry visit 

www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com 

Karen Paul Holmes to teach weekend class at Folk School August 1 -3

Take note! If you have not attended a class at the John C. Campbell Folk School, where I attended writing classes for the past 19 years, this is an excellent time to come and take a class from poet and writer, Karen Holmes.

Karen Paul Holmes to Teach Weekend All-Genre Writing Class

Your Write Time
Itching to write, but can't find time? Or do you need a jumpstart to get you going? Give yourself the gift of a weekend devoted to writing. The instructor will provide inspiration, encouragement, writing prompts, editing tips, and one-on-one coaching. The Folk School provides the creative energy. Write here, then go home motivated to write more! For prose (fiction, non-fiction, memoir, blogging) or poetry. All levels welcome.

Ask the Folk School about 1/2 price tuition if you live in a near-by county.

Aug 1-Aug 3
For more info on the Folk School website, click here.  
or email kpaulholmesATgmailDOTCOM

Robert Burns, poet, gave us Auld Lang Syne.

Why do we sing the popular Scottish song, Auld Lang Syne, as each year passes and each new year begins?

 Scottish bard Robert Burns brought us Auld Lang Syne.

He wrote the lyrics in 1788 but the tune we know now does not first appear with the song until after his death.He was inspired by fragments of traditional songs from earlier times.

Now countries all around the world sing this song, some with different lyrics, but with the same meaning as the original.

Read here the history of how this song became an international hit


Auld Lang Syne always makes me sad. Here is a poem I wrote:

On New Year's Eve I Cry

Auld Lang Syne provokes my tears.

Old friends, dear ones from

years gone by appear

at midnight in my mind.

Rowdy revelers, my peers begin

a bright new year.

They raise champagne and toast.

Unique moments good

and bad, will not come back

this way again. I grab

and hold on tight to golden

highlights darting by,

fleeting, disappearing

like foxfire in a mountain wood.

This party is a wake.

It must be mine.

                     ---Glenda Council Beall

Deadline approaching for The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol. VII North Carolina

William Wright is one of the editors for this anthology for North Carolina poets. Will taught at Writers Circle this year and his students were very impressed with him. They want him back. You have until January 15. Get those poems in now.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VII: North Carolina

DEADLINE:  JANUARY 15, 2014

Editors William Wright, Jesse Graves, and Paul Ruffin now seek submissions for the seventh in our series, The Southern Poetry Anthology, featuring North Carolina poets. The anthology will be published by Texas Review Press in 2014.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:

Please submit your poems electronically to Series Editor, William Wright, at vercimber@hotmail.com and Jesse Graves, Volume Co-editor at gravesj@mail.etsu.edu. 

Please type "North Carolina Poetry Submission" as your subject heading, then include your first and last names in parentheses. For example: North Carolina Poetry Submission (William Wright). Unfortunately, snail-mail submissions are not an option given the nature of our editing process.

Please include a short cover letter within the text of the e-mail, as well as the names of the poems submitted. Submit a maximum of five poems, and ensure that the poems are sent in .rtf (Rich Text Format), .doc (Word 1997-2003), or .docx (Word 2007, 2010, 2012, etc.) format. Please include all submitted poems in only one attachment (this is important).

All submissions should include a recent bio (up to 150 words) after the poems, on a separate page. Please italicize names of publications.

We welcome both new and previously published work. However, if poems have been previously published, submitters must hold rights to them and provide full publication data (journal and/or book publisher, title of book/journal if applicable, date of publication). Finally, please make sure that each submission includes a preferred e-mail address and street mailing address within the text of the e-mail and on at least one page of the attached submission.

William Wright, Ph.D.

Contributing Editor, Shenandoah

Series Editor, The Southern Poetry Anthology

Founding Editor, Town Creek Poetry

www.towncreekpoetry.com

Kathryn Stripling Byer - The Girl in the Midst of the Harvest from Press 53

Kathryn Stripling Byer

How wonderful that all the fans of Kathryn Stripling Byer, first woman poet laureate of North Carolina, can now buy The Girl in the Midst of the Harvest from Press 53. This is the second edition of the award-winning book that was first printed in 1986. I'm not bragging, but I have an autographed copy of that first edition. 

Kathryn and I share a similar background having both grown up on farms in south Georgia. Her poems speak to me as if she were my sister, and I'm sure they will speak to you when you get your copy of this book.

Kathryn Byer has become one of the most important women in the literary world of western North Carolina, and a beloved poet throughout the country and in foreign countries as well.

Click on this link to see more about this book and the poet.

2005 NCWN Fall Conference, from left, me, Janice Moore, Nancy Simpson, Shirley Uphouse and Kathryn Byer

Michael Diebert, last class for the 2013 season at Writers Circle, October 12

Michael Diebert, poetry editor for the Chattahoochee Review - Saturday, October 12, 2013

10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Writers Circle Studio

Michael Diebert is poetry editor for The Chattahoochee Review and teaches writing and literature at Georgia Perimeter College in Atlanta.  He is the author of Life Outside the Set, available from Sweatshoppe Publications through amazon.com.  Recent poems have appeared and/or are forthcoming in The Comstock Review,jmww, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

Looking at the Poetic Line
Just as the sentence is arguably the fundamental unit of prose, the line is arguably the fundamental unit of poetry.  More than image, metaphor, concision, or imagination—all of which are also crucial elements—the line gives a poem essential force and significance.  We’ll briefly examine some theory of line, look at several poems’ uses of line, and discuss how more conscientious attention to this oft-overlooked element can inform and enrich our own poems’ potential.

Participants may email one original poem to Michael for inclusion in the discussion—preferably 30 lines or fewer.  His email address is crazyquilt67@gmail.com.  Please send poems no later than Friday, Oct. 5.

Register by sending a $40 check made to Glenda Beall and mail to 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904 or email: nightwriter0302@yahoo.com

Eye of the Beholder

One of the favorite instructors at Writers Circle has a new book out, Eye of the Beholder.

Read a short but incisive review here.

WHITE AFTER MEMORIAL DAY

Karen Paul Holmes will teach a class at Writers Circle on July 20. I am sharing one of her poems with my readers because I know you will love her work and will enjoy her class. Karen has studied with some of the great poets of today, She is sharing what she learned about editing your own work from poet, Thomas Lux.  I am looking forward to having Karen here and I know all of you will like this fun class.

White After Memorial Day

by Karen Paul Holmes

It’s only April 10th, yet I’ve shimmied

into optic white jeans, rejoicing

that they fit from last summer; white

doesn’t forgive. Boiling

for broth on the stove: the chaff

of last night’s chicken

thyme rubbed into its olive-oiled skin

for my dinner party

where a true Belle told me, In the South, you go

by temperature not date.

In michigan this wouldn’t happen

and even here, I don’t wear white shoes

until June first. I just won’t.

An Augusta gentleman, 82, with young man’s glasses

asks me to coffee. He has heard of my divorce.

I refuse, politely. His wife died three years ago.

Twin Cadillacs, circa 1980, sit in his carport

side by side, limo-long and white.

This poem was published in Southern Women's Review. Click on link to read great stories, essays and poetry.

http://www.southernwomensreview.com/issues/SWRIssue6Final.pdf

We have Carol Crawford to help us with our memoir, essay, short story

Carol Crawford, writer and poet, mother and wife,
Director of the Blue Ridge Writers Conference, will teach at Writers Circle on July 9, 2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.

I hope all of you within driving distance of Writers Circle in Hayesville, NC will take the opportunity to be with us when Carol Crawford teaches a class for prose writers, fiction and non-fiction, that will help us prepare our manuscript for submitting to a journal or anthology, and that will give our work the best chance to be selected for publication.

Big Picture Revision

Never mind the commas – there are often bigger things to think about when you finish a first draft and begin the work of revision.  
In this workshop we will take a piece you have written and look at it with fresh eyes, finding its natural trajectory and structure.  We will clarify what’s confusing and emphasize what’s strong, so that you can write the story you want to write. 
"Please bring a short (1000 word) essay, story or excerpt for us to work on during the class."

 Carol's essays, fiction and poetry have been published in the Concho River Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Southern Humanities Review, the Journal of Appalachian Studies, and others.  She is director of FLAG Adult Education and volunteer coordinator for the annual Blue Ridge Writers' Conference.  Carol is a graduate of Baylor University, and a native of Texas, but she lives in the north Georgia mountains now.

This is our first time to have Carol teach at Writers Circle, but I hope it won't be the last. While we seem to have a large number of poets as instructors, we want to also hold classes for non-poets or those, like me, who write both poetry and prose.

Register by calling 828-389-4441 to reserve your place, or mail your check for $30.00 to Writers Circle 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904

I Give You Scott Owens

Since 2009, after I resigned as Program Coordinator for our local writing organization, I brought writers together at my studio at my house. My guest instructors come and hold three hour workshops for a very small fee. My guests, both instructors and students, have seemed to be very pleased with this arrangement. Anyone who knows me knows that I am making hardly enough off this venture to pay for the overhead, certainly not making tons of money. I am happy when I make enough to pay the expenses for the teachers. I enjoy the classes and enjoy bringing good writers and poets here for the writers in our area.

My Gift

I think of Writers Circle as something I can do for the writing community in my area. It is my gift to my friends and fellow writers, and it is a gift that I enjoy as well. We have some of the best poets and writers teaching here. Recently, my long time friend and heralded poet, Gene Hirsch, spent a Sunday afternoon in the studio with six poets who found the time together exhilarating and stimulating. My friend, Mary Mike, and I enjoyed lunch on her sunny porch recently and discussed our notes on that class.

On Saturday, June 15th, we will have with us, Scott Owens, one of North Carolina's most important poets and also one of the busiest poets I know. Scott teaches at Catawba College in Hickory, NC.
His workshop title is: The Essential Practices of Writing.
This workshop will focus on four habits all writers need to foster in practicing their craft. Some time will be given to invention strategies, hopefully resulting in the creation of at least one new piece and students are encouraged to submit a short piece ahead of the workshop for possible review and critique. 

All questions and topics for discussion are welcome.
Call me at 828-389-4441 for registration information or visit here.

Electronic Submissions Class for Writers by Robert S. King

Times they are a'changing said the singer in the sixties, but he didn't know nuthin' about changes.

Changes in the publishing world are occurring so fast we can hardly keep up with them. One of those changes for writers and poets is the way we submit our work to magazines and journals. 

Gone are the days when we made copies, addressed envelopes to send in our work and envelopes to return our work. Now, we submit online without printing a page. But different publications use different methods of submission. We often refrain from submitting if we have to deal with learning a new process. 

That is why I am glad we have Robert S. King, a publisher, poet and editor with the expertise to teach us this new technology. Robert stays abreast of what is new, and he is teaching a class at Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC. See the details below.

Robert S. King  Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC - Saturday, April 20  -  10 -1:00 p.m.  $30.00
Mail check to Writers Circle, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904 -

Most publishers today allow electronic submissions, either by dedicated software online or by email. Learn how to use the most popular online systems and also how to compose email
submissions with or without file attachments. In addition, you will discover how to use the most popular market lists so that you can identify the magazines or publishers best suited for your writing.

About the Instructor
Robert S. King is a widely published poet and editor. He is the
author of six poetry collections, the latest of which is One Man’s
Profit (Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013) and is the former
Director of FutureCycle Press and the former President of the
Georgia Poetry Society.
See his website at www.robertsking.com

Call 828-389-4441 for registration information. Send your registration now. Note that it is for Robert King class.

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. 

LINDA SMITH - reads at Coffee with the Poets Hayesville

Linda Smith of Hayesville, NC is the featured reader at Coffee with the Poets on Wednesday, February 13, 10:30 a.m. at Blue Mountain Restaurant in Murphy, NC. Linda is a published poet. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She has been an active member of NCWN West for a number of years. At present she schedules the monthly folk school readings at John C. Campbell Folk School and is an excellent MC for this event.

LINDA SMITH, POET AND WRITER

Linda's poems capture a human feeling or a moment in time here in the southern Appalachian mountains. She says her writing is inspired by the place where she lives. Linda has been a student of Nancy Simpson for years and her writing has blossomed.

Coffee with the Poets will be held in a new venue, Blue Mountain Restaurant corner of Hwy 141 and US 64 Alternate near the Murphy Medical Center across from Tri-County College in Cherokee County. Come out and support this event and enjoy Linda's reading. Open mic is held after the reading so guests are invited to bring a poem or a short prose piece to share. Those who just want to listen are most welcome as well. Stay for lunch. The food is good at Blue Mountain. 

This writing event has been sponsored by North Carolina Writers' Network West, chapter of the state literary organization, NCWN since 2007. 

Scott Owens has a new book of poems

News from Scott Owens’ blog, Musings

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

New Book 

Shadows Trail Them Home, a continuation of the collaboration Pris Campbell and I undertook in The Nature of Attraction has just come out from Clemson University Press.

Read more here…

Scott Owens, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Writing and More

Scott Owens, Saturday, May 12, 10 AM - 1:00 PM

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Writing and More

Poet, editor, critic, and teacher, Scott Owens, will lead students through an exploration of a variety of topics and issues regarding the writing process including strategies for invention, revision, and publication. Participants are asked to submit a poem to asowens1@yahoo.com by May 4 for possible use in the revision workshop.

Recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Pushcart Prize Anthology, Scott Owens is the author of 10 collections of poetry, including his latest For One Who Knows How to Own Land from FutureCycle Press and over 1000 published poems in journals including Georgia Review, North American Review, Chattahoochee Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Poetry East among others. He is the founder of Poetry Hickory, editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review and 234, and vice president of the Poetry Council of NC. Born and raised in Greenwood, SC, he teaches at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory, NC.

Registrations are already coming in for this class. Fees: $30

Send Check to Writers Circle, 581 Chatuge Lane, NC 28904

Include contact info: name, email address, telephone number and Mailing address.