Poetry Class deadline looming. Don't wait.

NOVEMBER 2 - DEADLINE FOR KAREN HOLMES' POETRY CLASS NOV. 7

REGISTER NOW. SEE FORM ABOVE. PAY WITH PAYPAL OR WITH A CHECK. ONLY $30. 

Read more about class and instructor HERE

Visit Schedule page at link below.

http://www.glendacouncilbeall.com/p/schedule.html#.Vibs5H6rS00

Share, please.

Outstanding poets and poetry at Writers Night Out August 9

Rosemary Royston and Karen Paul Holmes, both well-published poets, will read from their new books at this month’s Writers’ Night Out at the Union County Community Center in Blairsville, GA. The two plan to do a coordinated reading, alternating their poems on similar subjects. The event takes place on August 9 with a social hour at 6 p.m. (dinner available for purchase) and reading at 7 p.m.  An open microphone follows for those who’d like to read their own writing. The public is welcome to this free event.

Karen Paul Holmes, founder and host of Writers’ Night Out, is a freelance writer, poet and teacher whose new poetry collection, Untying the Knot, was recently released by Aldrich Press and is available on Amazon. It’s a story of loss and healing, written, as one reviewer put it, “with grace, humor and without a dollop of self pity.” Holmes teaches at Writer’s Circle in Hayesville, NC, and the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. She also hosts a poetry workshop in Atlanta. Publishing credits include Poetry East, Atlanta Review, POEM, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and the Southern Poetry Anthology Vol 5: Georgia. She won a poetry grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation in 2012.

Rosemary Royston holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University and teaches at Young Harris College. Her poetry chapbook, Splitting the Soil (available through Finishing Line Press and Amazon) has been described as “Spiritual, sassy, smart, and so sure for a first collection.” Her poetry has appeared in many places, including Southern Poetry Review, The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, Town Creek, KUDZU, New Southerner, Dark Sky Magazine, and the Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V: Georgia. Two of her essays are included in Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets (McFarland). 

Writers’ Night Outis sponsored by North Carolina Writers’ Network-West and normally takes place on the second Saturday of the month (third Saturday in October). Prose writers or poets wishing to participate in the open mic can sign up at the door to read for three minutes. The four-year-old event recently moved at the Union County Community Center at Butternut Creek Golf Course, 129 Union County Recreation Rd., Blairsville, Georgia 30512, off Highway 129 near the intersection of US 76, phone (706) 439-6092.  Signs will be posted to direct attendees to either the upstairs ballroom or A-B conference room for the event. For more information, please contact Karen Holmes at (404) 316-8466 or kpaulholmes@gmail.com.

Coffee with the Poets and Writers pics

Deanna Klingel and Madonna Wise

Deanna Klingel author of several young adult novels as well as other historical books talked on truth in fiction.  CWPW, sponsored by NCWN West, meets each month at Blue Mountain Coffee and Grill and the event is open to the public.

Ellen Schofield talks to Bob Grove and Wally Avett while Roy Underwood, far right, listens.
In the center our busy waitress at Blue Mountain rushes to take good care of us.

What will 2014 bring?

We will soon begin a new year.

Looking back on 2013, we have enjoyed the many writers and poets who have come through our doors this year. Joan, a student at Writers Circle said, "You have brought us so many good poets that we would not have been exposed to if it were not for Writers Circle."

That is our purpose  - to bring excellent writing instructors here to this area because we can't all travel long distances to classes and workshops in other cities. We keep our fees reasonable, but offer teachers enough to make the trip worthwhile for them 

This area is jam-packed with experienced published and non-published writers. Often we overlook what is in our own back yard. We don't want that to happen here.  We provide the opportunity for our local writers to teach what they have learned in their studies of poetry and prose. 
Around our table we give instruction to those beginning poets and writers who have not yet made the step to publishing their work. No one should ever be fearful of what they might encounter at this studio. We are non-competitive. We encourage each other and we give constructive feedback, in a gentle manner. 

The coffee pot is ready and some goodies are on the table. Ice tea is in the fridge.

We hope you will come and take a class with us in 2014. 

Writers Night Out - last of this season - Don't Miss it!!

Last month, we had a small group of 10 in attendance, so please come this Friday to give these wonderful poets a large and enthusiastic audience as we usually do for Writers' Night Out. November is our last meeting of the year -- we'll resume in March 2014.

Writers’ Night Out
Friday, Nov 8

Brothers Willow Ranch Restaurant, Young Harris, GAPrivate Room upstairs (can access by ramp from upper parking lot)

6:00-7:00 eat dinner or munchies and socialize (come early to order dinner)
7:00-ish announcements and featured reader
Break
7:45-ish Open mike, sign up at door, limit 3 minutes per poetry or prose reader (Please time yourself at home, let's make it fair to everyone. Prose readers can often eliminate some details and still captivate the audience with their piece).

Featured Poets' Bios:

Katie Chaple is the author of Pretty Little Rooms (Press 53, August 2011), winner of the 2012 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry through Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. She teaches poetry and writing at the University of West Georgia and edits Terminus Magazine. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Antioch Review, Crab Orchard Review, Mead, New South, Passages North, StorySouth, The Rumpus, Washington Square, and others.

Travis Denton is the Associate Director of Poetry @ TECH as well as a McEver Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech. He is also founding editor of the literary arts publication, Terminus Magazine. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies, such as Mead, The Atlanta Review, The Greensboro Review, Washington Square, Forklift, Rattle, Tygerburning, Birmingham Poetry Review, and the Cortland Review. His second collection of poems, When Pianos Fall from the Sky, was published in October 2012 by Marick Press.

Scott Owens of NC Poetry Society contests for adults and children

NC POETRY IS ALIVE AND WELL

Poetry is alive and well, and speaks to a multiplicity of voices out of an ever-changing culture. Thus concluded national Poet Laureates Howard Nemerov and Richard Wilbur and NC Poet Laureate Sam Ragan at the Duke University Poet Laureate Festival in 1989. Then, as now, one of the primary forces behind the vibrancy of poetry in NC, was the NC Poetry Society, co-sponsor of that festival and many similar landmark poetry events before and since.

The NC Poetry Society was founded in 1932, having at that time only 6 members, one of whom was Zoe Kincaid Brockman, editor of The Gastonia Gazette. The next year, the following objectives were officially adopted by the society:

to foster the writing of poetry; to bring together in meetings of mutual interest and fellowship the poets of North Carolina; to encourage the study, writing, and publication of poetry; and to develop a public taste for the reading and appreciation of poetry.

For the past 81 years, the members of the society, having grown now to 370 in number, have strived to achieve those objectives by coordinating meetings, workshops, readings, contests, and publication opportunities for poets young and old, new and renowned, across the state.

The Society’s 17 annual contests provide opportunities for poets from a wide range of backgrounds and interests to receive recognition for their work. All contests are judged anonymously by renowned poets and scholars to maintain objectivity. Current contests include the following:

• Lena Shull Award – new manuscript of poetry by a NC resident;
• Brockman-Kincaid Award – best published book of poetry by a NC resident from previous year;
• Poet Laureate Award – single poem by NC resident; judged by NC Poet Laureate;
• Thomas H. McDill Award – any subject, any form, 70 lines maximum;
• Caldwell W. Nixon, Jr. – poem written for children 2-12 years of age;
• Joanna Catherine Scott Award – any poem in a traditional form;
• Ruth Morris Moose Award – sestina;
• Mary Ruffin Poole American Heritage Award – poem on the theme of American heritage, brotherhood/sisterhood, or nature;
• Katherine Kennedy McIntyre Light Verse Award;
• Griffin-Farlow Haiku Award;
• Poetry of Courage Award;
• Poetry of Love Award;
• Travis Tuck Jordan Award – students grades 3-5;
• Joan Scott Award – poems about the environment from students grades 3-8;
• Mary Chilton Award – students grades 6-8;
• Sherry Pruitt Award – students grades 9-undergraduate;
• Farlow-Griffin Haiku Award – students grades 9-undergraduate.

Most Society members consider the 6 annual events sponsored by the Society to be the highlights of its work. Meetings are held the third Saturdays of January, May, and September at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines. The May meeting features presentation of awards and readings by winning poets from the Society’s annual contests. The September meeting is highlighted by recognition of the Brockman-Kincaid NC Poetry Book Award winner. The January meeting includes readings and workshops.

Weymouth is also the setting for the annual Sam Ragan Poetry Festival in March, where participants wear bow ties in the tradition of Sam Ragan. This event typically includes live music as well as poetry.

The other two annual events take place in the eastern and western parts of the state, both in April, and include readings, workshops, and roundtable discussions. Walking Into April is held annually at Barton College in Wilson, NC, and Poetry Day is held at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory. Poetry Day is highlighted by recognition of the Lena Shull Award winner.

Other regularly scheduled events sponsored by the NC Poetry Society include monthly readings at McIntyre’s Fine Books at Fearrington Village in Pittsboro, and the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series. Since 2003, the Gilbert-Chappell series has matched a successful North Carolina poet with as many as three student mentees and one adult in each of the three designated geographical regions in the state. The pairs work together for the year, and at its conclusion, give a public reading in each student’s home library.

The Society’s regular publications include the annual awards anthology, Pinesong; its monthly online newsletter of opportunities and announcements, eMuse; and its print newsletter, Pine Whispers, published 3 times a year to keep members informed about issues under discussion, upcoming contests and workshops, and other poetry-related news and opportunities.

Additionally, over the years, the Society has published 4 anthologies of NC poetry: A Time for Poetry (1966); Soundings in Poetry (1981); Here’s to the Land (1992); and Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry (1999). Publication of Word and Witness was followed by a Touring Theatre of North Carolina production of over 50 of the poems combined with original songs, adapted by TTNC founding director Brenda Schleunes. Titled This Is the Place Where I Live, the production was performed 38 times in 26 cities.

Anyone with an interest in writing, reading, or supporting poetry in NC should visit the Society’s website at http://www.ncpoetrysociety.org. Membership is only $25 per year and is undoubtedly the best way to both support and participate in our state’s rich poetic heritage.

Guidelines for NC Poetry Society's New Lena M. Shull Book Contest
Lena Shull Book Award

The Lena M. Shull Book Contest is an annual contest for a full length poetry manuscript written by a resident of North Carolina. The manuscript must not have been previously published, although individual poems within the collection may have been published elsewhere.

The entry fee is $25. Entrants may submit more than one manuscript, with a fee of $25 for each. The submission period opens September 16, 2013 with a deadline for receipt of manuscripts of November 15, 2013.

The winning manuscript will be published by a NC press, and the poet will receive $250, 50 copies of the book, and a reading at Poetry Day at Catawba Valley Community College in April 2014.

When you submit, please include the following:

Two copies of your manuscript (your name should NOT appear on any page of the manuscript).
Two copies of a separate cover page which must include your: name, address, phone number, email address, manuscript title, number of pages of manuscript.

Please send submissions to:

Malaika Albrecht,
2547 Doc Loftin Rd.
Ayden, NC 28513

The contest judge (non-NC resident) will be announced after the winner is chosen.

For more information, please contact Malaika King Albrecht at pomegranite8@hotmail.com

Joan Howard and Glenda Beall in Wild Goose Poetry Review now

I am happy to have a poem published online in The Wild Goose Poetry Review, and I am happy to announce that Joan Howard also has a poem in the Wild Goose.

Click on this link to read our work. http://wildgoosepoetryreview.wordpress.com/.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Glenda

Blue Ridge Writers Conference Reception Friday Night

Tonight I met some new authors in our area. I was in Blue Ridge Georgia for the 16th annual Blue Ridge Writers Conference directed by my dear friend, Carol Crawford. 

The reception at the Arts Center on Friday evening was fun and filled with good food, good wine and artists of all kinds. I could spend hours just looking at the visual arts on the walls, on the tables and everywhere.

But this weekend is about literary art. Vicki Lane, popular fiction writer, is the Keynote speaker. C. Hope Clark, author of Lowcountry Bribe, is back to speak on writing mystery novels. My friend, Scott Owens, highly popular poet, editor and teacher, is back also to speak at two sessions on Saturday. 

This conference draws people from Atlanta and the surrounding area as well as local writers from north Georgia and Western NC.

I met a delightful author who began as a freelancer and wrote articles for magazines for years before she wrote her novel she is promoting at this time. I hope she will teach a class at Writers Circle one day. We've never had anyone teach a class on freelance writing. I'd love to take the class myself.

SEE WHAT SUNNY LEARNED THIS WEEK

Sunny at the dog park

The pup is Sunny who has developed into a very bad barker. She also lunges at other dogs and people as they pass her on the trail at the park. But, just this week, Sunny went to school with a good teacher and now, I hear, she is being such a good girl. She has learned a command that stops her barking and her household is much quieter and calmer. Sunny is a rescue from Logan's Run Rescue in Murphy, NC. They do great work for our furry friends at Logan's Run. So, if you have some extra funds to donate to help find homes for good dogs like Sunny, please visit the website of Logan's Run. 

Another Poetry Book by Robert S. King forthcoming

I have the pleasure of posting an article by my friend Robert S. King. He is to be congratulated, again, for another book of his fine poetry to be published soon. Following are Robert's words.

I am pleased to announce that just this month I signed a contract with Sweatshoppe Publications, a new and very hard-working publisher. They have scheduled my book of poetry, One Man’s Profit, for publication by the end of February 2013. More information is available at the publisher's website.  An order link is forthcoming.

One Man’s Profit is my sixth collection of poetry and contains poems written during the past two years. The manuscript went through many revisions and versions. I wish to thank several folks who read and/or commented on the book, helping me to get it into shape. My appreciation goes to Nancy Simpson, Diane Kistner, Scott Owens, David Chorlton, and Joanne Lowery for their input.

Obviously, a poet must promote his work, so I have already scheduled six reading events and will post those dates on my website's calendar in the near future.

When the book is available for sale, I hope you will support this new publisher and this old poet.

******************************************************

Robert, with age comes wisdom. We will enjoy One Man's Profit as we have enjoyed all of your poetry.

Congratulations, Barbara!

Writers Circle student and Netwest member, Barbara Gabriel's poem Covenant has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Scott Owens, editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review.

I feel like a matchmaker. Barbara met Scott at one of his workshops at Writers Circle Studio. Her poetry impressed him, I believe. She submitted her work to Wild Goose and it was published. 

I am delighted Scott sees this outstanding poem and poet as worthy of nomination for a Pushcart Prize. Of course, both Scott and Barbara are winners in my book.

Full Class for Will Wright's Poetry workshop

Writers Circle hosted Will Wright, poet, editor, and more, from the Atlanta area. We had a full class of poets, some who had never published their work and some with awards and a long history of publications.

The students participated, asked questions and presented wonderful discussion on the sheaf of poems Will gave us to read and talk about.

The young, but experienced poet, had several of his collections with him and also the latest anthology he has published.

I chose his first collection, Dark Orchard, winner of 2005 Texas Review Breakthrough Poetry Contest and Night Field Anecdote, published by Louisiana Literature Press. Both books are acclaimed by outstanding poets and Will is compared with Theadore Roethke and Robert Penn Warren.Wright co-edits an anthology series The Southern Poetry Anthology. 

We will certainly ask Will Wright to come back to Writers Circle next year.

Poets and Writers and Poets

This post was written after the weekend at Festival on the Square.

After a weekend of promoting Writers Circle, NCWN West and Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, I dragged myself home, took a shower and a nap. Hot weather saps my energy and yesterday was hot and humid, but we had a successful event.

In one of the anthologies on our table was my story, An Angel Named Amos. The theme is horses. That book was popular. So was the anthology, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge. 

Poetry was not popular with people at this festival. Does that mean that we didn't have a literary crowd? Or is it true that only poets buy poetry books? I did not buy one of Robert S. King's poetry books. I already have The Gravedigger's Roots and The Haunted River, both excellent collections.

Clarence Newton, poet and writer

I bought a book by my good friend, Clarence Newton. For years I have begged him to put together a book of his poems because I wanted to have them available to read often.

Like many who have lived a long life, this astute gentleman's words of wisdom in verse and his clever, tongue in cheek poems that make me laugh out loud will be cherished and kept on my book shelf.

He gave me permission to publish some poems from his book, Short Glances Forward and A Long Look Back.

Cycling

Nobody dies anymore.

Some pass on, others pass away.

Some go to heaven, others reincarnate.

Some go to hell.

A few spirits hang around as ghosts.

Some are convinced that this

matter of which we are made

is in a constant mode

of earth attachment and recycling.

Born of the cosmos, matter spun and whirled,

made to reason, wonder, laugh and cry,

guided by circumstances, seeds sown to wind,

we dance upon the crest of life's bell curve,

embrace hope, faith and serenity,

relishing fleeting moments of lust and love

thinking only of the present;

finally to metamorphose into particles of dust

and subatomic energy where goes body and soul

carried by whirlwinds of the ethereal universe,

from whence we came and so shall return.

A merry-go-round, this mysterious life

of consciousness, matter and will

where passions flare and time flies.

Clarence then writes this one:

Froggy

Three hopping friends

sat upon two logs

searching with buggy eyes

for a breakfast of flies

One had two and two had three.

then saluted with high fives

saying ain't life fun

when we're having flies?