| Tiger the bob-tailed cat
This week I have been busy with planning a Bookfest for NCWN-West on March 24. I am also trying to finish up the book of pet stories by Estelle Rice and me. One of my stories is about Tiger, the cat in the picture above. You will also meet Rocky, Nikki, Kodi, Cookie, Brandy, Found Hound, Spot Darrow and other creatures we loved. You will read about a special horse named Amos and learn about polydactyal cats.
With three writing classes coming up, I spend much time getting the word out to former students and the public. Beginning first week in March, I will teach for four weeks at Tri-County Community College in Murphy, NC. Then, I will teach later at the Institute for Continuing Learning over in Georgia. In June, I will teach at my own studio.
I have also spent a good bit of time in communication about the passing of my mentor, Nancy S. whose family doesn't want too much about her death online. I am sorry that the hundreds of people who know her cannot have a place online to go to post their condolences and the wonderful things they all have to say about Nancy, who was respected and admired by everyone. We, her friends for over twenty years, know she would love to be remembered by all those who read her poetry and know her through her work with NCWN and NCWN-West.
A memorial to her is being planned here in the mountains perhaps in May. Joan Gage, our NCWN-West tech admin is working on that. She spent much time with Nancy in the last few years doing tasks for her that Nancy could no longer do for herself.
NCWN-West is holding a BOOKFEST at the Moss Memorial Library Iin Hayesville, NC on Saturday, March 24, noon until 4:00 PM.
Six authors will speak on publishing and marketing, and we will have more than ten authors set up at tables to talk with folks and to sign books for them.
Door prizes will be given away all afternoon.
Some of them are: one writing class at Writers Circle around the Table. Thirty pages edited by Carol Crawford of www.carolcrawfordediting.com , and a free school visit by Deanna Klingel author of children's and young adult books.
Tom and Polly Davis of Old Mountain Press will be on hand to speak to us about self publishing and other matters of publishing and marketing. Everyone is donating books for the door prizes.
Thanks to Kathy Knapp who is going to help with the BOOKFEST and to all volunteers who said they will help set up and take down tables and chairs. It takes good volunteers to be able to hold any event, and I am fortunate that we have some of the best.
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Thursday, February 22, 2018
Busy, busy right now. And that is a good thing.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
TWO WRITING CONFERENCES THIS SPRING
WRITERS, TAKE NOTICE!
Two great writing conferences you will enjoy this spring.
April 6 - 7 - Blue Ridge Writers' Conference - The Art Center in Blue Ridge, Georgia - Visit the website for information on the presenters. I recommend this conference because I have attended every single one over the past 22 years. I have never been disappointed. In fact, I have met some of the best and best known writers and poets at this conference.
Saturday, April 21 - 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM - North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Spring Conference - MHRA Building UNC-Greensboro,NC - Register at www.ncwriters.org or call 336-293-8844 or 919-308-3228
This is always a great conference. I attended for years but the driving is too far for me now. But if you want a jam-packed day full of literary knowledge and interesting people, please go to the Spring Conference. Ed Southern and Charles Fiore bring this event to Greensboro every year.
Two great writing conferences you will enjoy this spring.
April 6 - 7 - Blue Ridge Writers' Conference - The Art Center in Blue Ridge, Georgia - Visit the website for information on the presenters. I recommend this conference because I have attended every single one over the past 22 years. I have never been disappointed. In fact, I have met some of the best and best known writers and poets at this conference.
Saturday, April 21 - 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM - North Carolina Writers' Network 2018 Spring Conference - MHRA Building UNC-Greensboro,NC - Register at www.ncwriters.org or call 336-293-8844 or 919-308-3228
This is always a great conference. I attended for years but the driving is too far for me now. But if you want a jam-packed day full of literary knowledge and interesting people, please go to the Spring Conference. Ed Southern and Charles Fiore bring this event to Greensboro every year.
Friday, February 9, 2018
Online advice and aid for writers from some of my favorites
I subscribe to a few blogs and newsletters by excellent writers and editors.
I like reading the latest posts by these knowledgeable people.
I receive in my email a digest from Jane Friedman with several of the articles that appear on her blog. This one about how important book reviews are to writers is one I want to share with you.
A weekly digest of blog posts from JaneFriedman.com
Book reviews build symbolic capital
New authors—certainly self-published authors—have no symbolic capital. They are not (yet) known for producing quality books that seduce readers to the degree that they are willing to part with some of their disposable income, not to mention time. Is it possible for self-publishing authors to create symbolic capital? Absolutely yes, and many have.Read more here...
I have subscribed to C. Hope Clark for many years and have never been disappointed in what she sends me. www.FundsforWriters.com
Hope receives letters and emails every day thanking her for all she does for writers. I know she has helped me. I subscribe to her newsletter and it comes in my Inbox. I always learn something from it. She writes exciting mysteries and has a big following. Look at some of her books and give one a read. You will come back for more.
I subscribe to a newsletter by Bobbie Christmas, a successful editor and writer who lives in the Atlanta region. http://www.zebraeditor.com/
I use her tips and advice in teaching my adult writing students, and I own her book, Purge Your Prose of Problems, an excellent guide for anyone who has questions about grammar, punctuation, proper format, and all those little issues that come up that no one remembers. She updates this book periodically to make sure her readers don't get left behind.
Another site any writer will like, I think, is Writer Unboxed.
http://writerunboxed.com/ They use a wide range of writers for their articles that help us continue on this journey we love.
I read others but will mention those later. Do you have favorite blogs or websites by writers that you read regularly? Tell us about them. We writers should help each other when we can.
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Managing Chronic Pain without Pills
I, like many people, deal with chronic pain. To wake up in pain every day is not the norm for most people I know and I am glad. But since the early nineties, I have learned how to deal with chronic pain.
I made a friend when I moved to Hayesville, NC in 1995. She was a member of our writing group and an excellent writer. Her name is Maren O. Mitchell. One day she shared a manuscript she had written and planned to publish.
Maren had a terrible physical condition that required a major surgery and provoked much suffering. A tumor gone wild in her spine. Doctors had little to offer but addictive pain medicines, so Maren made a tremendous effort to find non-medical methods to face the pain she endured every single day and night.
In her book Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider's Guide, we see how she taught herself to use what she could do herself to mask the pain and continue with her life.
She writes this: September, 1987: The back pain increased; the numbness and skin pain increased. MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) revealed an intramedullary tumor, a tumor within the spinal cord, five vertebrae in length with cysts top and bottom, most likely an ependymoma or astrocytoma, unclear whether benign or malignant. The neurologist advised me to wait for surgery until either my walking, bladder, or bowels failed. He thought that immediate spinal cord surgery would be more damaging than the loss of one of these functions.
Before the spinal surgery, Maren would undergo removal of her ovaries and Fallopian tube. That eased some of the abdominal pain.
On December 8, 1987, she endured a seven hour spinal cord operation involving a thoracic laminectomy from T4 to T9. The placement of the tumor was unusual. It was inside the spinal cord. The surgery affected both the spinal cord and the nerves that enter and exit the spine.
Much of my own pain is nerve pain and I know what that is like. Awful and very hard to contain.
Maren had to relearn to walk and spent six weeks in inpatient rehabilitation. She found that touch was painful, and everyday activities like talking on the phone, driving, swimming, laughing and sleeping can intensify the pain.
When I think of the pain of fibromyalgia, neuropathy, trigimenal neuralgia, pinched nerves in the back causing sharp and constant pain in the legs and feet, I know what it is like, but still can't imagine pain so bad that my clothes hurt me when they touch my body. Maren has pain when her bedclothes touch her, when she tries to sleep. She learned to cut the toes out of tights and to wear one leg of tights because she needs the close touch at night. Soft touch can be more painful than firm touch for her.
Maren's book is about what she discovered, on her own, she must do to live with chronic pain. We can't depend on pain medications all the time. They create havoc on our kidneys and liver and often patients become addicted to them. Over time, the patient wants more and more of them until nothing helps the pain anymore.
I have read this book more than once. I decided to write about it again because I think the everyone should know about it and read it. If you are lucky and don't have chronic pain, read it to understand those who do deal with this every day of their lives. Often chronic pain is an invisible illness and even family doesn't realize what the patient goes through.
You would not expect Maren to have a great sense of humor, but she does. She is a highly published, intelligent poet and writing is one of the methods that she uses to deal with pain. If you write seriously, you know how you can be transported from your normal life into a story or poem or some other kind of writing, and you forget yourself completely. I have done that.
Another way she coped was to remove her mind from her pain by helping to reduce the pain of others. She found that victims of stroke or accidents who had similar permanent changes in their lives joked and laughed, shared information with each other while beginning their new lives.
Maren and other patients at the hospital where she had surgery were warned by nurses at the hospital about laughing too much. They were told they should realize their situation was serious. But, laughing was also a way to deal with the fear of the unknown future. I know that laughter helps my pain and helps all kinds of healing.
Maren learned that when she was with others, it helped her chronic pain. I have found that to be important for me. I can be in pain and thinking I just can't leave home today, but when I force myself to socialize with friends, to attend classes or invite someone to meet me for lunch, I lose myself in the joy of talking, laughing and just being with another human being. I get lost in teaching writing to adults, and for a short time my pain is pushed way back.
"One must be distracted from pain instead of pain distracting you." Maren says thi, and I know it is true.
Pain drains us of energy so we must carefully plan our activities so we don't over do. I am a list maker. I make a list almost every day of what I hope to accomplish tomorrow. What Maren learned, and I have learned, is that it is Okay if I don't accomplish everything on that list. If I go to the grocery store and it takes me over an hour, I should go home and not run other errands. Trying to do too much on one trip is not the best thing for me. Even though I have five things on my to-do list, I have become accustomed to doing one or two and letting the others wait until later.
Maren says that having animals in her life and nature, gardening, even caring for one plant, helps her deal with the pain. She has a terrific chapter on sleep and what she has learned helps with getting good sleep, so important when dealing with pain. Another chapter is on music and how that aids living with pain. "Music is one of the best medicines from the Gods," she says. I agree with her. I enjoy music and often get up from my computer, tired and hurting. I put on music I love and I will dance. Dancing is good exercise and helps me emotionally and physically.
What I have learned about pain and living with pain the past twenty years or more is that no one can fix it for me. I have to make the decision to get out of the house no matter how bad I feel at the time. I have to stop the pity party before it creeps in. I accept my pain and I accept that I am the one who must deal with it. Maren's book has been helpful to me. I practice many of the methods she uses. I get regular massages to help the muscle spasms. I see my chiropractor on a twice a month basis to relieve the pinched nerves that inhibit my ability to walk, sit or stand to do normal activities. I reach out to others and try to help those I can. I make appointments with friends and family members so I can laugh and enjoy being with them. I make an effort to avoid stress, to eat correctly, to see my medical practitioners on a regular basis, and, most of all, I make a big effort to get plenty of sleep. My friends know I am not an early riser and sometimes when I awake early, I go back to sleep for an hour or two. I am not lazy, but I listen to my body and if it tells me I need a little more sleep, I go back to bed.
I don't make resolutions each year, but I promise myself to see my loved ones, family and friends, more often and spend quality time with them.Throughout Maren's book are her poems which, alone, would make this book worthy of your time, but they add the necessary spice to the recipe for dealing with chronic pain.
Visit Maren's website: http://www.lineofsightpress.com/blog/
Read the many reviews on Amazon.com
I know some of you, my readers, live with pain. How do you manage it and live a normal life?
Bio for Maren Mitchell
A North Carolina native, in her childhood Maren O. Mitchell lived in Bordeaux, France, and Kaiserslautern, Germany, attending local schools and learning French and German. After moving throughout the southeast U.S., she now lives with her husband on the edge of a national forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.
Mitchell has worked in a variety of jobs, from proof reader to miller. She taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College, Flat Rock, NC, and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. For over thirty years, across five southeastern states, she has taught origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Due to spinal cord surgery when forty, she spent many years learning how to live well in spite of chronic pain.
Mitchell’s poems appear in POEM, The Comstock Review, Slant, A Journal of Poetry, The Pedestal Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Chiron Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Lake (UK), Skive (AU), The Classical Outlook, Town Creek Poetry, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Appalachian Journal, The Arts Journal and Red Clay Reader #4.
Her work is included in The Crafty Poet II: a Portable Workshop; The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins; The Southern Poetry Anthologies, V & VII; Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems; Sunrise from Blue Thunder; Nurturing Paws; and Echoes across the Blue Ridge.
Poems are forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, Poetry East, Chiron Review and Hotel Amerika. Two poems, “X Is a Kiss on Paper” and “T, Totally Balanced,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes by contributing editors of Pushcart. In 2012 she received 1st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society. Her nonfiction book, Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide, (Line of Sight Press, 2012) www.lineofsightpress.com is on Amazon. Interconnecting with writers throughout mountain towns in northern Georgia, she participates in monthly critique groups and public reading venues.
I made a friend when I moved to Hayesville, NC in 1995. She was a member of our writing group and an excellent writer. Her name is Maren O. Mitchell. One day she shared a manuscript she had written and planned to publish.
Maren had a terrible physical condition that required a major surgery and provoked much suffering. A tumor gone wild in her spine. Doctors had little to offer but addictive pain medicines, so Maren made a tremendous effort to find non-medical methods to face the pain she endured every single day and night.
In her book Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider's Guide, we see how she taught herself to use what she could do herself to mask the pain and continue with her life.
She writes this: September, 1987: The back pain increased; the numbness and skin pain increased. MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) revealed an intramedullary tumor, a tumor within the spinal cord, five vertebrae in length with cysts top and bottom, most likely an ependymoma or astrocytoma, unclear whether benign or malignant. The neurologist advised me to wait for surgery until either my walking, bladder, or bowels failed. He thought that immediate spinal cord surgery would be more damaging than the loss of one of these functions.
Before the spinal surgery, Maren would undergo removal of her ovaries and Fallopian tube. That eased some of the abdominal pain.
On December 8, 1987, she endured a seven hour spinal cord operation involving a thoracic laminectomy from T4 to T9. The placement of the tumor was unusual. It was inside the spinal cord. The surgery affected both the spinal cord and the nerves that enter and exit the spine.
Much of my own pain is nerve pain and I know what that is like. Awful and very hard to contain.
Maren had to relearn to walk and spent six weeks in inpatient rehabilitation. She found that touch was painful, and everyday activities like talking on the phone, driving, swimming, laughing and sleeping can intensify the pain.
When I think of the pain of fibromyalgia, neuropathy, trigimenal neuralgia, pinched nerves in the back causing sharp and constant pain in the legs and feet, I know what it is like, but still can't imagine pain so bad that my clothes hurt me when they touch my body. Maren has pain when her bedclothes touch her, when she tries to sleep. She learned to cut the toes out of tights and to wear one leg of tights because she needs the close touch at night. Soft touch can be more painful than firm touch for her.
Maren's book is about what she discovered, on her own, she must do to live with chronic pain. We can't depend on pain medications all the time. They create havoc on our kidneys and liver and often patients become addicted to them. Over time, the patient wants more and more of them until nothing helps the pain anymore.
I have read this book more than once. I decided to write about it again because I think the everyone should know about it and read it. If you are lucky and don't have chronic pain, read it to understand those who do deal with this every day of their lives. Often chronic pain is an invisible illness and even family doesn't realize what the patient goes through.
You would not expect Maren to have a great sense of humor, but she does. She is a highly published, intelligent poet and writing is one of the methods that she uses to deal with pain. If you write seriously, you know how you can be transported from your normal life into a story or poem or some other kind of writing, and you forget yourself completely. I have done that.
Another way she coped was to remove her mind from her pain by helping to reduce the pain of others. She found that victims of stroke or accidents who had similar permanent changes in their lives joked and laughed, shared information with each other while beginning their new lives.
Maren and other patients at the hospital where she had surgery were warned by nurses at the hospital about laughing too much. They were told they should realize their situation was serious. But, laughing was also a way to deal with the fear of the unknown future. I know that laughter helps my pain and helps all kinds of healing.
Maren learned that when she was with others, it helped her chronic pain. I have found that to be important for me. I can be in pain and thinking I just can't leave home today, but when I force myself to socialize with friends, to attend classes or invite someone to meet me for lunch, I lose myself in the joy of talking, laughing and just being with another human being. I get lost in teaching writing to adults, and for a short time my pain is pushed way back.
"One must be distracted from pain instead of pain distracting you." Maren says thi, and I know it is true.
Pain drains us of energy so we must carefully plan our activities so we don't over do. I am a list maker. I make a list almost every day of what I hope to accomplish tomorrow. What Maren learned, and I have learned, is that it is Okay if I don't accomplish everything on that list. If I go to the grocery store and it takes me over an hour, I should go home and not run other errands. Trying to do too much on one trip is not the best thing for me. Even though I have five things on my to-do list, I have become accustomed to doing one or two and letting the others wait until later.
Maren says that having animals in her life and nature, gardening, even caring for one plant, helps her deal with the pain. She has a terrific chapter on sleep and what she has learned helps with getting good sleep, so important when dealing with pain. Another chapter is on music and how that aids living with pain. "Music is one of the best medicines from the Gods," she says. I agree with her. I enjoy music and often get up from my computer, tired and hurting. I put on music I love and I will dance. Dancing is good exercise and helps me emotionally and physically.
What I have learned about pain and living with pain the past twenty years or more is that no one can fix it for me. I have to make the decision to get out of the house no matter how bad I feel at the time. I have to stop the pity party before it creeps in. I accept my pain and I accept that I am the one who must deal with it. Maren's book has been helpful to me. I practice many of the methods she uses. I get regular massages to help the muscle spasms. I see my chiropractor on a twice a month basis to relieve the pinched nerves that inhibit my ability to walk, sit or stand to do normal activities. I reach out to others and try to help those I can. I make appointments with friends and family members so I can laugh and enjoy being with them. I make an effort to avoid stress, to eat correctly, to see my medical practitioners on a regular basis, and, most of all, I make a big effort to get plenty of sleep. My friends know I am not an early riser and sometimes when I awake early, I go back to sleep for an hour or two. I am not lazy, but I listen to my body and if it tells me I need a little more sleep, I go back to bed.
I don't make resolutions each year, but I promise myself to see my loved ones, family and friends, more often and spend quality time with them.Throughout Maren's book are her poems which, alone, would make this book worthy of your time, but they add the necessary spice to the recipe for dealing with chronic pain.
Visit Maren's website: http://www.lineofsightpress.com/blog/
Read the many reviews on Amazon.com
I know some of you, my readers, live with pain. How do you manage it and live a normal life?
Bio for Maren Mitchell
A North Carolina native, in her childhood Maren O. Mitchell lived in Bordeaux, France, and Kaiserslautern, Germany, attending local schools and learning French and German. After moving throughout the southeast U.S., she now lives with her husband on the edge of a national forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.
Mitchell has worked in a variety of jobs, from proof reader to miller. She taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College, Flat Rock, NC, and catalogued at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. For over thirty years, across five southeastern states, she has taught origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Due to spinal cord surgery when forty, she spent many years learning how to live well in spite of chronic pain.
Mitchell’s poems appear in POEM, The Comstock Review, Slant, A Journal of Poetry, The Pedestal Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Chiron Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Appalachian Heritage, The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Lake (UK), Skive (AU), The Classical Outlook, Town Creek Poetry, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Appalachian Journal, The Arts Journal and Red Clay Reader #4.
Her work is included in The Crafty Poet II: a Portable Workshop; The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins; The Southern Poetry Anthologies, V & VII; Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems; Sunrise from Blue Thunder; Nurturing Paws; and Echoes across the Blue Ridge.
Poems are forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, Poetry East, Chiron Review and Hotel Amerika. Two poems, “X Is a Kiss on Paper” and “T, Totally Balanced,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes by contributing editors of Pushcart. In 2012 she received 1st Place Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Georgia Poetry Society. Her nonfiction book, Beat Chronic Pain, An Insider’s Guide, (Line of Sight Press, 2012) www.lineofsightpress.com is on Amazon. Interconnecting with writers throughout mountain towns in northern Georgia, she participates in monthly critique groups and public reading venues.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Karen Holmes new poetry collection by Terrapin Press, No Such Thing as Distance
My good friend, poet Karen Holmes has published a second book, No Such Thing as Distance, and it is another beautiful book with poems that make you cry and others that make you smile. If you liked her first book, Untying the Knot, you will enjoy this one. Karen always impresses me with her poetry that expresses her deepest thoughts and feelings, her honesty about her own life and, in this book, her family. The cover photo is by her sister.
I think this book will be as popular as the first, maybe even more.
https://netwestwriters.blogspot.com/2018/02/now-available-second-book-by-karen-paul.html
I think this book will be as popular as the first, maybe even more.
https://netwestwriters.blogspot.com/2018/02/now-available-second-book-by-karen-paul.html
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| Karen Paul Holmes |
Friday, January 26, 2018
Who will be teaching at Writers Circle this year?
See who is coming to Writers Circle and where I will be teaching this coming year. I hope you can join us.
 |
| Poet, Mike James |
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Poetry workshop - 12:00 noon until 3:00 PM
Poetry workshop - 12:00 noon until 3:00 PM
Writers Circle Studio, Hayesville, NC
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Blog Post by Bill Ramsey is good advice for writers
Today I refer you to a blog post by Bill Ramsey, author of several books
http://profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com/2013/04/bill-ramsey-writes-his-thoughts-on.html
Bill makes some very good comments on the necessity of hiring a good editor before one publishes a book. If you have published books, either by self-publishing or going through a publisher, what did you learn about the importance of editing?
Leave your comment, please.
Remember, you can receive each new post from this site in your Inbox simply by leaving your email address on the sidebar where you see the box to subscribe or to follow. No charge.
http://profilesandpedigrees.blogspot.com/2013/04/bill-ramsey-writes-his-thoughts-on.html
Bill makes some very good comments on the necessity of hiring a good editor before one publishes a book. If you have published books, either by self-publishing or going through a publisher, what did you learn about the importance of editing?
Leave your comment, please.
Remember, you can receive each new post from this site in your Inbox simply by leaving your email address on the sidebar where you see the box to subscribe or to follow. No charge.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
POETRY COMPETITION THROUGH MARCH 15
In an effort to keep my readers updated on opportunities for writers and poets, I am sharing an email I received today. Check out the website to learn more.
"I found your email on the NC Writer's Network website and in an effort to expand our competition this year, wanted to let all interested groups know about the Lanier Library's 10th Annual Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition. We are accepting submissions through March 15, 2018 with prizes awarded April 28, 2018 at the library in Tryon, NC.
Adult and Student categories are available with prizes from $500 (Adult) and $100 (Student).
Please visit our website for more information: www.thelanierlibrary.org"
Thank you,
Amber Keeran, Director
The Lanier Library
72 Chestnut St., Tryon, NC 28782
828-859-9535
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