So not only did you teach me about writing memoir, you also taught me about reading and thinking about how others write memoir. Thank you so much! Rebecca

Accepting what is to come

You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

Monday, November 4, 2024

A Review of Echoes Across the Blue Ridge from 2010

I found this review of Echoes Across the Blue Ridge in my files tonight. I enjoyed reading it again and I thought you would like to read it, too.

Musings]
 Imbued with the Spirit: A Review of Echoes Across the Blue Ridge

by Scott Owens


What makes the Appalachian Mountains so special? Certainly one distinctive quality is age. Where else can you see stone so old it crumbles, trees left alone to grow as big around as houses, houses bent on one knee but still lived in, and traditions as old as . . . well, as old as the hills?

Things, even people, are allowed to grow old here without someone knocking them down in the name of progress or shuffling them off to a nursing home. And that’s how the real magic of the place happens, because, in one respect, nothing dies here -- not really. Sure, physical presence may come and go, but the essential character of things is retained in stories, poems, songs, artifacts, traditions, and, most of all, memory.

The word “haunted” has a negative connotation in most places, but one can hardly read about the southern Appalachians without that word or a synonym being, if not named, then at least implied. Robert Morgan uses it in his Introduction to Echoes Across the Blue Ridge: “The deep valleys seem haunted by the natives who once lived there.” Kay Byer uses it in a comment quoted by Nancy Simpson in her “Note from the Editor:” “our most haunting artifacts.” The first poem, “Beyond the Clearing” by James Cox, certainly suggests it by referring to “a place sublime / where spirits sing invisibly.” And the first two stories, “Rendezvous” by Charlotte Wolf and “The Third Floor Bedroom” by Lana Hendershott, are, to some degree about the sensation of being haunted. And despite the usual expectation that non-fiction wouldn’t involve such fanciful ideas as spirits and haunting, even the first essay, “The Oldest Answer” by Steven Harvey quotes Bettie Sellers saying, “My bent was to espouse the unseen that’s in the woods at night.” To which, Harvey adds, “It is the need to fill all this haunted otherness with something human.”

All of this repetition of the word “haunting” or the sense of being haunted reminds the reader that the implication of the word is in fact not limited to an unpleasant habitual visitation but rather to a persistent presence of spirit, a presence that may be desired, embraced, just as I, a flatlander, have been haunted by images of Cade’s Cove, Caesars Head, Graveyard Fields, and the Devil’s Courthouse since visiting them as a child and returning to them as often as I can manage. This usually pleasant but sometimes unsettling lingering of spirit is closer to the type of haunting the writers in Echoes Across the Blue Ridge have discovered in these mountains and expressed in these pages.

Not that every piece in this anthology deals with the past or memory or spirit. Some of the selections deal with other reasons people are attracted to these mountains. Ellen Andrews comments on the beauty and sense of community in the mountains in “Homing:” “We are connected not by school uniforms / but by a raging lust for these purple mountains.” And in poems like Gene Hirsch’s “Where It Comes From,” we see even more closely the intimate relationship between the human and the natural: “Love / sprouts from lichen, / in the shade, by the lily pond . . . / in the thicket / of a chapter of floating / leaves / beneath the silky / hairs of a willow.”

Even the descriptions of nature are, however, frequently haunting, as in Janice Townley Moore’s “Photos from Another State,” where she describes the sound of a creek as “lyrics from the unseen.” Similarly, Jennifer McGaha’s reverie in “Looking Glass” is punctuated by images from the past: “You see your great-grandmother, her long, gray hair pinned in a bun, stooping over the quilting loom by the black wood stove in her cabin, and you see her strolling in her garden, her brown, crinkled hands pulling a green bean fresh from the vine.” And Susan Lefler’s harrowing story “The Spirit Tree” tells of one little girl’s attempt to use the spirits of nature and tradition to fend off the hazards of her mother’s emotional disorder.

Whether spirits of joy or grief, familiarity or strangeness, there is no doubt that the southern Appalachians are possessed by a presence that transcends the physical and temporal. In the same way, the poems, stories, and essays in Echoes Across the Blue Ridge are possessed by the various spirits of these mountains, leaving us standing, in the words of Janet Sloane Benway’s poem “Sugarloaf Mountain,” “in awe, / even in the face of sorrow.”

--
Posted By Scott Owens to Musings at 11/13/2010 02:26:00 PM


Sunday, October 20, 2024

Happy Birthday, Estelle

Estelle Darrow Rice, poet and fiction writer 
is 100 years old this month.

My very dear friend, Estelle, co-author of Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins, was one of the first writers I met when I moved to the mountains in 1995. She and I took classes with Nancy Simpson, and we were members of NC Writers Network and NCWN-West.

In her early life, she was a mental health counselor. She still practices helping others by always being there to listen to me when I need a shoulder. We can talk to each other about everything. We both lost our dear husbands and grieved with each other and for each other. Her mind is keen, her sense of humor is intact, and her conversation is brilliant as ever. She has faced the loss of a daughter and a grandchild, but her faith and resilience endured. One of her daughters lives with her and her grandchildren often come to visit. 

Estelle Darrow Rice is a North Carolina native who has lived in other states but came back to spend retirement in the mountains in Cherokee County. She holds a BA degree in Psychology from Queens University, Charlotte, NC and an MA degree in counseling from the University of South Alabama, Mobile AL.   

Her short stories and personal essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. Her book of spiritual poems, Quiet Times, was well-received and highly praised. She has taught writing for NC Writers’ Network-West and for Writers Circle Around the Table in Hayesville, NC.

Estelle Darrow Rice is a phenomenal poet, who often writes of home and bygone days.

The Back Porch Steps

Lilies of the Valley, their tiny bells
as white and innocent
as a child’s dream grew
beside our back porch steps,
where in the evening Mother and I
watered her rose garden.

Sometimes we sang, but mostly we talked.
We planned to decorate my playhouse curtains
with rick-rack. We’d fill a window box
with pansies and petunias.
These were the things we talked about
When I was ten.

Now my dreams transport me
to that time when she and I
sat on the back porch steps.
I still hear her gentle voice,
and her laughter.

I remember the fragrance of roses
and I am certain I hear
the tinkling of tiny white bells.
                ----Estelle Darrow Rice

Thursday, October 17, 2024

MY SISTER, THE DANCER


Chris, the fabulous dance instructor stands between two of his students at a dance competition in Atlanta, October 17, 2024. My sister, Gay Moring is beautiful in her red dress. Chris said he was very proud of her dancing. Lisa is on Chris's right. Both Gay and Lisa brought home medals.

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Finding old E-mails and remembering my teachers

Moving from the home I love, and going through a ton of boxes trying to sort out what I can keep, what is useful, and what I will never use again is stressful, frustrating, and sad. But it is also interesting. While looking through files, I found emails I had saved from my teacher and my mentor, Nancy Simpson, the wonderful poet who was a founder of NCWN-West back in the 1990s. 

She was a dedicated leader of the writers in our western NC area, encouraging, motivating, and inspiring. She taught special education for children in elementary school. She adopted an orphan Vietnamese boy and raised him with her two biological sons. She adored him and he felt the same about her. 

Recently, I have begun to learn about emotional intelligence. Nancy was smart, funny, and above all caring. She felt empathy and compassion for others, and she expressed her feelings in her poetry.

Goleman's EQ theory comprises five core components: empathy, effective communication or social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation. 
Nancy exhibited all of these in her daily life. I didn't know at the time that I had a high EQ myself. Perhaps that is what she saw in me because she immediately selected me for a leadership position with NCWN-West. She asked me to take the publicity coordinator's job. I had done publicity for our genealogy group in south Georgia where I lived before moving to the mountains. It is my nature to do the best job possible when I take on a task. 

It was perfect for me. I interviewed the writers who were going to do readings and wrote articles about them for the local newspapers. I had them send a photograph to go with the articles. The local newspaper liked them and always published them. In the past, the announcements of writing events were typed and mailed through the USPS to the county papers. But I used the computer which was beginning to be popular. I had worked in an office for five years and I knew something about the Internet.

Nancy was so good to me that I would do anything she needed me to do. When she asked me to become the Clay County Representative I accepted the job and enjoyed it. She and I grew close as we worked together over the years and I took all of the classes she taught at the local community college. Without Nancy, I would never have published my poetry chapbook. She read it, helped me organize it, and even chose the title for it. Now Might as Well be Then. That was a line in a poem in the book.

I am a product of the teachers in my life. Nancy was one of them. I had an art teacher, Verna, in Albany, GA, who taught me to paint in oils. She also became a wonderful friend.  I could lose myself for an entire afternoon as I painted on canvas following her classes. She helped my self-confidence and made me realize I had talent.


My older sister and my younger sister have been teachers in my life. June, the oldest, taught me when I was a child, by example. I admired how she always looked her best, behaved like a lady, gentile and well-spoken. I wanted to be like her and will always remember her kindness and generosity to me. Her words of encouragement and approval got me through college years and boyfriend breakups.  She, like my mother, enjoyed people. She was friendly and had a beautiful smile for everyone. 

Gay, June, Lee, her daughter, and me

My younger sister, Gay, is still teaching me. Because of her, I see that it is never too late to follow your dreams. She will be taking part in a ballroom competition this week. She has always loved to dance and decided a couple of years ago to take ballroom dancing simply because she wanted to dance again with excellent partners. Now she dresses up in beautiful gowns, wears dancing shoes with heels, and enters competitions with others in her age category. Not too many in her category, but it matters not. She dances as well as many who are younger. She is a great role model. This is just one of her many attributes I admire.

My sister, Gay, Dancing

I learn from the students who take my writing classes. I think I am a life-long student as well as a teacher.  Hearing their stories about their lives takes me to interesting places, people, and lifestyles I will never know first-hand, but can experience through their words. One of my students, Abbie, is visually impaired but has written and published several books. She has a lively website and blog on which she stays connected to other writers with vision disabilities, and is generous with her reviews and promotion of their books. I admire Abbie because she doesn't let her disability stop her. She lives alone but still goes out to sing at the nursing home and she travels by air to visit family many miles away from her home. She has mastered the technology available for the vision impaired and helps others who take classes like mine. Abbie has brought several blind students to my classes. 

I have been blessed with wonderful teachers and you probably have individuals in your life who helped make you who you are.  Tell me about them in the comments.









Saturday, July 13, 2024

A Month Ago I Wrote:

I am in North Carolina tonight packing the belongings I can take to Roswell where I will live. Much will be left behind. Only the most special things and many of my books and notebooks filled with handwritten and typed stories and interviews with many, many interesting people. 

So much I have to leave behind and so many memories lay heavy on my mind. But with my sister's help, I will get this done.

I am in my second week of teaching a memoir class on Zoom. My students are delightful and fascinating people. These three-week courses are broken up into three topics and the subject of the next class is theme. While we want to write about our lives, we must carefully decide what parts of our lives to include and which ones follow the theme we have chosen for our book.

We can write more than one memoir. I have one book in progress about my family overcoming poverty on the farm and hard times to become successful business owners. Another manuscript has another theme. As I write my stories about my life, they fall into different subjects for a book. 

But until I get my house ready to list with a realtor, I can't seem to concentrate on writing.

I was really happy to drive my car for two and a half hours with no problems. For two or more months I could not drive due to shoulder surgery so this recovery is going well, I think.
Be happy, be kind and smile! It makes a difference. Till next time. Glenda






Sunday, June 2, 2024

Time Marches on

 It was Memorial Day 1995 when we moved into our house in the mountains of western North Carolina. Barry and I were excited, but I was also sad to leave our home we had built on the land deeded to me by my father and mother. We had carved a beautiful setting out of the woods. A large oak tree, like the one I had played under when I was a child, shaded the front of our redwood, modern house with glass enclosing the living and dining area. It was talked about by all our family and friends. One sister-in-law said she would like to have my house with her furniture in it. She had excellent taste and the money to buy good furniture so I imagine she would have made it into a show place. 

We lived in that house for 25 years and made many memories. When we left it, the carpets still looked great and we had remodeled the kitchen which I loved. We changed the orange and green colors of the seventies to more neutral colors and the house was perfect. We had a built-in garbage compactor and a garbage disposal. Our large bedroom had a wall of windows with a view of woods as far as one could see. I awoke to birds singing in the trees. 

My mother died in 1985 and my father followed her in 1988. For over ten years I was a caregiver for my beloved Mother and when she died, I felt I had failed her. I wasn't with her when she walked back to the house from Daddy's garden. Barbara, the housekeeper, had gone out to pick a watermelon because our aunt Judy was coming for a visit and she loved watermelon. Mother walked every day no matter how hot the weather. She collapsed as she reached the steps to the back door. She died instantly. 

An era of my life ended that day. I realized I was finally and definitely grown up.

Now living with family here in Roswell, I am the most fortunate person. 
For the past week, my niece has been seeing to my needs. I was to go to their house on Memorial Day, but was ill for two days. She and her caring husband brought dinner to me. My sister was out of town for a week, but Lee was very helpful and responsible for me. I am doing well. 

As we age and our health begins to fail, our thoughts turn to who has been the most precious in our lives. So many people have influenced me and helped me through the passages of time. I wish I could see each one and tell them how much I love and appreciate them. 

From childhood, I was loved and cherished by my mother, sisters, and some of my brothers.  I had teachers who made me feel special. When my brothers and older sister married, more people came into my life who were special and supportive of me. Stan, my sister June's husband, was like a second father to me writing letters and encouraging me to stay in school at GSCW. 

My little sister has said she admired me and tried to emulate me when we were kids. I did not know that. I was proud of her and her accomplishments in high school. I felt that she and I could do anything as long as we were together. And we usually did.

Now as the autumn of my life approaches, I must find new and different means of living and purpose to my days. I deal with health issues I never had before and they play a huge part in my activities each day. As I begin to drive again, I see possibilities of meeting new people and making friends here in the city that will be my final home. Acceptance is the answer. I know that, but some part of me still fights the inevitable. 

I met an interesting woman, my age, at physical therapy, and we are very similar. She began her own business when she was sixty. I began my own business at the age of seventy. We talk often and find many common interests. She is from New York but moved down here years ago. Like me, her husband has died.

I am grateful that I am a people person and enjoy meeting strangers and learning about their lives. I guess this is why I love teaching older people who write about their family history. I have room in my class that starts this month. Hope we have a good group and have fun like we usually do.

Dear Readers, have a good summer. Be safe and stay healthy.






Saturday, May 18, 2024

City Lights Books in Sylva

BOOK LOVERS AND WRITERS

See what is happening at City Lights Books in Sylva, NC 

UPCOMING EVENTS
5/18  Poetry Reading with Jane Hicks & Thomas Alan Holmes
Poets Jane Hicks & Thomas Alan Holmes will visit City Lights...

5/22  Brent Martin: A Hiker's Guide to the Bartram Trail
Local author Brent Martin visits City Lights on May 22nd at 6:00pm...

5/23  Terah Shelton Harris: Long After We Are Gone
Terah Shelton Harris visits City Lights Bookstore on May 23rd...

5/31  Benjamin Cutler Book Launch: Wild Silence
Benjamin Cutler is launching his new book of poetry, WILD SILENCE,...

6/6  Zelda Lockhart: In Conversation with Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Zelda Lockhart visits City Lights Bookstore on June 6th at 7:00pm...

6/8  Jim Costa: Darwin and the Art of Botany
Local author Jim Costa visits City Lights Bookstore on Saturday,...

6/15  David Yamane: Gun Curious
David Yamane visits City Lights Bookstore on June 15th at 3:00pm...


Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Interview with a YouTube Success Hostess

Tonight I am reposting an interview I did with Tipper Pressley a few years ago. Tipper and I have been friends for many years. She helped me back in 2007 when I created my first Blog, Netwest Writers. 

Read the interview, and read the comments from her fans. She has touched many lives with first, her blog, Blind Pig and the Acorn, and now with her entertaining and enlightening YouTube videos. Celebrating Appalachia. She has inspired me to plant potatoes in my deck garden. 

Tipper has had some tough times lately first with her mother-in-law passing away and now her own mother, Granny, has been very sick and in the hospital for a long time. She also has become a grandmother since we did this interview.
Read it and leave your comment.