One Last Poem for April

Poetry can say so much in a few words. But each word is important and must say more than the language we use every day. By writing poetry, I have learned how to read and understand poems by others in a deeper, more meaningful way. I advise my students who write prose, to read poetry and try to write poetry. Poetry is a way to put forth an idea  or a story in a concise manner, to say something in a few words that leave a lasting impression.

The use of metaphor increases the reader's understanding and draws him deeper into the poem. I learned to use at least one metaphor in every poem I write. 

Our Loss

for my brother, Ray

Family,

like threads tightly woven

in a fine tapestry --

fiery reds, cool blues, pale yellows.

Family,

like the petals of a rosebud

curving close around each other,

maturing, gently falling

to die upon the ground.

Family,

like a clump of grass.

Disturb one blade,

affect all that remain.

You were plucked from us,

and now we don't know

which way to lean

when the winds blow.

            ----Glenda Council Beall

Celebrating Poetry this month

I don't know if it was because I grew up in the segregated south, but I did not know about the poet Langston Hughes until about ten years ago.

I bought some books and read his work and realized he was a poet with much to write about. I often find myself picking up one of his books and reading this man's poetry.

His parents divorced when he was a child and he was raised by his grandmother until he was 13. Then he went to live with his mother and  stepfather.
In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D. C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, (Knopf, 1930) won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

I like this poem. 

Mother to Son 
                Langston Hughes (1922)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

What a beautiful message of encouragement from a mother to her son. Her life was as hard as life could be but she would not put up with a son who gave up when life got tough.

Poetry Class for Beginning Poets and Intermediate Poets

It has been requested that we hold a basic poetry class at Writers Circle.

With enough interest, we will hold a series of poetry classes for beginning and intermediate poets. We will meet for three two-hour sessions over three weeks.
Fees: $25.00 for six hours of class time. Date and time to be announced when we have enough interest. 

In this class we will discuss free verse, other forms of poetry, what a poem needs to get the editor's attention, how to find a poem, prompts from everyday items in your life and much more.

You will learn how to submit poetry for publication and how to search for the best places to send your poetry.

You will have access to books on writing poetry that you may check out.

If you want to write poetry or if you already write poetry but have not taken classes before, this course of study will be beneficial.

Our Studio is located in Hayesville, NC convenient to Hiawassee, GA, Blairsville, GA, Young Harris, GA, and Murphy, NC.

Writers Circle around the table for one of our many classes

OMP calls for submissions for new anthology

Tom Davis of Old Mountain Press has called his former contributors to submit to a new anthology. You can view the submissions of those who have already been accepted. Be sure to visit the website for Old Mountain Press.

Old Mountain Press (OMP) is accepting submissions for 

Wish You Were Here from PREVIOUS CONTRIBUTORS ONLY OR SOMEONE RECOMMENDED BY A PREVIOUS CONTRIBUTOR. Each contributor whose work will appear in this anthology can recommend ONE person to submit to this anthology. Someone whose work you would like to see included with yours–maybe right beside yours:-).

See  http://www.oldmp.com/anthology/wishyouwerehere.htm here you will also find guidelines and the link to an online submission form.

View camera ready copy of all submissions accepted so far at http://www.oldmp.com/anthology/review/wishyouwerehere.pdf

NOTE: As always this anthology may fill up before the close out date so don’t procrastinate.

Wish You Were Here’s THEME is ANYTHING RELATING  TO TRAVELING TO PLACES YOU HAVE BEEN OR WOULD LIKE TO GO: THE PLACE, THE PEOPLE, THE FOOD, ETC.
NOTE: The theme is NOT missing someone or something.

I will accept submissions until 12:00, 6 March OR when I have at least 90 to 100 pages (includes table of content and authors’ bios 75 words or preferably less please) or 70 contributors of quality poems and short shorts WHICHEVER COMES FIRST. If you wish to be considered for inclusion in this anthology, do not procrastinate. Get your work in now! Since this is a very wide topic, I expect the anthology to fill up well before the close out date.

There is no reading fee, no entry fee, and no requirement for a contributor to purchase this anthology.
As always, contributors will be able to purchase copies at a reduced rate.

Take Advantage of this Excellent Writers' Conference

I think the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference is one of the best events an author can attend. Carol Crawford and her staff work all year to bring in the best presenters, and they try to have something for everyone. 

Visit the website and see who is on the program this year. This is a small conference where the writers have an opportunity to talk with authors, agents, editors and to ask questions. 

19 th ANNUAL BLUE RIDGE WRITERS’ CONFERENCE 

April 8 & 9, 2016 

The Mission of the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference is to educate, inform, and inspire writers. No matter the level of expertise, the Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference provides a venue for professional writers, editors and agents to provide honest and accurate feedback to the aspiring writer in how to sell a magazine article, finish a novel, or do historical research. 

Other previous keynote speakers include a number of well-known writers such as novelist Claire Cook, Terry Kay, mystery writers Patricia Sprinkle, Joshilyn Jackson and Sharyn McCrumb, essayists James Kilgo and Steven Harvey, suspense writer Karin Slaughter, and former Georgia poet laureate, David Bottoms. 

Saturday, April 9th begins with light breakfast fare and our keynote speech. The 2016 keynote speaker will be Stephanie Fretwell-Hill. Stephanie is an editor at Peachtree Publishers, an independently owned trade book publisher, specializing in quality children's books, from picture books to young adult fiction and nonfiction; consumer references in health, education, and parenting; and regional guide books about the American South. 

Peachtree Publisher's mission is to create books that captivate and educate young and old readers alike, with well-crafted words and pictures. The day continues with concurrent workshops on everything from Children’s Literature to assembling a book of poetry to marketing a manuscript. 

Our 2016 speakers include a wide variety of poets, fiction, non-fiction writers, and much more. Conference attendees appreciate the chance to network with other writers and speakers during the day and the opportunity to submit their work for critique by one of the conference speakers. High school students from area counties are invited to attend and the Art Center offers scholarships to make this more affordable. 

This year’s Writers’ Conference will also offer a four-hour Workshop Intensive on Friday, April 8th. For an additional fee, the Workshop Intensive, presented by Jennifer Jabaley and Kristin Tubb, titled “Show, Don’t Tell: Yes, Yes, But What Does It MEAN?!”, will discuss show, don’t tell techniques for multiple aspects of your story: wordbuilding, characterization, narrative, and dialogue. 

Writers will leave with a solid understanding of the importance of show, don’t tell and the tools to revise their own manuscripts for more showing, less telling. A great workshop for both fiction and nonfiction writers. 

If you are an author and have registered for the conference, you may sign up with the Art Center to have your books for sale on Friday evening during the reception and on Saturday afternoon during the conference until 3:00pm. 

Please email the Art Center no later than March 3rd at blueridgearts@gmail.com to pre-register for a space. Please limit your book sales to no more than (5) titles with a total of (10) books per title. All books for sale must be delivered to the Art Center no later than 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, April 7th. 

The Art Center will sell books in the Mahan Gallery & Art Supply Station for a 10% commission.

Haiku Winner in NCPC contest

I am so proud of my cousin, Pat Daharsh, who has won another First Place for haiku. This time it was the NC Poetry Society, Griffin-Farlow Haiku contest.

GRIFFIN-FARLOW HAIKU AWARD, JUDGED BY MICHAEL DYLAN WELCH

(The poems are identified by their first lines in square brackets.)

1st place: Patricia Daharsh, [“partial eclipse”]
2nd place: Crystal Simone Smith, [“plantation tour”]
3rd place: Chen-ou Liu, [“thinking of mom”]  

The following is the email Pat sent me.
North Carolina Poetry Society has announced winners in their annual Griffin-Farlow Haiku contest. My entry took First Place (publication in Pinesong and a cash prize),

Pat has been writing and winning haiku contests for some years now. Congrats, Pat.

Keep writing and winning.

Sorry I am so late posting this announcement. I thought it had come up back in the spring.

Borrowing from your Favorite Poet with Karen Holmes

Karen is one of my favorite people. I took a course from her at the Folk School just this past spring and know she will do a good job for your group.  Bob Grove, author

Karen Holmes
Saturday
November 7, 2015
1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Fee: 30.00  (You can pay with PayPal. See sidebar)
Borrowing from Your Favorite Poet

Bring a poem that was inspired by a favorite poem. Your poem should use a favorite line from the other poem as your title, as an epigraph, or as a line within your poem. Allow your poem to take on its own life -- it does not need to be about the same subject as the original. We’ll read the inspirational poems and workshop the one you wrote. You’ll also receive some prompts inspired by other great poets, so you can go home and write even more great poems of your own. 

Karen Paul Holmes of Atlanta and Hiawassee, Georgia has taught writing at national conferences and at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Her full-length poetry collection, Untying The Knot, was published by Kelsay Books (August 2014) and recently received an Elizabeth George Foundation grant for poetry. Publishing credits include Poetry East, Atlanta Review, POEM, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Southern Poetry Anthology Vol 5: Georgia (Texas Review Press).

To support fellow writers, Holmes, a Georgia representative for North  Carolina  Writers' Network originated and hosts a critique group in Atlanta and Writers’ Night Out in Blairsville, GA. A former VP of Communication at ING, a global financial services company, she now leads “a kinder, gentler life” as a freelance writer, poet and teacher.

It is time to Register for Scott Owens' poetry class, The Stuff of Poetry, September 12, 2015

Scott Owens, Award winning poet, editor and teacher

September 12, 2015 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.     Fee: $35.00

Class description:
The Stuff of Poetry: This workshop will focus on creativity, originality, and imagery, answering the questions, "Where do we find the stuff for poetry?" "How do we know what to include?" and "How do we make it good?"

Participants should bring an object of "value" (something kept for years) with them, expect to generate several new ideas for writing, and expect to have their comfort zones challenged.

Scott Owens will read his poetry on Friday, 7:00 p.m. September 11, for Writers Night Out in Blairsville, GA.


Scott is originally from Greenwood, SC. He holds degrees from Ohio University, UNC Charlotte, and UNC Greensboro. He currently lives in Hickory, NC, where he teaches at Catawba Valley Community College, edits Wild Goose Poetry Review, owns and operates Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse and Gallery and serves as vice-president of the NC Poetry Society.
He is a Regional Representative of North Carolina Writers' Network, and Coordinator of Poetry Hickory. His 12th book of poetry, To, was released by Main Street Rag last year.

His work has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the Next Generation/Indie Lit Awards, the NC Writers Network, the NC Poetry Society, and the Poetry Society of SC, and his articles about poetry have been featured in Poet’s Market twice.


Scott Owens
www.scottowenspoet.com                     www.ncpoetrysociety.org

To register, send check made to Glenda Beall. Mail to 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904

Copy registration form at top of page and include with your fee.

Here Is what is coming

Classes at  Writers  Circle are filling for the  summer. I have had many interested in Dr. Steven Harvey's class for Saturday, but our class is full with a waiting list.

Tara Lynne Groth's marketing and publishing class for August 22 has two places open now. This is an important class for serious writers who want to publish and sell their books. The deadline for registering for Groth's class is July 1. 

Michael Diebert, Poetry Editor for the Chattahoochee Review, a  literary journal, is teaching once again at Writers Circle studio. His subject is salvaging your poetry, using those bits and pieces of poems you have in your files to create new poems. Those who attend will go home with new poems they will be happy to submit for publication. 

Registration is now open

In September we will host Scott Owens, a favorite poet and instructor in our region. 

In October, Karen Holmes, poet and author of the  popular poetry collection, Untying the Knot will teach a class at Writers Circle.  

Michael Diebert teaches poetry class

Re-purposing Your Poems: The Art and Craft of Poetic Salvage

Saturday, July 25, 10 - 1 p.m.

Location: Writers Circle ,Hayesville NC
Fee - $35.00   Registration deadline is July 19

Description: Just as a car enthusiast scavenges a junkyard for working parts, just as a songwriter scavenges the musical past for something brand-new, this workshop will focus on the art of salvaging your work--not rewriting per se but rebuilding. 
Bring your failed poem parts from the past, pieces or bits which may still have potential but need spark: stagnant stanzas, flat lines, dull images, etc.  Using some examples and our own discussion and practice, we will jerry-rig and rebuild our poems (as Johnny Cash once sang) "one piece at a time."

Send registration form at top of blog with check to Glenda Beall, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904

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.

Plan to attend and meet Michael on July 24, Friday afternoon 4:30 p.m. for a chat and a reading at Joe's coffee house, 82 Main St. Hayesville, NC 28904

WORDS ARE ALL WE HAVE

Saturday, April 25, 2015

10 - 1:00 p.m.

  

Mail check for $35.00  to Writers Circle, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904

Call 828-389-4441 for more information. 

Words Are All We Have

Samuel Coleridge once defined prose as "words in the best order," and poetry as "the best words in the best order." Whichever you're working on, prose or poetry, it all comes down to making the right word choices and putting them in an effective order. 

In this multi-level workshop for writers of prose or poetry, fiction or non-fiction, we will spend some time talking about how to make the wisest word choices we can, and then how to arrange those words in the best possible order. 
We'll preface and follow discussion with short writing prompts. Bring your questions, your problems and your ideas!

Come out and meet Dana on Friday, April 24, 4:30 p.m. Joe's Coffee Shop, 82 Main Street, Hayesville, NC 28904. She will talk about her writing, answer your questions, and read some of her work. This is free and open to  the public

• Dana Wildsmith's environmental memoir, Back to Abnormal: Surviving with An Old Farm in the New South, was Finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. 
• She is the author of five collections of poetry, including most recently, Christmas in Bethlehem. 
• Wildsmith has served as Artist-in-Residence for Grand Canyon National Park, as Writer-in-Residence for the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska, and she is a Fellow of the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences.

Mirrors

Since this is poetry month, I want to share at least one good poem with my readers.

Mirror by Sylvia Plath is one that hits a chord with me today.

I wrote a poem called The Woman in the Mirror. 

Mirrors hide nothing from us. I have heard of people who will not have a mirror in their home. But mirrors are my security, my safety net. My mirror tells me the truth when no one else will. A mirror can bring us to our knees at times and can also send us soaring like a kite set free on the wind.

I knew a young man who, each morning, looked at his reflection in his mirror and said out loud, "I look good! I feel good!" He smiled at himself and began his day. 

My mirror speaks to me frankly and never minces words when I ask, "who is the fairest?"

It doesn't hide my flaws, but pronounces them in a silver quiet voice perfect for my hearing these days. 

I seldom visit my reflection anxious as I did in my youth. Now I speak to myself and say, job well done. 

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.

Good News for Abbie Johnson Taylor

We are happy to learn that one of our most loyal readers, Abbie Johnson Taylor, will soon have a poetry book published by Finishing Line Press.

That’s Life: New and Selected Poems, includes a poem about her wedding day. Little did she know on that lovely day, her husband would suffer a stroke within months, and she would become a 24/7 caregiver until his death six years later.

See part of one of her poems below:

Life Change

On a sunny day, a strong breeze

lifts hems of dresses.

Balloons, tree branches sway.

Framed by an arch of pink and purple flowers,

as traffic rushes by,

we stand before those we love,

Visit Abbie's site to read the rest of the poem.

A bowl of little green turtles

Below is an excerpt from an article on tricycle.com/, an interview with poet Mark Doty. He explains so knowingly how we humans persevere, even after tragedy hits and slaps us down again and again. 

Read the article, but first read this:

“I was walking on Broadway one day in SoHo and came upon an Asian woman who was sitting on the sidewalk selling, of all things, tiny green turtles. She had them contained in a big white enamel bowl, and the little things were climbing over each other trying to get out, then sliding back down into the bowl again once they made it a ways up toward the rim. They were so beautiful—brilliantly green—and seemed so absurdly fragile; how could anything that tiny make it in New York City? 

That’s how poems usually start for me: I begin with a description of some little thing that’s moved or interested me, and then, if I’m lucky, the process of writing teaches me why whatever it is matters. The turtles were such a potent image of ourselves: our incredible human persistence despite our frailty. We want to connect, to love, to move forward—we will climb up the sides of that bowl no matter what!”   

            ---poet, Mark Doty 

As poets, we want to learn and to teach what we see as important about little moments that move us. A good poem will do that.

Have you read any good poems today?

Creating a Poetry Book - hard work but seems easy for Scott Owens

I am in process of putting together a second poetry chapbook, this one with the theme of love and loss. I asked my friend, Maren Mitchell, author of Beat Chronic Pain, an Insider’s Guide, and a well-published poet, to look at my collection and give me her thoughts on the poems I had chosen.

I think that judging your own poems for a book is the hardest thing! She made me realize that all the poems can’t be downers, but that I must use some upbeat work as well. She talked about the ending, the last poem in the book.

In selecting poems for a manuscript, they should transition well, one into the next. According to NancySimpson who helped me with my first chapbook, Now Might as Well be Then, published by Finishing Line Press in 2009, even the repetition of a word in the next poem helps keep the story moving along.

Poet Scott Owens

Recently I enjoyed reading Scott Owens’ latest poetry collection, The Eye of the Beholder. Never have I read so many poems that made me feel as deeply as Scott’s words did. The entire book is filled with love – finding love, keeping love, being amazed at love, losing love. I felt pain and sadness and I felt warmth and joy. His honesty in portraying his desire for his wife; his openness in showing how two lovers can live on and on, even as time changes them physically, but does not dim his adoration for her. What I really like about Scott’s poetry is that I understand what he means to communicate, at least what he tells me in his work, although you might relate in an entirely different way.

In the poem, Since You Went Away, I relate to the abject loneliness expressed in these words:

“I try to sleep diagonally across the bed

to use all the space I always claimed to be   

in short supply, but in the morning

I’m crowded to one side again,

my right arm thrown across the empty

pillow…

Friends ask me if I miss you, what I do without you.

I tell them I’m fine. But I’m tired

of going places and not knowing why,

and I’m tired of this space

beside me growing, wanting to be filled. 

Scott Owens will teach a workshop at Writers Circle studio September 13. He will read at Writers Night out that evening. Check out our schedule page for more information. 

Poetry with Karen Paul Holmes

Our first workshop of 2014 will be with poet, Karen Paul Holmes, of Atlanta and Hiawassee, Georgia. We are pleased to have her teach once more at Writers Circle.

She has taught writing at national conferences and at the John C. Campbell Folk School. She has a full-length poetry collection, Untying The Knot, forthcoming from Kelsay Books (August 2014) and recently received an Elizabeth George Foundation grant for poetry. Publishing credits include Poetry East, Atlanta Review, POEM, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Southern Poetry Anthology Vol 5: Georgia (Texas Review Press). 

To support fellow writers, Holmes originated and hosts a critique group in Atlanta and Writers’ Night Out in Yong Harris, GA. A former VP of Communication at ING, a global financial services company, she says she now leads “a kinder, gentler life” as a freelance writer, poet and teacher.

March 22, Saturday afternoon, 1 - 4 p.m. - Karen Paul Holmes - Fee $35

Express Yourself Through Poetry

Some of us are better than others when it comes to expressing emotion. Yet the feeling in the poem is what connects it to the reader. In this class we'll explore how to free yourself by expressing yourself in third person or through a persona. We'll look at examples of heartfelt poems that do not cross the dangerous bridge of sentimentality. 

We'll also learn how humor can help communicate serious emotions -- like anger, grief, regret --  in poems that are both salty and sweet, that touch readers' emotional cores while also making them smile. 

Class will include an optional prompt ahead of time, so you can bring a poem of your own to share.

For registration information,
contact nightwriter0302@yahoo.com or call 828-389-4441 for more information.
You may send a check for $35 to Writers Circle, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904 

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

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. 

Mourning Dove by Estelle Darrow Rice

I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with my friend, Estelle Rice, this week. 

We have known each other for years, having met through NCWN West, and I love her dearly. She is a full time caregiver for her husband now, and seldom gets to our Netwest events, but she continues to write and we hope to publish a book with some of her stories. 

Often we know so little about the pain even our close friends are feeling, but if they are writers and poets, they have a way to tell us. This lovely poem by Estelle is for her granddaughter. I don’t have that experience – having a granddaughter, or losing a child or grandchild, but Estelle gives me a moment of knowing.

Mourning Dove

For Tara  1964-2003

A Mourning Dove was my companion.

She strutted and cooed

outside my window.

I fed her crumbs from my morning toast.

She returned in the evening

and a gray mantle enveloped

the distant mountains.

I sustained her. In some ways

I cherished her.

Then I remembered

peacock colors covering the hills,

tinting the trees, the clouds.

I sang again. Thanked my companion

and let her fly away.

By Estelle Darrow Rice from her book of spiritual poems, Quiet Times

Estelle is a native North Carolinian who has a BA in Psychology and a MA in counseling. She is a retired licensed Professional Counselor. Her poetry has been published in The Back Porch, Southern Review, and the Freeing Jonah anthologies. Her short stories have been published in journals and anthologies including Lights in the Mountains and Echoes across the Blue Ridge

She is a long time member of North Carolina Writers' Network West.