STILL CELEBRATING ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE

A note to authors who contributed their writing to ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE  from your editor, Nancy Simpson

ECHOES ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE, Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains is almost one year old.  Thanks to Glenda Beall and her market team, the first printing quickly sold out.  The anthology was reviewed by Scott Owens and Helen Losse. It is now in its second printing and still selling. 

Today the anthology will be presented to members of the Appalachian Studies Association meeting at the University of Eastern Kentucky. Rosemary Royston, NCWN West Program Coordinator, a graduate of the Spalding University MFA Writing Program, was invited to read her scholarly essay, “Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Echoes of Emerson.”  

I’ve had the good fortune to read a copy of Royston’s essay. I must tell you, Rosemary Royston celebrates poetry in the anthology, focuses on four specific poets, and compares specific poems to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay published in 1846,  “Transcendentalism.” 

Two poems by Glenda Barrett are celebrated and discussed: “Echoes” which inspired the anthology title, and “When the Sap Rises.”  Eileen Lampe’s poem “Dancer” is said to be “written in the vein of Dylan Thomas.” “I Hear the River Call My Name”  by Mary Ricketson and “ Progress” by Brenda Kay Ledford are celebrated and favorably discussed in Royston’s essay. 

Fellow authors, today around four o’clock, if your ears begin to burn, it may be because scholars are talking about our anthology. Get your copy out and read along.

Rosemary Royston lives in northeast Georgia. Her poetry has been published in The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine, Public Republic, and Dark Sky Magazine. Her chapbook was a finalist in the 2009 Jessie Bryce Niles chapbook contest, and she was the 2004 recipient of first and third place in poetry, Porter Fleming Literary Awards. Her poem-- Igneous or "Of Fire" won the 2010 Literal Latte Food Verse Contest. Rosemary Royston holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University.  She is Vice President for Planning and Assessment and Chief of Staff at Young Harris College. She teaches creative writing at Institute for Continuing Learning and  will teach in 2011  at John C. Campbell Folk School and in the Writing Program at YHC.