SCOTT OWENS INVITES YOU TO COME TO HICKORY FOR POETRY DAY

THE POETS ARE COMING! THE POETS ARE COMING!

On April 14, poets from across the state will descend upon Hickory, NC, as Catawba Valley Community College hosts the Poetry Council of NC’s annual Poetry Day celebration.  As many as 30 award-winning poets are expected, including Katherine Soniat of Asheville, Susan Lefler of Brevard, and Joanna Catherine Scott of Chapel Hill, winners of the Oscar Arnold Young Award for the year’s best book of poetry from NC.

This 62-year-old event will bring winners of the Council’s annual poetry contests together with poetry lovers as the winners receive their awards and share their poetry with all who attend.  The event will also feature the debut of the Council’s 2012 annual awards anthology, Bay Leaves, and a live-judged Poetry Slam.  Attendance is free and everyone is welcome. 

The doors of CVCC’s Student Center will open at 9:20 for registration.  The dedication of Bay Leaves will follow at 10:00, after which winners will be announced for the Charles Shull Traditional Poetry Award, the Charlotte Young Elementary School Student Award, and the Gladys Owings Hughes Heritage Award.  All winners present will give a reading of their winning poems. 

Before breaking for lunch, poets are invited to participate in the Poetry Slam.  Entering the Slam requires a $5 entry fee and features awards of $35, $25, and $15 for first, second, and third place performances.  Judging the Slam will be author, Emmy-winner, and coach of Slam Charlotte, Boris Rogers, also known as Bluz.

Following lunch, winners will be announced for the Ellen Johnston-Hale Light Verse Award, the Carol Bessent Young Middle School Student Award, the James Larkin Pearson Free Verse Award, the Sam Ragan High School Student Award, and the Poetry Slam.

The event will conclude with readings from the winners of the Oscar Arnold Young Book Award.  For more information on Poetry Day or the Poetry Council of NC, visit www.poetrycouncilofnc.wordpress.com or contact Scott Owens at (828) 234-4266.

ROBERT S. KING WILL READ HIS POEMS AT CALLANWOLDE FINE ARTS CENTER IN ATLANTA.

 Don't miss this

Robert M.Giannetti 

Robert S. King 

Wednesday, April 11, 2012; 8:00 PM  

In The Callanwolde Library 

Guest poets Robert M. Giannetti and Robert S. King read their poetry in 

the unique setting of the Callanwolde Library.  

$5 General Admission; $3 Students with ID, Seniors and Members.  

For more information call (404) 872-5338. 

Robert M. Giannetti is an antiquarian 

bookseller from Lewiston, New York. His 

new poetry volume Winter Vision, recently 

published in a bilingual edition in Warsaw, 

was named Best Book of 2011 by the 

Polish Writers Union. His 2003 book of 

poems Drawn by the Creek, dating from 

his days in rural Georgia, was reissued 

this past year. 

Robert S. King is the director of 

FutureCycle Press. His poems have 

appeared in hundreds of magazines, 

including Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review 

and Southern Poetry Review. His full- 

length poetry collections, The Hunted 

River and The Gravedigger’s Roots, were 

published by Shared Roads Press. He 

lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of 

Georgia. 

980 Bri arcl i ff Road, N.E. Atl anta, Georgi a 30306 www.cal l anwol de.org 

April 

980 Briarcliff Road, N.E. 

Atlanta, GA 30306 

(404) 872-5338 

www.callanwolde.org 

Support is provided to Callanwolde Fine Arts Center through a grant appropriated by the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners in part by 

the DeKalb County Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs Department and in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of 

the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia Council for the Arts is a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. 

NCWN Exec. Director Tells "Why I haven't Read Your Book and other Revelations, including info on Spring Conference

http://www.ncwriters.org/images/Newsletters/2012.spring.pdf

SOUTHERN INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS ALLIANCE Announces the Poetry Long List

Poetry   Cast Your Vote Now But, O there are so many winners! Abandoned Quarry by John Lane (Mercer U. Press) Ascent by Doris Davenport (CreateSpace) Copperhead by Rachel Richardson (Carnegie Mellon) Crack Light by Thomas Rain Crowe (Wind Publishing) Head Off & Split: Poems (2011) by Nikky Finney (NWU Press) If This World Falls Apart by Lou Lipsitz (Lynx House Press) Instructions for Killing the Jackal by Erica Wright (Black Lawrence Press) Nineteen Visions of Christmas by Sally Buckner (Main Street Rag) Presence by Scott Wiggerman (Pecan Grove) Seriously Dangerous by Helen Losse (Main Street Rag) She Hands Me the Razor by Richard Krawiec (Press 53) Southern Fictions by Kathryn Stripling Byer (Jacar Press) Talking about Movies with Jesus by David Kirby (LSU Press) Terroir by Robert Morgan (Penguin) Unaccountable Weather by Kathryn Kirkpatrick (Press 53) Waking by Ron Rash (Hub City Press) Weaving a New Eden by Sherry Chandler (Wind Publications) http://www.sibaweb.com/okra

WELCOME TO SPRING - WELCOME TO MY FAMILY

  Deep in the Southern Appalachian Mountains,

spring arrived early. If you hoped to see the daffodils and forsythia in full bloom, you missed them on our mountain. It looks like April and feels more like May.

Tim Branltey, home for the weekend.

From the top of Cherry Mountain --Lake Chatuge.

Sarah at Fires Creek with Nannie and Savannah.

In Nannie's Garden

Savannah's Fairy House

Savannah and Aunt Lynn with flowers for Jeff.
Jeff Brantley remembered in this his birth week by his family with flowers and much love.

Jeff's daughter and granddaughter,

Savannah and Sarah. "I have a

surprise for you, Nannie," said

Savannah. It was a rock she brought

home from Lake Chatuge.

Great Writers, Great Writing! 

Dear Network Members,

The following writers, your colleagues, have readings scheduled. Please support them by attending. What better way to spend an evening? You may view the complete list of NCWN Member Readings  here.

BELOW ARE the   POETS AND WRITERS READING POEMS AND STORIES  scheduled readings co-sponsored by NC Writers Network West and John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. Copy and save. These readings are free and open to the public. The audience is filled with mountain locals and with students enrolled in classes at the Folk School for the week. 

Thursday, April 19, 7:00 pm
Keith House, J.C. Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Rd., Brasstown
Netwest members Nancy Simpson and Maren Mitchell will be the featured readers.

Thursday, May 17, 7:00 pm
Keith House, J.C. Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Rd., Brasstown
Netwest members Robert King and Jayne Jaudon Ferrer will be the featured readers.

Thursday, June 21, 7:00 pm
Keith House, J.C. Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Rd., Brasstown
Netwest members Brenda Kay Ledford and Linda Smith will be the featured readers.

Thursday, August 16, 7:00 pm
Keith House, J.C. Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Rd., Brasstown
Netwest members Karen Paul Holmes and Nancy Purcell will be the featured readers.

Thursday, September 20, 7:00 pm
Keith House, J.C. Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Rd., Brasstown
Netwest members Carole Thompson and Bob Grove will be the featured readers.

Thursday, October 18, 7:00 pm
Keith House, J.C. Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Rd., Brasstown
Netwest members Lucy Cole Gratton and Jo Carolyn Bebee will be the featured readers.

Thursday, November 15, 7:00 pm
Keith House, J.C. Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Rd., Brasstown
Netwest members Joan Howard and Rosemary Royston will be the featured readers.

NCWN members names are presented in bold. 

J.C. Walkup, Fiction Writer will be the Featured Reader at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

Don’t forget to come Thursday night [tomorrow, March 15^th at 7:00 PM]

to John Campbell Folk School to hear J C Walkup and several other

of our local members read.  We would like to have a good

turnout for our traveling reader.

Hope to see you there.

Lucy Cole Gratton

Publicity Coordinator, NetWest

lgratton@hughes.net

828-494-2914

Natasha Trethewey - Pulitzer Prize Poet at Young Harris College

Young Harris College’s Annual Reece Lecture to Feature Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Natasha Trethewey

YOUNG HARRIS, Ga. – The annual Reece Lecture at Young Harris College will feature Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and creative nonfiction author Natasha Trethewey on Thursday, March 15, at 7 p.m. in Wilson Lecture Hall of Goolsby Center on the Young Harris College campus. A book signing will follow the lecture. Presented by the Division of Humanities, the event is free and open to the public.

Trethewey will also participate in a question-and-answer session earlier in the day at 3 p.m. in Wilson Lecture Hall of Goolsby Center. This event is also free and open to the public.

A native of Gulfport, Miss., Trethewey is the author of three collections of poetry:Domestic Work, Bellocq's Ophelia and Native Guard, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. She is also the author of the creative nonfiction book Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Her fourth collection of poetry, Thrall, will be released this fall.

Trethewey’s poetry has received many accolades over the years including the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in several volumes of The Best American Poetry and many journals and anthologies such as American Poetry Review,Gettysburg Review, New England Review and The Southern Review.

Trethewey earned a B.A. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in English and creative writing from Hollins University and an M.F.A in poetry from the University of Massachusetts. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts and Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

She was appointed Mississippi Poet Laureate this year and currently serves as Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University. She is the recipient of the 2008 Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and was named the 2008 Georgia Woman of the Year. She was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2009, and was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2011.

Malaika King Albrecht's NEW BOOK. You can buy your copy now.

Hi All,

I'm thrilled that my book What the Trapeze Artist Trusts is now available for pre-order through Press 53. Most of y'all know that this book has been a bright spot during a rather difficult time, and I'm very grateful to have this come to fruition. Below is a link and the cover. 

Thank you so much for being a part of my life and for celebrating with me! 

Yours,

Malaika

http://www.press53.com/BioMalaikaKingAlbrecht.html






 

Hiawassee River Watershed Coalition Celerbrates

4th Annual Holman Banquet Set for March 24, 2012

Lucy Cole Gratton to Receive Award

Former executive director and long-time Coalition volunteer, Lucy Cole Gratton will be honored with the Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award on Saturday, March 24, 2012 at The Ridges Resort & Club, Lake Chatuge in Young Harris, Georgia.

LEARN MORE: 




click   http://www.hrwc.net/       

Lucy Cole Gratton is a member of NC Writers Network West and she presently serves as the Netwest Publicist.

Jeff Davidson, NC Author shows A Room-By-Room Guide to Simplifying Your Life

    A popular book, by mega-author Jeff Davidson, promises to help you achieve a degree of simplicity in your life that you thought may no longer be possible. Simpler Living: A Back to Basics Guide to Cleaning, Furnishing, Storing, Decluttering, Streamlining, Organizing, and More (Skyhorse Publishing, 452 pages, illustrated), is a rare book, for many reasons.

    Currently #1 in the world on Kindle, in “household do-it-yourself,” and weighing in at nearly four pounds in hard copy, Simpler Living contains more than 130,000 words and 950 color photos. That might seem daunting until you actually flip through the book. It is a delightful guide that beckons the reader on every page with tips, charts, numerous anecdotes, and a variety of options for taking back control of one’s home, as well as one’s personal and professional life.

    The underlying premise of Simpler Living is that, in this overly complex age, where more and more distractions compete for our attention around the clock, there are antidotes to the complexity. In a methodical fashion, author Jeff Davidson lays out exactly what it takes to reclaim control of the spaces and places in your life, starting with your home, then moving on into personal finances, nutrition, leisure, and a variety of other areas.

    “As we proceed into the brave new future, the pace of life is probably going to accelerate beyond that which we all face right now,” says Davidson. “It’s important to understand that unless we establish the personal protocols right now that enable us to stay in control, we will have little or no chance in the future as the pace of new technology and information hyper-accelerates.” The good news, according to Davidson, is that we do indeed have the capabilities to maintain control of our personal environments, and that is what Simpler Living is all about.

    Rather than attempting to read the book from cover to cover, a gargantuan task for even the speediest of readers, Davidson cautions in the introduction to the book that this is not the most appropriate way to glean information from it. A saner approach, he advises, is to use the table of contents or index to find that section in the book which addresses some of the current challenges you’re facing. You’ll find several quick tips that will help you to make an immediate impact. As such, you can return to the book again and again and find great value, based on what personal issues are calling for your attention.

    Simpler Living is for everyone who holds any position of responsibility, at work, in raising children, in caring for the elderly, in managing a household, or in building a retirement fund,” says Jeff Davidson. “The book represents an ideal gift for yourself, as well as an ideal gift for others. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be pleased to receive it.”

    Simpler Living is available in bookstores everywhere, as well as online through all the major vendors. The list price is $24.95, but a quick visit to the Internet will yield $14 to $15 discounts. At any price, however, it’s a bargain.




http://jeffdavidson.com/ebook.html

Jeff Davidson, MBA, CMC -- The Work-Life Balance Expert®
3202 Ruffin Street
Raleigh NC 27607-4024
Phone 919-932-1996
Toll-Free 800-735-1994
www.JeffDavidson.com

POET SCOTT OWENS SENDS A NOTE TO FRIENDS AND FELLOW POETS

Future Cycle Press has just released my new book of poems, For One Who Knows How to Own Land.  These 98 pages of poetry focus on the experience of growing up in the disappearing rural South.  They include some of my favorite oldest poems as well as a lot of new ones.  I am including a brief description of the book as well as comments from Ron Rash, Tim Peeler, John Lane, and   below.  You can order copies from me or on Amazon.  There will be a book launch on March 20 at 6:00 at Taste Full Beans in Hickory, NC, and on March 23 at 7:00 at City Lights Books in Sylva, NC.  I hope you can attend one of those events.

For One Who Knows How to Own Land

Copyright 2012 Scott Owens

Published by FutureCycle Press

Mineral Bluff, Georgia

ISBN:  978-0-9839985-3-2

I grew up in two worlds: my father’s parents’ world of brick homes, city streets, shopping, and playgrounds; and my mother’s parents’ world of dirt roads, livestock, growing our own food, and endless woods.  That second world was undeniably harder than the first.  The work was dirtier, and there was more of it.  The homes had fewer luxuries: no cable, no AC, never more than one bathroom.  Even death was different. In town, death was a polished event that took place elsewhere, hospitals, nursing homes, slaughter houses, funeral parlors.  On the farm, animals were killed every week, and most people died at home, and their bodies stayed there until they were buried.

Somehow, however, that second world still seemed much more alive, much more real and vital.  Despite that vitality, I was aware that most people knew almost nothing about that second world.  It was then, and is increasingly now, an undiscovered country where life and death exist side by side with a natural intensity missing from the artificial world of the city.

This book, dedicated to my grandfather (one who knew how to own land), is a record of my undiscovered country and the people who lived there.

Landscape and memory are seamlessly merged in this excellent volume. Like all the best writers of place, Scott Owens finds the heart's universal concerns in his vivid rendering of piedmont Carolina.

--Ron Rash, author of Raising the Dead

There's not a speck of sentimentality in the rural poetic Americana framed by Scott Owens in FOR ONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO OWN LAND. There are dead crows, red dirt earth, barking dogs, burning coal, fox traps, and flooding rivers. These stories matter. The poems all rattle and sing. This is a jolt of strong coffee for a watery time.

--John Lane, author of The Woods Stretched for Miles: Contemporary Nature Writing from the South

In For One Who Knows How to Own Land, poet, Scott Owens creates with a mature voice, childhood reminiscences of pastoral summers in the red dirt rural Piedmont of upstate South Carolina.  This, his most affecting collection to date, is a remarkable sensory journey that registers narrative moments along the entire emotional scale from harsh to tender, from the threatening to the anodyne.  Through the magical nature of memory, these poems of mystery and loss prove again and again that “The boy who left this country/never stopped hearing its names/echo in his ear.”

 --Tim Peeler, author of Checking Out

“Why should this be home?” Scott Owens asks us in “Homeplace,” his question as much about leaving as going back. We walk his train tracks and ridges as if they were our own, as though home were “something you held tight before you, /your back bending against its going away.”  In this both visceral and meditative rendering of place, decay and rebirth are part of the same landscape. I applaud the skill that directs us down a path of experience and familiarity to “stone steps/ that dead-end in mid-air.” His poetry is wise in knowing the weight of its own footsteps.

-- Linda Annas Ferguson, author of Dirt Sandwich

Scott Owens

www.scottowenspoet.com

www.scottowensmusings.blogspot.com

www.poetryhickory.com

www.wildgoosepoetryreview.com

www.234journal.com

www.poetrycouncilofnc.wordpress.com

CALL FOR HOLIDAY SHORT STORIES AND MEMOIR ESSAYS. Submit March 1- May 31. You will know by September if your work is chosen. Publication of anthology is Oct. 2012.

 Add comments

 

Times to Remember — A Pocketful of Holidays (working title)

Dixon Hearne edited Thanksgiving to Christmas, an anthology of short stories and memoir about Thanksgiving and Christmas, from writers all over the United States, Canada, and abroad. In light of its popularity, he chose to look toward a sequel and teamed up with Silver Boomer Books.

Dixon lives in southern California, though his writing draws greatly from the rich images in his daily life growing up along the graceful river traces and bayous in West Monroe, Louisiana. After many years of writing for research journals, his interests turned toward fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction — and the challenge of writing in a different voice. He is the author of a recent short story collection, Plantatia: High-toned and Lowdown Stories of the South (Southeast Missouri University Press) and editor of several recent anthologies of short fiction. His stories, many of which have earned awards, can be found in Mature Living, Louisiana Literature, Cream City Review, Wisconsin Review, Potomac Review and many other magazines, literary journals and anthologies. Dixon is currently at work on a novel and both a poetry and second short story collection. He is a frequent presenter at literary events, including the Louisiana Book Festival.

From the tradition in the American South of yelling “Christmas Gift” first on December 25th to the Yule log of Northern Europe; from advent wreaths to football rivalries, parades to mistletoe — we celebrate in ways others never heard of but we’ve done all our lives. Send us your stories of memories crafted from repetition or the stunningly different day, breaking all precedents. Your stories will pull in others, bringing treasured history to life again. What’s your favorite holiday? You’re not limited to Thanksgiving and Christmas but may consider the Day of the Dead, Groundhog Day, Labor Day, or other commonly celebrated holidays.

Also joining in the editorial team for this book is Judy Callarman, a retired creative writing and English teacher at Cisco College, Cisco, Texas. She was chair of the Fine Arts Division. With the Silver Boomer Books partners, Dixon and Judy seek your stories, poems, essays and interviews dealing with holidays. As always, we’re looking for quality over quantity and actually favor shorter works, especially shorter poetry. Projected release date for the anthology is October, 2012. We need your submissions between March 1 and May 31, 2012, and we’ll will let you know in September if your work is selected for inclusion.

See “How We Want It” by clicking on the “For Writers” tab, and please follow these guidelines carefully.

Nancy Simpson sends a heartfelt thank you to fellow writer Peg Russell of Hanging Dog, NC for info.