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Hats Off! to North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee Joseph Mitchell who is featured in a behind-the-scenes look at the Paris Review documentary "Big, Bent Ears," by Ivan Weiss and Sam Stephenson.
Azrael's Wings by Karol A. Neufeld
Main Street Rag$8, paperbackISBN: 978-59948-529-4April, 2015PoetryAvailable from the publisher
"In Azrael's Wings, Karol Neufeld confronts death and grief head-on, suggesting these inevitable journeys of the human condition can be considered a gift: 'We collect our dead/in memory, preserving what we need to live.' But the reality is that no one is fully prepared for that knock on the door from the Angel of Death. Thanks to Neufeld's keen eye for imagery, the details of navigating her family's multiple deaths from the Holocaust to old age honor what we do our best to ignore as 'we keep in our hearts what death tries to take.' Through her often painful reverential tones and brave language ('Fight back and be broken;/beauty lies in giving way'), Neufeld recognizes what scares all of us while giving comfort to survivors who wish to remember their dead 'as they were before, before we knew about the wind/and water that engulfed them.'"—Alice Osborn, author of When the Steaming Stops and Unfinished Projects
What She Doesn't Know
She's only nineteen, newly wed, bridal bouquet brought all the way from Louisville: three-foot waterfall of fragrance almost as dazzling as her smile. How could he not have wanted to coax her away from the others? What a handsome couple they make. They'll honeymoon, come back home, start a family. He'll go to work, she'll love him, birth two sons. Youthful, shining, how can she know, in seven years she'll sit beside his July bed hour after antiseptic hour and watch him, car-crushed, die? Her roses will turn funereal, she will always shrink from the smell.
After teaching elementary school for twenty-six years, Karol Neufeld left the field of education to pursue other creative interests. She has recently completed a history/memoir about her Polish-Jewish father-in-law's family. Her poetry has been published in International Poetry Review, Bay Leaves, Pinesong, Seven Hills Review, and two anthologies of Greensboro writers. She is a member of the North Carolina Poetry Society and North Carolina Writers' Network and has participated in many of its workshops, as well as Miami Dade College Writer's Institute, Anjail Rashida Ahmad's year-long The Fractured Writer course, and Colrain Manuscript Conference. A dedicated traveler, reader, and collage artist, Karol lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with her husband John and dog Roxie.
Hats Off! to North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee John Ehle whose novel The Landbreakers, reissued in 2014 by New York Review Books, was favorably reviewed in the Southern Literary Review.
The Particular Appeal of Gillian Pugsley by Susan Örnbratt
Light Messages Publishing$20.95, paperback / $7.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-61153-111-4 April, 2015Fiction: Historical / Women'sAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
From the shores of The Great Lakes to the slums of Bombay and a tiny island in between, this love story takes the reader on an intimate journey to unravel a family secret that's lain hidden for generations.
To satisfy her wandering feet, eighteen-year old Gillian McAllister is sent from Ireland to Canada in the summer of 1932. She arrives with her Irish ways in tact, determined not to let the wiles of crop duster Christian Hunter woo her into submission. Yet as the summer unfolds and the sweet taste of love grows, Gillian's appeal lures more than she anticipates.
Fourteen years, a Great Depression, and a World War later, Christian sets out to discover why Gillian was ripped from his life. What he discovers on the Isle of Man will change them both forever. Not even a thatched cottage by the sea, a spritely Gillian, or memories sprinkled on a page can mask the secret that has been buried for too long. But it isn't until a set of poems is given to Gillian's granddaughter that the real mystery––Gillian's true secret––is freed.
So who is Pugsley?
Susan Örnbratt was born in London, Canada, and grew up on the dance floor until her brother's high school rowing crew needed a coxswain. Quickly, she traded in her ballet shoes for a megaphone as rowing filled all of Susan's time outside of school while competing in regattas across Canada and the US. When she was sixteen, Susan became a member of the Junior National Rowing Team and went on to compete in the Junior and Senior World Championships and the XIII Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Susan and her crew placed third.
A graduate from the University of Western Ontario in French and the University of Manitoba in elementary education, as well as attending L'Université Blaise Pascal Clermont-Ferrand II in France while she worked as a fille au pair, Susan has gone on to teach and live in six countries. With her experiences abroad, including delegation leader for CISV (Children's International Summer Villages) where she prepared and accompanied ten fourteen-year-old students for a cross-cultural experience in Sweden, it is not surprising that she finds travel a motivating factor in her writing.
Although a maple leaf will forever be stitched on her heart, she has called Sweden her home for the past sixteen years with a recent three-year stint in North Carolina, USA, for her husband's work. It was there where Susan achieved her longtime goal of signing with a publisher for The Particular Appeal of Gillian Pugsley.
Susan lives in Gothenburg with her husband and two children and an apple tree nibbled on by the local moose population. If she isn't shooing away the beasts, you can find her in her garden with some pruning shears, a good book, and always a cup of tea. If Susan were dried out, she could be brewed.
Hats Off! to Valerie Nieman, author of the poetry collection Hotel Worthy, who was profiled in Avant Greensboro.
Hats Off! to Liza Wieland who was Book Brahmin for Shelf Awareness on Wednesday, March 25. Favorite book when she was a child? Harriet the Spy....
Hats Off! to NCWN board member Alice Osborn who has a poem forthcoming in Pilcrow & Dagger (April).
Hats Off! to Ron Jackson whose short story "Slow Dancing" was accepted by Vine Leaves Literary Journal for publication in their April 17 issue (Issue 14).
Hats Off! to Crystal Simone Smith, author of the poetry chapbook Running Music, who was featured on Blotterature, a website devoted to "merging the art of fancy talk with blue collar sensibilities."
rhythms on a flaming drum by Michael Hopping
Pisgah Press$15.95, paperbackISBN: 978-1-942016014January, 2015Fiction: DystopianAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"With uncanny prescience and nuanced story, Hopping deftly crafts the convoluted personal and political relationships in a disturbingly familiar world of environmental and social turmoil, cyber-hacking, GPS tracking, infiltrators, and collaborators, along with brutal reprisals and heroic survivals."—Clare Hanrahan, author, Conscience & Consequence: A Prison Memoir
"Absolutely first-rate. The plot is gripping, not to say frightening. It is chillingly close to reality, in terms of our politics, both corporate and governmental, as well as the desecration of our environment."—Sarah-Ann Smith, author, Trang Sen
"With his trademark erudition and copious imagination, Hopping expertly leads us through a corrupted and perilous world not quite parallel to our own, where an earthquake in Memphis, Tennessee sets Xan Hicks on a collision course with treachery and collusion amongst corporate, government and military figures—and with Caitlin Schmidt, the beautiful actress and activist who's fighting them."—Jerry Stubblefield, playwright and author of Homunculus
Here in America, corporate control of government has proceeded apace, leftist resistance is outlawed and activists are considered enemies of the state. It is an America that could happen tomorrow—or may already be in place, without our noticing. Caitlin Schmidt, a young woman of privilege, is participating in a covert leafleting campaign opposing the ongoing pollution of local drinking water by Palomar Coatings, an industrial plant with secret government contracts. While she and her group aren't caught, demonstrators at the Palomar gates are beaten and arrested.
Shortly thereafter, Caitlin reconnects with Xan, a young man the media dubbed "John Henry" after he entered a collapsed building and rescued a man and his two daughters, only to slip away before being identified. A romance develops, and Caitlin and Xan struggle to maintain their relationship and their integrity while trying to save themselves and their community from the corporate-government ISA forces—and working to bring Palomar down.
Michael Hopping lives near Asheville, North Carolina. In a former life he was a practicing psychiatrist and medical director for a community mental health center. In search of less industrialized approaches to coping with today's world, he eventually left the field. For several years Michael served as an investigative reporter, features writer, and occasional commentator for alternative news outlets in and beyond Asheville. His short fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Spoiled Ink, The Great Smokies Review, fresh, the Mad Hatters' Review blog and Chrysalis Reader. His acclaimed collection of short stories, MacTiernan's Bottle, was published in 2011 by Pisgah Press. A novel, Meet Me in Paradise, was published in 2007.
Hats Off! to NCWN board member Julie Funderburk whose poetry collection The Door that Always Opens has been accepted for publication by LSU Press to appear in July or August 2016.
Orchard Gap by C. David Gelly
CreateSpace$18.00, paperback / $7.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-502961914January, 2015Fiction: Suspense/ThrillerAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"A rogue biotech scientist secretly nurtures her deadly GMO corn seed while America sleeps…"
Sally Barber is a brilliant Ph.D working for a global biotech firm in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, who is about to be honored as the youngest recipient of the World Food Prize. Hidden deep in her laboratory is her sinister plot to use her "secret" GMO corn seed to kill and destabilize America. An adrenaline producing thriller to capture this mysterious scientist before it is too late takes the reader through the slums of Karachi to the GMO Research fields of Kauai and is unraveled in tiny Orchard Gap, Virginia.
Quinn McSpain and Louisa Hawke are called upon again to capture this rogue geneticist who holds the deadliest of secrets more sinister than Ebola and must be stopped before she brings America to…its knees!
While this novel is purely a work of fiction, it highlights many emerging developments that affect global food security. While doing research for this novel on genetically modified crops, the author came across a wide spectrum of opinions both pro and con on the place for GMO crops in the global food chain. He also became aware of the many security risks/challenges and shortcomings with the entire GMO seed lifecycle.
C. David Gelly's second novel Orchard Gap is now published and available. It is the second selection in the five novel Gap series. Fancy Gap was the first in the series and was very well received. In addition to over 146 Amazon reader 5-Star reviews, it was serialized for over a year in the weekend editions of the Galax, Virginia, Gazette newspaper.
As an indie author, he's pleased with the tools social media has provided him to reach and capture those readers who enjoyed Fancy Gap and enthusiastically encouraged him to write Orchard Gap. He retired a year ago from Syngenta (the Swiss version of Monsanto) as their Director of Corporate Security. In that role, he became aware of the many security risks/challenges and shortcomings with the entire GMO seed lifecycle.
Hats Off! to David Radavich and Sandra Ann Winters whose poems, "Envoy" and "Japanese Maple," respectively, were selected for March's Poetry in Plain Sight program, sponsored by the Winston-Salem Writers. Their poems will appear on posters throughout downtown Winston-Salem.
Hats Off! to Eric Roe whose short essay was published in Stereo Stories, a website devoted to stories about a song, a place, and a time. His piece is about the song "Just One Thing," by Randy Adams.
Hats Off! to North Carolina Poet Laureate Shelby Stephenson, a 2014 inductee of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, who was profiled by David Menconi in Raleigh's The News & Observer.
Hats Off! to Michael R. Hassler who has an essay forthcoming in the Spring issue of Eclectica Magazine.
Hats Off! to Gustavo Pérez Firmat whose book A Cuban in Mayberry, an exploration of The Andy Griffith Show, was reviewed by the Southern Literary Review.
Special Forces A Teams by Tom Davis
Old Mountain Press$2.99, e-bookJanuary, 2015MemoirAvailable from the publisher or www.Amazon.com
ODA 232 SCUBA Team Ft. Devens, MA My main problem was blisters. As always, the first place that blisters appeared was between my toes. I would pop them with the needle I always carried, but within an hour the blisters would fill back up and hurt like hell. Years later a member of the Danish Special Forces would show me a trick to address this problem. But that would be later, and this was now. I rubbed Vaseline between my toes, but that only helped a little bit. Eventually, the blisters started to bleed. This caused concern with infection. Others were having similar problems.
ODA 223 Mountain Team Ft. Devens, MA We trained in class one through five climbs. Our training included not only repelling off cliffs but also from out of helicopters. We not only trained in free climbing where we always maintained three points of contact with the wall and climbed without a rope, but also in technical climbing which involved the use of rope, belays, and pitons, metal spikes, usually steel, that we hammered into a crack or seam in the rock. Our mission was not only to become proficient in the art, but also to teach basic mountaineering to other Teams as needed.
Testing Dry Suits Under Extreme Conditions After a few swims, we discovered we had to wear ¼ inch neoprene mittens rather than five finger gloves. When the water hit our faces, it immediately froze. So, for protection, we coated our faces with gobs of Vaseline. This way the ice freezing on our face didn't touch the skin. Of course, our eyebrows caked with ice. Even though we wore heavy woolen socks, the cold was so numbing that when we completed a couple of hours swimming with fins, we weren't able to stand, much less walk, for several minutes. Swimming under these severe conditions proved a challenge, to say the least.
Special Forces A Teams is a portion of the author's memoir, The Most Fun I Ever Had With My Clothes On: A March from Private to Colonel. COL Tom "The Squid" Davis recounts his experiences serving as commander of four Special Forces A Detachments during the 1970s. These teams specialize in Underwater Operations (SCUBA), Mountaineering, Small Atomic Demolitions Munitions (SADM), and High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) Parachuting. In addition to serving in the United States, he and his team of Green Berets tromped the lands of Germany, France, England, and Denmark. The narrative with the accompanying photos gives incite into the type of training missions carried out by the various specialized Operational A Detachments belonging to a US Army Special Forces Group.
Tom Davis' publishing credits include Poets Forum, The Carolina Runner, Triathlon Today, Georgia Athlete, Proud to Be: Writings by American Warriors Vol. 3, A Loving Voice Vol. I and II, Special Warfare., and Winston-Salem Writers' Poetry in Plain Sight program for May 2013 (poetry month). He's authored the following books: The Life and Times of Rip Jackson, The Most Fun I Ever Had With My Clothes On, The Patrol Order; and The R-complex. Tom lives in Webster, NC.
Crazy by Linda Vigen Phillips
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers$9.00, paperbackISBN: 978-0-8028-5437-7October, 2014Fiction (YA): Novel in verse / Historical / LiteraryAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Phillips' poetry coupled with her personal experiences truly make this a poignant read. It should be in the hands of anyone—teen and adult—who has ever felt powerless at the hands of mental illness."—School Library Journal
"Phillips' accessibly written chronicle will resonate with teens who understand the desire to protect themselves from their families' inner truths."—Booklist
"Laura's story is one that will resonate widely with contemporary readers as they seek avenues of support through their own struggles to remain sensitive to mothers who sometimes disappear, and almost always to some degree disappoint."—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
I stopped by the canal, swarming with hungry pelicans and screeching gulls, and I wondered what it would feel like not to sit and dangle my feet through the slats but instead to climb up on the railing and let myself just slip off and down and down and down.
Laura is a typical fifteen-year-old growing up in the 1960s, navigating her way through classes, friendships, and even a new romance. But she's carrying around a secret: her mother is suffering from a mental illness.
No one in Laura's family will talk about her mother's past hospitalizations or increasingly erratic behavior, and Laura is confused and frightened. She finds some solace in art, but when her mother, also an artist, suffers a breakdown, Laura fears that she will follow in her mother's footsteps. Left without a refuge, can she find the courage to face what scares her most?
Eloquent and compelling, this novel-in-verse tackles complex themes in a way that will have readers rooting for Laura to find the courage to face her worst fears.
A Junior Library Guild Selection; New York Public Library Best Books for Teens 2014; Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) BFYA nomination 2015; and Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2015.
Linda Vigen Phillips has always loved reading and writing poetry. As a retired teacher she delights in having enough time to pursue these passions. Crazy, her debut book, is a YA novel in verse. Drawn from her own experiences growing up in Oregon, it tells the story of a teenage girl coming to terms with her mother's mental illness. Linda hopes that the book will speak to teens or adults whose lives have been affected by a loved one facing similar challenges. She and her husband live in North Carolina where they ride vintage bicycles on greenways and make regular play dates with the grandkids.
Hats Off! to Sam Love who has three environmental poems forthcoming in the new issue of Duke University's magazine Eno.
Hats Off! to Heather Bell Adams of Raleigh who placed first in the creative nonfiction category of the 2014 Union County Writers' Club Contest for her essay "Arrival Gate," and second in the short fiction category for her story "Third Shift," which is forthcoming in Gravel.
Hats Off! to Ivy Rutledge who has an essay forthcoming in the inaugural issue of Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing.
Haverford House by Katherine Winfield
CreateSpace$14.99, paperback / $11.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1492269663June, 2013Fiction: Mystery/SuspenseAvailable from www.Amazon.com
"Winfield masterfully reveals how the complicated lives of the people in Corsica are intertwined. In the first half of the narrative, she paints a rich picture of the characters' personalities. She also establishes a strong sense of setting, especially as it involves the atmosphere of the house. Winfield draws readers in with her use of details… deftly shifting from a character-driven story to a plot-driven, action-filled mystery. Winfield explores themes about the nature of good and evil, of right and wrong. With unusual but appealing characters, she keeps readers deeply engaged throughout her eccentric, compelling novel."—Maria Siano, Foreword/Clarion Review (Five Stars)
Haverford House, an intriguing novel by author Katherine Winfield, takes place on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. A suspenseful yet uplifting tale, Winfield weaves the characters into a colorful tapestry with the small Eastern Shore town as the backdrop. Winfield takes the reader on a journey of family dynamics and the sometimes deadly consequences of the need for love and power. The idea for the book began with a rumor about a local house that was haunted.
When Josh and Libby Langston move from Baltimore to a small fishing town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, they'll soon find out that the sleepy town of Corsica has some deep-rooted secrets. Thinking that she has finally found the perfect place to call home, Libby will discover her new dream house has a troubled past that is about to be awakened.
After a Haverford descendant, dead for over a century, sends Libby cryptic messages for help, Libby decides to seek the aid of the local townspeople. However, as the hidden history begins to be uncovered, and a suspicious death at the house twenty years ago comes into focus, Libby will learn that sometimes the past is better left buried.
Katherine Winfield is a seventh generation Washingtonian, who currently divides her time between North Carolina and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She has been writing for over thirty years and grew up in a large extended family, surrounded by artists, world-renowned musicians, and writers. Winfield studied Psychology and English at the University of Maryland. She has written numerous essays, poems, and is currently working on her third novel. She enjoys spending time with her five beautiful grandchildren.
This Just In by Kathryn Scarborough
Astraea Press$2.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-62135-363-8October, 2014Fiction: Romance (Contemporary)Available from www.Amazon.com
"This book will be embraced by readers who appreciate fast-paced stories with no fuss. It's fun, to the point, and Gina is an incredible heroine who sometimes may remind you of yourself in the many ways her brain seems to take over and interrupt her daily thoughts. If you don't believe in love at first sight, Scarborough will promptly change your mind."—Jaime A. Geraldi, Romantic Times
Science teacher Gina Thompson is as pragmatic and level headed as the next person except for the perpetual TV announcer that lives in her head and comments on everything she thinks. Her large family drives her crazy by getting her the worst blind dates on the planet. Ken Armstrong is an astrophysicist working at NASA. He is alone except for his grouchy old cat and his grouchy old uncle, Ken's only family, and he likes it fine that way. Uncle Johann meets Gina and decides "she is the one" for Ken. Through a series of planned mishaps and an icy visit from Mother Nature these two seriously logical people discover that indeed, there is scientific proof of love at first sight.
This past year, an article Kathryn Scarborough wrote about her father was published in Flight Journal Magazine, and she has placed several short stories and scholarly articles in other magazines. She has just written a small book on the history of the Methodist Church in North Carolina that will be in a collection for libraries and historical societies to be released this year. She just moved recently to Birmingham, AL, from central NC with her husband.
Hats Off! to Rebecca McClanahan who is featured in the current issue of The Writer's Chronicle, the magazine of the Association of Writers and Writing Professionals.
Hats Off! to Joan Leotta who has five poems forthcoming in Knot Magazine for their spring issue on women in and women in art.
Hats Off! to Chris Roerden who reports that the 2014 anthology Writes of Passage: Adventures on the Writer's Journey, to which she was invited to submit an essay, is one of five nominated books for this year's upcoming Agatha Awards in the category of Nonfiction. Chris' 575-word essay "Married to the Job" covers a writer's commitment. Coincidentally, her own tenth book, Don't Murder Your Mystery, was the first book about writing to win an Agatha in the fourteen years since the Nonfiction category was added to the national awards. In addition, Hank Phillippi Ryan, editor of the just-nominated anthology, contracts with Chris to edit her own writing: five thrillers so far in her second series of mysteries, the multi-award-winning Jane Ryland/Jake Brogan series.
Hats Off! to Glenda Barrett who had five poems selected for Kaleidoscope magazine: "Stay Seated Please," "Bound," "At Arm's Reach," "Boundaries," and "No More comfort, please." Another of her poems, "VFW Fish Fry," is forthcoming in the anthology No Achilles from Waterwood Press, and her poem "Ordinary Guy" will appear in The Healing Muse: A Journal of Literary and Visual Arts.
Hats Off! to Moira Crone whose novel, The Ice Garden (Carolina Wren Press), was reviewed in the Southern Literary Review.
The Red-Headed Angel Discovers the Crystal Sea by Jane Thompson Pait
Tate Publishing, LLC$8.99, paperback / $7.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-618621146January, 2012Children'sAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
BK's heavenly antics are a wonderful way to introduce children to the concept of the heavenly realm and teach them of God's patience and grace for us all. This is the first book in a series in which BK, a delightful cherub, has many celestial mishaps in store for us.
One day far up in heaven, a beautiful little cherub was born. She had flaming red hair, and with it came a flaming red personality! BK, the red-headed angel, must learn patience and obedience as she explores her new home. Her celestial antics will delight readers of all ages.
The Red-Headed Angel Discovers the Crystal Sea is the first in a series starring BK, a delightful cherub who innocently manages to create mischief in the heavenly realm. Through her adventures she learns about the God's mercy and grace. The second book in the series, The Red-Headed Angel and the Empty Tomb, will be released soon. Probably by the end of February, 2015.
Each book is available in hardback, softback, digital download, and audio download from Tate Publishing, LLC. A free audio download of the text is included free with each hard copy of the book purchased.
Jane Pait holds a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in Reading Education and has been an English and Reading instructor for over forty years. She loves to tell her nine-grandchildren stories like The Red-Headed Angel.
You Can't Be THAT by Susan Wright Beard
Patten-Miller House $11.95, paperback ISBN: 978-0-9911079-0-2 March, 2014 Progressive Christian fiction, Southern literature, Women's Literature Available from www.Amazon.com
"You Can't Be THAT gives us a glimpse of an under-appreciated phenomenon in American Christianity, those of progressive congregations who are just, thoughtful and inclusive and who are undergoing spiritual renewal as they seek to be faithful to the way of Jesus....I recommend Beard's book highly for ministers, church leaders, church study groups, and other Christians seeking to be faithful to their church tradition AND to Jesus."—H. Stephen Shoemaker, Former Senior Minister, Myers Park Baptist Church, and Theologian in Residence at Queens University and Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte
"As more and more Christians recognize the many conflicts that exist in outdated and ill-informed teachings, books like You Can't Be THAT help people better understand themselves. More and more congregants disagree with their church's teachings on a variety of important issues, from women's roles in church leadership to marriage equality for gays and lesbians. Susan Wright Beard's book gives a helpful lens into advancing society toward more inclusion, equality and ultimately, happiness."—Mitchell Gold, Founder, Faith in America and Co-Founder, CEO, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Home Furnishings
What happens when a small-town Southern church calls a young woman to minister to its dwindling congregation? Everything changes.
For as long as she can remember, Annie Adams has had one deep desire—to be the pastor of a church. And for as long as she can remember, people have told her, "You can't be that." But at Covenant Baptist Church, Annie finds a group of bold, forward thinking men and women who share her vision of inclusiveness and who are willing to work along with her for a new way of being the hands and feet of Christ.
As a pastor, Annie is fully committed to ministering to her congregation and develops delightful relationships with them. Her struggle comes as she tries to balance her role as pastor with her life as a single woman.
The first in the Covenant Congregation Series, this novel introduces characters who strive, both individually and as a group, to resolve real-life issues in their faith.
Susan Wright Beard considers herself to be a recipient of God's grace. A born-and-bred Southern Baptist, Susan graduated from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Master's degree in religious education. She also has a Master's degree in social work from LSU. She has worked primarily with adolescents dealing with issues such as suicide and personal and academic issues. Now a Presbyterian, Susan is married and has two children and four step-children.
GREENSBORO, NC—Beat the upcoming price increase and pre-register for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Spring Conference on Saturday, April 12, in the MHRA Building at UNCG. While on-site registration will be available, members will save more than 25 percent by registering now.
Our faculty is at the forefront of the North Carolina literary scene, and they've been all over the news. Here's what they've been up to:
Not to mention our impressive workshop leaders, Nancy Peacock and Jonathan Farmer, who will lead the Two-Part Fiction and Two-Part Creative Nonfiction workshops, respectively. Or our distinguished poets, Mark Smith-Soto and John Thomas York; or the inimitable duo of Steve Mitchell and Carol Roan, who will lead a workshop titled "Writing from Experience."
Pre-registration is open through Sunday, April 6. For more information, and to register, visit www.ncwriters.org.
Vice Versa by Allen D. Cowan
"I alternated between laughing until my ribs hurt and cringing. Albe gets himself into some hilarious predicaments."—Dr. Vivian B. Lord, author and former instructor at the North Carolina Justice Academy
"This book is a great ride through the amazing mind and imagination of Allen Cowan. The characters you meet along the way are well worth the price of admission."—Roger Flessing, former senior vice president, PTL
"Albe takes us on a frolicking ride through the sexy underbelly of a city imitating Atlanta."—Frye Gaillard, author and writer in residence, University of South Alabama
A humorous, audacious, irreverent detective tale of greed and getting off.
Just how far will lawyers, preachers, and other crooked characters go to satisfy their desires? Find out in the irreverent new novel, Vice Versa.
Author Allen D. Cowan turned his twenty-five years as a PI into this outrageous story that will appeal to readers of Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard.
Albe de Hammer is a PI trying to nail a blackmailer who's got a TV preacher by the short hairs. One of his pals is double-crossing him. And he's got woman trouble that gets worse when he goes "undercover" to crack a case.
Allen D. Cowan, a University of Florida graduate with a degree in journalism, has worked as an investigative reporter at The Orlando Sentinel, The St. Petersburg Times, The Charlotte Observer, and the military newspaper in Germany, Stars and Stripes. In 1974, Mr. Cowan was named Reporter of the Year in Florida. One of his articles about greyhound racing was part of a package that became a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. In 1986, the National Association of Realtors awarded him first prize and $1,000 for his investigative series on land-sales scandals in the United States. His training includes a NEH fellowship studying law at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, two weeks of intensive investigative reporting at the American Press Institute in Reston, Virginia, and more than 10,000 hours of on-the-job sleuthing. While at The Observer, Mr. Cowan's reporting helped lead to the downfall of TV evangelist Jim Bakker's PTL empire. Since 1989, Mr. Cowan has been licensed by the State of North Carolina as a PI. He has worked on behalf of rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and a host of other sordid characters. Mr. Cowan resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is an occasional guest lecturer at UNCC. He lives with his wife, Vivian, and their wonder dog, Gretchen.
Hats Off! to Charles "LC" Fiore whose short story "The Trench Garden" has been produced as an audio edition by Audible.com. "The Trench Garden" was published by Ploughshares in January.
Hats Off! to Marilynn Barner Anselmi whose short script, "Floral Deliveries," won 2nd Place in the 2014 10-Minute Play Contest sponsored by the Winston-Salem Writers. The winning plays will be presented Saturday, April 12, at 7:00 pm at The Community Arts Cafe, 411 West Fourth St. in Winston-Salem.
Hats Off! to Judy Hogan, author of Farm Fresh and Fatal, who was featured in the March/April issue of Southern Writers Magazine.
Behind Every Great Fortune: A Novel by Frank Amoroso
Simply Francis Publishing Company $15.99, paperback / $4.99, e-book ISBN: 978-1-63062-000-4 (pb) / 978-1-63062-001-1 (e-book) February, 2014 Fiction Available from www.Amazon.com
"Frank Amoroso's debut novel Behind Every Fortune is a fictionalized view of the life of international investment banker Otto Kahn, and captures in exquisite detail the political intrigue of the early twentieth century, including the vast cast of influential characters integral to the events leading to world wide conflagration. Incorporating glimpses into Kahn's opulent and secretively hedonistic lifestyle, from the Gold Coast of Long Island's Oheka Castle, to the offices, drawing rooms and boudoirs of the rich and famous of the time, Amoroso brings to life the 'monopoly man' through his well-written prose and extensive historical research."—Anne Brusca, Library Media Specialist
"So you see, Otto, behind every great fortune, lies a great crime," boasted Princess Zina Yusopov, the richest woman in Tsarist Russia.
Set in the turbulent second decade of the twentieth century, Behind Every Great Fortune chronicles the life and times of Otto Hermann Kahn, the financier and philanthropist whose fame was so great that he was immortalized as the iconic character with the mustache and top hat of the board game Monopoly.
Behind Every Great Fortune crackles with intrigue, ritual murder, sexual depravity, and betrayal, as the action races from the first terrorist attack on New York City to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, the murder of Rasputin, the Russian Revolution, and the bloody devastation of WWI. Mr. Amoroso adroitly weaves historical facts with colorful characters of the day such as Margaret Sanger, Vaslav Nijinsky, Mata Hari, the mad monk Rasputin, and Commander James "Strafe" Oliver.
As the 100th anniversary of these events approaches, Behind Every Great Fortune presents a fresh look at the seminal events that shaped the world. According to one reviewer it is an "Exciting, imaginative novel with many scenes of high dramatic intensity."
Frank Amoroso is an attorney who was born in New York City. He grew up near Long Island's Gold Coast where Otto Hermann Kahn built Oheka Castle his monument to power and wealth. Behind Every Great Fortune is Mr. Amoroso's initial book in the Oheka Chronicles trilogy.
Before embarking on a writing career, Mr. Amoroso practiced law for many years and was a senior partner in a large international law firm. "Law is a wonderful training ground for writing," says Amoroso. From his days on Law Review to clerking for a Judge on New York's highest court, to working as chief of staff for a NYS Senator, to prosecuting and teaching a course in White Collar Crime, to handling litigation for Fortune 500 companies, his career revolved around words.
A number of exciting projects are in the works. Mr. Amoroso is currently working on Book Two of the Oheka Chronicles, and Book Three is in the scoping phase. In addition, he is writing a companion book to Behind Every Great Fortune and is writing the memoirs of a Korean War veteran that will be poignant and tragic at the same time.
GREENSBORO, NC—On Tuesday, March 25, WUNC'S The State of Things with Frank Stasio featured Spring Conference faculty member Paul Stroebel, who will sit on the"Writing about War" panel at the North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Spring Conference.
Stroebel, along with another member of the Veterans Writing Collective, Rebecca King, talked about their writing in the Upstage Cabaret at the Triad Stage in Greensboro. The State of Things with Frank Stasio is a live radio show that brings the issues, personalities, and places of North Carolina to listeners six days a week. Host Frank Stasio lives in Durham, and is the former host of Talk of the Nation. This event was free and open to the public.
From Homer to Hemingway, writers have grappled with the causes, effects, and costs of war more than any other subject (except, perhaps, for love). As writers living in a time and place at war, how do we write responsibly and honestly about our—and others'—experience of it, whether from the front lines or the home front? This panel will examine this question, and others that writers face when they try to put war into words.
The North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Spring Conference happens Saturday, April 12, in the MHRA Building at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Registration is now open. Spring Conference offers a full day of intensive workshops in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing from experience, writing for children, and the art of the pitch. Other features include faculty readings, on-site "lunch with an author," publisher exhibits, and an open mic for conference participants.
The "Writing about War" panel will convene in the afternoon session. Robin Greene is the author of four books and is a professor of English and Writing at Methodist University, where she holds the McLean Endowed Professorship of English. Paul Stroebel is a six-year U.S. Army veteran who was with the 82nd Airborne Division and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Sharon D. Raynor is a Visiting Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University and an Adjunct Instructor int eh Center for Documentary Studies and Continuing Education at Duke University; she has written and directed two oral history projects with combat veterans in rural North Carolina.
Also on Saturday, award-winning author Kelly Starling Lyons will lead a workshop titled "So You Want to Write a Children's Book?"
Have you always wanted to write a children's book? Start the journey with children's book author Kelly Starling Lyons in a workshop designed to introduce you to the field. You'll get a basic understanding of children's book genres, mine your life for story ideas and receive tips to help you on your way.
Lyons is a children's book author whose mission is to transform moments, memories and history into stories of discovery. Her books include the CCBC Choices-honored picture book One Million Men and Me; Ellen's Broom, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor book, Junior Library Guild and Bank Street Best selection; Tea Cakes for Tosh, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People and winner of the 2013 American Association of University Women (AAUW) Award for Juvenile Literature (sponsored by the North Carolina division of AAUW); and Hope's Gift, named an Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) and showcased as the featured North Carolina children's book at the 2013 National Book Festival in Washington, DC. Find out more at www.kellystarlinglyons.com.
Spring Conference pre-registration ends Sunday, April 6. Workshops are filling up fast—register now!
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers' Network is the state's oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.
The Angel Dialogues by Anthony S. Abbottwith illustrations by Betsy Hazelton
Lorimer Press $22.95, hardcover ISBN: 978-0989788526 March, 2014 Poetry: Illustrated Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Abbott miters each poem into the next with the precision of a master carpenter, in language that moves seamlessly, often floating, from impressionism into a quirky vernacular narrative..." —Joseph Bathanti, Poet Laureate of NC, 2012-present
"This book is one of the most emotionally wide-open collections of poetry that I've read in a long time." —Kathryn Stripling Byer, Poet Laureate of NC, 2005-2009
"(T)his angel...is a double tasking, sarcastic, Yeats reading, quantum-leaping trickster..." —Cathy Smith Bowers, Poet Laureate of NC, 2010-2012
"Solicitous, assured, understanding, cheeky, impudent, mischievous..." —Fred Chappell, Poet Laureate of NC, 1997-2002
This book is not really a collection of poems; rather, it is a narrative, a story that takes place over a year, in which a poet, who has prayed for a muse, receives instead an angel who teaches him much about what it means to be a human being, and leaves him, at the end of that time, wiser, healthier, and more spiritually aware.
Anthony S. Abbott is the Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of English at Davidson College where he served as Department Chair from 1989-1996. He is the author of four critical studies, two novels, and six books of poetry, including the Pulitzer nominated The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat. His awards include the Novello Literary Award for Leaving Maggie Hope (2003), the Oscar Arnold Young Award for The Man Who (2005), and the Brockman-Campbell Award for If Words Could Save Us (2011) as well as the Irene Blair Honeycutt Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. He lives in Davidson, North Carolina, with his wife, Susan.
Hats Off! to Judy Hogan whose novel Farm Fresh and Fatal was featured in Mystery Scene magazine. Vegetables "turn out to be a lot more interesting than we'd ever guessed" in this "fascinating" mystery.
Hats Off! to Sandra Lee Hartsell whose book Adam Petty's Heartbeat was written up in the Lexington Dispatch, the Archdale-Trinity News, and the Thomasville Times.
Beyond Fairy Tales, Poems in Concrete and Flesh by Maureen A. Sherbondy
Main Street Rag Publishing Company$14.00, paperback ($9.00 if pre-ordered through the publisher)May, 2014PoetryAvailable for pre-order from the publisher
"Bittersweet and spot on, Beyond Fairy Tales, Poems in Concrete and Flesh are about those moments in life when the fairy dust of happy-ever-after has blown away...leaving the reader thinking about the deceit in our own dreams."—2014 Piedmont Laureate Carrie Knowles, author of Ashoan's Rug and Lillian's Garden
"Waving her magic wand, Maureen A. Sherbondy transforms classic fairy tales into contemporary fables: Goldilocks becomes a senile woman who sleeps on other residents' beds in a nursing home, Rapunzel loses her hair to chemotherapy, and the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe abandons her children. The poems push beyond the margins of fairy tales into modern mutations of mystery, betrayal, and loss. Despite multiple personae and shape-shifting, the unique voice of the poet remains constant."—Beth Copeland, author of Transcendental Telemarketer
"With humor and raw, dark beauty, Maureen Sherbondy shows us a world of broken, aging survivors. Her characters dance on the edge of loneliness and longing; they inhabit lost dreams where happily-ever-afters have twisted into financial, emotional, and physical hardship. And yet, one word rises out of this haunting, unforgettable collection of poems: acceptance."—Barbara Claypole White, author of The In-Between Hour
Beyond Fairy Tales, Poems in Concrete and Flesh is a full-length poetry collection about what happens after the fairy tales end.
Maureen A. Sherbondy's books are After the Fairy Tale, Praying at Coffee Shops, The Slow Vanishing, Scar Girl, Weary Blues, The Year of Dead Fathers, and Eulogy for an Imperfect Man. She teaches at Alamance Community College.
GREENSBORO, NC—The North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Spring Conference will offer registrants two workshops on how to pitch and promote their books.
Spring Conference happens Saturday, April 12, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. (Registration is now open.) For those writers with manuscripts ready or near-ready to be sent on submission, or anyone who's simply curious about how the process works, these workshops, led by bestselling and award-winning authors, offer proven strategies for pitching your next book and gaining readership through imaginative marketing.
In the morning session, Carrie Knowles and Peggy Payne will lead a workshop titled, "Market Your Book—with Imagination." You can improve your book's sales, using the very ability that started you writing in the first place: imagination, the ability to see possibilities. Whether you start the process before you have a publication date or when the day is looming, you can help to kick off and maintain your book's sales. You can even give a long-published book new life. Carrie Knowles and Peggy Payne, creators of their own three-state Crazy Ladies Book Tour and authors of a total of nine books, will show you how. Both are novelists, nonfiction authors, and have worked in advertising and marketing. They will suggest tactics and strategies for books and book ideas that workshop participants bring in.
In the afternoon, Linda Rohrbough will teach registrants "How to Make an Elevator Pitch." It's a completely different set of skills to effectively talk about a book, than to write one. And it doesn't take long for writers to figure out they need to be able to talk about their book to people they don't know in a succinct and compelling way. First, it's to editors and agents, but after publication it's to book store managers, reader groups, and even the media. This workshop provides all the tools, including a simple three-step plug and play formula for pitching any book, along with the encouragement and fear-management techniques authors need to develop this all-important skill. Packed with examples, this interactive workshop gives writers everything they need to implement the career-long skill of pitching their books.
"How to Make an Elevator Pitch" is highly encouraged for anyone who signs up for the Speed Pitch special session at the end of the day, where registrants have a chance to pitch their manuscripts to four literary professionals. (See conference page for full details.)
Carrie Knowles is the 2014 Piedmont Laureate. She has been a freelance writer for the past forty-five years. She has published widely in both fiction and nonfiction and has won a number of prestigious writing awards including the Midland Authors Poetry Award, the American Heart Association Heart and Torch Award for Creative Journalism, and Glimmer Train's Very-Short Fiction Contest. Her nonfiction book, The Last Childhood: A Family Story of Alzheimer's, has been noted as one of the top 100 books written about Alzheimer's. She has two novels published by Roundfire Books: Lillian's Garden and Ashoan's Rug.
Peggy Payne's most recent novel is Cobalt Blue, kicked off at last year's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and published in six countries. Her Sister India was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and her first, Revelation, was a New York Times Editors' Choice with screen rights sold to Synergy Films. She is co-author of The Healing Power of Doing Good and has written for many national publications and most of the major American newspapers. Peggy works with other writers individually and in groups, giving manuscript feedback and career counsel.
Linda Rohrbough has more than 5,000 articles and seven books to her credit along with national awards for her fiction and nonfiction. She's worked as a bureau chief for a news network in Los Angeles and in Dallas as well as having her bestselling books published by the big five New York publishing houses. Her books have enjoyed translation into over a dozen languages and she's been quoted by publications such as the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Her novel The Prophetess One: At Risk has garnered three national awards: the 2012 International Book Award, the 2011 Global eBook Award, and the 2011 Millennium Star Publishing Award. An iPhone App of her popular "Pitch Your Book" workshop is available in the Apple iTunes store. Visit her website: www.LindaRohrbough.com.
All three instructors also are available for the "Lunch with an Author" program, where attendees can sign up in advance to have lunch with a faculty member. This allows attendees to spend less time waiting in line and more time in conversation with conference faculty outside the classroom.
Byrd by Kim Church
Dzanc Books $14.95, paperback / $7.99, e-book ISBN: 978-1-938604522March, 2014 Fiction Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Brilliant writing—lively and heartbreaking at every turn."—Jill McCorkle, New York Times bestselling author of Life After Life
"A riveting debut. Kim Church is a very talented writer."—Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of Serena and Nothing Gold Can Stay
"Beautiful, dream-like language … connects us directly with the experience of all the characters. It goes right to the heart, without being filtered through the brain, the way a smell connects you to a memory."—Nancy Peacock, New York Times notable author of Life Without Water and The Life & Times of Persimmon Wilson
Set in North Carolina and points west, Byrd is the story of Addie Lockwood, an independent single woman who, at thirty-three, gives birth to a son and surrenders him for adoption without telling his father, little imagining how the secret will shape their lives. Told through short chapters, vignettes, and Addie's letters to her son, Byrd is an unforgettable story about making and living with the most difficult, intimate, and far-reaching of choices.
Kim Church's stories and poetry have appeared in Shenandoah, Mississippi Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has received fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Millay Colony for the Arts, and Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Raleigh. Her web address is www.kimchurch.com.
Hats Off! to 2014 Spring Conference faculty member Drew Perry whose new novel Kids These Days was reviewed in the Southern Literary Review. Matt Simmons interviews Drew about Florida and parenting in the same issue.
NORTH CAROLINA—Chapel Hill writer Laura Herbst won top honors in the 2014 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition for her essay "Breast Cancer: A Love Story."
Author Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, the judge of this year's contest, said, "I found 'Breast Cancer: A Love Story' an elegy for the body that reminds us of how our very identities are tangled up in painful physicalities. The writer sketches for us her own architecture and where in its design she has discovered fault lines and fulcra.
"In the end, the essay demonstrates that the barricades most difficult to break down are interior and intensely private. It reveals the unceasing struggle to countermand the secrets that, in becoming manifest, threaten to expose—as the writer acknowledges—the core of us."
After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Herbst left her job teaching news writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to write what she calls "soulful women's stories." She is at work on a novel, set among village women in West Africa, where she once lived. Her fiction has appeared in The Sun magazine, and her nonfiction in The New York Times, the News and Observer in Raleigh and Indy Week (for which she received an investigative reporting award from the North Carolina Press Association last year).
Sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network and administered by the creative writing department at UNC-Wilmington, the Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition encourages the creation of lasting nonfiction work that is outside the realm of conventional journalism. The contest is open to any legal resident of North Carolina or member of NCWN. First-, second-, and third-place winners receive $1,000, $300, and $200, respectively, and the winning entry is considered for publication in the magazine Southern Cultures.
Jason Hess of Wilmington won second place for his essay "The Adopted Person." Hess, a native of Scappoose, Oregon, holds a BA in Spanish and English from the University of Idaho, and has lived in Costa Rica, Idaho, Spain, and now North Carolina.
"The essayist has a compelling voice that nimbly moves from humor to grief, all the while pursuing labyrinthine questions concerning origins, family, and isolation," Abrams said.
Chapel Hill's Joanna Catherine Scott won third place for her essay "How I Went to Adult Prison as a Child," based on interviews with a prisoner in Central Prison.
"'How I Went to Adult Prison as a Child' is essay as reportage, documentary, a lone lens trained on a subject with the writer vanished," Abrams said. "The strength of the piece is perhaps in this stepping back of the author, so the voice of imprisoned can have the space necessary to testify."
Scott is the author of the novels Child of the South, The Road from Chapel Hill, The Lucky Gourd Shop, Charlie: a novel of war, and Cassandra, Lost; the nonfiction Indochina's Refugees: Oral Histories from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; and the prize-winning poetry collections An Innocent in the House of the Dead, Breakfast at the Shangri-la, Fainting at the Uffizi, and Night Huntress. A graduate of the University of Adelaide and Duke University, Joanna was born in England, raised in Australia, and now lives in Chapel Hill.
Abrams won the 2013 Whiting Writers' Award of $50,000, one of the richest prizes in American literature, for her novella The Man Who Danced with Dolls. She holds an MFA ('07) from UNC-Wilmington, where she now teaches in the English Department. She is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award, a Hartshook Fellowship, and a Byington Award. Born on Guam, Abrams is currently at work on her memoir, The Following Sea, about growing up on a cutter that made port throughout the South Pacific.
Hats Off! to Ross White who has a poem in Day One.
Hats Off! to 2014 NCWN Spring Conference faculty member Jacinta V. White who was featured in the Winston-Salem Journal for her project, "One City, One Prompt." As part of this, Jacinta will lead one of the Special Sessions at Spring Conference, where she will begin an opening dialogue on this year's theme, "Begin Again." She will then provide the prompt to attendees, and allow them time to write.
The Narratives III: Fanning the Flames by Vince Guaglione
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform $6.95, paperback / $0.99, e-book ISBN: 978-1495926211 February, 2014 Fiction Available at your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
The Narratives is collection of short introspective essays written by an average guy in an effort to better understand himself, his life, and his relationship with the world around him while traveling the road of self-discovery. These works can best be described as the author's unique brand of journaling, encompassing both self-reflective entries, and an expression of thoughts and opinions surrounding social issues of the present day.
The Narratives III: Fanning The Flames departs from its predecessors, taking a more cynical personal tone and presenting a more pointed, indignant, view. Half the essays are a further examination of the author's innermost thoughts, while the remaining pieces are lightweight "op-ed's", touching on issues that are front and center to our national discourse.
The Narratives III: Fanning The Flames is the third volume in The Narratives series.
Hats Off! to Paula Oliver, NCWN Regional Rep for Albemarle/OBX, who read her essay, "Hermine Jungus Komnik's World Wars I and II Experiences and Results," at the Dare County Arts Center. NCWN members in Albemarle/OBX are teaming up with the Dare County Arts Council to provide a platform for works by these writers and their guests. These local writers will present readings and book signings at the Dare County Arts Council throughout the year.
NORTH CAROLINA—The announcement of this year's inductees into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame will bring to a close the 2014 North Carolina Literary Festival on Sunday, April 6.
The announcement and subsequent panel discussion, scheduled for 5:00 pm in the Multipurpose Room of the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, will be the grand finale of the four-day-long celebration of past, present, and future of the written word.
Four North Carolina writers will be inducted into the NCLHOF in a ceremony on Sunday, October 12, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities in Southern Pines. They will join the fifty-three inductees currently enshrined. Inductions are held every other year; the 2012 inductees were Maya Angelou, Kathryn Stripling Byer, and John Lawson.
A list of inductees, as well as samples of their work and video clips of past inductions, can be found online at www.nclhof.org.
"This is a fitting time and place to announce the 2014 inductees," said Ed Southern, the executive director of the North Carolina Writers' Network, which oversees the NCLHOF. "The festival's theme is 'The Future of Reading,'and it's proper to honor the past when you're examining the future. We're excited to honor these writers."
The North Carolina Literary Festival will take place April 3–6 at the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University. Participating authors will include current NCLHOF inductees Allan Gurganus, Lee Smith, and Elizabeth Spencer, as well as NCWN members Kim Church, Angela Davis-Gardner, Jaki Shelton Green, Marjorie Hudson, Scott Huler, Zelda Lockhart, Kelly Starling Lyons, Jill McCorkle, Sheila Smith McKoy, Elaine Neil Orr, Drew Perry, and Stephanie Powell Watts.
The North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame was founded in 1996, under the leadership of poet laureate Sam Ragan, and is a program of the North Carolina Writers' Network. Since 2008, the Network and the Weymouth Center collaborate with the North Carolina Center for the Book, the North Carolina Humanities Council, and the North Carolina Collection of the Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill to produce the induction ceremony and to promote the NCLHOF and North Carolina's literary heritage.
Vendetta Stone by Tom Wood
CreateSpace $18.00, paperback / $4.99, e-book ISBN: 978-1490331522 August, 2013 Fiction Available at your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"As a former newspaperman and a Nashville resident, I especially enjoyed the book because of its reporter protagonist and its Music City setting. The plot is believable, provides action and suspense, and the characters are well-defined. It also offers insight into how the media functions that 'civilians' should find interesting. It's a good, quick read and I enjoyed it." —Larry Woody, former Tennessean sports writer/outdoors editor and author, is a three-time Tennessee Sports Writer of the Year and a member of the Motorsports Hall of Fame and the Martin Methodist College Sports Hall of Fame
"Tom Wood's journalistic background is perfectly showcased in his suspenseful first novel, Vendetta Stone. Its clever premise as a true crime novel, written from the point of view of journalist Gerry Hilliard, works so well that readers may question why they didn't know about these serial murders earlier. Vividly drawn and complex characters join a well-crafted plot to create a 'can't turn the pages fast enough' winner. … [It] practically cries out for a sequel." —Michelle Broussard Honick, co-author of Ghosts, Gangsters and Gamblers of Las Vegas
"It is a gripping thriller . . . an excellent social and psychological piece of literature, especially looking into the mind of a serial killer." —Nick Sullivan, former Tennessean sports writer, outdoors editor, and copy editor
"Finished Vendetta Stone last night—what a thriller!" —Suzanne Webb Brunson, former Nashville Banner reporter
Your loved one is murdered. You have the will—and the skill—to do something about it. Do you want justice ... or revenge? For Jackson Stone, a Nashville advertising executive, former Marine and avid outdoorsman, his journey to answer that question begins with an extraordinary press conference to announce his deadly intentions in this fictional true-crime thriller. The sensational comments concerning the murder of his quickly go viral, and reaction is swift—from the police to Jackson's family members to his church family, from bloggers to victim's right advocates to anti-violence groups. Everyone takes sides and his comments divide Music City like never before. Soon, the hunter becomes the hunted, and Jackson's fate will be decided in a suspenseful showdown at one of Nashville's iconic landmarks.
There to chronicle it all is journalist Gerry Hilliard, who also recounts his own role in tracking down the killer in his first "true-crime" book, Vendetta Stone.
Veteran sports writer and copy editor Tom Wood has covered a wide variety of events, ranging from Nashville universities to boxing, from the Iroquois Memorial Steeplechase to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games for The Tennessean, where he also wrote a number of entertainment features. Since his retirement from that newspaper, he has continued to contribute freelance articles for several news outlets including the Knoxville News Sentinel, Nashville Ledger, The Associated Press and Ft. Myers News-Press. He had a short story published in the 2012 Civil War anthology Filtered Through Time and contributed an interview to the 1989 collection Feast of Fear: Conversations With Stephen King. The native North Carolinian and Middle Tennessee State University graduate is also an actor and has appeared as a background character actor in numerous episodes of the ABC series Nashville (seasons one and two) as well as several other film and multimedia projects. Vendetta Stone is Wood's first novel. His website is http://tomwoodauthor.com.
Hats Off! to Ron Jackson who reviews Katey Schultz' Flashes of War in the new North Carolina Literary Review.
Hats Off! to Erika Hoffman whose story about how she met her husband, "Before March Madness", has been accepted by Screamin'Mamas. This is a paying gig out of Hollywood, Florida. This is Erika's fifth story to be published by this print magazine.
Hats Off! to Joan Leotta whose poem, "Five Little Bears Came to My House Today," has won Third Place in the Caldwell Nixon, Jr. Award sponsored by the North Carolina Poetry Society.
Hats Off! to Spring Conference faculty member Peggy Payne whose article "Allergic to Sex? On Book Pulping and Pursed Lips" appeared in the Religion section of the Washington Post.
Jasper Amazon Parrot: A Rainforest Adventure by Sharon C. Williams
Fountain Blue Publishing $17.99, hardcover / $9.00, e-book ISBN: 978-1628680041 September, 2013 Children's Chapter Book Available from the publisher or www.Amazon.com
Jasper, the Amazon parrot, is no ordinary bird. He lives within the rainforest, whose secrets he's eager to explore. He loves his life, his home, and his family—grateful for the blessings he's discovered. He's in charge of his younger brother, Willie, a responsibility Jasper takes very seriously.
Learning how to fly, he learns to appreciate the world around him. When he meets a spider monkey with a penchant for food and a laid back attitude named Charlie, he realizes he's in for an adventure he never thought possible.
Exploring the boundaries of the forest, Jasper soon understands that there is more to the world around him. Most especially the strange new creatures that have come to live there. Are they safe the young parrot doesn't know. With Willie and Charlie by his side he will soon find out.
Sharon is a native of New England, raised in Northern Maine. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and son. She is owned by a flock of eight birds.
Sharon has a B.S. Degree in Chemistry. Writing keeps her busy. She tends to lose all track of time. The world could be coming to an end, and Sharon would be oblivious to it. When this author is writing, she envisions the scenes in her head. She tries to imagine the reality of what is written down on paper. The different options, scenes and problems will be listed down on the side in case she can use them later.
Sharon tends to write by long hand—the flow works better for her this way. The authors you would see in her bookshelves would be Stephen King, Agatha Christie, Bentley Little, and James Patterson.
She loves to read, take pictures, walk, exercise, go to the movies, and listen to music. Sharon is a budding bird watcher, and knits on the side. She is a huge sports fan which includes baseball, basketball, hockey, and football.
Two of her short stories were published in the anthology, Cassandra's Roadhouse. Jasper, Amazon Parrot: A Rainforest Adventure, was released on September 7, 2013, by Fountain Blue Publishing. In December of 2013 Sharon along with members of her writing group, The Wonder Chicks, released an anthology called Dragons in the Attic.
Hats Off! to Sharon C. Williams who won a literary grant from the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County.
GREENSBORO, NC—Poets who attend the North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Spring Conference will have the chance to sign up for two poetry workshops led by award-winning North Carolina writers.
Spring Conference happens Saturday, April 12, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the poetry workshops will focus on particular, nuts and bolts elements of the craft that will teach registrants how to turn their abstract bursts of inspiration into effective, uncluttered lines of poetry. Registration is now open.
During the morning session, Mark Smith-Soto will lead a poetry workshop, "Anchoring the Emotion." T.S. Eliot taught that emotion in poetry must find expression in an "objective correlative"—a sensory experience that will evoke the desired feeling in the reader rather than simply describe it. Naming or describing an emotion, and making others experience it as we feel it, are totally different things, and a failure to understand that difference can undermine a poem's effectiveness. In this workshop, we will work on techniques useful in "anchoring" an abstract notion to the heart of a poem so as to make it shareable with others.
In the afternoon, poet John Thomas York will lead the workshop "Infinite Particulars and the Worlds They Make: Choosing Detail in Poetry." Ever had trouble generating detail, choosing detail (or letting the images choose you), or deciding when it's time to do some serious de-cluttering? Come join a craft talk, discussing strategies (some like cockleburs, some like fairy dust) offered by the leader after his long walks in literary fields. Bring a poem to share.
Mark Smith-Soto is Professor of Spanish and editor of International Poetry Review at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has published three prize-winning chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections. He has twice been nominated for a Puschart Prize and won an NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing in 2006.
John Thomas York grew up in Yadkin County in northwestern North Carolina. He has four poetry collections, including Cold Spring Rising, published by Press 53 in 2012. In 2011, he won the first annual James Applewhite Poetry Prize from North Carolina Literary Review.
Heart of the Light by Lisa Zerkle
Finishing Line Press $14.00, paperback May, 2013 Poetry Available from the publisher
"What I like best about Lisa Zerkle's poems is their honesty. She has heart, she has humor, but she never sentimentalizes, never makes the world into something she would like it to be."—Anthony S. Abbott, author of If Words Could Save Us
Lisa Zerkle's poetry has appeared in Crucible, The Main Street Rag, Thrift Poetic Arts, and online at www.literarymama.com. She is a co-editor of Kakalak: Anthology of Carolina Poetry. In 2008, she wrote a monthly column for the Charlotte Observer as one of their Community Columnists. She is the president of the North Carolina Poetry Society. She lives in Charlotte.
Hats Off! to Chuck Thurston, whose guest column "Living the Pond Life" appeared recently in the Salisbury Post.
Colony Collapse Disorder by Keith Flynn
Wings Press $16.00, paperback ISBN: 9781609402945 February, 2013 Available from your local bookstore, the publisher, or www.Amazon.com
"The poems of Colony Collapse Disorder form a geopolitical abecedarium that lives up to Keith Flynns reputation as 'a seminal force in poetry.. a voice for the dispossessed...with rock-gospel charisma and riddle-like revelations.'" —Choice
"Colony Collapse Disorder is a book of journeys, journeys across the world, journeys of conscience and witness, journeys of spiritual discovery. Flynn is one of our finest contemporary troubadours, heir to Bop, to the Beats, the poetry of Rock and Roll, the roar of Walt Whitman, and the seduction of cinema. He is a poet of overwhelming energy, in rebellious ballads, stunning life riffs, and wry meditations. In this work we feel a relish for both improvisation and craft, in delicate lyrics of longing, in songs of protest, and progressive commentary on todays violent and chaotic news. Like the best music, Flynn's poems bind us together with a shared sense of failure, challenge, joy, and love." —Robert Morgan, author of Terroir
"Keith Flynn's lyrical travelogue, a revolution of sound and story, celebrates the reader as witness. Not only are we transported to gorgeously-crafted locales, but we are rooted there by the poet's unerring narrative, transforming each poem with a facet of light, an illuminative hallelujah. Scan the poetic landscape all you want, but you won't find anything like this." —Patricia Smith, author of Blood Dazzler
From the Introduction: The poems in this book are built in a circular fashion like a Mayan calendar, its architecture and interconnected narrative have a hive mind, with each poem connected to the poem in front and behind it by a theme, an image, or a single word. Colony Collapse Disorder is a place-based abecedary in which each letter of the alphabet is represented by two places, cities, countries, or regions whose name corresponds to the letter and its assigned poem. The poem may be inspired by the place or its traditions, written with geography's characteristics in mind, or can be aimed at the place, or may take the irony of the place and nestle its rhythm next to the future that is drifting inexorably closer.
There are a wide variety of forms and textures, but each poem, 52 in all, correspond with the weeks of the year, and interlock the entire collection with historical vignettes and try to capture a sense of what a worker bee might see through the eyes of a human, how the various places might feel and think through their gauze of feuds or appetites or vanities. Poetry is language with a shape, and a music all its own, my hope is that these shapes bring the reader along, around the world in eighty or so pages, and to feel as if they are completely at home between its covers, bent toward the horizon with a new awareness of the other spirits that are occupying their hive.
Keith Flynn (www.keithflynn.net) is the author of six books, including five collections of poetry: The Talking Drum (1991), The Book of Monsters (1994), The Lost Sea (2000), The Golden Ratio (Iris Press, 2007), and Colony Collapse Disorder (Wings Press, 2013), and a collection of essays, entitled The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing (Writer's Digest Books, 2007). From 1984-1999, he was lyricist and lead singer for the nationally acclaimed rock band, The Crystal Zoo, which produced three albums: Swimming Through Lake Eerie (1992), Pouch (1996), and the spoken-word and music compilation, Nervous Splendor (2003). He is currently touring with a supporting combo, The Holy Men, whose album, LIVE at Diana Wortham Theatre, was released in 2011. His award-winning poetry and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies around the world, including The American Literary Review, The Colorado Review, Poetry Wales, The Cuirt Journal (Ireland), Takahe (New Zealand), Poetry East, The Southern Poetry Review, Margie, Rattle, Shenandoah, Word and Witness: 100 Years of NC Poetry, Crazyhorse, and many others. He has been awarded the Sandburg Prize for poetry, the ASCAP Emerging Songwriter Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award, and was twice named the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for North Carolina. Flynn is founder and managing editor of The Asheville Poetry Review, which began publishing in 1994. For more information, please visit: www.ashevillepoetryreview.com.
Hats Off! to Danny Bernstein whose book, The Mountains-to-Sea Across North Carolina, was featured in the Asheville Citizen-Times.
The Warriors by Tom Young
G.P.Putnam's Sons $26.95, hardcover / $12.99, e-book ISBN: 978-0-399158476 July, 2013 Fiction Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Parson has been in plenty of action lately, so he's happy with his new assignment as safety officer at a Kyrgyzstan air base. It's a pretty laid-back way to spend the next year.
Or so he thought. On his second day, a C-27 crashes on the runway with a load of electronic gear—and opium. Recruiting his battle companion Sergeant Major Sophia Gold as interpreter, he investigates not only the crash, but the source of the cargo, and the answers they find will lead them into a conflict as lethal as any they have known.
A new Balkan war is brewing, driven by a man of ruthless ambition. Parson himself flew during the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, so he's seen their horror firsthand. But neither he nor Gold has witnessed anything like what's about to happen now.
Tom Young has logged 4,500 hours as a flight engineer for the Air National Guard in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere, including Latin America, the horn of Africa, and the Far East. Military honors include two Air Medals, three Aerial Achievement Medals, and the Air Force Combat Action Medal.
He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and studied writing there and at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, among other places. Besides The Mullah's Storm, Silent Enemy, and The Renegades, he is also the author of the oral history The Speed of Heat: An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan, and contributed to the anthology Operation Homecoming, edited by Andrew Carroll. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Hats Off! to Marilynn Barner Anselmi, whose play Becoming IT is a finalist for the Susan Nims Distinguished Playwriting Award. Becoming IT will be presented at The Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, in May, 2013.
GREENSBORO, NC—University of North Carolina at Greensboro associate director Terry Kennedy recently dubbed this the "golden age" for publishing. But more publishing opportunity means more competition, so authors also need to be entrepreneurial in their approach. None more so than poets, who need to establish platforms in order to gain name recognition, nurture their readership, and sell books—one reader at a time.
The North Carolina Writers' Network 2013 Spring Conference offers two poetry workshops and two workshops focused on the business of publishing—can't miss offerings for those writers looking to earn a living doing what they love.
John Rybicki will lead a workshop titled "The Risks of Writing Poetry." Poetry writing is about risk. None of us can compose a potent poem with a block of ice in our chest. In that respect, Rybicki will be urging students in this class to walk on water and run with scissors; to say what it is a heart is burning to say. After some introductory flame throwing (inspiration) and some perusing of the nuances of craft, students will write a prose poem centered around one core person in their lives. Your father or mother will be a stranger to us before you write him/her into existence. By the end of your poem we will come to know them as a warm-blooded, three dimensional being. Don't worry about reaching some pinnacle of expression in a first draft. We all fail lavishly in our attempts to translate into higher language something core about the human condition. Students who wish to will share their work out loud at the end of class.
In the afternoon, Carolyn Beard Whitlow will lead a poetry session titled "Writing in Circles: Repeating Sounds, Words, and Refrains in Poetry." The ocean repeats its rhythmic waves. Birds repeat their trill. Chants are based on sounds rhythmically repeated. Repetition can be soothing or hypnotic. Or emphatic. Nursery rhymes and jingles depend on the repetition of sounds, most often rhyme. Sonnets most often rhyme. Other poetic forms, however, depend not only on rhyme, but on patterns of repeating words or lines that may not rhyme. The sestina form is based on six unrhymed words that repeat six times—no, really seven. The villanelle depends on two refrains that repeat alternately. Come learn how to create a villanelle and a sestina that repeat lines or words in entrancing and exciting ways. Even if you write free verse, you'll learn the effect of melodic repetition.
Two additional workshops will focus on the business of publishing.
In the am session, Scott Nicholson will facilitate a workshop titled "Introduction to Digital Self-Publishing." The Kindle and other devices have changed the way writers and readers connect. Learn the basic methods and platforms for getting your ebooks to a worldwide audience, as well as the advantages and risks of self-publishing. International bestselling author and publisher Scott Nicholson will share his experiences and answer questions to help you enter the fastest-growing market in literature.
And in the afternoon, Terry Kennedy and Ross White will co-coordinate a workshop titled "Authors as Entrepreneurs." With the business models of traditional publishing changing, authors are increasingly being asked to act entrepreneurially. While many authors choose to do this by concentrating on marketing their work, an increasing number are developing new models of creative businesses and services that contribute to the literary community and develop a personal brand. In this session, two arts entrepreneurs will look at several small businesses developed by writers and discuss best practices for starting businesses that benefit both the individual writer and the larger literary community.
John Rybicki was born and raised in Detroit. He is the author of three poetry collections: We Bed Down into Water, Traveling at High Speeds, and When All the World Is Old, published by Lookout Books in 2012. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Ecotone, and Bomb, among many others, and have been reprinted in Best American Poetry and The Pushcart Prize. He teaches poetry writing through InsideOut Literary Arts Project and Wings of Hope Hospice to children who have been through a trauma or loss. He lives in Augusta, Michigan, with his son, Martell.
Carolyn Beard Whitlow is Dana Professor of English at Guilford College, where she has taught Creative Writing and African American Literature since 1993. Finalist for the 1991 Barnard New Women Poets Prize and the 2005 Ohio State University Poetry Prize, she completed the MFA at Brown University, then published her first poetry collection, Wild Meat, in 1986. Her most recent book, Vanished, won the 2006 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, and she was awarded the 2012 Sonia Sanchez/Amiri Baraka Prize in Poetry. She co-edited, with Marilyn Krysl, the anthology Obsession: Sestinas for the 21st Century, now under consideration for publication. Whitlow is also a visual artist and quilter whose work can be found at http://colorquiltsbycarolyn.squarespace.com/.
Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than thirty books. He released six mass-market paperbacks before becoming a self-publisher, and has since hit the Kindle Top 100 multiple times in four different countries. Nicholson has also written children's books, poetry, comic books, and screenplays, and as a journalist he won three North Carolina Press Association awards. His website is www.hauntedcomputer.com.
Terry Kennedy is the Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at UNC Greensboro where he teaches courses in Entrepreneurship and Literary Publishing and serves as Associate Editor of The Greensboro Review. In addition, he edits the online journal, storySouth.
Ross White is the Executive Director of Bull City Press, a Durham-based small press dedicated to poetry and short fiction. He teaches poetry writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, where he is the Dean of Distance Education. His poetry and criticism has appeared in Best New Poets 2012, Salon.com, Poetry Daily, and others.
For more information, or to register for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2013 Spring Conference, visit www.ncwriters.org or call 336-293-8844.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers' Network is the state's oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development.
The Shimmering Bubble by William Wortman
CreateSpace $24.00, paperback ISBN: 978-1461172697 May, 2012 Fiction Available at www.Amazon.com
A weeklong meeting in California ends and a weary Dr. David Jacobs boards his flight home. Kathleen, a lovely and intriguing flight attendant welcomes him. There is instant attraction. While waiting for departure they banter. Scotch and fatigue lull him to a fitful sleep after take-off, but he doesn't sleep well. Ghosts from a hidden past cause recurring nightmares. Friends know nothing about this, and he cannot tell them.
Thirty years as a surgeon and his wife's recent death compound his problems. Kathleen's curiosity is piqued by words muttered as he dreams. Who is "Scott?" Where is "Erzerum" and "Capo Posillipo?" Why does the name "Michael" bring tears to his eyes? Who are these people? Most importantly, she asks herself, why should she care? Why does this man she has just met evoke deep emotions and feelings long suppressed and denied? He awakes, she queries him, but her perception threatens to reveal ghosts he can't expose. He leaves her questions unanswered.
David bids farewell at the airport. He promises dinner if she has a future layover. Kathleen intrigues him and her memory remains vivid. His Medical School class is holding its reunion and he's there for the evening's festivities before proceeding home. Many classmates attend: Sexy Sarah, her husband Allan the Gas Passer, Texas Charlie, Marty the Slob, and Moosie the class clown. All, he reflects are interestingly intertwined, tied by bonds in and beyond their profession.
Some absentees are the ones Kathleen has asked about and their memories torment him. As a writer he needs to tell their stories if he is ever to be free of their ghosts. On his late wife's death bed he promised her to do just that, but he procrastinates. Kathleen calls. She has an unexpected layover. Would David like to see her before she leaves? Would he be interested?
On impulse he invites her to the reunion dinner and she accepts. His friends are amused but supportive, especially Sarah. Excited but apprehensive David realizes Kathleen could hold answers for him to many questions and needs and possibly help finally put to rest many of the ghosts. We meet a number of his colleagues. They discuss themselves and others from their past. What role do each play in David's life? All have a poignant story to tell.
Between the Prologue and the Epilogue David tells their stories in a series of narratives. But he must eventually face the past he has tried unsuccessfully to forget. And that might mean revealing secrets long kept hidden.
Tinkerer, traveler, former sailor, Naval Officer and spy, William Wortman is a retired OB-GYN married to an attorney. They live with Benzie, a Schnauzer, in North Carolina. When not being otherwise creative, this wine connoisseur and gourmet chef divides his time between writing and helping direct his wine and beer importing and distributing company. He has been published in the Journal of the American Physicians' Poetry Association, MEDIPHORS: a Literary Journal of the Health Professions, the Journal of the Southern Medical Association, Patient Care Magazine, regional newspapers and other nontechnical journals, and (under a pseudonym) several national magazines. In addition to editing the Société Mondiale (wine) and Turning Spit (features) portions of Gastronome the National Journal of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, the oldest food society in the world, he has served as National Vice Echanson (VP) of the Société Mondiale. He wrote by invitation the chapter on Obstetrics and Gynecology in Pfizer Pharmaceutical's book, A Career Guide for Medical Students, (published by Mark Powley & Associates) a copy of which was given to every graduating medical student in the United States. He has two grown children and four grandchildren. His motto is: "The fear of death can be eliminated by the ubiquitous joy of living!"
Hats Off! to Joan Leotta, whose short story "Voice of an Angel" has won First Place in the 2013 Charlotte Writers' Club Contest!
Hats Off! to NCWN Regional Rep Betty Dotson-Lewis, whose book Sago Mine Disaster (Featured Story) Appalachian Coalfield Stories is listed with synopsis in Goldenseal magazine's spring Edition 2013, page 63. Goldenseal is a quarterly magazine devoted to West Virginia traditional life, published by the State of West Virginia, Division of Culture and History.
Hats Off! to Susan Rochette, whose short story "Kewpie" was published in _Short Story_, an academic journal of short fictions and essays/reviews on short fiction.
Hats Off! to Heather Bell Adams of Raleigh. Her story "Butler Road" won the Fifth Photogene Contest sponsored by Sundog Lit.
Hats Off! to Ruth Ilg, whose poem "March 20th" won The Pegasus Prize from the Poetry Society of South Carolina in Charleston, SC.
The Village: Searching for Answers in a Cotton Mill Town by Flora Ann Scearce
Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC $16.99, paperback / $13.99 e-bookJune, 2013FictionAvailable for pre-order from the publisher and www.Amazon.com
"The Roanoke Rapids of today is vastly different from the mill village of Rosemary, but Flora Ann Scearce has taken us on a fascinating journey to that earlier culture, and that life . Enjoy her story, it's well worth your time."—Reverend Tom Bodkin, Retired, Raleigh, NC
"Once I started The Village, I could not put it down. Flora Ann Scearce has a great talent for making the reader feel a part of the story . I think (she) has another winner in this book."—Lucy Penegar, Gastonia, NC
"Yes, Lucille Smith wore pants on occasion. So did Norma Shearer and Marlene Dietrich, but they were movie stars and lived in Hollywood. Norma Shearer wore pants when she rode horses or lounged in her Hollywood mansion with her rich husband. Lucille was a mill company secretary and lived in a mill village in Roanoke Rapids. She wore pants because she liked them, how they looked and felt. It mattered not one iota what other women thought, men either for that matter…"
Rising above the drudgery of cotton mill life and aspiring to something greater, Selena leaves Gastonia with her best friend's family and struggles to gain acceptance into the lives of the Rosemary villagers. Could one person be the catalyst that changes a whole neighborhood?
Set in the years between the Great War and the Great Depression, the townsfolk of Rosemary, North Carolina didn't make it very easy for this "mountain hooger" girl. Join Flora Ann Scearce in her captivating book, The Village, as she unveils the colorful journey of her mother, Selena, amidst the industrial revolution of the twenties and the societal pressures of her newfound life.
Her high school yearbook named her class poet, but native North Carolinian Flora Ann Scearce, mother of three, grandmother of five, did not begin writing in earnest until the mid-1980s when she retired from First Citizens Bank. She now lives in Trent Woods, NC, with her husband, Herman, a retiree of both the Air Force and as NC Magistrate. Her most recent novel, Cotton Mill Girl (Tate Publishing & Enterprises, Mustang, OK, 2007) won the prestigious NC Society of Historians' Clark Cox Historical Fiction Award, as did her first novel, Singer of An Empty Day (2009). Both of Scearce's novels, as well as a third "in progress," are based on the life of her mother who also wrote extensively of mountain life, lore, medicine, and music, as well as life in a piedmont cotton mill village, giving her daughter a wealth of material on which to draw. Her website is http://floraannscearce.tateauthor.com/.
GREENSBORO, NC—The North Carolina Writers' Network 2013 Spring Conference offers fiction writers the chance to hone in on very specific aspects of the craft under the tutelage of three renowned authors. The Spring Conference will be held Saturday, April 13, in the MHRA Building at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and offer workshops focused specifically on dialog, plot, and other foundational components of successful fiction.
Lee Zacharias will lead an all-day workshop titled "Animating Fiction." There are many elements to fiction, both short stories and novels—plot, character, point-of-view, and setting, to name a few—but perhaps none so important as character, which brings the fiction to life and drives the plot. This all-day workshop will center on characterization as we talk about ways to create plot, animate description, and discover the right point of view. The morning session will focus on discussion, the afternoon session on student writing and will include a prompt for generating new writing. Please also bring a short character description—no more than a couple of paragraphs—to share with the class. The description you bring may be from your own work or from a work you particularly admire and want to talk about.
Lynn York will lead a half-day fiction session in the morning. Titled "How to Write Dynamic Dialog," this workshop, which open to all levels of writers, will focus on the role of dialog in fiction writing. What should it do? What should it not do? Most important, how do you make it sound real—and make it do as much work as possible in your story or novel? In-class exercises will provide practical support and tools for writers to apply to their own in-progress and future work.
In the afternoon, John McNally will lead a workshop titled, "Plot: The Shape of Fiction." Have you ever had a good idea for a story but couldn't figure out how best to tell it? Have you written stories that fall flat because of the way you've plotted them? This purpose of this workshop is to refine the way you think about plot, to consider the ways it should function in stories and novels, and to expand your repertoire of plot's many shapes.
Lee Zacharias is the author of Helping Muriel Make It Through the Night (short stories); two novels, Lessons and At Random; and The World You Leave Behind, a volume of personal essays forthcoming from Hub City Press. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays and numerous journals, including The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, and The North Carolina Literary Review among others. A former fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council, she is English Professor Emerita at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where she won the North Carolina Board of Governors Award for Teaching Excellence and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Outstanding Teaching Award, and was for a decade editor of The Greensboro Review.
Lynn York is the author of two novels: The Piano Teacher (Plume, 2004) and The Sweet Life (Plume, 2007), a Booksense Notable Book. She has taught workshops at Duke's Osher Institute, the Duke Summer Writer's Workshop, NC State University, and High Point University. She serves on the Board of Directors of the NC Arts Council and the NC Art Society and lives in Chapel Hill, NC.
John McNally is the author of three novels: After the Workshop, The Book of Ralph, and America's Report Card; and two story collections, Troublemakers and Ghosts of Chicago. He is also author of two nonfiction books: The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist and Vivid and Continuous: Essays and Exercises for Writing Fiction, both published the University of Iowa Press. He has edited, coedited, or guest edited seven anthologies. John's work has appeared in over a hundred publications, including the Washington Post, The Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, and Virginia Quarterly Review. As a screenwriter, he has a script in development with the producer of Winter's Bone. He's an Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University and on the Core Faculty of Pacific University's low-residency MFA program.
For more information, or to register for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2013 Spring Conference, visit www.ncwriters.org or call 336-293-8844.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers' Network is the state's oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development.
Beckoning by Brenda Kay Ledford
Finishing Line Press $14.00, paperback ISBN: 978-1-62229-226-4 March, 2013 Poetry Available from the publisher or www.Amazon.com
"Brenda Kay Ledford's book, Beckoning, is a wonderful collection of poetry about her Southern Appalachian roots.... Her poetry sings with color and harmony. Many poems depict rural scenes that speak to the senses. Brenda captures her culture with the love of generations. You'll feel, see, hear, and taste the beauty of nature in her verse. This collection is important to remind us where we came from and how the past is still relevant." —Randy Wright
Brenda Kay Ledford is a member of North Carolina Writer's Network, North Carolina Poetry Society, and listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers.
Her work has appeared in Our State, Asheville Poetry Review, Pembroke Magazine, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and many other anthologies.
She received the Paul Green Award from North Carolina Society of Historians for her poetry collections: Patchwork Memories, Sacred Fire, Shewbird Mountain, and Simplicity. Brenda also received the 2012 Royce Ray Poetry Award and won first place in the nature category of Fields of the Earth Poetry Contest sponsored by Writer's Ink Guild.
Her blogs include http://blueridgepoet.blogspot.com and http://historicalhayesville.blogspot.com.
Hats Off! to Scott Owens, whose poetry collections For One Who Knows How to Own Land and Something Knows the Moment were reviewed in the North Carolina Literary Review by Karen K. Mason alongside two of Robert Morgan's books in a review called "The Regional Poet and the World."
Hats Off! to Joseph Bathanti, who will receive the 2013 Mary Frances Hobson Prize and participate in the nineteenth annual Mary Frances Hobson Lecture to be held on the Chowan University campus in April 2013. The Mary Frances Hobson Lecture and Prize recognizes distinguished achievement in the field of arts and letters.
NORTH CAROLINA—Greensboro writer Jennifer Bringle won top honors in the 2013 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition for her essay "Mamaw's House."
Author Shawna Kenney, the judge of this year's contest, said, "This was the winner from the very first sentence to the very last. This writer's personal essay is a heartfelt ode to the hoarding of all that is handwritten, told in a subtle southern voice the world would do well to hear more from."
Bringle's has written for The Washington Post, Southern Living, and Our State, among other publications. She also is a regular contributor at The News & Record of Greensboro and The News & Observer of Raleigh.
"I'm originally from Salisbury and grew up reading Rose Post's columns, so to win a competition bearing her name means so much to me," Bringle said.
Jane Andrews of Raleigh won second place for her essay "Where the Heart Is." Andrews is a North Carolina native and graduate of North Carolina State University whose work has appeared in Main Street Rag, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Southern Arts Journal, Raleigh Review, and other publications. Kenney said of Andrews' entry, "This personal-yet-universal story shows the sibling bond through the prism of gem-like sentences."
Helen Aitken of Swansboro won third place for her essay "The Last Wooden Boat," which Kenney described as "a journalistic piece that feels as important to the endangered arts of boat building as it is to the state of North Carolina."
Shawna Kenney authored the award-winning memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix, which enjoys international translation and a development deal with the FX network. She also wrote Imposters, a book about celebrity impersonators. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, The Florida Review, Juxtapoz, Ms., and Bust Magazine, among others.
Sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network and administered by the creative writing department at UNC Wilmington, the Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition encourages the creation of lasting nonfiction work that is outside the realm of conventional journalism. The contest is open to any legal resident of North Carolina or member of the NC Writers' Network. First-, second-, and third-place winners receive $300, $200, and $100, respectively, and the winning entry is considered for publication in the magazine Southern Cultures.
Hats Off! to Charlotte's Lisa Rubenson, who won NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Contest. Her short story, "Sorry for Your Loss," beat out more than 4,000 entries. NPR reporter Tamara Keith read the story on Saturday's "Weekend All Things Considered" program.
Two faculty members from the 2012 NCWN fall conference, Elaine Neil Orr and A.J. Mayhew, and one conference attendee, Cheryl Isaac, all have pieces in the current issue of South Writ Large magazine.
III Islands by Bob Holt
CreateSpace $12.75, paperback / $1.95, e-book ISBN: 978-1470122591 May, 2012 Fiction Available from the author, your local bookstore, or www.Amazon.com
At the first opportunity, Max Howard left the farm he grew up on near Pink Hill, NC. Armed with two years of college from LCC in Kinston, NC, and his Real Estate Salesman's license, he moved to Arapahoe, NC, wanting to be near the water.
It took a year of waiting tables before Ray Brinson gave him a shot at selling real estate and he proved immediately he could sell becoming the top producer as he beat the highways and back roads of Pamlico county searching for FSBO's (for sale by owner). The locals realized he could be trusted and called him constantly, trusting him to handle their real estate needs.
He dated occasionally, living frugally, in a very small rental house on Seafarer Road for eight or nine years not wanting to get involved romantically, but enjoying casual relationships with each year's new crop of summer waitresses.
On one of his forays, he chanced on the house of his dreams and made an offer to the New Jersey couple that had built it to retire in but found it much, much too quiet and tranquil for their lifestyles. They'd posted a FSBO out front and left. He stole it when they accepted his second counter.
What followed was like a merry-go-round settling into his new gabled, four-level home, complete with an elevator, on the banks of the Neuse River at its confluence with the Pamlico Sound, meeting Candi, the girl of his dreams, becoming involved with the Jernigans at Janiero wanting to build a sub-division on their property, and picking up listing after listing in the Oriental, NC, area as property values sky-rocketed with Oriental becoming the sailboat capital of the east coast.
Now in business for himself, with his marriage to Candi just a few weeks away, tragedy struck knocking him off his heel's leaving him with an emptiness, wondering if it could ever be overcome…
Bob Holt, a North Carolina native, spent a tour in the Air Force before beginning his fifty-year career selling restaurant equipment. During the last twenty-five years, he also held an active real estate "brokers" license. Traveling northeastern North Carolina as a "traveling salesman" for over thirty years, he met many interesting people and each had an interesting story to tell. He used these stories as inspirations to future works. His hobbies are many and diverse encompassing woodworking, decoys, watercolors, pencil sketching, photography, ham radio, genealogy, and writing. He currently lives in Winterville, NC, with this third wife, Diana.
Holt's other novels include I Am Janie and Jim's Recurring Dream Was Back Again, also both set in North Carolina.
Hats Off! to Mimi Herman, whose poetry collection Logophilia was favorably reviewed by Scott Owens in the Wild Goose Poetry Review.
GREENSBORO, NC—What do a multi-genre, serial award winner; a former Piedmont Laureate; and the creative nonfiction editor for storySouth have in common? All three will be leading creative nonfiction workshops at the North Carolina Writers' Network 2013 Spring Conference, Saturday, April 13, in the MHRA Building at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Judy Goldman will lead an all-day workshop titled "Writing Personal Essays and Memoir: Transforming Memories into Narrative." In this workshop (geared to both beginning and advanced writers), you'll learn how to transform your experiences and memories into a narrative readers are interested in. For those of you who want to begin, but the way in seems shadowy, you'll discuss how to embark: what to put in your essay or memoir, what to leave out, where to start, how to shape the story. For those of you already immersed in the writing, Judy will encourage you to push all the way to the end of a first draft, no matter how awkward it feels. For those of you who've completed essays or a memoir, you'll discuss how to read your pages analytically and diagnostically, how to fix problems so that the writing is as good as you can make it and your story holds together.
Former Piedmont Laureate Scott Huler will lead a half-day creative nonfiction session in the morning. Titled "Nonfiction in a Stupid Golden Age," Huler's workshop will range widely over the territory and address topics such as:
In the afternoon, Cynthia Nearman will lead a workshop titled, "Creating Images with Nonfiction." This workshop is designed to engage and invigorate participants' approaches to the smallest yet most essential elements of nonfiction storytelling: sensory images and concrete details, objects and actions. First, you'll look briefly at vivid scenes from recently published essays, paying careful attention to the connection between concrete details and characters' desires, and between descriptions of actions and objects and larger meanings or ideas. The main focus will be on what it means to "think from within images" as we generate and revise your own nonfiction prose. You'll practice strategies for discovering and selecting images that do "double duty"—i.e., concrete detail and sensory information that works organically to create living, moving pictures resonant with meaning.
Judy Goldman has published two novels, two books of poetry, and a memoir, Losing My Sister. Her work has won the Sir Walter Raleigh Fiction Award, Mary Ruffin Poole Award for First Fiction, Gerald Cable Poetry Prize, Roanoke-Chowan Prize, Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize, and Oscar Arnold Young Prize. She received the Hobson Prize For Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Letters, the Fortner Writer and Community Award for Outstanding Generosity to Other Writers and the Larger Community, and the Beverly D. Clark Author Award from Queens University. An excerpt from Losing My Sister appeared in Real Simple magazine and Drafthorse, an online journal. She has written book reviews for The Washington Post and The Charlotte Observer, and craft articles for The Writer. Her commentaries have aired on public radio in Charlotte and Chapel Hill.
Scott Huler is a nonfiction generalist who has written everything from newspaper and magazine stories to books, produced radio pieces and essays, and produced video work for a wide variety of on- and offline enterprises. He has written for newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Daily News, and the Raleigh News & Observer, and for magazines such as ESPN the Magazine, Backpacker, Our State, and Walter. His radio work has been heard on NPR's All Things Considered and Day to Day, and on Marketplace and The Splendid Table on American Public Media. The most recent of his six books was On the Grid, about the infrastructure that makes our modern lives possible, published in 2010. He also has served as Piedmont Laureate for the Triangle and surrounding areas.
Cynthia Nearman teaches in the English Department and the Writing Program at Guilford College in Greensboro. Since 2009, she's served as creative nonfiction editor for storySouth. She writes flash nonfiction, cultural commentary (rants, really), and experiments with lyric essays.
Sweet Souls and Other Stories by Charles Blackburn, Jr.
Main Street Rag$13.95, paperback ($12.50 if ordered before March 12, 2013) ISBN: 978-1-59948-398-6 March, 2013 Fiction Available from the publisher, your local bookstore, or www.Amazon.com
"Sweet Souls and Other Stories is full of surprises: a character named Goody Koonce had 'a Gibson Hummingbird guitar with cigarette burns on the head stops from wedging them between the strings, a basset hound named Merle, his father's looks and his mother's sense.' Prose often becomes poetry: the 'migraine heat of August beat the fairground to dust.' Blackburn changes into marvelous and believable stories the things he no doubt has seen and heard."—Shelby Stephenson, Professor Emeritus of English, UNC-Pembroke, and Editor Emeritus, Pembroke Magazine
"Charles Blackburn's stories simmer in the imagination long after the first reading. His ironic gaze ranges broadly embracing the pseudo-historical, the fantastic, and even the outlandish. A story might start in recognizable down home Carolina, maybe on the road to Morehead City, but in the turning of a page, you get dropped into a world you never imagined with hilarious characters you don't want to leave. Some of these natives may be 'quaint beyond reason,' or even wanderers adrift from some other literary stream, but whatever their distinctive voice or voyage, they are always entertaining and their surprising fates totally satisfying."—Katherine James, Associate Editor, Crucible
"Where 'Golf in Pakistan' came from in Blackburn's creative mind, I can't say, but the reader is in for a hair-raising bus trip careening backward over a cliff, passengers falling out along the way; a sweltering train ride with stops for communal showers; and finally a game of extreme golf on a 'sporty little course' hacked out of the jungle, with an army of 100 ragged caddies who carry a single club, or carry the sedan chairs (and a case of single malt scotch), or retrieve balls, or who beat the bush 'never know what might be lurking about.' Did I mention the dead body on Number Eight?" —Marsha Warren, Executive Director, Paul Green Foundation; former Director, North Carolina Writers' Network
These stories range from the rural South to the Middle East. Their subjects include the home front in World War II, the dangers of unexploded Confederate ordinance, a small-town lawyer's encounter with the supernatural, and a modern-day outlaw whose exploits breathe life into a dying newspaper. In "Borer Bees," a lonely recluse's unusual method of bee control robs him of a gabfest with two visiting missionaries, and in "Ghost of a Scientist," babysitting an elderly gentleman in a spooky old house leads to an unexpected revelation. "Sweet Souls," "The Golden Pine Cone," and "Golf in Pakistan" all won Crucible magazine's annual fiction contest, and "Sweet Souls" won a literary fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council.
Charles Blackburn, Jr. grew up in Henderson, NC, attended Barton College and UNC-Chapel Hill and now lives in Raleigh with his wife and daughter. Early in his career he roamed the state as a reporter and editor for four small-town newspapers. He has been part owner of a Chapel Hill used and rare bookshop, for which customers were even rarer. His stories, feature articles, and poems have appeared in many regional and national publications. He has written about NC history, people, and places for Our State magazine. Charles is a past president of the North Carolina Writers' Network and the North Carolina Writers Conference. In 2008, St. Andrews Presbyterian College presented him the Sam Ragan Award for Literature.
Hats Off! to Mark Havlik, who won First Place for Fiction in the 2013 Pamlico Writers Competition for "What Lies Beyond Those Hills." His piece will appear in an upcoming all-literary issue of Washington The Magazine.
Hats Off! to Malinda Fillingim, whose short story "The Right Track" has been accepted for inclusion in Hub City's (Spartanburg, SC) annual holiday anthology. Also, Fillingim's photo/poem about Martin Luther King, Jr., "Southern Dreams," appears in the online magazine Deep South.
Sonnets of the Cross by Joseph Bathanti
Jacar Press $25.00, paperback February, 2013 Poetry Available from the publisher
A hand-bound, limited edition chapbook, signed and numbered by NC Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti. Original pen and ink art works by Tasmanian artist and poet Ron Moss, created exclusively for this project.
The Sonnets of the Cross are based on the fourteen Stations of the Cross that commemorate the final hours of Jesus's life, beginning with His sentence of death and culminating with His removal from the cross.
The spirituality embodied in these sonnets is unconventional, iconoclastic. Most of the poems are set in Pittsburgh and North Carolina, and contemporized among the working class and disenfranchised. Their Christ is a brilliant laborer with a blazing social conscience and abiding love who is wrongly convicted of a crime, then executed despite His innocence.
Joseph Bathanti was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He came to North Carolina as a VISTA Volunteer in 1976 to work with prison inmates. Bathanti is the author of four books of poetry: Communion Partners; Anson County; The Feast of All Saints; and This Metal, which was nominated for The National Book Award. His first novel, East Liberty, winner of the Carolina Novel Award, was published in 2001. His latest novel, Coventry, won the 2006 Novello Literary Award. They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina's Visiting Artists, 1971-1995, his book of nonfiction, was published in early 2007. Most recently, his collection of short stories, The High Heart, winner of the 2006 Spokane Prize, was published by Eastern Washington University Press in 2007. He is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council; The Samuel Talmadge Ragan Award, presented annually for outstanding contributions to the Fine Arts of North Carolina over an extended period; the Linda Flowers Prize; the Sherwood Anderson Award, the 2007 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Prize; and others. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. On August 30, 2012, Joseph was named Poet Laureate of North Carolina.
NORTH CAROLINA--"That Other Story" by Laurel Ferejohn of Durham, NC, is the winner of the 2012 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network. The Wolfe Prize awards $1,000 to the author of the winning story.
Final judge Josephine Humphreys selected Ferejohn's story from eleven finalists sent to her by preliminary judge David Radavich of Charlotte. Humphreys, one of the South's most distinguished novelists, said Ferejohn's story "smoothly accomplishes fiction's number one goal, that is, to create a believable world, using all the tools available: narrative voice, character, place, dialogue, action. The result is a fictional texture that's strong and convincing."
Ferejohn is an independent editor working with literary and scholarly journals. She is a recipient of the 2012 Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council, with support from the North Carolina Arts Council.
Humphreys selected "Sanctuary" by Elizabeth Brownrigg, also of Durham, as the first honorable mention, praising the story for "its distinctive voice and strong writing.... It's a thought-provoking story." Brownrigg received her MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, and is the author of two novels, Falling to Earth (1998) and The Woman Who Loved War (2005).
NCWN members Kathryn Shaver of Louisville, KY, and Kermit Turner of Hickory, NC, shared the second honorable mention. Of Shaver's story, "The Fourth Monkey," Humphreys wrote, "The narrative voice is dignified, earnest, sympathetic, and the plot progresses in surprising but believable ways." And of Turner's story, "Pool," she said, "I was struck by the way the writer gradually opens a view onto the past of the main character...in a way that's both unexpected and satisfying."
Humphreys, the author of Dreams of Sleep, Rich in Love, The Fireman's Fair, and Nowhere Else on Earth, said of all these stories, "I'd like to add that I was impressed by all four of these submissions. I know a story's good when I finish reading and feel that I've received a gift."
The seven other finalists were "Mr. Potato Head" by Leah Rachel Berkowitz of Durham, NC; "Revival" by Debra Efird of Harrisburg, NC; "Rules" by Heloise Jones of Jacksonville, FL; "Blind Fish" by Amanda Pauley of Elliston, VA; "Crying in Italian" by Virginia Pye of Richmond, VA; "Tea in Chesapeake" and "Dear John," both by Michael Twist of Boring, OR.
The winning story and the three honorable mentions will be considered for publication by the Thomas Wolfe Review.
GREENSBORO, NC--The Network will host its annual Spring Conference at the campus of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro on April 28. Fiction writers can choose between two can't-miss offerings: an all-day fiction workshop with Alan Michael Parker titled, "Fact and Fiction," and a half-day fiction workshop with Mylène Dressler titled, "Get Out of That Room in Your Head: Crafting Physically-Charged, Moving Fiction."
Here are the course descriptions:
Fact and Fiction (All-Day Fiction) with Alan Michael Parker You can't make it all up, right? Nor can you render religiously exactly what happened—stories need invention, the mechanics of time, re-telling, and shape. Stories need characters and scenes: life doesn't always accommodate. So what's the best way to combine experience and imagination and write the best fiction? In this class, we will focus on questions of fidelity, distortion, fancy, and freedom, as we examine various ways to approach the writing of fiction. Bring a pen, lots of paper, and a good-sized ball of string (really). In the morning, exercises and discussion: in the afternoon, more, as well as a little adventure…
Get Out of That Room in Your Head: Crafting Physically-Charged, Moving Fiction (fiction) with Mylène Dressler As writers, we face a daily challenge: we create (and live, much of the time) in the spaces inside our heads, yet our task is to create dynamic, breathing characters and active, arcing stories capable of moving our readers as well as stopping them dead in their tracks. How can we notice and break through "brain-locked" writing, and learn to craft fiction that inhabits the physical world, packing visceral as well as emotional punch? In this workshop, we'll discuss the limitations of writing that happens only-inside-our-heads, and explore techniques and exercises that will help you—and your audience—connect with your stories and characters in charged, vital, and vivid ways.
Alan Michael Parker is the author of two novels, Whale Man (WordFarm, 2011) and Cry Uncle, along with seven collections of poems, including Long Division (Tupelo Press, 2012). His stories, poems, and essays have appeared in many prominent magazines, and in The Best American Poetry 2011 as well as the 2012 Pushcart Prize anthology. Since 1998, Parker has taught at Davidson College, where he is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing; he is also a Core Faculty Member in the Queens University low-residency MFA program.
Mylène Dressler is a novelist whose books include The Medusa Tree (MacAdamCage), The Deadwood Beetle (Putnam), and The Floodmakers (Putnam), and an essayist whose work has appeared in Pilgrimage, Creative NonFiction, and New Graffiti. A professor and frequent distinguished visiting writer at various universities, including the University of Texas at Austin and the McCullers Center in Georgia, she leads workshops designed to develop the skills, stamina, and confidence of emerging and established writers. She is the current Visiting Writer at Guilford College, where she teaches fiction, creative nonfiction, and contemporary literature.
Full faculty bios can be viewed on the conference webpage. The 2012 Spring Conference also offers workshops in nonfiction, poetry, children's publishing, and tutorials for authors. Registration is available online or by calling 336-293-8844.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers' Network is the state's oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development.
Hats Off! to Angela Davis-Gardner. The paperback edition of her novel, Butterfly's Child, will be published by Dial Press in April, 2012.
Hats Off! to Michel Stone, whose debut novel, The Iguana Tree, sold out its first edition before it was even released. It's received favorable national reviews, and it's been selected as a SIBA "Okra Pick." The release date is March 12, 2012.
GREENSBORO, NC—The University of North Carolina at Greensboro sits in the geographic heart of the state. It's a fitting venue for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2012 Spring Conference to be held Saturday, April 28, from 8:00 am – 6:30 pm, in the Elliott University Center at UNC-Greensboro.
The annual event, co-sponsored by UNC-Greensboro's creative writing program, draws writers from across North Carolina and beyond for workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, children's writing, and publishing, led by distinguished writing faculty. This year's conference will also feature a Publishers Panel with book and journal editors; a Faculty Reading; an Open Mike reading for conference attendees; and "Lunch with an Author," where attendees share lunch and personal conversation with faculty members.
In fact, geography will very much be on people's minds, as the keynote address will feature representatives from an exciting new web-based project titled "A Literary Map of North Carolina." A collaborative project between UNC-Greensboro and the North Carolina Center for the Book, the NC Literary Map is a database-driven, searchable/browseable, multi-level, multi-media online research tool to foster interest in North Carolina's rich literary tradition. Guests can search by author or genre, or just browse the map to find authors who have lived in or written about North Carolina. Scheduled to be officially launched in the fall, visitors can catch a sneak peak at www.library.uncg.edu/dp/nclitmap.
Course offerings at the 2012 Spring Conference include two all-day workshops, one on fiction led by Alan Michael Parker, and a nonfiction intensive led by Randall Kenan; a half-day fiction workshop with Mylène Dressler; and poetry workshops by Janice Fuller and Rebecca Black. Registrants can also attend "Breaking into Children's Publishing" with Megan Bryant, classes in "Accounting for Writers" and "Guerrilla Tactics for Authors," and creative nonfiction workshops led by Justin Catanoso and Paul Bogard.
Registration is available online here or by calling 336-293-8844.
Hats Off! to new NCWN member Jules Riley, who recently earned an Honorable Mention in the NC Poetry Society's Caldwell Nixon Jr. Award. His children's poem, "A Rainy Day," will be published in Pinesong. He and others will read on May 19, Awards Day at the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines. For more information on the NCPS please visit www.ncpoetrysociety.org.
....... to Sheri Castle. The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance recently named The New Southern Garden Cookbook an Okra pick for Spring 2011. The Okra picks are a baker's dozen of Southern books that SIBA member bookstores are excited about.
..... to Jim Clark. Jim Clark's new CD, The Service of Song, is now available at http://www.jimclarkpoet.com/The Service of Song features Jim's musical settings of twelve poems by the sadly neglected North Georgia "farmer-poet" Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958). Reece published four books of poems and two novels with E.P. Dutton in New York before taking his own life at the age of 40. Poet and novelist Robert Morgan says, "In The Service of Song, Jim Clark gives new life and new voice to the poetry of Byron Herbert Reece. Clark's music and performance are a wonderful exploration and expression of Reece's art, inspired and inspiring, for a new generation of readers and listeners. The outstanding poet of the North Georgia mountains could not be more fortunate than to have his work celebrated, set and sung by this outstanding contemporary poet and musician, recalling the ancient, haunting ballads of the mountains."
Greensboro, NC—Bestselling author Carole Boston Weatherford will deliver the keynote address at the 2011 North Carolina Writers' Network Spring Conference. The conference will be Saturday, April 30, from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. in the Elliott University Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
The annual event, cosponsored by UNCG's Center for Creative Writing in the Arts, draws writers from across North Carolina and beyond for workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, children's writing, and publishing, led by distinguished writing faculty. This year's conference will also feature a Publishing Panel with book and journal editors, a Faculty Reading, an Open Mike Reading for conference attendees, and "Lunch with an Author," in which attendees share lunch and personal conversation with one of the authors on the faculty.
Weatherford's books have received the Caldecott Honor, Coretta Scott King Award, NAACP Image Award, Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, Jefferson Cup, and Carter G. Woodson Award, and have appeared on the New York Times best-seller list. Her more than two dozen children's books include Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom; Remember the Bridge: Poems of a People; Birmingham, 1963; Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane; Becoming Billie Holiday and The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights. A recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature, she teaches at Fayetteville State University.
Conference participants may select from a variety of half- and full-day workshops, including "Writing For Your Life," a creative nonfiction workshop with author Marianne Gingher; "Packaging Yourself as a Writer," with Press 53 publisher Kevin Morgan Watson; "The Worst Things Ever" with poet and UNC School of the Arts professor Joseph Mills; and Weatherford's "Think Anyone Can Write a Children's Book?" workshop.
Other instructors include David Halperin and Tracy O Connor on fiction, Anjail Rashida Ahmad on poetry, Edmund R. Schubert on science fiction and fantasy, Paul Cuadros on nonfiction, and Angela Harwood on marketing for authors.
Registration for the conference—made possible with support from UNC Greensboro and the North Carolina Arts Council—is $99 for Network members, $150 for nonmembers.
To register, visit www.ncwriters.org, or call 919-251-9140 for more information.
Robert Wallace of Durham is the winner of the 2010 Doris Betts Fiction Prize competition for his story "As Breaks the Wave upon the Sea." Wallace will receive a prize of $250 from the North Carolina Writers' Network, and his story will be published in the North Carolina Literary Review's 2011 issue. Eighty-two stories were submitted to this year's competition.
Wallace is a recipient of an Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council and a Writer's Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council, and he has been a Blumenthal Reader. He has had fiction and nonfiction published in various venues, including the Wellspring, The O. Henry Festival Stories, the Raleigh News & Observer, and the anthology Racing Home: New Short Stories by Award Winning North Carolina Writers.
NCLR fiction editor Liza Wieland selected Wallace's story from ten finalists, saying, "As Breaks the Wave upon the Sea" is a beautifully woven, deeply affecting story (I wept as I read it, and so did my husband). The language is simple and direct; the relationship between a returned Iraq War soldier and his wife is depicted in all its wrenching complexity, from both points of view, in short sections that sing like prose poems. The result is a pitch-perfect whole, and one of the best stories I've read in a long, long time."
Wieland also noted Wayne Johns's "Where Your Children Are" and Susan Snowden's "Revenge" for honorable mention, saying of Johns's story, "I confess a personal attachment to this story, having grown up in this part of Atlanta and written about the child murders myself. Mainly, though, I love this story for its language: 'easing into the backyard as into dark water'; 'orange-tinged moon was snared in the pines'; 'the last light shifted through the leaves like a kaleidoscope.' The story's final line evokes the threat that quivers through the entire story. I admire, too, the way the writer has made the awakening of sexual identity a part of this story that works seamlessly with the history we all know. This is clearly a writer of terrific talent." Of Snowden's "Revenge" Wieland says, "I admire this story for its sense of place and culture (the Talmadge ham versus the cooler of shrimp), and for the writer's ability to juggle such a large cast of characters. I feel every bit of Carolyn's anger and disbelief, and I very much enjoyed (and would have loved more of) the way the story calls into question our assumptions about high (portraits of venerable ancestors) and low (pastel Pekingese) art."
Also of note is that finalist Julie Ann Davis's story "Taylor's Creek" was recommended by the NCLR editors for publication in the eastern North Carolina–based, online and print magazine IBX Lifestyles, and it will appear in the spring issue.
Six other stories were finalists in the competition: Joseph Francis Cavano's "Soldiers," Carol Cooley's "Jude and Ms. Martha," Carol Roan's "The Streetwalker," Merry Elrick's "The Rhubarb," Doris Monica Iarovici's "Among The Ruins," and "The Neighbor's Dog" by Thomas Wolf, who received the Betts Prize in 2007.
Published since 1992 by East Carolina University and the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, NCLR has won numerous awards and citations. Fiction editor Liza Wieland is the author of three novels and three collections of short stories.
A two-year subscription to NCLR will include the 2010 issue, featuring the winner and two finalists from the 2009 Betts competition, as well as the 2011 issue, featuring the winning story from this year's competition. Go to www.nclr.ecu.edu/subscrip.htm for subscription information, and subscribe by June 1 to avoid postage charges.
Tamra Wilson's story, "The Prodigal," was a finalist in the 2010 Flatireon Writers Short Fiction Contest and her story, "Brother Dirk," took third place in the Children's Story Contest sponsored by Charlotte Writers Club. Both stories are excerpts from Home at the Lincoln Hotel, a novel in progress.
The National Association of Professional and Executive Women (USA) has selected Islamic author and illustrator Linda "iLham" Barto as its 2010 Woman of the Year in the arts category. More about Barto and her work is available on her website www.Lit-by-Linda.com.
Katrina Parker Williams has works published or accepted for publication at the following:
NCWN member Kim Wright's debut novel, Love in Mid Air, was selected for the "First Fiction" list of Publisher's Weekly, Spring issue 2010.
Greensboro, NC—Fred Chappell, described as North Carolina's "resident genius," will deliver the keynote address at the 2010 North Carolina Writers' Network Spring Conference, which takes place Saturday, April 24, from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. in the Elliott University Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
The annual event, cosponsored by UNCG's Center for Creative Writing in the Arts, draws writers from across North Carolina and beyond for intensive workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, poetry, and publishing, led by distinguished writing faculty. This year's conference will also feature a Publishing Panel with book and journal editors, a Faculty Reading, an Open Mike Reading for conference attendees, and "Lunch with an Author," in which attendees share lunch and personal conversation with one of the authors on the faculty.
In 2004, Fred Chappell retired after 40 years in the UNCG English department. During this time he published 26 books of poetry, fiction, and critical commentary. His awards include the Sir Walter Raleigh Prize, the North Carolina Award in Literature, the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, eight Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Awards, the Prix de Meilleur des Livres Etrangers (Best Foreign Book Prize) from the Academie Francaise, the Mihai Eminescu Medal from the Republic of Moldova, and the Thomas Wolfe Prize. He was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2006. He served as North Carolina's Poet Laureate from 1997 until 2002. His latest book of poetry is Shadow Box, published in 2009 by LSU Press. His latest work of fiction, Ancestors and Others: New and Selected Stories, was published last year by St. Martin's Press. He lives with his wife, Susan, in Greensboro.
Conference participants may select from a variety of half- and full-day workshops, including "Inspiration Station," a poetry workshop with poet and Asheville Poetry Review editor Keith Flynn; "Gimme a Break: Breaking Into Nonfiction Publishing," with author and publisher Malcolm Campbell; "The Morning After: Reclaiming Your Life as a Writer" with NC State University professor Sheila Smith McKoy; "The North Carolina Screenwriter, and Screenwriter as Filmmaker" with Nathan Ross Freeman, the director of the award-winning feature film Mr. Bones; and "The Greatest Writing Prompt Ever" with poet Scott Owens.
Other instructors include Holly Goddard Jones, Chris Roerden, and John McNally on fiction, and Cynthia Nearman and NCWN executive director Ed Southern on nonfiction.
Registration for the conference—made possible with support from UNC Greensboro and the North Carolina Arts Council—is $99 for Network members, $150 for nonmembers.
To register, call 919-251-9140 for more information.
Joan Carris' latest book, Wild Times at the Bed and Biscuit, was put on the Smithsonian Notable Books List for 2009.
Hats Off to Wilson Roberts. His short story, "Against the Dying of the Light" has been accepted for publication by the Massachusetts Review.
NORTH CAROLINA—Final judge Sheri Reynolds, best-selling author of five novels, named Paul Byall of Savannah, Georgia, the winner of the 2010 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize for his story "Sequestered." Reynolds said of this story, whose main character, Maggie, finds herself sequestered as a jury member at a murder trial, "This writer brilliantly controls the story's tempo, moving between scene and summary, between details of the murder and the trial itself. The story is controlled, complicated, and graceful." Byall will receive $1,000 from the NC Writers' Network and possible publication in the Thomas Wolfe Review.
Paul Byall was raised in Ohio and studied at Miami University (Ohio) and the University of California. He is the 2008 recipient of the New South Short Story Award and has been a finalist for numerous fiction awards. His first published story, written while a student at the University of California, was selected as one of the one hundred distinguished stories of the year by The Best American Short Stories anthology. He currently lives and writes in Savannah, where he has recently completed a novel, Salvation's Fire.
Reynolds also selected two honorable mentions: "Official Business" by Mark Connelly of Madison, Wisconsin, and "Burial Ground" by Tracy Knight of Raleigh, North Carolina. Of "Official Business" Reynolds wrote, "Set in post-war Poland, this story follows a single day in the life of a doctor and researcher who is relieved of his duties and taken into custody by the government. In prose both spare and vivid, this writer provides a snapshot of place, time, and politics through a very compelling character."
And of Knight's story Reynolds said, "In 'Burial Ground' an eleven-year-old watches her brother struggle to bury a beloved dead cat. The narrative voice here is lush, poetic, mysterious, insightful—and still believable. I love the visionary quality of the writing."
Both Connelly and Knight are experienced fiction writers. Connelly has an MA in creative writing and a PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. His fiction has appeared in numerous journals and his novella, Fifteen Minutes,received the 2004 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize from Texas Review Press. Knight is a native North Carolinian, who lives and works in Raleigh. Two of her stories were selected in 2008 as finalists for the Reynolds Price Short Fiction Award sponsored by the Salem College Center for Women Writers. She has a BA in English from Meredith College and has studied fiction writing at North Carolina State University.
Final judge Sheri Reynolds is the author of five novels, the most famous of which, The Rapture of Canaan,was an Oprah's Book Club selection and New York Times bestseller in 1997. Her most recent novel is The Sweet In-Between (2008). She is a graduate of Davidson College and Virginia Commonwealth University. She teaches creative writing and literature classes at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where she won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council for Higher Education of Virginia in 2003.
Preliminary judge, David Radavich of Charlotte, North Carolina, also named six finalists, whose stories were read by Reynolds: "The Changeling" and "Let Us Plough, Let Us Build" both by Mark Connelly; "The Once and Missing Captain of Commerce" by Rodney Nelsestuen of Woodbury, Minnesota; "Rainbow" by Gary Powell of Cornelius, North Carolina; "Brea's Tale" by Karen Pullen of Pittsboro, North Carolina; and "Lying" by Allen Smith of Alexandria, Virginia.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers' Network is our state's oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development. For additional information, visit http://www.ncwriters.org.
Hat's Off to...JOHN GROOMS of Charlotte, NCWN member and critiquer, who recently won a first place award from the North Carolina Press Association. Grooms, who writes a weekly column for Charlotte alternative weekly Creative Loafing, won first place among weeklies with circulation greater than 10,000 in the category of "lighter columns." His win was based on these sarcasm-laden selections: "Mommy, can I stone the queer now?" "Overkill? What overkill?" and "Do it yourself campaign ads." To see the columns, click here, or here, or here!
...to GARY CARDEN. His work , "Prince of Dark Corners" is currently being broadcast on both UNC-TV and ETV, and it will continue to be a part of the broadcast format for 2008. The PBS endorsed DVD can be obtained by contacting Gary Carden, 236 Cherry Street, Sylva, N.C.
...to GLENDA BEALL. Her poems Early Morning Hope and Beneath the Beauty were published in the 2007 edition of the Journal of Kentucky Studies. This annual publication of the Northern Kentucky University Department of Literature and Language is edited by Gary Walton and Danny L. Miller.
...and again to GLENDA BEALL. Her personal essay AN ANGEL CALLED AMOS was accepted by Adams media for the anthology, Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers which will be on bookshelves in April.
Jennifer Mackenzie has won an Artist Fellowship in Screenwriting from the North Carolina Arts Council/National Endowment for the Arts for her script, THE SPACE BETWEEN. In 2004, Ms. Mackenzie's first screenplay, HEAVEN RUSHING OUT, reached the semifinal round of the prestigious Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, finishing among the top 30 out of the 6,073 scripts entered that year.
Jennifer Mackenzie has won an Artist Fellowship in Screenwriting from the North Carolina Arts Council/National Endowment for the Arts for her script, THE SPACE BETWEEN. In 2004, Ms. Mackenzie's first screenplay, HEAVEN RUSHING OUT, reached the semifinal round of the prestigious Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, finishing among the top 30 out of the 6,073 scripts entered that year.
The first thing you ought to know about me is that my middle name is Cameron. Stick with me on this. My middle name is Cameron because my grandfather's middle name was Cameron. Because I like the way it sounds with her first name, my daughter's middle name is also Cameron. My grandfather's middle name was Cameron because shortly before he was born, Cameron Morrison, North Carolina's "Good Roads Governor," had a road built through east Lincoln County that happened to run right past my great-grandparents' farm. Thanks to Cameron Morrison, my great-grandparents' main source of income - a small sawmill bolted to the back of a flatbed truck - became a lot more profitable and easier to use.
Novelist Ashley Warlick has selected "This is Not a Barren Place" by Paul Mihas of Durham, NC, as the winner of the 2008 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize. Warlick writes of this story, "The opening moments, where Nick Papadimitriou's wife cuts his body from the rafters of their garage are hauntingly realized within the attenuated timeline of tragedy, and the story's movement along these fragile currents of community grief in a strange open country is heartbreaking. This writer shows his ease with language, spoken and told, in a wealth of voices, on every page. Marvelous."
Warlick also named one honorable mention — "Miller's Deer" by Gary V. Powell of Cornelius, NC. She called "Miller's Deer" a story "written in clean, compelling style and supreme confidence. Every so often you can hear a writer's career in a single, sharp line — 'Miller's Deer' is made whole-cloth of just such self-possessed work."
Paul Mihas, the son of Greek immigrants, spent his childhood in Kemmerer, WY, and attended Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. He received his M.A. in English Literature from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1989 and teaches creative writing at Duke University Continuing Studies. One of his short stories, "One of Us Is Rich," was recently published online at Pindeldyboz. He is currently working on a collection of short stories based on his travel to China, Argentina, and Greece.
Gary Powell is the author of several short stories and the soon-to-be-published novel, Pointe of Contention. A graduate of Indiana University and Indiana University School of Law, Powell currently resides with his family in Cornelius, NC, near Lake Norman. He is at work on his second novel, Beyond Redemption.