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Keep This Quiet! IV: More Initiations by Margaret A. Harrell
Saeculum University Press$18.95, paperback / $6.95, e-bookISBN: 978-0983704591April, 2016Nonfiction: Memoir / SpiritualityAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"A book of wonder-spirit, ghosts, hope, mysticism, mystery. If you ever had instincts, premonitions, or felt you are out of place or feel you know things-that there is a whole world beyond, there's more magic in this world than there's supposed to be—I feel this book is for them. Especially if you're in the last one third of your life and think, 'I want to unlock the mysteries, I want some answers, I'm not done.'"—Alice Osborn, author of Heroes without Capes
"Margaret Harrell's blending and merging the whole of a human being and beyond into the cosmos is astounding writing and what a lifetime Journey she has taken to arrive to this book. She is working with a whole new and different combined East-West and Middle Paradigm."—Suzanne V. Brown, former VP, Exceptional Human Experience Network
"I've always found Margaret Harrell's writing wonderfully relaxing and well thought out. Keep This Quiet! IV is no different. I can just pick it up and slot myself in comfortably. With each book I find myself getting entwined in the words . . . The life . . . The emotion. The education. The peace. Her work allows me to breathe and feel."—Martin Flynn, owner of www.hstbooks.org
In Keep This Quiet! IV: More Initiations, Margaret A. Harrell dives deeper into the multidimensional world of visions, computer-PK (mental influence over the computer), divine guidance, Carl Jung, and science.
The story takes place in the '90s in Tienen, Belgium, where assorted parapsychological phenomena accompany the death of her housemate. Quickly checking in with Hunter Thompson, she winds up at Owl Farm, then returns to her Flemish base. Initiations welcome her back and she goes further onto her path, which spans spirituality and science, Hunter Thompson, and the Indian guru Dhyanyogi-ji, whose tradition of Kundalini Maha Yoga she is initiated into. Many traditions join hands, to make "a book of wonder—spirit, ghosts, hope, mysticism, mystery," writes Alice Osborn, author of Heroes without Capes.
Harrell is a three-time Fellow at MacDowell Colony for artists. After working three years at Random House in New York City, she married a Belgian poet, Jan Mensaert, and lived a decade in Morocco, then took a sharp turn into spiritual growth.
In Zurich she studied at the C. G. Jung Institute and had a dramatic "Confrontation with the Self," or as Jung termed it, "Confrontation with the Unconscious." Her "Love in Transition" series burst at the seams to absorb the jolts in consciousness that followed. In 2001 she moved back from Belgium to the U.S. and wrote her four-volume memoir, the "Keep This Quiet!" series—which begins with her experiences with Hunter Thompson as his copy editor for Hell's Angels and their romance and long-lasting friendship.
Her Belgian-poet husband and the enigmatic, brilliant, NYC poet/essayist Milton Klonsky round out the trio of influences she focuses the "Keep This Quiet!" series on. Currently she also continues to edit books, teaches meditation courses designed to enhance individual potential and self-discovery, and is a cloud photographer.
Hats Off! to Lenard D. Moore who was featured on The State of Things with Frank Stasio. Moore is the first African-American to lead the Haiku Society of America. In 2014, he received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the highest civilian honor in the state.
Hats Off! to Brenda Kay Ledford whose story, "I Was Amazed by His Kindness," appeared in Woman's World Magazine, March 7, 2016; "Circle of Kindness," section.
Exit, pursued by a bear: poems inspired by Shakespeare's stage directions by Joseph Mills
Press 53 $14.95, paperback ISBN: 978-1-941209-36-3April, 2016PoetryAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"What an inspired collection! The lines between reality and the stage, between life and art, between past and present—they're all blurred into an exciting whirligig of poetry based on Shakespeare's stage directions. You don't have to be a Shakespeare nut to fall in love with this collection."—Robert Lee Brewer, author Solving the World's Problems and editor of Poet's Market
The clock striketh
If exiting you feel the same as when you entered,
go to the box office and demand a refund,
run backstage to where the actors are removing makeup, and stand in the doorway, an accusatory ghost,
keep the ticket stub, so you can explain your account is unbalanced, you're owed those hours
because that's the contract— part of your life in return for being changed somehow—
and maybe Death will listen, after all he too was there, as he is at every performance, in the back, taking notes, attentive, hopeful.
A professor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds an endowed chair, the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities. He has published sixth collections of poetry with Press 53. His book This Miraculous Turning was awarded the 2015 Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry, and his collection Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers was called "a must have for wine lovers" by the Washington Post. His poetry has been featured several times on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac and in former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser's nationally syndicated newspaper column "American Life in Poetry." In addition to his volumes of poetry, he has researched and written two editions of A Guide to North Carolina's Wineries with his wife, Danielle Tarmey. He also has edited a collection of film criticism A Century of the Marx Brothers. He has degrees in literature from the University of Chicago, the University of New Mexico, and the University of California, Davis.
Go In Joy! An Alphabetical Adventure by Joy Resor
Joy on Your Shoulders$17.50, paperbackISBN: 978-0-9840353-1-1August, 2015Nonfiction: Inspiration/Self-realizationAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"What does this book feel like? Turning these pages is like walking into a surprise party given to celebrate me, personal attention that in my private heart I usually resist, but here, with the verve, ease and spirit of this book by Joy Resor, I am won over. There is an immediacy in my sense of surprise—Resor's writing style is one of engagement. Go In Joy! An Alphabetical Adventure deftly weaves together rich stories, keen reflections, and beautiful and provocative questions along with poems that get to the heart and bone of the matter: how you can live your life and be in relationship with more honesty, greater joy, and an unequivocal authenticity."—John Fox, author of Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making 20th Anniversary
"Go In Joy! is a wonderfully delightful book that leaves us wanting more. It's full of profound questions skillfully wrapped in colorful leaves of innocence and playfulness. Sometimes 'clever' can be overdone. Not here. The author's inventive weaving of words is brilliant. A charming and healing read."—Dr. Suka Chapel-Horst, author of Take a Leap of Faith
"This wonderful collection of delicious, bite-sized essays are ideal readings to reflect on as you start or end your day. Joy takes us into her heart and along the pathway of her own spiritual journey, from wounding, confusion and self-doubt into a full engagement and celebration of all aspects of life, shadow, and light. Lyrical and inspiring, it is filled with the gems of wisdom she has gathered along the way."—Chelsea Wakefield, author of Negotiating the Inner Peace Treaty
Go In Joy! An Alphabetical Adventure offers an authentic ride beyond inspiring, lyrical words. This engaging, relateable book of essays, poems, and questions offers touchstones that deliver ah-ha moments.
Reading snippets of Joy's journey through the blame, shame and pain of her youth into the peaceful, joyful light she radiates today, readers discover healing edges of their own to transform.
This multi-layered book of vignettes and poems embedded with spirit, essence and joy delivers one woman's unique, yet universal, journey into self-realization.
Joy Resor lives in western North Carolina. She's an Alliance of Divine Love Minister, certified in spiritual direction and founder of Joy on Your Shoulders, where she inspires peace and joy through her being, through Batik wares sewn by local seamstresses, through journaling to joy classes she facilitates, through a free newsletter that goes to subscribers, and through all the ways she evolves to spread joy.
4RV Young Adult$18.99, paperback / $21.99, hardcoverISBN: 978-1940310374February, 2016Fiction: Young AdultAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
This coming-of-age story is set in San Francisco in 1926 when eight-year-old Ruth Mary wants to be part of her class project to send blue-eyed dolls with notes of friendship to school children in Japan to procure world peace. This historical project was put in place by Dr. Sidney Gulick, a missionary to Japan.
Her bigoted and blustery father, a banker, will not allow this. In an era of bigotry and mistrust of all things Japanese, creative and feisty Ruth Mary connives to overturn his ultimatum. With her siblings aiding and abetting, she prevails.
An unusual doll wearing eye glasses becomes her unlikely choice. She names the doll Isabella.
Isabella returns to Ruth Mary after the war. Ruth Mary, her husband, and her baby daughter embark on a cross-country quest to find the lost Japanese Ambassador dolls left in museums and forgotten over the war.
As an adult, with the doll beside her, she restarts the friendship doll program of long ago. She returns home with Isabella to San Francisco to a sick mother and an aging father. Isabella brings an unexpected peace to the home of Ruth Mary's childhood. The aging people overcome their bigotry as a result of the blue-eyed doll, Isabella.
Deanna K. Klingel is the author of several books for young and young-at-heart readers. She attends conferences and book festivals, speaks at schools, museums, historical events, and libraries and presents her work and inspires readers and writers of all ages.
Deanna was born and raised in Michigan and married her high school sweetheart while they were students at Michigan State University. They raised seven children in many states before retiring to the mountains of western North Carolina, where she began her writing career.
Follow her blog Mondays and Thursdays about her experiences on the road selling books: www.booksbydeanna.com/blog-selling-books.html.
Hats Off! to Judy Hogan who has guest blogged this month at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers; Carolyn Mulford's website; and at B.K. Stevens Mysteries. Judy's Haw: the Second Penny Weaver Mystery is forthcoming on May 1.
Hats Off! to Greenville writer Tony Wayne Brown who so far this year had a short story published by Pulp Modern in Issue 10, Volume 1; five flash fiction pieces accepted for Horrified Press' (UK) upcoming anthology Blue Gonk III; one short story in the anthology Alone; and two more in Horrified's X4 anthology, slated for publication this year. Another piece will appear in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable's Growing and Changing, May/June issue.
That Rain We Needed: Poems by Sam Barbee
Press 53$14.95, paperbackISBN: 978-1-941209-40-0April, 2016PoetryAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"A celebratory set of narratives in its exploration of family and love, Sam Barbee's That Rain We Needed is a many-sided harmony of living words—and worlds—toward an appreciation and joy of the creative life, especially, poetry."—Shelby Stephenson, North Carolina Poet Laureate and author of Elegies for Small Game
"Sam Barbee delves deeply into the sacred and often volatile terrain of family in his new collection, That Rain We Needed. In one poignant poem after another, he renders the tangles, confusion, the harrowing intimacy and abiding love that tithes us to those we inexplicably cannot live without—'[releasing] all [he is] into wind / free-falling.' It is, indeed, from the soaring vantage of flight that these fine poems gaze in benediction upon the past."—Joseph Bathanti, former North Carolina Poet Laureate and author of Concertina
"As much as any recent poetry collection I have read, That Rain We Needed speaks for the middle-aged American population as the Baby Boomers stumble toward that dark night, 10,000 a day turning 65 years of age; and these poems straddle the great divide of three generations. Watching the parents die, the children leave home, the marriage molder, and all the while Sam Barbee is a joyful and pragmatic reporter, honoring each overgrown flower bed, or passing ecstatic solstice, making the reader feel as if you had seen these road markers for the first time. This book is filled with observations of earthly delights, a lush garden of plush sentences and hard-won memories. It has taken the poet his whole life to write this book, and thankfully, it shows on every page."—Keith Flynn, editor of Asheville Poetry Review and author of Colony Collapse Disorder
"That Rain We Needed is one man's search for his place of true belonging in an imperfect world. Sometimes comical, other times poignant, always willing to be vulnerable—here Sam Barbee unfolds his map for negotiating family and its complicated relationships. Little escapes his keen eye. 'Snagged in the belly of combed clouds / I release all I am into wind,' he says—he who bravely bares his soul to us all." — Susan Laughter Meyers, author of My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass
I cannot remember the shape of the moon that particular night but do recall swelter and how humidity snapped between my fingers.
Pop Pike's balding head bobbed above the Kelvinator, carrying a distinct astronomy in his face, bifocals clamped firm like a pair of stars.
Granddad Barbee, never to be outdone, hoisted boxes. He and my dad bickered, jousting with hand trucks as grandmothers chirped in the porch swing.
That June's family ensemble— a reliable galaxy of nurses, and backwoods prophets, mechanics and clumsy magicians—
all assembled assisting our move, to a smaller house, porch, kitchen. Mature water oaks and a tin garage proved two of its few graces,
but all make up my black and white constellation of faces in the first place I knew as home, where I fleshed out grace, and first debates with solitude were prepared.
Sam Barbee grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, and studied creative writing at UNC-Wilmington. His poems have appeared in numerous publications including The Best of the Asheville Poetry Review, Crucible, The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina, Potato Eyes, Georgia Journal, St. Andrews Review, Main Street Rag, Iodine, and Pembroke Magazine. His first collection of poems, Changes of Venue, was published by Mount Olive Press in 1997. He has been a featured poet on North Carolina Public Radio Station WFDD, and he received the 59th Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society for his poem "The Blood Watch." Sam lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his wife Jan.
Hats Off! to Shining Rock Poetry Anthology & Book Review contributors Morri Creech and Katherine Soniat, whose work appears in Issue Three, Spring 2016. Morri's "A Retrospective Essay on His Poetry" accompanies a book review of and selections from Katherine's new poetry collection, Bright Stranger. The anthology is co-edited by Tina Barr and Daniel T. O'Hara, who come to poetry with a strong commitment to the literary traditions that challenge readers to become continually educated by poetry.
Scout's Honor by Dori Ann Dupré
French Press Bookworks$19.99, paperback / $4.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-941541944April, 2016Fiction: Contemporary Women's / SouthernAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Scout's Honor thoroughly engages us from the moment we first meet the engaging Scout Webb, a sort of female Holden Caulfield whose lifelong struggles with love make a compelling read and teach us much. First-time novelist Dori Ann Dupré does a terrific job telling her story through an array of interesting characters while demonstrating a keen eye for detail and a true gift for exploring the joys, heartbreaks, complexities and deep truths of human relationships. Scout's Honor will capture your heart."—Mark Ethridge, author of Grievances and Fallout, screenwriter for Deadline, and two-time Pulitzer Prize for Public Service recipient as managing editor of the Charlotte Observer
"Open the first chapter of this book and step into the mind of a fourteen-year-old tomboy named Scout. Join her in the outfield as part of her mind is trying to keep up with the baseball game she's actively involved in, while another part is reminiscing about the good times she's had at summer camp. Plus there's her pleasant anticipation of the impending camp as she daydreams about the counselor who captured her heart with his good looks and outgoing personality. It's almost impossible for readers to hear the voice of a young girl named Scout without thinking wistfully of Harper Lee's plucky heroine from To Kill A Mockingbird. Wisely, author Dupré admits to her protagonist being named after the famously fictional adolescent, and you accept the homage in hopes that this new relationship between you and Scout will be as simpatico as the one you shared with her namesake. Setting is made specific by exact reference to locale, and time is cleverly alluded to through the use of video game names that clearly place it in the somewhat distant past. While you may not know exactly where this story is going, an appealing feeling of nostalgia is present in this first chapter that makes you want to turn a few more pages just to see where it all may lead."—The US Review of Books, First Chapter Reviews
"Scout's Honor was a fantastic story, forty-five years in the making...Dori Ann Dupré crafted this tale that followed the life of Scout Webb, quite delicately. Her use of first person narrative of the main characters drove the story and revealed all the coming of age, humor, heartbreak and often horrendously real situations in such a unique way. Each voice was captured well and you could feel each of their triumphs or pains as they were unfolding. I commend her choices to give us this story in this way. This is a bold debut and you will feel the gambit of emotions as you turn the pages. I'm really excited to see what Dori brings us next!
"She makes you feel so many things for Scout. She describes her beauty and naivety with such care that you know this girl and then you accept the choices that are made in this book, which makes it even harder. The motif of 'Little girl' is both brilliant and disturbing. I feel Dori did a great job in towing the line of bringing us the best qualities of people, while showing us some of the worst. It is a great study of how some choices can change the course of your entire life. I would highly recommend this book to others."— Mike Hansen, author of When Life Hands You a Lemon
In Haddleboro, North Carolina, Scout Webb is a fourteen-year-old kind, spirited, small-town Southern girl and a tomboy much like her namesake, the young narrator from her mother's favorite book. With both her name and her Christian faith deeply woven into the fabric of her identity, Scout always felt like she had a lot to live up to—she was the kind of girl who made her parents proud.
It's August, 1983, and Scout is playing on a summer baseball team with Charlie Porter, her best friend since Kindergarten. More than anything, she is looking forward to her last few weeks at Camp Judah, a Christian camp near the Catawba River. She can't wait to see her big crush "Brother Doug," the thirty-two year old camp lifeguard who has watched her grow up each summer since she was seven years old. But after a fateful few days and one catastrophic event during her last day at the camp, Scout will be changed forever.
Written through multiple narrators over the course of twenty years, this story follows Scout's personal struggles as a freshman away at college in Raleigh and later as an overworked single mother approaching middle age, where she is forced to confront the causes of her own quiet suffering, the consequences of her actions and why even the eternal love and devotion of just one true friend can't save her.
A story of a self, lost…a self, loathed…and a self, rediscovered…it examines the harsh and cruel ways in which otherwise well-intentioned and decent people treat each other…even those they claim to love, but even more so…ultimately, how we treat our own selves.
Dori was born and raised in New Jersey. She graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in History and is a veteran of the United States Army. Dori currently works in the legal field in North Carolina, where she resides with her family. Scout's Honor is her first novel.
Hats Off! to Jennifer Weiss whose poem "Queen Anne's Lace" appears in Issue 5 of eno Magazine.
Hats Off! to John Amen who contributed a narrative to the forthcoming collection What Does It Mean to Be White in America? (April, 2Leaf Press). While the literature on "whiteness" has long been dominated by an academic point of view, editors Gabrielle David and Sean Frederick Forbes came to the realization that there was an unmet need for an anthology of personal narratives about white race and culture from the perspective of white Americans. The stories cover a wide gamut of American history from contributors around the United States; from reminiscing about segregation and Jim Crow, to today's headlines of police brutality, politics, and #BlackLivesMatters.
Forests, Alligators, Battlefields: My Journey through the National Parks of the South by Danny Bernstein
Kimberly Crest Books$16.00, paperback / $4.99, e-Book978-0-9861932-7-9 March, 2016Nonfiction: Travel / MemoirAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Danny's adventures are a must-read for any outdoor enthusiast. No one has logged more miles in national parks or explored them so thoroughly."—Will Harlan, author of Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island
"While revealing her own story, Danny never overshadows the true stars of the book, the national parks themselves."— Johnny Molloy, author of over fifty outdoor hiking, camping, and paddling guides
"Danny Bernstein is an ideal National Parks guide. I am eager to follow her."— Anne Mitchell Whisnant, author of Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History
Danny Bernstein makes a great national park buddy as she takes you through the seventy-one parks in the South. You'll meet historic figures, rangers, volunteers, park partners, and visitors, the people who bring each park to life. In her attempt to become a Southerner one park at a time, Danny shows that every national park has a human story as well as great scenery. In the Smokies, she leads us to long-forgotten cemeteries. She walks around New Orleans to find the story of jazz. She meets Henry Allen, who marched from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. At Natchez National Historical Park, Ranger Schoby explains how free African-Americans survived before the Civil War. After she finally finds the national park at Salt River Bay, she stands where Christopher Columbus landed on his second voyage.
In the Southeast, you'll drop in on icons like Mammoth Cave National Park and the Everglades, along with the one square block of Tupelo National Battlefield, and Wright Brothers National Memorial, where the first flight took off. The coal mines at Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area brings to mind the song "I owe my soul to the company store."
Visiting the Southeastern parks is a very different experience from the once in a lifetime trip to Yosemite or Yellowstone. Here, folks come often, volunteer, adopt a trail, and support their parks.
Forests, Alligators, Battlefields: My journey through the National Parks of the South is Danny's contribution to the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. She's an engaged, questioning national park companion, who puts a historical and personal spin on her travels.
Danny Bernstein's mission is to get people out of their cars and walking.
She's been a committed hiker for over forty years, completing the Appalachian Trail, all the trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina's Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST), and many other hiking challenges.
Danny hikes and leads hikes for the Carolina Mountain Club, Friends of the Smokies, and other outdoor groups. She's written two hiking guides, Hiking the Carolina Mountains and Hiking North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, and a narrative on her MST hike, The Mountains-to-Sea Trail across North Carolina. She blogs at www.hikertohiker.com.
In her previous life, she worked in computer science for thirty-five years, long before computing was cool, first as a software developer, then as a professor of computer science.
Her motto is "no place is too far to walk if you have the time." She plans to die with her boots on.
Hats Off! to Blaine Paxton Hall whose column "The Nature of Numbers" ran in Raleigh's The News & Observer. "To ponder that our universe is inherently mathematical is to me exhilarating," Hall says, "and the noblest intellectual inquiry of all."
Hats Off! to Lenard D. Moore, associate professor of English and director of the University of Mount Olive literary festival, who joined UMO Artist-in-Residence Larry Lean and Franklin Gross, assistant professor of music, for "The Satire Project," a collaborative project sponsored by the North Carolina Arts Council, the Arts Council of Wayne County, and the University of Mount Olive. Lean created twelve acrylic paintings. Moore wrote a poem about each of the paintings. And Gross put music to each poem based on the painting.
Hats Off! to Paula Martinac whose short story "Comfort Zone" was published in the Spring 2016 issue of Raleigh Review. The story is part of a novel-in-stories, The Ada Decades, forthcoming from Bywater Books in March 2017.
LSU Press$17,95, paperback / $9.99, e-bookISBN: 978-0-807162415PoetryMarch, 2016Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Shield your eyes as you read Katherine Soniat's Bright Stranger. The light often blinds in these mysterious, incantatory poems. It nearly keens, if shimmer can be said to have sound. Soniat has discovered a way to account for everything and, in so doing, wrought a language that lusciously abides in her venerated natural world, but also explores like a medium the barely apprehended liminal ether that surrounds it. Indeed, she traipses like Eurydice (a haunting presence throughout this volume) with equal grace and bravado between realms, reconciling the earth upon which we walk with fading apparitions of the past—'the old decline of flesh that shifts / to language.'"—Joseph Bathanti, former poet laureate of North Carolina
"In Katherine Soniat's gorgeous new collection, Bright Stranger, the story of Orpheus and his lost love Eurydice threads its golden weave through strata of memory, myth, and math to create shimmering layers of language and logic. The auras of summer grasses form 'plump geometries' of light at sunset. Euclid's 'constellations of lines, rays, and segments' represent 'Certainties only the mind concocts.' In poems of exquisite detail, a speaker—daughter, wife, mother, traveler—journeys through the 'clips of a life' knowing this inexorable fact: that 'we'll not pass this way again.' She meditates on loss and mortality, and in the tour de force title poem, is visited by a fox with her dead husband's nickname who asks (quoting May Swenson), 'how will it be to lie in the sky'? Bright Stranger is stunning poetry."—Cynthia Hogue, author of Revenance
"Katherine Soniat's poems inhabit the fertile space of waking dream, where memory and myth, personal history and the present moment, spirit and the physical world, swirl and move as one. Poised at the edge of oblivion, 'circling disappearance like a canyon'—that 'space before a word / comes for mountain'—Soniat bravely sings, and singing testifies to what can be made out of that nothingness."—Luke Hankins, senior editor of Asheville Poetry Review and founder, Orison Books
In her beguiling new collection, Bright Stranger, Katherine Soniat invites the reader to celebrate the unfinished and unsure. The poems in this volume do not demand or offer certainty, existing instead in the spaces between the real and the imagined, between past and present and future. They explore the human connection to nature, contemplating loss in the erosion of rock spires and rebirth in the blossoming of an amaranth.
Visually playful lines recall the poems' existence in the physical world, even as Soniat's words transport the reader from the rugged isolation of the Grand Canyon, to the elements within the periodic table, and on to "the unwinding spool of grey" in the mythic underworld of Hades. Bright Stranger offers a soaring vision of the world in all its chaos, bewilderment, and joy.
Katherine Soniat has taught at the University of New Orleans, Hollins University, and was a faculty member at Virginia Tech for twenty years. Currently, Soniat teaches in the Great Smokies Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She has published work in many journals including Poetry, The Nation, The Southern Review, and Antioch Review, and her previous collections include The Swing Girl, Alluvial, and A Shared Life.
Hats Off! to Terri Kirby Erickson whose poem "Lightning Bugs" was chosen for a 2016 Publication Prize by Dan Veach, Editor and Publisher of the Atlanta Review, for their 2016 International Poetry Competition. This poem, according to Mr. Veach, was chosen "from thousands of poems submitted from across the U.S. and around the world," and will be published in the Fall 2016 issue of Atlanta Review.
At Circle's End by Ian J. Malone
Sharkflight Publishing$14.99, paperback / $4.99, e-bookISBN: 978-0-9890327-6-6April, 2016Fiction: Space OperaAvailable from www.Amazon.com
In the months since his disappearance, Danny Tucker has retreated to the darkest corners of Alystierian space in search of intelligence on the empire's new chancellor, Alec Masterson. Backed by a crew of outcasts and fighting from the shadows as the enigmatic Rogue centurion, Danny will stop at nothing to achieve his mission: absolute vengeance for Masterson's now infamous "Return to Fear" demonstration.
Still, try as he might, Danny can't remain underground, and with sightings of the Rogue growing more frequent, Lee Summerston won't rest until the lost Renegade is found. Meanwhile, in the core, Aura stands on the brink of annihilation as imperial forces, aided by an ancient enemy, draw ever closer to her shores.
In the end, scores will be settled, and brothers will rise united… or they'll all burn together.
At Circle's End is the soaring climax to Ian J. Malone's epic space-opera series, The Mako Saga, and a heartfelt sendoff to sci-fi's most beloved band of bar buddies turned intergalactic heroes of war.
As a graduate of Florida State University, Ian J. Malone has written in a number of arenas ranging from public health to news and sports. When it comes to his fictional work, however, he's a firm believer that nothing shapes an author's writing like experience. That's why he credits his tenures in radio, law enforcement, sport management, and the military for much of his thematic inspiration, plus the legion of family and friends who've stood with him along the way.
Beyond writing, Malone is an avid fan of audiobooks and sports, though it's also not uncommon to find him at a beach, a music concert, or somewhere out by a grill.
Malone presently resides in Durham with his wife, son, and their two dogs—but he'll always be a "Florida boy" at heart.
For more on Ian J. Malone and his books, visit him online at www.ianjmalone.net. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or Goodreads.
Hats Off! to Tony Wayne Brown of Greenville, NC, who had a successful 2015: his short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Main Street Rag's anthology Coming Off the Line; Liars' League Hong Kong; Birmingham Literary Journal; Northern Virginia Review; Huffington Post; 50-Word Stories; Perpetual Motion Machine's So It Goes: A Tribute to Kurt Vonnegut; Infective Ink; Moon Magazine; cahoodaloodaling; O Dark Thirty (Veterans Writing Project); Ealain (South Africa); the anthology Angels from their Realms of Glory; and Zimbell House Publishing's anthology On A Dark and Snowy Night.
Hats Off! to Danny Bernstein who will launch her new book Forests, Alligators, Battlefields: My Journey through the National Parks of the South at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville on Friday, April 8. Her travel narrative is her contribution to the National Park Service Centennial.
What Comes from a Thing by Phillip Barron
Fourteen Hills Press$12.00, paperbackISBN: 978-1-889292670December, 2015PoetryAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Phillip Barron's What Comes from a Thing renders the familiar strange again, and so offers us the rare opportunity to re-encounter what we think we know. A mapping and re-mapping of our concurrent worlds, these poems explore the shifting overlays of industrial landscape, post-industrial landscape, the 'natural' world, and all the worlds that exist among them: location is never where we left it. Barron stitches through time a tracery of telephone poles, contrails, water, and railroads, bodies of granaries and birds, factories and fields, as he probes received ideas of identity and relation. What Comes from a Thing investigates what it can mean to be alive to our twenty-first century existence, bathing in the mortar / reeds and ruin."—Laura Walker, author of Follow-Haswed (http://laura-walker.com)
"What Comes from a Thing is both an asking and a telling. Phillip Barron's poems give voice to objects lost, discarded, fallen into the liminal zone between society and nature. With cool cadences, at once melancholy and analytical, the poet rings the fate of human artifacts as they return to the beauty and mystery of their primary uselessness. In the twilight of industrial civilization, Barron's poems remind us of all 'that we have forgotten how to make.'"—Andrew Joron, author of Trance Archive
"Phillip Barron's book is a precisionist sounding of chosen scenes, realist in diction, ecological in sensibility—including a human ecology, and intent on tracking the process, the provenances, and the particulars that made us arrive just here. The work inventories these chosen sightlines with a kind of stoicism: 'what we have done is what we will become.' The authorial voice is at one and the same time the object of history, objective about history, and the subject of history within his own austere findings. These poems are about more than a de-industrialized landscape or the borders between wood and farms, they are materialist statements."—Rachel Blau DuPlessis, author of Drafts
What Comes from a Thing is the first collection of poetry from Phillip Barron. It won the 2015 Michael Rubin Book Award from Fourteen Hills Press.
This volume takes as its subjects presence and absence after the death of manufacturing and the disintegration of the working class under twenty-first century capitalism. These poems embody the sounds and rhythms of factories, industrial farmlands, and ports of late modernity. Whether rural or urban, the places—like the aesthetics—of these poems have survived the shift to a post-industrial economy and merit deep attention for the role they play in constructing the materiality and ideal of our daily experiences. The book resides in this very tension between idealism and materialism, where "we manufacture footnotes now, echoes of all else/that we have forgotten/how to make."
Phillip Barron grew up in South Carolina and studied at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a master of arts degree in Philosophy. He currently teaches courses in Philosophy and Humanities at Woodland Community College while he finishes a master of fine arts degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. What Comes from a Thing, his first book of poetry, won the 2015 Michael Rubin Book Award.
Hats Off! to Joan Leotta whose flash fiction piece "The Magician's Trick (Pears)," previously published online by Spelk, has been selected by Centre College's Norton Center for the Arts to be a part of an upcoming exhibition where artists will create visual art to accompany stories. Her work was one of only eleven chosen from many submissions.
Hats Off! to Denise P. Sherman of Raleigh, winner of the 2016 Carolina Woman Writing Contest for her story, "Do Lord." Karen Kent of Chapel Hill won Second Prize (including a one-year membership to the North Carolina Writers' Network) for her essay, "She Was Dying." And Honorable Mentions included poems by Beth Browne of Garner ("Getting My Daughter Her Learner's Permit"); Sheryl Cornett of Raleigh ("Apples in Winter"); and Susan Lefler of Brevard for ""Driving Home at Night Along the French Broad."
Waterborne by Janet Joyner
Logan House$16.00, paperbackISBN: 978-0-9910139-4-4January, 2016PoetryAvailable from the publisher or www.Amazon.com
"In this extraordinary first book of poems by Janet Joyner, I find two equally powerful but distinct voices. First the voice of water, the rivers, the swamps, the earth, the voices of the primitive, remarkable people of that world—like Ma Caulder and Anna Greene. And then the second voice, refined, educated, feminist, the voices of women in history neglected and never credited for their work, the voices of lesbians and gays and the victims of racial prejudice and war. Janet Joyner, in these powerful, musically sensuous poems, reaches into our innermost hearts; and as a result we are, I think, both deeper and more honest than we were before."—Anthony S. Abbott, author of The Angel Dialogues and If Words Could Save Us, recipient of North Carolina Award for Literature
"A poet at home with lyric and narrative, myth and history, quantum mechanics and cell biology, Janet Joyner places us solidly in the physical world, most notably among rivers she knew growing up in low-country South Carolina. Harmonies in the non-human world sit side by side with disharmonies in the human—the brutal treatment gay men and women have often suffered in a country whose citizens were promised that 'equal is an algorithm of free.' Joyner's poems are political in the deepest sense; her emphasis on what we have in common as creatures—boy, girl, woman, man, heron, finch: 'this purple, one finch/ who shares with me/ what unfolds between/ the dark parentheses.'"—Becky Gould Gibson, author of Heading Home, Need-Fire, and Aphrodite's Daughter
"Janet Joyner's varied poems include lyrical descriptions of the natural world and draw deft portraits of people and the complicated connections between us. Waterborne is threaded with vivid images and insights. Sometimes they are splendid, such as fallen leaves in such a mass/it seemed the sky had turned sea/and spilled the sun at our feet; sometimes wry, as when the wife of God, begins by saying, 'I could have told you it would end/this way,' and ends by suggesting that God Give the grasses another chance; and sometimes tragic, as in her extraordinary poem, 'What the Egg Knows,' showing us the kid hung on a fence/post to watch dawn die over Laramie, how he is no different from you or me, like any creature swimming or striding/in search of his bliss."—Ellen Bass, author of Like a Beggar; The Human Line, and Mules of Love
Winner of the 2015 Holland prize, these are poems that speak authentically of life in a time and a place, poems that resurrect the often unacknowledged. They move us as all earned voice does, and thereby transcend the particular. Water runs through the poems of Waterborne, Joyner's first collection, and becomes the symbol for the exhilarating flow of life and time. To be alive means to be caught up in "the pulses of the universe" for which the poem provides "a momentary purchase." Philosophical reflections are wound with story; portraits of a place's people, of unlettered women living along the river are set beside those of women who made major discoveries in archaeology, biology and oceanography. Testimony of deep dichotomies is at work here.
Janet Joyner grew up in Marion, South Carolina. The town sits in a region of midland and coastal plains crisscrossed by rivers and streams. These rivers, many still known by the names of natives, were the first avenues inland for colonial ancestors who left their names to her childhood playmates and their places—towns, counties, rivers. Place and name, the currency of belonging, are essential to the poet's encounter with the world.
Professor of French Language and Literature at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts until her retirement in 1994, Joyner is the winner of the Poetry Society of South Carolina's 2010 Dubose and Dorothy Heyward Poetry Prize. Her poems have won distinctions in Bay Leaves of the North Carolina Poetry Council, and Flying South '14, and her "Cicadas Thrumming" was anthologized in The Southern Poetry Anthology: volume vii: North Carolina (2015). Her short stories have appeared in The Crescent Review and Flying South. She is the translator of Le Dieu désarmé, by Luc-François Dumas. This is her first collection of poems.
Dupllicity's Child by FJ Harmon
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform$14.78, paperbackISBN: 978-150244883October, 2014Fiction: Suspense / ThrillerAvailable from www.Amazon.com
He did everything to get elected, including murder. Mace Franklyn, caught up in the deadly politics of a high profile murder, faces deceit and betrayal which threaten to expose his dark secrets. What he is hiding cost him his marriage, his FBI career, and could still cost him his freedom. Determined to prove the past is not who he is, Mace seizes the opportunity, when he gets a call for help from his former FBI instructor, now a district commander in the Michigan State Police. The task is to unravel who is behind a series of murders, the victims all University of Michigan coeds. Frustrated by the politics of the joint task force, Mace suspects someone inside the Michigan Bureau of Investigation is involved. With the help of a small cadre of trusted friends, he sets a trap, but only begins to learn the truth when he feels cold steel in his back.
Duplicity's Child is the first in a planned five-book series of murder mysteries with Mace Franklyn. Mace's life backstory is loosely based on the founder of the FBI's Criminal Profiling Program, and the serial killings that are referenced were actual cases that occurred in Michigan.
In 1968 FJ Harmon married his sweetheart, graduated from Lawrence Technological Institute, and began his twenty-two year career in Naval Intelligence, all in the same month. After a short stint on active duty, he pursued duel careers as a Naval Reserve Intelligence analyst and as a national intelligence technical analyst working at various agencies over his career such as the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency.
For thirty-six years, his writing was confined to technical documents, position papers, and contract proposals, not exactly the stuff of fiction. However, his creative urge to write fiction, kept on the "back burner" until his retirement in 2007, blossomed into two books .
His first For What Is Sacred, later renamed Sacred Revenge, was inspired by the state of North Carolina. The NC Port Authority proposed to build a deep-sea port between a nuclear power plant and a nuclear arms depot, which to many seemed to present an ideal terrorist target. The next five years were devoted to research and honing his fiction writing skills, and then in 2012 his first book was published. Two years after that he completed his second book, Duplicity's Child, the first in a planned five-book series.
Currently Fj Harmon writes for a local magazine in St. James, North Carolina, Cat-Tales, and is working on his next book, Returning Fire, to be released in September 2016.
Hats Off! to Christine Arvidson, who, along with Scot Pope and Julie E. Townsend, edited Reflections on the New River: New Essays, Poems and Personal Stories (McFarland, 2015). This collection gathers more than thirty original works of prose and poetry expressing the contributors love for and relationships with the New River. Contributors include both luminaries such as Joseph Bathanti and Clyde Egerton to new writers with things to say about this fascinating river. Reflections on the New River contributors will be featured at Appalachian State's Summer Author Series this year.
Hats Off! to Laurence Holden whose poems "We Are All Vagabonds" and "Channelling" appear in the upcoming Spring issue of Elohi Gaduga: Narratives for a New World, a journal in Oregon.
Hats Off! to Tina Barr who, along with Daniel T. O'Hara, edits the new online Shining Rock Poetry Anthology and Book Review. Issue 1 is out now, featuring poetry by Beth Copeland, Jane Hirshfield, William Wright, and more.
Hats Off! to Joan Leotta who had three poems—"The Autistic Boy," "Backporch morning," and "Blooming Bush"—published by A Quiet Courage. Her poem "Sampling Oysters" is forthcoming in Postcards, Poems, and Prose, and her prose piece "The Lion Tamer" has won an Honorable Mention in The Maine Review's annual short fiction contest.
The Beast and the Innocent by Diana Pinckney
FutureCycle Press$14.95, paperback / $2.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-938853715 March, 2015PoetryAvailable on www.Amazon.com
In this collection of persona poems, Diana Pinckney explores the art of others and regards the wolf as the ultimate other: "Wolves speak to me from beauty, strangeness and vulnerability, representing both the beast and the innocent. Their voice is the music of the wilderness.... As for the beasts and the innocents these poems speak of, this writer feels there are many that are sometimes two-sided-like the god, Janus-and hopes that they will be discovered by the eye and the ear of the reader."
Diana Pinckney's poems have been published in many prestigious journals and anthologies, both online and in print. She has won multiple awards for her work, including the Atlanta Review International Poetry Grand Prize in 2012, and has been nominated many times for the Pushcart Prize. A South Carolina native, Pinckney now lives and teaches in Charlotte, where she is very active in the writing community.
Hats Off! to Peg Bresnahan and Jim Clark whose poems, "Wisteria" and "At Dusk," respectively, were chosen for April's "North Carolina Poetry on the Bus" program, sponsored by the Raleigh Review. Ride the R-Line bus in downtown Raleigh during April to see these and other North Carolina poems. There will be two on each bus.
Hats Off! to Brenda Kay Ledford, the featured poet in Westward Quarterly's spring 2015 issue.
Two Wrongs by Reita Pendry
Laurel Springs Publishing$11.99, paperback / $9.99, e-bookISBN: 978-0983954316February, 2015Fiction: MysteryAvailable at www.Amazon.com
Like politics, murder makes strange bedfellows. Federal prosecutor Laura Moss never thought she would need her long-time opponent, Mercy Johnson, one of Washington's best criminal defense attorneys. When Laura bludgeons her philandering husband to death, she sees Mercy not as an adversary but as a lifeline. Laura tells police she killed her husband because he was raping her daughter, Anna. Anna tells police her mother killed her stepfather in a jealous rage because she knew he and Anna were lovers. Laura's freedom depends on Mercy proving Anna a liar.
The one thing Laura will not allow Mercy to do is reveal the secrets of Anna's mental disorder and the chronic lying that is symptomatic of her illness. Mercy quickly learns that she will have a harder fight on her hands against her own client than against the government's prosecution machine. Their battle of wills convinces Mercy that Laura is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, her freedom, to protect her child.
This is the third novel in the Mercy Johnson series. Mercy, in her fifties, is childless. Laura forces to the surface Mercy's contradictions about not having children. A descendant of the Gullahs from the islands off the South Carolina coast, Mercy brings the wisdom of the ancients to navigate the roiled waters and keep herself and her client from sinking.
Reita Pendry was born in the mountains of North Carolina and raised in Charlotte. She graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law. She practiced in North Carolina and Washington, DC. For most of her career, she practiced criminal defense. She now lives and works in Charlotte, where she divides her time between writing and working for homeless animals.
Hats Off! to Carol Cooley who contributed a short story to American Fiction Volume 13 (New Rivers Press). The anthology has just been named a finalist in the 25th Anniversary Midwest Book Awards. Carol's story was originally selected as part of the American Fiction Prize competition by guest judge Michael White.
Hats Off! to the honorable mentions in the 2015 Carolina Woman Writing Contest: Tara Lynne Groth of Cary for "Money Changes Everything"; Linda Johnson of Chapel Hill for "Birthday Cake"; Ashley Memory of Pittsboro for "Ode to My Ironing Board"; Alice Osborn of Raleigh for "How to Remove a Carpet Stain"; Agnes Stevens of Raleigh for "Moonshine Manhattan"; and Leslie Waugh of Apex for "Running for My Life". All receive a Carolina Woman shirt.
Hats Off! to Veronique Moses and Sylvia Freeman who won First and Second Prize, respectively, in the 2015 Carolina Woman Writing Contest. Moses, of Raleigh, won a two-year membership to the North Carolina Writers' Network for her essays, "Protests." Freeman, of Durham, won a $100 gift certificate to French Connections for her essay, "Aunt Wilma."
Hats Off! to Lisa Williams Kline of Davidson who won the Grand Prize in the 2015 Carolina Woman Writing Contest for her essay, "Writing Test." She was awarded an 8' x 11' color pencil portrait by Lynne Srba—a $450 value.
Hats Off! to Kim Church whose debut novel Byrd has been short-listed for the 2015 Chautauqua Prize. A novel told in vignettes and letters, Byrd is a meditation on family, the choices we make, and the ripples of consequence that spread out through the years. Readers lauded Church's ability to take the subject of adoption and shine new light upon it, in a writing style that is "succinct; Church says a lot with few words, picking her details wisely." It is a novel, another said, with "strength and power, and a deft and delicate touch."
Crown of Ice by Vicki L. Weavil
Month9Books$14.99, paperback / $3.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1939765437September, 2014Fiction: Young Adult FantasyAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Crown of Ice is a luscious and fantastical retelling of the Snow Queen."—Winterhaven Books
"This book was fantastic, and so different from anything that I have ever read. I loved every single page of this book, and I very much look forward to whatever comes next from this amazing author!"—The Best Books Ever
"Crown of Ice was a great young adult fantasy novel. It offers an interesting and refreshing retelling of the Snow Queen fairytale, but also so much more—realistic, confident, and a bit bad heroine, magic, cute animals, subtle romance.… I warmly recommend it to all YA fantasy fans."—Bookworm Dreams
Thyra Winther's seventeen, the Snow Queen, and immortal, but if she can't reassemble a shattered enchanted mirror by her eighteenth birthday she's doomed to spend eternity as a wraith. Armed with magic granted by a ruthless wizard, Thyra schemes to survive with her mind and body intact. Unencumbered by kindness, she kidnaps local boy Kai Thorsen, whose mathematical skills rival her own. Two logical minds, Thyra calculates, are better than one. With time rapidly melting away she needs all the help she can steal. A cruel lie ensnares Kai in her plan, but three missing mirror shards and Kai's childhood friend, Gerda, present more formidable obstacles. Thyra's willing to do anything—venture into uncharted lands, outwit sorcerers, or battle enchanted beasts—to reconstruct the mirror, yet her most dangerous adversary lies within her breast. Touched by the warmth of a wolf pup's devotion and the fire of a young man's desire, the thawing of Thyra's frozen heart could be her ultimate undoing.
Vicki L. Weavil is the Director of Library Services for the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She has worked for the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Television and Radio (now the Paley Center for Media). She holds two Master's degrees, in library science and in liberal studies. She loves good writing in any genre and likes to spend time watching films, gardening, and traveling. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Vicki is a member of SCBWI and is represented by Jennifer Mishler at Literary Counsel, New York, NY.
Hats Off! to Maren O. Mitchell whose two poems, "T Is Totally Balanced" and "X Is a Kiss on Paper," will appear in an upcoming issue of Hotel Amerika. Also, her poem "One for the Road Show" has been selected for April publication by The Georgia Center for the Book, posted on their Facebook page.
Hats Off! to Marilynn Barner Anselmi whose short play, "Yard Sale Finds," will be produced by the Appalachian State University's Women's Troupe in Boone on April 27. Also, The Gallery Players, based in Brooklyn, NY, will present Anselmi's short play, "High Cheekbones," during their Black Box New Play Festival in June.
Everlene's Sky by Michael Russo
Outskirts Press$19.95, paperbackISBN: 978-1478743835December, 2014FictionAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
As featured in The Virginian Pilot!
Through tragedy and triumph, witness the storm clouds and sunshine of a little seven-year old girl who, through the examples of generations of women before her, lives a life of faith, hope and love. This is Everlene's Sky, a novel that takes the reader on a journey of love, loss, and unrelenting faith. From the moonshine-riddled mountains of Depression-era Virginia, the story follows one polio-stricken little girl's life as she finds romance, self-reliance, and ultimately her creator. Journey from post-Civil War Appomattox County, throughout the 20th Century and the inspirational lives of three of central Virginia's most endearing matriarchs, to the daily struggles of life in a modern nursing home. Everlene grew up poor and lost the use of her legs at an early age. With nothing but her strong character and the support of a loving family, she pulled herself out of despair and learned how to exist as an outcast, finding love and faith along the way. Her story is not only fascinating in its life-affirming character, but an inspiration for so many people she encounters. You will never forget life under Everlene's Sky.
Author Michael Russo has just completed filming for the Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club. The story of Everlene's Sky is scheduled to be the main segment for their program Memorial Day, May 25.
Mike is a twenty-one-year veteran of the United States Navy. After enlisting in the Navy in 1981, he began his career as an F-14 Tomcat mechanic. In 1983-1984, he deployed onboard the USS John F. Kennedy for eight months and participated in UN operations off the coast of Beirut, Lebanon.
In 1990, he earned a bachelor's degree in political science and was commissioned as an Ensign. In 1993 he made another six month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Bosnia onboard the USS Saratoga and in 1997-1998 onboard the USS George Washington where his team participated in Operation Southern Watch off the coast of Iraq. He was awarded the U.S. Navy's prestigious F-14 Tomcat Maintenance Officer of the Year for 1998.
He has had the pleasure of working with so many Great Americans throughout his career. He retired from the Navy as a Lieutenant Commander in 2002 and began a career in private industry. He has a Master's Degree in Management and continues to write technical proposals and public relations articles for both private and public defense issues. He has two grown sons who are awesome—and he became a grandpa last year. He lives in Winston-Salem with his wife of thirty years.
Hats Off! to Joseph Mills: this month Press 53 released the second edition of Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers, his collection of wine poems.
Hats Off! to Tara Lynne Groth whose short story "Money Changes Everything," the final story in her collection, won an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Carolina Woman Writing Contest.
Hats Off! to Sheila Boneham whose essay "A Question of Corvids," which won the 2014 Prime Number Magazine Creative Nonfiction Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination, has been selected by guest editor Rebecca Skloot for the 2015 Best Science and Nature Writing Anthology. The series, edited by Tim Folger, is published by Houghton Mifflin, and new editions appear in the fall each year.
Hats Off! to Mimi Herman, one of the seven winners of the Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Festival, which received over 1,000 poems from 337 poets in twenty countries and thirty-nine U.S. states.
Hats Off! to Glenda Barrett whose poem "Blood Kin" is forthcoming in Deep South. Also, her poems "Driving Home," "Entrance Exam," and "Parting" will appear in White Ash Literary Magazine.
Dog Ear Publishing$18.95, paperback / $9.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-4575-3602-1February, 2015Fiction: HistoricalAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
Meanwhile, Helen hitched Saladin next to Bishop, black like her horse, but a hand higher. She wondered who had come to this largely abandoned spot. She stealthily approached the entry and watched as the middle-aged man spoke to the grave that had attracted her curiosity over the years. She had made it her mission to learn the past of all those buried here, but had learned little about Ileana Cortes.
But Father Julio had taken his secrets to his grave this past January. As Helen watched the tall figure lovingly kiss Ileana's cross, she knew he could answer her many questions.
One Rancher. One Lawyer. One Outlaw.
Who's the most dangerous of the three?
Union Army veteran Jack Grier returns to Carmel Valley seeking redemption. His brother, former slave owner, Richard Grier, schemes to punish his former slave mistress for her defiance before he goes to Sacramento, where he is determined to regain the power and wealth he lost in the Civil War.
Both brothers see each other as the cause of all of life's problems until Joe Crawford leads his gang of murderers and thieves in a daring kidnapping that finds Richard's daughter in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Light a match. Sit back and watch the fireworks.
J. Edward ("Jim") Gray served as a federal tax trial attorney for over thirty years. That background serves as fodder for this novel's lawyers, principally attorney Richard Grier. Mr. Gray also has hiked extensively in Yosemite National Park and neighboring wilderness, which serve as the Crawford Gang's territory in the dramatic kidnapping segment of this story.
Hats Off! to John Manuel and Lynn Sadler who received honorable mentions in the Savannah Anthology 2015 Short Story Writing Contest. The anthology will be published in mid-May.
North Carolina Aviatrix Viola Gentry: The Flying Cashier by Jennifer Bean Bower
The History Press$19.99, paperbackISBN: 978-1-609496951March, 2015BiographyAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
Viola Gentry of Rockingham County, North Carolina, learned to fly in 1924 and quickly achieved greater heights. In 1925, the aviatrix took her first solo flight. The following year, she flew under the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and in 1928, she established the first officially recorded women's solo endurance flight record.
She became the first federally licensed female pilot from North Carolina that same year. She was a national celebrity, and her job in a New York restaurant secured her the nickname the ''Flying Cashier.'' Gentry became personal friends with fellow pioneers of aviation Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, and General James ''Jimmy'' Doolittle.
After a near-fatal crash, Gentry focused her efforts on championing aviation for women and preserving its early history. Author Jennifer Bean Bower reveals the life of one of the great women in Tar Heel State history.
Jennifer Bean Bower is an award-winning writer, native Tar Heel, and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Bower is the author of North Carolina Aviatrix Viola Gentry: The Flying Cashier; Animal Adventures in North Carolina; Winston & Salem: Tales of Murder, Mystery and Mayhem; and Moravians in North Carolina. She lives in Winston-Salem, with her husband Larry and their pet rabbit Isabelle.
Hats Off! to Michael R. Hassler of Garner who won third prize in the nonfiction category of the 2015 Porter Fleming Literary Competition for his essay "I Find Myself at 7," forthcoming in Eclectica Magazine.
Duct Tape Won't Stick to a Leaky Ostomy Bag by David H. Brantley
Archway$30.95, hardcover / $13.99, paperback / $3.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-480814974February, 2015MemoirAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
David H. Brantley shares an inspiring account of living life to the fullest even while fighting Crohn's disease and cancer. Even when the doctors told him he had no chance, he proved them all wrong. In this thought-provoking memoir, Brantley looks back at the big dreams he had growing up, including becoming a successful actor and writer—and celebrates what he actually became best at: beating the odds.
David H. Brantley is a former professor of English, communication, and developmental studies. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Frostwriting, Connections Literary Magazine, and other venues. He lives in Wilmington, NC, with his partner and devotes much of his free time to charity sewing and handwork.
The Goodbye Animals by Katherine Soniat
FootHills Publishing $10, paperbackISBN: 978-0-921053-56-9January, 2015PoetryAvailable from your local bookstore or the publisher
Turtle Island Quarterly Chapbook Award winner
"The poems composing this intricately and finely woven chapbook form a sequence that opens with the words of Octavio Paz, telling us-or in this case Katherine-to 'speak to you in stone language/(answer with one green syllable.' And, oh, the language that pours forth within that syllable! The poems encompass our birth from the amniotic fluid of mother and of universe, the animals and plant life that share this ark with us before melting back into the ark as we do, the loves and lives of those we know and are of a part. They explore in passionate and often painful, reverential tones 'the levels beyond my first floor ocean room…sliced from the first-hand world of chocolate sofas and perfume.' "Throughout, with her keen eye for imagery and wholeness of understanding, we experience intimately, the power and unity of all things animate and inanimate that are born as we are from the center of nova suns that spread their chemical trails and seeds across the frozen space of time until that unbearable darkness lands upon or forms some distant island where it can reflect back upon the light from which it came. "—Jared Smith, poet
"Soniat travels at a speed quicker than light, arriving at her conclusions, observations, and ideas in a psychic manner that defies speed altogether for its sudden, utterly unexpected revelations. And yet, she still manages somehow to make sense, a sense that often depends more on affective understanding than a logical coherence. These poems are haunted and haunting, decrying a deep personal loss and loneliness whose provenance, at times, dates back to her childhood . . . . Soniat's wisdom lies in her trust of her utterance that emanates from a voice, as Walt Whitman claimed in his poem 'Assurances,' that has 'another voice.' This voice in Soniat's poetry is deeply chthonic and creaturely in its most human keening, both frightening and enlightened."—Chard deNiord, poet
Katherine Soniat's seventh collection, Bright Stranger, is forthcoming from Louisiana State University Press, spring 2016. The Swing Girl (LSU Press) was selected as Best Collection of 2011 by the Poetry Council of North Carolina. A chapbook, The Goodbye Animals, recently received the Turtle Island Quarterly Award. A Shared Life received The Iowa Prize for Poetry. Poems have appeared in World Poetry Portfolio #60, Hotel Amerika, Threepenny Review, The Nation, Poetry, storySouth, and Connotations Press. She was on the faculty at Virginia Tech, Hollins University, and teaches in the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC-Asheville. Website: www.katherinesoniat.com.
Hats Off! to Joan Leotta whose poem "Morning Comes" is forthcoming in the "Insomnia Issue" of the journal The Art of Being Human /An Anthology of International Poetry, compiled and edited by Daniela Voicu and Brian Wrixon (Volume 14). Also, the online journal Spelk Fiction has accepted one of Joan's flash fiction pieces, "The Magician's Trick," which will appear May 27.
Hats Off! to Leigh Sanders who had two essays published in the Women of Library History project: one on Eva Perry and other on Olivia Raney.
Hats Off! to NCWN regional rep Scott Owens, whose poem "Rails" was featured on The Writer's Almanac, and read by Garrison Keillor.
Hats Off! to poet Brent Martin of Cowee, who was interviewed by the painter Irene Hardwicke Olivieri over at her blog, Light Seeking Eyes.
GREENSBORO, NC—Alan Michael Parker of Davidson is the winner of the 2014 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition for his poem, "Lights Out in the Chinese Restaurant."
Parker also won in 2013, making him the first two-time winner in the history of the competition. He will receive $200 and publication in a special supplement of storySouth.
"I love this poem," said final judge Jillian Weise. "It begins in a realist mode with a speaker at a restaurant and then the lights go out. The poem makes a quantum leap into the irreal and necrodaisical: a word the poem caused me to invent so that I could describe the speaker's listless attitude toward having died. Part nightmare, part ars poetica: the poem is superlatively unsettling."
Alan Michael Parker is the author of eight collections of poems, including his most recent, Long Division, which won the 2012 North Carolina Book Award. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including three Pushcart Prizes, the Fineline Prize from the Mid-American Review, the 2013 and 2014 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition Awards, and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
His 2011 novel, Whale Man, was shortlisted for the 2011 ForeWord Reviews' "Book of the Year Award" in the category of Literary Fiction. He is also the author of the novels Cry Uncle and The Committee on Town Happiness.
Since 1998, he has taught at Davidson College, where he was promoted to the rank of Full Professor in 2007; in 2012, he was named Douglas C. Houchens Professor of English. He also teaches in the University of Tampa Low-Residency M.F.A. program, where he works with graduate student writers in both poetry and fiction. He lives in Davidson with his wife, the artist Felicia van Bork, and her Pecha Kucha alter ego, Candi Parker.
"I am thinking of something Jarrell wrote in Poetry and the Age," said Weise. "'If you never look just wrong to your contemporaries you will never look just right to posterity—every writer has to try to be, to some extent, sometimes, a law unto himself.' This poem is a law unto itself."
Maureen Sherbondy of Raleigh was named First Runner Up for her poem "After the Funeral." Melissa Hassard, who lives in the Triad, and Kathryn Kirkpatrick of Vilas, were named Honorable Mentions for their poems "At the End" and "Visitation," respectively. Sherbondy also received an honorable mention in 2011.
Seven poets were named finalists: Lavonne Adams of Wilmington, Catherine Carter of Cullowhee, Terri Kirby Erickson of Lewisville, Dannye Romine Powell of Charlotte, Lynn Veach Sadler of Pittsboro, Andrea Selch of Durham, and Katherine Soniat of Asheville.
The Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition honors the work and legacy of the poet and critic Randall Jarrell, who taught at what is now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for nearly eighteen years.
The competition is open to any writer who is a legal resident of North Carolina or a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network, and is administered by Terry L. Kennedy and the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at UNCG.
Final judge Jillian Weise is the author of The Book of Goodbyes (BOA Editions, 2013), which received the 2013 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, which recognizes a superior second book of poetry by an American poet. Her debut poetry collection, The Amputee's Guide to Sex, was published by Soft Skull Press in 2007. Weise is also the author of the novel The Colony (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press, 2010). Her other honors include a Fulbright Fellowship and the 2013 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award from BOA Editions. She teaches at Clemson University and lives in Greenville, South Carolina.
storySouth is an online literary journal dedicated to showcasing the best poetry (and fiction and creative nonfiction) that writers from the "new south" have to offer.
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.
Good Rockin' Tonight by Steve Yount
Wry Whiskey Press$9.99, paperback / $3.98, e-bookISBN: 978-0615749433December, 2013Historical FictionAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
By the time Cody Hunter's parents rescued their son from the honky-tonk life, Cody had gained such insight into the human condition that there was very little reason to believe he would ever by satisfied with singing "Hail to Rockton High" at the homecoming football game, holding a steady job, tithing, or saving redeemable coupons to purchase patio/lawn furniture. In short, the odds were surpassing long that young Hunter would ever develop into a respectable citizen. The die was cast in lead, the mold discarded, for even the Angels despair of redeeming souls cursed to live out their teen-age fantasies.
Steve Yount's previous novel, Wandering Star, was published by Ballantine Books in hardback and soft-cover. He previously taught "Beginning Your Novel" at Duke Continuing Studies and continues to hold a writer's group in Raleigh. Steve previously worked as a film archivist at the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, and as an archivist at the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas. He holds degrees from Appalachian State University and the University of Texas--Austin.
The Duchess, The Knight & The Leprechaun by Heidi Thurston
Second Wind Publishing, LLC$15.95, paperbackISBN: 978-1-938101-90-8April, 2014Fiction: Family RomanceAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"I LOVED this...it's wonderful, fun, engaging, involving, dishy, scandalous and literary. It's a blast to read...So much in these pages—it's definitely a family romance, with the past threatening it."—Rebecca Lee, author of Bobcat and Other Stories, an Amazon "Best Book of the Month" the "Book of the Week" on Oprah.com
A widow in her middle years, Anna Thornberg, has recovered from the loss of her long-time husband Robert, a caring, and usually cheerful Irishman, but one harboring a dark side. Her life is full and rewarding; she is surrounded by family and friends; is active in her community, and has a part-time job she enjoys. Her best friend, Reenie, however, has another opinion and tells her she needs a man in her life.
On an early spring day, Anna's life takes a new turn, with the discovery of her old high school diary. On an impulse she contacts her old boyfriend, the young man she left behind, years ago, when she came with her family to the United States from her native Denmark.
Her initial contact ultimately leads to a visit to Ireland, several trips to the beaches in North Carolina, a pilgrimage back to Denmark—and the reunion with Christian.
During her journeys, Anna uncovers the deceit and half-truths that filled her early years and resolves a series of mysteries and secrets related to her past. In the process she starts removing a lifelong guilt and begins looking ahead to the promise of a brighter future.
Heidi Thurston was born, and spent her early years, in Copenhagen, Denmark. In her late teens she immigrated with her parents to New York City. She later met and married her husband there.
Thurston worked as a journalist, feature story writer, weekly columnist, and reporter for The Evening Times, in Sayre, Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of several awards from the Pennsylvania Press Association and has had a number of stories published in various periodicals. This is her first novel.
Ms. Thurston resides in Kannapolis, North Carolina, with her husband Chuck Thurston, an author, playwright, and columnist. The couple have two sons, Mark and Curt, and a daughter, Kristine; seven grandchildren and two great grand-daughters.
Hats Off to Bill Ramsey who was featured in Mountain Xpress for his new book, Me Now — Who Next?, in which he steps beyond his own experiences to tell the true story of Angela Leigh Tucker, a successful business executive whose life was disrupted when she suffered a serious brain injury due to a car accident. Bill will be a Featured Author at the 2014 Blue Ridge Bookfest.
Hats Off! to Marilynn Barner Anselmi, whose latest script, The Osanbi Deal, has been selected to be presented as part of the 2014 Women's Work Festival in Nashville, TN, on May 9 at the Looby Center Theater.
Hats Off! to Benjamin Darnell whose short story "The Best Intentions" was published in Swords and Sorcery magazine. This is his first published story.
Hats Off! to Karen Paul Holmes who has three poems in the Kentucky Review. She also has a poem in the latest issue of Falling Star Magazine. The Lascaux Review nominated her poem "Bessie Arrowood's Circle of Life" for the Best New Poets Anthology, but due to her book coming out soon, she was not eligible to accept the nomination.
Hats Off! to Catherine Carter whose poem "The Day of the Dead" won the 2014 Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. Les Brown ("At Sixty Six"), Carol P. Bjorlie ("Ekphrasis"), Joe Morris ("Necessities"), and Douglas Anne McHargue ("Women Without Make-Up") were among the finalists.
Dirtbags by Eryk Pruitt
Immortal Ink Publishing, LLC11.95, paperback / 2.99, e-book978-1-938750-03-8April, 2014Southern Noir, CrimeAvailable from the author or www.Amazon.com
"Fearless, unflinching, and gut-wrenching. You're not going to want to put it down."—Will Millar, author of Infernal Machines
"I almost walked into a pillar this morning getting off the train at Grand Central I was so engrossed in Dirtbags by Eryk Pruitt."—Brian Centrone, author of Ordinary Boy and Erotica
The blame for a county-wide murder spree lies at the feet of three people broken by a dying mill town: Calvin, a killer; London, a cook; and Rhonda, the woman who loves them both. Neither they, nor the reader, see the storm brewing until it's too late in this Southern Gothic noir that adds a transgressive, chicken-fried twist to a story ripped straight from the pages of a true crime novel or an episode of Dateline NBC.
Calvin Cantrell searches for meaning in life and believes he stumbled across it when approached by Tom London to murder his meddling ex-wife. However, Calvin discovers things about both himself and Corrina London during his trip to Dallas to do the deed—things that have horrible repercussions to himself and the small town from which he hails. Meanwhile, Tom London feels the noose tighten as both the local Sheriff and his current wife begin putting together puzzle pieces after Corrina's horrific murder. And could Rhonda Cantrell's disastrous luck with men do more damage to the community than her serial killer husband or philandering lover?
Every so often, literature offers us a glimpse of where humanity succeeds.
This is not that story.
Eryk Pruitt is a screenwriter, author and filmmaker living in Durham, NC, with his wife Lana and cat Busey. His short film "Foodie" won several awards at film festivals across the US. His fiction appears in The Avalon Literary Review, Pulp Modern, Thuglit, Swill, and Pantheon Magazine, to name a few. In 2013, he was a finalist for Best Short Fiction in Short Story America. Dirtbags is his first novel. A full list of credits can be found at erykpruitt.com.
Hats Off! to Joanna Chapman whose book Divine Secrets of the Ta-Ta Sisterhood, which has been described as a "road map for surviving cancer," has been nominated by ForeWord Review for Indie Book of the Year in autobiography/memoir.
GREENVILLE, NC—Laura Herbst of Pittsboro is the winner of the 2014 Doris Betts Fiction Prize for her story "The Cliffs of Mobenga."
Herbst will receive a prize of $250 from the North Carolina Writers' Network, and her story will be published in the North Carolina Literary Review's 2015 issue. Herbst also won this year's Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition for her essay about breast cancer.
Herbst has a master's degree in creative writing from North Carolina State University and has published fiction in such venues as The Sun. Her nonfiction has been published in, among other publications, The New York Times, the Raleigh News & Observer, and Popular Science. She lives near Chapel Hill with her husband, where she is at work on a novel set in the imaginary village of Mobenga.
According to Herbst, "The Cliffs of Mobenga" was inspired by her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer and a Fulbright scholar in West Africa. She says her stories are rooted in the moral and imaginative nourishment she received from villagers in Togo.
NCLR fiction editor Liza Wieland explained her choice of Herbst's story for the prize: "I was deeply moved by this story, by its evocation of place, its deft drawing of character, and by the emotional complexity of the young narrator, who is both attentive translator for her uncle's mission in West Africa and privately grieving daughter. The last sentences, which fairly tremble with raw defiance, are simply extraordinary."
Wieland has also invited two finalists from the 2014 competition to revise and resubmit their stories for publication consideration, "World Without End" by Taylor Brown of Wilmington and "Big Joy Family" by Jude Whelchel of Asheville.
"I admired 'World Without End' for its dark and beautiful writing about murder and vengeance in a coal-mining community," Wieland said of Brown's story. "I am reminded of Flannery O'Connor's injunction that the use of violence in fiction should never be an end in itself, but should show the qualities in the characters which are least dispensable—in this case loyalty and a deep sense of justice."
Regarding Whelchel's story, Wieland said, "'Big Joy Family' weaves past and present, infants and the elderly, Chinese and American culture into a moving and expansive story that poignantly captures our lives today: messy and crowded with birth and dying, sacrifice and love, punctuated by moments of intense sadness and profound illumination." Whelchel also recently shared first place for the Network's Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize.
In all, ninety-seven stories were submitted to this year's competition. Five other stories were named as finalists: "Developments" by Malinda Fillingim of Leland, "The Box-Maker" by Michael Gaski of Greensboro, "A Donor Heart" by Charles Higgins of Hillsborough, "Thirteen Deer" by Chris Verner of Salisbury, and "Breathing at the End of the Light" by Hananah Zaheer of Durham.
The annual Doris Betts Fiction Prize honors the late novelist and short story writer Doris Betts, and is sponsored by the nonprofit North Carolina Writers' Network, 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.
Published since 1992 by East Carolina University and the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, the North Carolina Literary Review has won numerous awards and citations.
Fiction Editor Liza Wieland is the author of three collections of short stories, three novels, and one collection of poetry. Her fourth novel, Land of Enchantment, will be published by Syracuse University Press in spring 2015.
A two-year subscription to NCLR will include the 2014 issue, featuring the winner from the 2013 Betts competition, as well as the 2015 issue, featuring Herbst's winning story from this year's competition. Go to www.nclr.ecu.edu/subscriptions/ for subscription instructions, and subscribe by June 1 to avoid postage charges.
GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones by Richard D. Easton and Eric F. Frazier
Potomac Books (an imprint of University of Nebraska Press) $34.95, hardcover / $19.22, e-book ISBN: 978-1-61234-408-9 October, 2013 Science/History Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Written in a clear and lively style GPS Declassified provides readers with GPS development history including personal recollections from leading developers…. As an introduction to GPS, its history, uses, issues and concerns GPS Declassified can't be beat."—Robert Schaefer, NY Journal of Books
"I've been fascinated by GPS and it's tremendous power since it saved my team one night during combat operations in the Middle East. GPS Declassified is a great read for anyone interested in American history. From Eisenhower's Cold War bunkers to the Apple labs, this insightful and well-written book presents a valuable case study about the effective commercialization of a technology that shapes our modern lives in war and peace."—Rye Barcott, author of It Happened on the Way to War
"The authors do the impossible, making an intricate technological advance fascinating to read. They offer an informative and well researched account of how GPS proved its worth even before the system was complete. The results it provided in the Persian Gulf War were truly revolutionary. With this seemingly miraculous kick-off, GPS technology was almost immediately integrated throughout military systems. Entrepreneurs immediately picked up on this, and made it equally successful in commerce."—Walter J. Boyne, author of How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare and former director of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution
GPS Declassified examines the development of GPS from its secret, Cold War military roots to its emergence as a worldwide consumer industry. Drawing on previously unexplored documents, the authors examine how military rivalries influenced the creation of GPS and shaped public perceptions about its origin. Since the United States' first program to launch a satellite in the late 1950s, the nation has pursued dual paths into space—one military and secret, the other scientific and public. Among the many commercial spinoffs this approach has produced, GPS arguably boasts the greatest impact on our daily lives.
Told by the son of a navy insider—whose work helped lay the foundations for the system—and a science and technology journalist, the story chronicles the research and technological advances required for the development of GPS. The authors peek behind the scenes at pivotal events in GPS history. They note how the technology moved from the laboratory to the battlefield to the dashboard and the smartphone, and they raise the specter of how this technology and its surrounding industry affect public policy. Insights into how the system works and how it fits into a long history of advances in navigation tie into discussions of myriad applications for GPS.
Read more and examine primary source documents at: www.gpsdeclassified.com.
Richard D. Easton has published articles about the origin of GPS in various space-related publications. He holds an MLA from the University of Chicago. His father, Roger L. Easton, led the Space Applications Branch of the Naval Research Laboratory from the Vanguard satellite era to the early days of GPS development.
Eric F. Frazier is a former newspaper reporter who covered governmental affairs for a general audience. His articles about computer security, nanotechnology, and drug marketing research have appeared in a variety of publications. Frazier holds a BS in geography from Appalachian State University.
Hats Off! to Margaret A. Harrell who appeared at Gonzo Fest in Louisville, KY, at Carmichael's Bookstore, where she presented memorabilia from working with Hunter S.Thompson on Hell's Angels and also launched her new memoir, Keep This Quiet! III: Initiations, about being at the C.G. Jung Institute Zurich and after.
Hats Off! to Glenda Barrett whose essay "Out of Denial" has been accepted in the Burden of Light anthology. She also has two poems forthcoming: "Lessons" in Blue Heron Review, and "Wheelin" in Breath & Shadow.
Hats Off! to Glenda Barrett whose poem "Final Wish" has been accepted by Ancient Paths. Also, her poem "Old Friend" is forthcoming in Deep South Review.
DAVIDSON, NC—Susan Levi Wallach of South Carolina and Jude Whelchel of Asheville, NC, have been selected by final judge Marianne Gingher of UNC-Chapel Hill as the co-winners of the 2014 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize. They will split the $1,000 first-prize award.
Wallach's story, "A Still Life," mesmerized Gingher.
"I haven't been able to get this story out of my head since I read it," Gingher said. "The language is vivid, lyrical at times, visceral....There isn't a single false moment or overwrought sentence in this spare, heartbreaking story."
Wallach is a freelance editor with an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her story, "Another Day for Monkeys," won the 2013 Porter Fleming Literary Competition in fiction.
Gingher felt equally strong about Jude Whelchel's "Mother in a Boneyard World."
"What I admired most," she said, "was the musicality of the 'voice' in the story....The marvelous stoicism of Dew's mama touched and heartened me. She seems to be a force in the world as unstoppable as Motherhood itself."
Whelchel's fiction has appeared in The Sequoya Review and The Potomac Review. A graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, she is an Episcopal priest and mother.
Gary V. Powell of Lake Norman, NC, received an honorable mention for "Rusty Luvs Suzie." Powell, a retired lawyer, has had several stories selected as finalists in national contests, including Glimmer Train, The Press 53 Prize, and The Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize (2008).
"I liked the energy in this story," said Gingher. "The author's obvious enjoyment of characterizing an entire town through the eyes of a sheriff on the brink of retirement....Strong and endearing characters made this story one of my favorites."
Gingher, a well-known novelist, short-story writer, and Professor of English and Creative Writing at UNC-Chapel Hill, selected the three winners from a group of eleven finalists sent to her by preliminary judge David Radavich of Charlotte. These included "City Streets" by Enid Harlow, "Summer Enrichment" by Betty Joyce Nash, "The Relic" by Caryn Sutorus, "Altar Call at Possum Trot" by Jessica Walker, "Burial" by George Harrar, "The Second First Time" by Paula Brancato, "Broken Things" by Jane Shlensky, and "The End of Dr. Moses" by Emmet Hirsch. Gingher especially commended "The Burial" and "The End of Dr. Moses."
These eleven finalists were selected from over 200 entries, the largest number since the competition was inaugurated by the North Carolina Writers' Network. Contest coordinator Anthony Abbott attributed the increase to the fact that stories can now be submitted online. The final judge for the 2015 competition will be novelist Lee Smith.
A Bowl of Rice by Joan Leotta
Desert Breeze Publishing$2.99, e-bookASIN: B00J54ZDCWMarch, 2014Romance: Young AdultAvailable from www.Amazon.com
Book Three in Legacy of Honor Series. Anna O'Shea must balance her feelings for boyfriend against commitment to serve in Vietnam as a nurse. Once in the war zone she works to save lives, learn who is really the man for her, and participates in the daring rescue of her room mate and others at a Vietnamese orphanage
Anna Maria looked at her watch. It was only an hour until she was supposed to meet Michael to discuss his plans. She wondered if he would be on time or not. She imagined that he was in the thick of the demonstration and had either burned his draft card already or was running to meet the mounted policemen. Michael was always in the midst of the trouble. Anna Maria smiled ruefully to herself. No, she corrected herself. Michael is always the one instigating the trouble. She had to admit that it was nearly impossible to correct Michael. Even his professors had a hard time denying him. His sparkling blue eyes, coal black curly hair, and lop-sided grin were hard to refuse. That grin of straight, even teeth illuminated the room around him and acted as a magnet, pulling everyone deep into his soul and definitely into his orbit.
Joan Leotta is the author of two other books in this series as well as a multitude of articles for newspapers and magazines, a travel book and a history book for children. She is also a poet and has won awards for her short fiction—mysteries and historical.
Adam Petty's Heartbeat by Sandra Lee Hartsell
Second Wind Publishing$13.95, paperback / $4.99, e-bookISBN: 978-1-9381014-4-1August, 2013Children'sAvailable from the publisher, author, or www.amazon.com
This book is a book about the Victory Junction Gang Camp in Asheboro, NC. It was written in memory of Adam Petty. Adam Petty was a 4th generation race car driver. He had a passion for children and went to visit a camp for sick children up North.
Adam came back from the camp and wanted to open a sick children's camp in NC. This camp is Awesome. Children are placed with a counselor 24 hours a day, while they are at the camp for a week in the Summertime. Paul Newman came to the camp opening.
This book allows parents and children to see the different activities their children will be involved in during the week of camp. Doctors and Nurses are at the camp are available 24 hours a day at the camp. This camp is a place where parents can feel comfortable in knowing that their child is being taken care of, while they are letting their hearts race doing exciting new things. For every book that is sold $1.00 goes toward the camp.
Sandra Lee Hartsell is 49 years old. She is married to Bruce Hartsell. They own and run the Thomasville Skating Rink in Thomasville, NC. They have three children, two grandchildren, and one step-granddaughter. The tours that she took at the Victory Junction Gang camp were informative. That gave the idea to do this book.
Hats Off! to Carol Cooley who has received a 2014 summer writing residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. An artist community located in Amherst, Virginia, the VCCA has attracted renowned artists working at the top of their powers, along with talented younger artists at the beginning of their professional careers. Admission is highly selective, based on a review of applications by panels of professional artists.
Hats Off! to Tom Wood whose short story "Death Takes a Holiday" appears in the anthology Weird Western Yarns from Western Trail Blazer. The anthology is now available on Kindle and other digital platforms, with a paperback version forthcoming.
Hats Off! to Eryk Pruitt whose debut novel Dirtbags was e-released by Immortal Ink Publishing, LLC, on April 5, with print to follow soon. Dirtbags is a Southern Gothic noir that adds a transgressive, chicken-fried twist to a story ripped straight from the pages of a true crime novel or an episode of Dateline NBC.
Mrs. Hudson in the Ring by Barry S. Brown
Sunstone Press22.95, pb / 7.95, e-bookISBN: 978-0-86534-935-3December, 2013Fiction: MysteryAvailable from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
Sherlock Holmes is goaded into a boxing match in which his opponent loses both the bout and his life. All are convinced the fighter's death was a ring accident. All, that is, except the residents of 221B Baker Street and Inspector Lestrade who defies his Scotland Yard colleagues to aid in a murder investigation.
In this, the third in the Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street series, Mrs. Hudson, the unheralded director of the consulting detective agency, leads her colleagues from London to McLellan Manor in Yorkshire as they sort through the several people who have cause to celebrate the boxer's death. Complicating their investigation, Holmes and Watson must become Lillie Langtry's protectors, and Mrs. Hudson her lady's maid, when the famous beauty is threatened by her latest admirer, the volatile George Baird.
All will become clear, but not before Holmes and Watson call on a ghost to solve a thirty-five-year old murder, and Mrs. Hudson discovers she has more in common with Lillie Langtry than she ever suspected.
Earlier books in the series were praised as "an entertaining romp" (Newsletter of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London); "an exciting mystery of Victorian England" (Midwest Book Review); "a Sherlock Holmes story that any fan would appreciate" (Over My Dead Body! Mystery Magazine) among other reviews. Additional information is available at www.facebook.com/MrsHudsonBakerStreet.
Barry S. Brown is the author of the Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street series as well as half a dozen short stories in as many literary magazines. In association with a research career in the areas of mental health, criminology, and drug abuse, he authored more than a hundred articles and chapters as well as editing two books of nonfiction. He lives with his wife, Ann, in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, where his appearance in cape and deerstalker hat attracts admiring glances and occasional police inquiry.
Hats Off! to Pam Van Dyk whose short story, "The Gift," was a Top 25 Finalist in Glimmer Train's Very Short Story Award (January 2014). Also, her short story "Dreama" will be published in the May online issue of Crack the Spine Literary Magazine.
GREENSBORO, NC—Pre-registration for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2014 Spring Conference is now closed. On-site registration will be open 8:00-9:00 am on Saturday, April 12, in the MHRA Building at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Spring Conference offers a full day of workshops, panels, conversations, and more. Nancy Peacock, author of the novel The Life & Times of Persimmon Wilson, will lead a two-part fiction workshop. Jonathan Farmer, Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor of At Length magazine and the poetry critic for Slate, will lead a two-part creative nonfiction workshop.
And this year, the Network will introduce a new programming feature: instead of a traditional keynote address, Jacinta V. White will lead a special session of the national program, "One City, One Prompt."
Other offerings include poetry workshops with Mark Smith-Soto and John Thomas York; fiction workshops with Kim Church and Drew Perry; and a workshop titled "Writing from Experience" led by Steve Mitchell and Carol Roan, appropriate for writers of all genres. The dynamic tandem of Peggy Payne and 2014 Piedmont Laureate Carrie Knowles will teach writers to "Market Your Book—with Imagination."
The day's program includes a panel discussion: "Writing about War" with Robin Greene, Paul Stroebel, and Sharon Raynor. Award-winning children's author Kelly Starling Lyons will introduce would-be authors to the field through her workshop, "So You Want to Write a Children's Book." And bestselling author Linda Rohrbough will lead a workshop titled "How to Make an Elevator Pitch," a class that is highly encouraged for those attendees wanting to take advantage of the Speed Pitch special session at the end of the day.
In the special session of "One City, One Prompt," Greensboro poet and facilitator Jacinta V. White will provide an overview of the One City, One Prompt program, and begin an opening dialogue on this year's theme: "Begin Again." Jacinta will then provide a prompt and attendees will write. The session will close with sharing of and reflections on the work the prompt produced, as well as some brief information for those who might want to bring One City, One Prompt to their own towns.
In addition to new programming, familiar features will remain, including faculty readings, the open mic for conference participants, an exhibit hall packed with publishers and literary organizations, and "Lunch with an Author," where conference-goers can spend less time waiting in line and more time talking with the author of their choice. Spaces in "Lunch with an Author" are limited and are first-come, first-served. Pre-registration and an additional fee are also required for this offering.
The NCWN 2014 Spring Conference is sponsored in part by the Greensboro News & Record. UNCG's Creative Writing Program—a co-sponsor of the Spring Conference—will provide free parking for registrants in the adjacent Oakland Avenue Parking Deck.
Kill That Sorry Ass N---- by Jerry Hayes
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform $12.95, paperback / $1.99, e-book / $10.00, direct from authorISBN: 978-1481260077February, 2012 Fiction / African American / Urban LifeAvailable from the author or www.Amazon.com
Most Americans refrain from using "the N-word." The word is so vile it cannot be spoken; it evokes images of slavery and many people today want to ban the word from use. There is however, a small minority of black folk who use the word with endearment toward family and friends. To some it's a badge of honor; they don't want to forget the past.
Like contemporary authors Eric Jerome Dickey and Michael Baisden, Jerry Hayes smartly plumbs the depths of human nature to create characters who are flawed, outrageous – and utterly believable. The things they do might be shocking, but they're always entertaining.
Kill That Sorry Ass N---- is a modern-day novel about John Colby, a good man who's trying hard to get ahead. But his janitorial business is full of dirty secrets. John's boss is carrying a grudge against him. His girlfriend's ex is making trouble. And John's money problems keep getting worse. Then one night he spies someone behaving suspiciously, near an industrial garbage container. Is John imagining things? Or has he stumbled upon a crime in progress that could really pay off – if he's willing to get his own hands dirty, too?
Jerry Hayes developed a love for writing in 1966 when stationed in the mountains of Pleiku, South Vietnam. It started when he began keeping a journal of his daily activities and surroundings.
After the war he received a Certificate of Proficiency in writing from Palmer Writers School; and later in the '70's, in his home town of Goldsboro, North Carolina, he wrote human interest articles on local business men and other prominent people. It was challenging and fun taking ordinarily boring people and turning them into interesting residents of the city.
Author Jerry Hayes based Kill That Sorry Ass N---- on his professional expertise and on events he observed in his career as a successful janitorial contractor. Although the book is fictional, Hayes was inspired by the racism he experienced. It fueled his anger against a system that was slow to implement reforms that would allow participation by minority-owned businesses.
Hats Off! to Danny Bell who received the 2014 C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award, one of the most coveted distinctions the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gives its faculty and staff. The award recognizes "unusual, meritorious or superior contributions" by University employees. Bell introduced John Lawson at the 2012 North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductions. He is the Program Assistant for American Indian and Indigenous Studies within the American Studies Department at UNC, and an adviser to the Carolina Indian Circle and the Native American Law Student Association.
Hats Off! to Jennifer Bean Bower whose script, "One Good Deed," won First Place in the 2014 Winston-Salem Writers 10-Minute Play Contest. Staged readings of the winning plays will be performed at the Community Arts Café (Underground Theatre) at 411 West Fourth St., Winston-Salem, on Saturday, April 12, at 7:00 pm. Admission is $5.00 for Winston-Salem Writers Members and $7.00 for nonmembers.
Hats Off! to Michelle Tracy Berger of Pittsboro and Alice Osborn of Raleigh who won Honorable Mentions in the 2014 Writing Contest sponsored by Carolina Woman magazine. Berger's "The Invisible Son" and Osborn's "Nolan, the Split Foyer, Is Under Stress" won their authors Carolina Woman tote bags.
Hats Off! to Heather Bell Adams of Raleigh and Ellyn Bache of Greer, SC, who won Third and Fourth Place, respectively, in the 2014 Writing Contest sponsored by Carolina Woman magazine. Adams' story "New Moon" won a two-year membership with the North Carolina Writers' Network valued at $130. Bache's story "Cow" won her a $75 Penguin Classics Cotton Tote Bag.
Hats Off! to Denise Smith Cline of Raleigh who won the Grand Prize for her essay "Raising" in the 2014 Writing Contest sponsored by Carolina Woman. She wins a pencil portrait of her favorite pet or person—a $450 value!
Hats Off! to Anthony S. Abbott whose novel The Three Great Secret Things is the focus of Sherrills Ford Community Read sponsored by the Sherills Ford Friends of the Library. Abbott will host a community book talk on Tuesday, April 15, at 6:30 pm.
The Half-Life of Home by Dale Neal
Casperian Books $15.95, paperback ISBN: 978-1-934081-41-9 April, 2013 Fiction Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
The Half-Life of Home delves into the hard choice between saving your family or losing your land. Real estate appraiser Royce Wilder is struggling to rekindle his marriage and his relationship with his estranged teenage son. He is thinking about selling the family farm — no easy choice for a man who collects antiques because he can't forget the past haunted by a crazy woman neighbor. But radioactive gas seeps from his birthplace, driving down prices and raising the stakes. Royce must unearth long-buried family secrets in an Appalachian community under threat in an always changing world.
Dale Neal is the author of the novels The Half-Life of Home and Cow Across America, winner of the 2009 Novello Literary Prize. His short fiction and essays have appeared in dozens of literary journals including Carolina Quarterly, Marlboro Review, and the Crescent Review. A graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, he has been awarded writing fellowships to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hambidge Center, and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland. He is also an award-winning journalist for the Asheville Citizen-Times. The North Carolina native resides in Asheville with his wife and dogs.
Hats Off! to Tom Davis, whose poem "Summer in the Smokies" was selected to appear on the posters for Winston-Salem Writers' POETRY IN PLAIN SIGHT program for May 2013.
Wings of the Wind: A Cornucopia of Poetry by Kym Gordon Moore
Outskirts Press $14.95, paperback ISBN: 978-1-478718758 March, 2013 Poetry Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
Wings of the Wind: A Cornucopia of Poetry is an eclectic full-length collection of poems depicting experiences illustrated through diverse forms of self-expression. Kym Gordon Moore portrays versatility in rhymed and free verse poems that convey stories about people, places, nature, inspiration, cuisine, music, celebrations, epiphanies and inanimate objects. Included in her compilation is a metrical sample of a Pantoum, Limerick, Elegy, and Haiku.
Wings of the Wind: A Cornucopia of Poetry contains eighty-one carefully chosen poems that are significant to the foundation of this collection and easy for readers to identify with. Besieged by segmented poetic elements of flight, your journey through the pages of this book will be entertaining, educational, emotional, nostalgic, stimulating and edifying.
Kym Gordon Moore, who is also author of Diversities of Gifts: Same Spirit is an award-winning recipient in poetry contests such as the Edward Davin Vickers Memorial Award and Oneswan Productions Writing Competition. Her poems appeared in Writers Digest Magazine, Poets for Peace: A Collection, Reach of Song, Home for the Holidays, and The Blind Man's Rainbow anthologies. She was selected as one of the contributing authors for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Mom.
Kym is the co-founder of"Favorite Things for a CAUSE (Creating Awareness by Understanding Setbacks through Edification), a not-for-profit charitable mission promoting hope, goodwill, and mentoring, by collaborating with community alliances. She was selected as one of the U.S. 2012 and 2013 National World Book Night Volunteers for North Carolina. As one of the three 2009 General Mills Feeding Dreams Community Champions for the Charlotte, North Carolina market, Kym was recognized for her volunteerism with the Dove's Nest, a subsidiary of The Charlotte Rescue Mission. She is a member of the American Author's Association, the North Carolina Writers' Network, Poetry Society of America, and the American Marketing Association. Kym holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice, an MBA with a concentration in marketing, certification as an email marketing specialist, and certification as a corporate spokesperson. She lives in North Carolina with her husband Sharward L. Moore, Sr.
Visit her website www.kymgmoore.com; her blogs http://frombehindthepen.wordpress.com/; http://www.teaandpoetrybookclub.blogspot.com/; and connect with the author through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google +.
NORTH CAROLINA—Claudette Cohen of Carolina Beach is the winner of the 2013 Doris Betts Fiction Prize competition for her story "The Mayor of Biscoe." Cohen will receive a prize of $250 from the North Carolina Writers' Network, and her story will be published in the 2014 issue of the North Carolina Literary Review.
Ninety-nine stories were submitted to this year's competition. NCLR Fiction Editor Liza Wieland selected Cohen's story from eighteen finalists, because, she says, "I admire the visceral, complex language in the story, the unflinchingly honest voice of the narrator, and the writer's ability to tell us truths about human experience, truths that are very nearly beyond words."
Wieland also noted "Sakura" by Annie Frazier, "Mara's Baby" by Donald Marple, and "Of Lions and Sparrows" by Seth Peavey for honorable mention.
Claudette Cohen is from Carolina Beach and has lived in North Carolina for most of her life. "The Mayor of Biscoe" has also won first place at the Southern Writers Symposium, where it started a dialogue with combat veteran and writer Jerry Bradley. This collaboration resulted in the founding of the Veterans Writing Collective at Methodist University in Fayetteville. In addition, "The Mayor of Biscoe" has won first honorable mention in the Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Story Contest, was among six finalists for the North Carolina Humanities Council's Linda Flowers Award in 2011 to 2012, and has been made into a screenplay. Cohen continues to promote such programs as ArtReach: Project America in her home state. A new short story of hers is soon to appear in the University of South Carolina Press anthology, Phantom Manners: Contemporary Southern Gothic Fiction by Women.
Published since 1992 by East Carolina University and the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, the North Carolina Literary Review has won numerous awards and citations. NCLR 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 2013 issue, featuring the winner from the 2012 Betts competition, as well as the 2014 issue, featuring Cohen's winning story from this year's competition. Go to http://www.NCLR.ecu.edu/subscriptions/ for subscription information, and subscribe by June 1 to avoid postage charges.
Hats Off! to Malinda Dunlap Fillingim, whose short story "Preserves" has been accepted by Lunch Ticket, the literary magazine of Antioch University in Los Angeles.
Hats Off! to Anthony S. Abbott, winner of the Charles Shull Award for traditional poetry, sponsored by the Poetry Council of North Carolina.
Hats Off! to Daniel Nathan Terry, who finished as runner-up in the 2013 Oscar Arnold Young Award for NC's best book of poetry for his collection, Waxwings
Hats Off! to Lenard D. Moore, recipient of this year's Bay Leaves dedication sponsored by the Poetry Council of North Carolina.
Hats Off! to Betty Dotson-Lewis, whose book Bluegrass Music: The Sunny Side of Appalachia, Bluegrass from the Grassroots, is being used in the North Carolina Bluegrass Mapping Project.
Senior Scribbles Unearthed by Chuck Thurston
CreateSpace $9.95, paperback / $2.99 e-book ISBN: 978-1480229716 November, 2012 Essays Available from www.Amazon.com
"Chuck Thurston is one of those rare writers who, like Mark Twain, leads you off in one direction only to deliver you somewhere else, and it is always somewhere you find fascinating." —Hesh Kestin, author of The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats
You are sure to discover something in these tales—about yourself, your friends and relatives—perhaps even a favorite pet. They are all "tall and true"—as Chuck Thurston describes them. Originally published as newspaper columns in a number of small dailies, Thurston has "unearthed" this collection for first time book publication. A senior himself, he understands and empathizes with his cohort as we all march into maturity carrying our memories and recollections—sometimes with dignity, and often laced with a little silliness that helps us get through our golden years. There is plenty of humor here, and a little nostalgia; perhaps even a bit of wisdom that the author claims he probably doesn't deserve, but "will gratefully accept." Thurston wants those sneaking up on his age, or growing apace with him, to read and say "Gee—I have been through that too...I know just how that feels!" These tales aren't just for the "over the hill" crowd by any means, though. Younger readers may gain some insight into what makes the inhabitants of "wrinkle city" (as one of his granddaughters so elegantly put it once) think and do the way they do. Thurston doesn't grind any political, religious or philosophical axes, and advises readers looking for stern opinions on those topics to get their feathers ruffled elsewhere. He may, though, ponder at the ironies of the universe. Read these Scribbles, and you may be pondering with him.
Chuck Thurston is one of five boys—no girls—raised on a small farm in Pennsylvania. If you think that this is a formula that guarantees a dearth of early social skills, you are absolutely right. He served in the United States Coast Guard, and flew in search and rescue seaplanes. If you think this is a formula that guarantees one a realist's view of mortality—you're two for two. He spent over thirty years at IBM, with many assignments from electronics technician to programmer to manager. In earlier days, in between times, and in later years he has been: a turret lathe operator in a factory; a newspaper reporter and columnist; a pick and shovel grunt for a landscaping company; an instructor for North Carolina State University in their Industrial Extension Service. He has a BS from Elmira (NY) College, and graduate degrees from SUNY Geneseo and Appalachian State University. He is married to Heidi Wibroe Thurston —a big city girl (Copenhagen, Denmark). If you think that a union of this nature might lead to certain cultural...um...well, want to go for the trifecta? The happy couple lives in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Their three children are grown with families of their own, and have contributed seven grandchildren to the mix. And you think there aren't stories to be had here?
Jewelry from a Grave by Caroline Taylor
Five Star Mysteries (Gale-Cengage) $25.95, hardcover ISBN: 13-978-1-4328-2687-1 March, 2013 Fiction - Mystery Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
They were addicted to antique jewelry. They had the same employer and the same roommate. Two are dead, and now one is missing. P.J. Smythe is back, and this time it's personal. The former Annapolis skip tracer is thrilled when her new employer, Chatham Confidential Investigations, offers her a significant bonus to track down antique jewelry lover, Yolanda Branson, P.J.'s roommate and the company's legal counsel, who has disappeared after disclosing that two former roommates have died under suspicious circumstances. Before she can connect the dots linking a phony Narc, some stolen antique jewelry, and one or more Chatham insiders, P.J. is forced to go for a midnight swim—losing her car, her clothes, and almost her life.
Caroline Taylor is the author of What Are Friends For?, the first P.J. Smythe mystery novel. Her short stories, two of which feature earlier incarnations of P.J. have appeared in various online and print magazines. She lives in Pittsboro and is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network and Mystery Writers of America. Visit her at www.carolinestories.com.
NORTH CAROLINA—Kevin Winchester of Waxhaw has won the 2013 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize for his short story, "Waiting on Something to Happen."
Final judge Ruth Moose called Winchester's piece "a powerful story, with sparse dialogue, at a critical juncture in the life of a tragic hero. Not a word is wasted, and the emotion skillfully underplayed so that the reader's mind fills in the backstory. . . . A masterpiece of work."
Moose, the author of three short-story collections and six collections of poetry, also awarded honorable mentions to Pittsboro's Ashley Memory for her story "Once in a Blue Moon," and to Jacob Appel of New York City for "Some Helpful Background for the Incoming Tenant."
Moose described Memory's entry as "a story with an academic setting that could have been cliché, but never for a moment stoops to that. Original, skillfully plotted, (with) a character you care about and a surprise ending that actually works."
Of Appel's story, Moose said, "I was absolutely in love with the voice of this piece. A snippy, smartmouth know-it-all who delivers a story in flashing prose that held me from the first sentence."
Winchester will receive a prize of $1,000, and his story, along with the two honorable mentions, will be considered for publication by The Thomas Wolfe Review.
Winchester is a North Carolina native who holds a BA in English from Wingate University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University. He is currently the Director of the Writing Center at Wingate University. His short story collection, Everybody's Gotta Eat, was released in 2009.
Ashley Memory is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, where she is now a communications director. Her debut novel, Naked and Hungry (2009), was named one of the season's most promising by Library Journal. Appel has published short stories in more than 200 literary journals and won major competitions, including the 1998 Boston Review Short Fiction Contest. His story "Counting" was short-listed for the O.Henry Award in 2001.
Preliminary judge David Radavich of Charlotte selected six finalists, in addition to the winning story and honorable mentions: two additional stories by Jacob Appel, "Ashton Main's Wayward Daughter" and "The Synagogue at the Edge of the Earth"; "Hollow Victory" by Devin 'Nambe' Bent of Santa Fe, NM; "The Changeling" by Mark Connelly of Milwaukee, WI; "Wind Chimes" by Asheville's David Brendan Hopes; and "What Daddy Did" by Maxine Rock of Brevard.
"These stories made me know, without one ounce of doubt, that the short story is very much alive and thriving," Moose said. "Bravo to all."
Hats Off! to Tony Wayne Brown of Greenville, who has had several publications this year, including "Corrective Action," which just appeared in Perpetual Motion Machine's Kurt Vonnegut tribute print anthology; "Poor Mama," currently online at Birmingham Arts Journal; and online in January, "A Fairy Tale Ending," in Writers Haven, "Authority Figure" in The Dying Goose, and "Eating Out" in Inffective Ink.
Down the Wild Cape Fear by Phillip Gerard
University of North Carolina Press Hardcover, $30.00 ISBN: 978-1-469602073 March, 2013 Nonfiction Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Equal parts historical survey, river adventure and nature walk, it's a fascinating trip down North Carolina's most storied river." —Raleigh News and Observer
"An adventure story paired with a view of the ecology, history, development, and industry along a vital river that runs from the core of North Carolina to the coast. Gerard uses glittering, evocative prose to recount his travels by canoe and powerboat down the Wild Cape Fear River with a guide, biologist, photographer, and others. . . . This is a compelling story that offers a striking and thoughtful look at the many environmental, political, and commercial issues affecting this region and the waterway that feeds it." —ForeWord
In Down the Wild Cape Fear, novelist and nonfiction writer Philip Gerard invites readers onto the fabled waters of the Cape Fear River and guides them on the 200-mile voyage from the confluence of the Deep and Haw Rivers at Mermaid Point all the way to the Cape of Fear on Bald Head Island. Accompanying the author by canoe and powerboat are a cadre of people passionate about the river, among them a river guide, a photographer, a biologist, a river keeper, and a boat captain. Historical voices also lend their wisdom to our understanding of this river, which has been a main artery of commerce, culture, settlement, and war for the entire region since it was first discovered by Verrazzano in 1524.
Gerard explores the myriad environmental and political issues being played out along the waters of the Cape Fear. These include commerce and environmental stewardship, wilderness and development, suburban sprawl and the decline and renaissance of inner cities, and private rights versus the public good.
Philip Gerard chairs the Department of Creative Writing (BFA and MFA) at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and is co-editor of the literary journal Chautauqua. He has published fiction and nonfiction in numerous magazines, including New England Review/Bread Loaf Quarterly, Creative Nonfiction, Hawai'i Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, New Letters, Arts & Letters, Fourth Genre, and The World & I. He is the author of five books of nonfiction, including The Patron Saint of Dreams and Creative Nonfiction: Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life, and three novels. Two of his weekly radio essays have been broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Gerard has served as writer in residence at Old Dominion University in Virginia and has taught at Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Hats Off! to Susan M. Steadman, whose short play "The Thing with Feathers" will be published in the inaugural issue of the online South Florida Arts Journal. In addition, the play has been chosen for development and presentation at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference this summer.
Clinch River Pearls by Danny Thomas
Llumina Press $15.95, paperback ISBN: 978-1-625500199 February, 2013 Fiction Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
This book reflects actual events that made headlines across the nation when a tiny hamlet became a crucible of racial tension during the civil rights era of the 1950s. Because the Supreme Court dictated schools could no longer be segregated by race, the citizens of Clinton, Tennessee, were catapulted into confrontation and violence.
The story focuses on blacks and white alike; on students, teachers, parents, grandparents, and some others who took no side in the great debate, but were determined to continue as before, whether that involved compliance with law and local norms or defying them.
The demonstrations and riots that rocked Clinton severely tested black families on Foley Hill, especially students who became known as the Clinton 12, those first blacks required to integrate the school. The order tested whites throughout the county, families with and without children, leaders in the community attempting to cope with this new mandate , teachers, farmers, and even the white students. This story is a multifaceted view of those tumultuous days in that quaint, bucolic place and how people coped with a new world, which is a story that still needs to be told even now, over fifty years later.
Danny Thomas grew up in East Tennessee. After graduating from Clinton High School and playing football for legendary Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, he worked as a teacher/administrator for twenty years in Durham, North Carolina. The family, his wife, Cynthia, two daughters, and a son, accompanied him to new jobs in Salisbury and Sanford. Upon retirement in 2006, he began consulting work which allows him time for writing. Now the family divides their time between home in Winston-Salem and summers at an island retreat in Northern Ontario. He is currently at work on his fourth book.
Hats Off! E.T. Malone, Jr., whose article "Remembering Malcolm Fowler" was published in North Carolina Folklore Journal, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 2012), pp. 4-10.
Hats Off! to Rebecca McClanahan, whose tenth book, The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change, has just been published by Indiana University Press. She also has three new essays in The Sun, Brevity, and Soundings.
Hats Off! to Bob Mustin, whose memoir piece "The Man IN The Moon" appears in Ray's Road Review - Spring 2013 Issue.
Learning to Slow Dance by Joseph L.S. Terrell
Bella Rosa Books $14.95, paperback / $4.99, e-book ISBN: 978-1-62268-019-1 March, 2013 Fiction Available from your local bookstore or www.Amazon.com
"Those were the years they learned to slow dance with girls who wore angora sweaters and smelled of perfume and a hint of promise..." So begins the engaging coming-of-age story of Jonathan Clayton and his family in the close yeas of World War II in Raleigh, NC. It tells of the adventures and misadventures of Jonathan and his friends, the first tastes of romantic passion, sexual awakening, family love and devotion—and death. We experience, with Jonathan, the pain and joy of growing and maturing, and the new direction Jonathan's life will take.
Joseph Terrell is the author of six published novels, with Learning to Slow Dance his most recent. He is the author of two mysteries set on North Carolina's Outer Banks, where he makes his home. These are Tide of Darkness: The Lost Colony Theater Murders and Overwash of Evil. Both feature true-crime writer Harrison Weaver. Terrell has a publishing history that spans more than forty years and includes—of course—fiction, but also true crime, psychology, agri-business, military and government affairs, trade, plus just about everything in between. He has written for newspapers, magazines, radio and television, advertising and public relations. He has won first-place awards for his fiction at the National Press Club's Short Fiction Contest and elsewhere.
A graduate in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was awarded a scholarship to the famed University of Iowa Writers Workshop, but the Korean War interrupted his studies. After service as a Special Agent in the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps, Joseph returned to UNC to pursue graduate studies in journalism. He began his journalism career as a staff writer for United Press International, then went on to The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau covering the Pentagon. Most of his career has been spent in Washington, including a stint as press secretary for the Senate Agriculture Committee; he has also worked for publications in North Carolina and Virginia. Joseph can be contacted through his website at www.josephterrellwriter.com.
Snap Factor by Sam Love
Amazon Digital Services, Inc. $2.99, e-book ASIN: B00BP3WNOW March, 2013 Fiction Available at www.Amazon.com
"Having taught corporate management for 22 years, the personalities in Snap Factor were right on. An exciting and very readable novel!"—Kevin Reynolds, retired naval officer and management instructor, George Washington University
"A believable story of a workplace that holds the reader's interest. It will resonate with anyone who has worked under a bad boss."—Phil Bowie, award-winning mystery writer
A killer epidemic sweeping workplaces isn't the flu. It's workplace violence. Too frequently, we see stories of a frustrated employee picking up a gun to seek revenge. As we probe the murder in the new mystery, Snap Factor, Sam Love exposes the pressures that can build up in the modern workplace leading someone to snap.
In Snap Factor, a washed-up NYPD detective, "Mac" McCormick, confronts this human resources nightmare head on. His life of easy suburban cases is upended when a corporate vice president is gunned down in a sniper-style attack.
Because this case doesn't fit the standard profile of an angry employee walking in with a blazing gun, the detective first thinks this is a professional hit. But when he discovers the workplace is a boiling cauldron of hate and fear of the maniacal senior vice president, he begins to suspect this is an act of workplace violence. To him, none of the co-workers are beyond suspicion because they are victims of extreme ridicule, bullying, mocking, and even sexual harassment.
Mac has to throw out any preconceptions of a deranged employee as he uncovers the shooter's methodical planning and sophisticated ballistics; a sniper's bullet so novel it could only have come from a secret government program.
By the time Mac discovers who fired the shot, we gain new insight into the explosive social dynamics that can make the modern corporate workplace a ticking time bomb.
Reading Snap Factor will help anyone who has suffered with a bad boss realize they are not alone. The book includes a corporate survival discussion guide that can be a great tool for workplace training and discussion groups.
Sam Love is a writer living in North Carolina. As a media producer he worked with major corporations, non-profits, and government agencies to help them tell their story. He now spends his time writing poetry, teaching yoga, and restoring a historic house.
Hats Off! to Susan Steadman, whose ten-minute play "Much, Much Later" will appear in an anthology to be published by YOUTHPlays.
Hats Off! to Charlene Pollano, whose short story "Angle of Repose" appears in Prime Number Magazine: A Journal of Distinctive Poetry and Prose, Issue 31.
Hats Off! to Shari Berk, one of the Eastern Division winners of the Gilbert Chappell Distinguished Poet Contest sponsored by the North Carolina Poetry Society. All four winners will read at the at Herman Parks and Rec Center April 3 in Goldsboro, 7 pm.
Hats Off! to Jim Collins, whose short story "The Road Back" appears in Prick of the Spindle Issue 3, Fall, 2012.
Hats Off! to Katherine Van Dis, whose short story "Our Lady of Sorrows" was the recipient of the Spring 2013 Orlando Prize for Short Fiction. This contest is sponsored by the A Room of Her Own Foundation and winners will be published in the Los Angeles Review.
Hats Off! to Kym Gordon Moore who just released her latest book Wings of the Wind: A Cornucopia of Poetry, which contains eighty-one carefully chosen poems in this full-length collection.
The Princess and The Cuban by Owen Mitchell
$2.99, e-book ISBN 978-1-300-55177-5 December, 2012 Fiction Available from www.Amazon.com and www.lulu.com
Terry Reed had killed men in the line of duty as a soldier, but he never realized as a Homeland Security agent he would again have to kill and even risk his life taking a bullet to save a Princess' life in a beach house on the North Carolina coast. In The Princess and The Cuban, a novel meant to be the first in a series about a young CIA agent, this good old red-bloodied American boy learns a lot about himself as he defends his country at home.
When he leaves the military, with a Bronze Star for bravery, he's just a good-looking 26 year-old ready to find his way in the world and enjoy women. He finds himself defending his homeland as a CIA agent, not in some foreign country, but working with Homeland Security and becoming a spy on American soil.
His original assignment of running surveillance on an Islamic terrorist, who lives in a sleepy southern college town, turns into a twisted maze of relationships with a beautiful Egyptian Princess, a run-in with Russian spies, and a one-night love affair with an English stripper/spy.
His life escalates into a relationship with Carlos Cuadrado, who just happens to be one of the most notorious and successful Cuban-Americans in the world with a chip on his shoulder about the American embargo from the '60's. His work with Carlos takes him to some incredible venues in Miami and Cuba.
It all comes to a head when Terry has to stop Carlos' attempt on the life of the President of the United States at a function in a basketball arena where 21,000 people, including former presidents, cabinet members, and religious dignitaries could all die.
Sound like fiction? It could be. It could also be that Terry Reed is a real hero. Not the kind you see getting medals or proclamations but the kind that is just doing his job protecting America from the inside.
Owen Mitchell's credentials for writing this book are simple. He knows this young man very well. He's followed his career the past five years. Names have been changed to protect people, but this story about secret agents in America protecting our country is very, very true.
GREENSBORO, NC—Early registration for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2013 Spring Conference closes Sunday, April 7. The 2013 Spring Conference happens Saturday, April 13, in the MHRA Building at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and attendees can save more than 25 percent by registering now.
Another reason to pre-register is that the popular "Lunch with an Author" program will NOT be available to those who wait to register on-site. "Lunch with an Author" gives attendees a chance to engage in informal conversation with accomplished writers. But conference-goers this year will need to pre-register for this feature, as there will be no on-site registration available for this conference offering. Food will be provided, so that participants can spend less time waiting in line, and more time talking with the author of their choice. (Spaces in "Lunch with an Author" are limited, and are first-come, first-served.)
Courses include two all-day, two-session workshops: "Animating Fiction" with Lee Zacharias, and Judy Goldman's creative nonfiction workshop, "Writing Personal Essays and Memoir." One-session course offerings will be led by Lynn York and John McNally (fiction), Scott Huler and Cynthia Nearman (creative nonfiction), and Carolyn Beard Whitlow and John Rybicki (poetry). Scott Nicholson will teach a class on self-publishing e-books, while Terry L. Kennedy and Ross White will lead a workshop for "Authors as Entrepreneurs."
In the afternoon, a Publishing Panel including Stephen Kirk of John F. Blair, Publisher, Robin Miura of Carolina Wren Press, and Kevin Morgan Watson of Press 53, will answer questions about what they look for in a manuscript and the evolving realities of 21st Century publishing. After looking ahead to the future of books, Andrew Saulters of Greensboro's Unicorn Press will close the day with a look back, leading a hands-on demonstration of traditional bookbinding, so that conference registrants can turn their well-crafted words into well-crafted objects.
Stephen Kirk has been the editor at John F. Blair, Publisher, for more than twenty years. He is the author of Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia and First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina and has contributed to other books including Travel North Carolina and Sports in the Carolinas. His short fiction has been reprinted in the Best American Short Stories series.
Robin Miura has worked in publishing for eleven years, first as a production editor for Oxford University Press, and for the past eight years as an independent editor, proofreader, publishing consultant, writing coach, and literary agent for publishing companies and individual authors. She has worked with many different types of books—from academic and educational to self-help—but her passion is literary fiction and nonfiction. Currently she edits fiction and memoir for Carolina Wren Press. Robin is a North Carolina native who enjoys living outside of Raleigh with her husband and two children.
Kevin Morgan Watson is the founding editor of Press 53, a literary publishing company in Winston-Salem. As a publisher and editor, he has worked with writers ranging from newly published authors to winners of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. Kevin also serves as an advisor on adaptation of short stories to screenplays for the screenwriting faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking.
Andrew Saulters is a poet and book binder and designer in Greensboro. He hails from Phenix City, Alabama, and teaches composition at Guilford College.
Registration is available online at www.ncwriters.org 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 Nathan Ross Freeman, whose teen group, Authoring Action, will travel to Harvard University this weekend to engage and share their writing process with the Graduate School of Education. There will be a simple round table Q&A forum from the HGSE students to the young authors on their pieces, their opinions, their thoughts on the current state of education, etc. Finally, Authoring Action will put on a workshop for how future educators can use creative writing to critically engage youth.
Hats Off! to Rita Berman, whose book Still Hopping, Still Hoping, a biography of Carla Shuford, has been picked up and re-published by Righter Publishing Company and now includes Carla's stories and poems.
Hats Off! to Margaret A. Harrell. Rain Taxi Review of Books has reviewed her memoir, Keep This Quiet!, concluding that "Three men, embodiments of three different dimensions of the late 1960's Zeitgeist—wispy dissolution, language-charged intellect, and Gonzo persona-building—are brought together by Harrell to invoke a world of passion and commitment, the world she had always hoped she would inhabit. Keep This Quiet! is at once noisy, sensual, and word-drunk, as well as quietly intimate and full of Harrell's wonder at her luck. While most readers will come to this book for the Thompson content, in truth all the portraits here—all four of them—are compelling and often touching."
Hats Off! to Margaret Harrell, whose memoir, Keep This Quiet! My Relationship with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, and Jan Mensaert , has a two-page spread in the new issue of the quarterly UK literary magazine Beat Scene. Keep This Quiet! is also featured in the special issue of Literary Journalism Studies (Spring) to mark the 40th anniversary of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And "Review: Keep This Quiet - Margaret Harrell" is still on the front page of the highly thought of Hunter Thompson blog, www.totallygonzo.org.
GREENSBORO, NC—Registration for the North Carolina Writers' Network 2012 Spring Conference has closed, but there will be on-site registration available beginning at 8:30 am on Saturday, April 28.
The North Carolina Writers' Network 2012 Spring Conference will be held in the Elliott University Center at the University of North Carolina at 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.
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.
GREENSBORO, NC--The Network will host its annual Spring Conference at the campus of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro on April 28. Authors interested in writing for children can attend a half-day workshop titled, "Breaking into Children's Publishing" with Megan Bryant; while writers hoping to sell a book and build a career can sign up for "Accounting for Writers" with Ted Shalek or "Guerilla Tactics: Promotional Strategies for the Cash-Strapped Author" with Charles Fiore.
Here are the course descriptions:
Breaking into Children's Publishing with Megan Bryant Children's publishing is more competitive than ever before. In this workshop, you'll gain an understanding of the current business climate that will provide a solid foundation for pitching and selling your manuscript in today's especially competitive conditions. We'll also discuss tips, tricks, and practical advice about writing for children.
Accounting for Writers with Ted Shalek This workshop will cover the accounting basics that writers need to know: how royalties are taxed, what expenses can be deducted, what authors have to do to (legally) sell their books themselves, and the point at which a hobby becomes a business.
Guerilla Tactics: Promotional Strategies for the Cash-Strapped Author with Charles Fiore Unless money's no object, you've got to be ferocious when publicizing your book. And whether you're a self-published author or you've gone the traditional route, nobody loves your book like you do, and no one is going to work harder, or be a better proponent, for your book than you. In this workshop, we'll discuss low-cost strategies for being your own marketing and PR department—the same strategies used by professional PR agents and publishers that you can do for a fraction of the cost. We'll discuss the dos and don'ts of author website design; how to mobilize the robots at Amazon.com to work for you; and develop successful tactics for getting media attention for your book and your events. You'll leave this workshop energized and fully equipped to begin promoting your book—whether or not you've got the backing of a publisher's marketing department.
Megan E. Bryant has written more than 190 children's books (including a New York Times bestseller and two VOYA Nonfiction Honor Books) for several major publishers including Chronicle Books, Penguin, Simon and Schuster, Running Press, Scholastic, HarperCollins, and Disney. As a former children's book editor, she has edited more than 325 children's books in all genres.
Ted Shalek is the Chief Financial Officer of Smart Online, Inc., a software development company providing a unique mobile platform that allows creative writers to develop mobile applications without knowing computer codes. He is also a lecturer at UNCG in the inter-disciplinary entrepreneurship program. He teaches entrepreneurial finance to non-business students. Ted is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Valuation Analyst. He earned an MBA from The University of Tampa and a bachelor's degree in accounting from John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Charles Fiore is the communications coordinator for the North Carolina Writers' Network. Previously, he served as a freelance public relations specialist and the public relations director/marketing coordinator for ACTA Publications, where he led publicity campaigns for bestselling authors Bill James, Gary Graf, and Paul Wilkes, among many others. Fiore is the author of the novel Green Gospel (Livingston Press, 2011). His website is www.lcfiore.com.
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.
GREENSBORO, NC--The Network will host its annual Spring Conference at the campus of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro on April 28. Poets can attend two half-day workshops: "The Persona Poem" with Janice Fuller and "Showing AND Telling" with Rebecca Black.
The Persona Poem with Janice Moore Fuller In his poem "Ars Poetica," Czeslaw Milosz proclaims, "The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person, / for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, / and invisible guests come in and out at will." This workshop will explore the reasons writers turn to persona poems and the creative value of this experience. The persona (or mask) poem is a first-person poem in which the poet assumes the voice of an object or person. The workshop will begin with a reading of some canonical and contemporary models of the persona poem in order to consider which qualities make the poems successful. The session will also include tips for how to invite "invisible guests" into our poems.
Showing AND Telling (poetry) with Rebecca Black "Show, don't tell," is the first rule of writing well—you've heard that often enough. However, good poems can arise from the right mixture of scenes, images, and striking moments when the writer speaks his or her mind with clarity and boldness. During this workshop, we'll explore poems that delight in exploiting the delicate balance between showing and telling. As the session progresses, we'll try drafting our own poems by imitating a few model poems by Louise Gluck, Elizabeth Bishop, Billy Collins, and other masters, using simple, timed writing exercises to generate new work. Students will leave with a sense of accomplishment, knowledge of some excellent model poems, and a new poem draft.
Janice Moore Fuller has published three poetry books—Archeology Is a Destructive Science, Sex Education, and Séance, winner of the Poetry Council of North Carolina's Oscar Arnold Young Award (for North Carolina poetry book of the year). Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her plays and libretti have been produced at many festivals and theatres. A Fellow at artist colonies in Ireland, Scotland, Spain, and Portugal, she is Writer-in-Residence and Professor of English at Catawba College.
In 2011,Rebecca Black was a Fulbright fellow at the Seamus Heaney Center for Poetry in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her first book, Cottonlandia (2004), won a Juniper Prize. A former Wallace Stegner and National Endowment for the Arts fellow, she is an assistant professor at UNC- Greensboro; she and her family divide their time between San Francisco and North Carolina. She is at work on a second manuscript, Presidio.
GREENSBORO, NC--The Network will host its annual Spring Conference at the campus of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro on April 28. Nonfiction writers can choose a full-day nonfiction workshop with Randall Kenan titled, "'What Did You Say?': Dialogue Matters in Nonfiction", or attend two half-day workshops: "A Nonfiction Story: From Idea to Book" with Justin Catanoso and "Writing the Natural World" with Paul Bogard.
"What Did You Say?": Dialogue Matters in Nonfiction (All-Day Nonfiction) with Randall Kenan A tension has always existed between nonfiction (factual) writing and the siren call of fiction, where the writer can make the characters say whatever we like. How do we capture quality, telling speech from real people without crossing the line into "invention"? What is good dialogue? Dialogue is first and foremost about characterization. We will examine the concepts of subtext, "Amurican" English, of spelling and of phonetics. How does one develop a good ear? In workshop we will be closely reading brief samples from recognized masters of nonfiction writing—Joseph Mitchell, Joan Didion, John McPhee, and others. Participants are asked to bring a page or two from their work involving reported speech. Recommended reading: Up In the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell.
A Nonfiction Story: From Idea to Book with Justin Catanoso In this session, journalist and author Justin Catanoso will take you through the process of producing a nonfiction book: developing the idea, working with an agent, obtaining a publisher, and doing the work necessary to write a 350-page manuscript in 15 months. In Catanoso's case, the result was his first book, a family memoir published by HarperCollins in 2008. This interactive session will also share such documents as the book proposal, outlines, and note cards used to organize each section of each chapter, and examples of edited chapters.
Writing the Natural World with Paul Bogard In this workshop we will explore writing about the natural world. No matter what genre you write most, a careful and colorful representation of the natural world can add life and credibility to your work. We will look at a few examples of nature writing and environmental writing, then try our hand at some of the techniques we've talked about. While our focus will be on creative nonfiction literature, writers of fiction and poetry can benefit as well from learning new ways of incorporating an attention to the natural world into their work.
Paul Bogard is the author of The Geography of Night: Discovering Darkness in an Age of Light (Little, Brown, 2013) and the editor of Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark (2008). His essays have appeared in such places as Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, Gettysburg Review, Audubon, and Outside. He teaches writing at Wake Forest University.
Justin Catanoso became senior lecturer and director of journalism at Wake Forest University in September 2011. He has had a thirty-year career as a professional journalist at newspapers in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and North Carolina, including eleven years as a reporter with the Greensboro News & Record, where he received a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1992 for his investigative reporting into fraud in the tobacco industry. He was founding executive editor of The Business Journal in the Triad, which started publishing in 1998. In 2008, HarperCollins published his first book, a family memoir titled My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family, and Miracles, a Book of the Month Club selection, and a summer reading pick by the Order Sons of Italy in America.
Randall Kenan is the author of a novel, A Visitation of Spirits; two works of nonfiction, Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century and The Fire This Time; a young adult biography of James Baldwin; and a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Recently he edited and wrote the introduction for The Cross of Redemption: The Uncollected Writings of James Baldwin. Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Dos Passos Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, the North Carolina Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Rome Prize. He is associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Full faculty bios can be viewed on the conference webpage. The 2012 Spring Conference also offers workshops in fiction, poetry, children's publishing, and tutorials for authors. Registration is available online or by calling 336-293-8844.
Kristin Fitzpatrick of Alameda, California, is the winner of the 2011 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize for her short story, "Queen City Playhouse."
Final judge Martin Clark, the acclaimed author of three best -selling and widely acclaimed novels, said of her story, "Great story, amazing characters, excellent conceit, beautiful, moving ending, nice turns of phrase…"
Fitzpatrick holds an MFA from CSU Fresno. In 2009-2010 she was the writer-in-residence at The Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. Her fiction appears in Colorado Review and is forthcoming in The Southeast Review. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she is at work on a novel. Fitzpatrick will win $1.000 for her story, which will be considered for publication in The Thomas Wolfe Review, as will the stories named honorable mentions.
Clark, a graduate of Davidson College and the University of Virginia Law School who serves as a circuit court judge in Virginia when he is not writing novels, named two honorable mentions. The first is Lisa Gornick of New York City for her story "Eleanor," of which Clark said, "Simply put, a powerful story, well told." Gornick is a graduate of Princeton and holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yale. She is a graduate of the writing program at N.Y.U. and serves on the faculty of the Creative Writing Program at Fordham. She is the author of a novel, A Private Sorcery (Algonquin), and her short stories have appeared in numerous journals.
The second honorable mention went to "Gone" by Barbara Modrack of Brighton, MI. Clark said, "…it took an important theme that's been written to death and got it just right, made it fresh and compelling…" Modrack is the editor of the Grand Ledge Independent and Delta-Waverly Community News, two weekly newspapers. Her short stories have been published in Seventeen, Sassy, and the Alaska Quarterly Review.
There were 140 stories entered in this year's competition, the most in its history. Contest coordinator Tony Abbott sent 43 stories to preliminary judge David Radavich of Charlotte, who then forwarded 18 stories to Clark. Among those 18, Radavich selected six finalists in addition to the three winners: Cara Achterberg of New Freedom, PA, for "I'm Not Her"; Jennifer Adams of Birchrunville, PA, for "Girl on a Balcony"; Virginia Hudson of Raleigh, NC, for "Silo"; Gary Powell of Cornelius, NC, for "Fast Trains"; Kirk Wilson of Austin, TX, for "The Coldest Day"; and Ward Brian Zimmerman of Boone, NC, for "The Heart of Darkness."
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 http://www.ncwriters.org.
. . . to Lou Lipsitz of Chapel Hill, who has been awarded the 2010 Blue Lynx Prize for his poetry collection, If This World Falls Apart, his fourth full-length book of poems. The prize carries a $2,000 cash award, and publication by Lynx House Press, a Spokane based independent literary publisher that began sponsoring this national manuscript competition in 1996. The book will be released in April 2011, and copies can be ordered from www.lynxhousepress.org. Final judge for this year's competition was Christopher Buckley. Previous judges include Yusef Komunyakaa, David Wojahn, Robert Wrigley, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Dara Wier, and Dorianne Laux. The prize is given to a U.S. poet, regardless of publication history, for a full-length book manuscript of poems.
... to Ned Condini. He has been awarded the WBYeats Poetry Society Award (first prize). On April 4th, his poetry was read at Barnes and Noble, Union Square, New York.
..... to Karen Paul Holmes. She had four poems in the April 2011 issue of Dead Mule School of Southern Literature published. She also had a poem featured on Your Daily Poem on April 10, 2011.
.... to NC Writers' Network board member and 2010 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate, Zelda Lockhart. Lockhart is a finalist for a 2011 Lambda Literary Award.
Maureen Sherbondy's poetry recently appeared in two anthologies, Mamas and Papas: On the Sublime and Heartbreaking Art of Parenting (City Works Press), and The Sound of Poets Cooking (Jacar Press).
. . . to Julie Davis, whose short story, "Taylor's Creek," was one of the finalists for the Doris Betts Fiction Prize and has just been published in the spring 2010 issue of the online magazine IBX Lifestyles, which is dedicated to the lifestyles of North Carolina's Inner Banks. See http://www.ibxlifestyles.com/page.php?25.
Southern Pines, NC—The North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame will induct five of the state's finest writers this Sunday.
Journalist W. J. Cash; novelist Allan Gurganus; poet, novelist, and biographer Robert Morgan; journalist, publisher, and diplomat Walter Hines Page; and playwright and screenwriter Samm-Art Williams will be enshrined at 2 p.m., Sunday, October 17, at a ceremony at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines, where the NCLHOF is housed.
The ceremony is free and open to the public.
Wilbur J. Cash was born in Gaffney, SC, in 1900 and moved to Boiling Springs in 1912. After graduating from Wake Forest College in 1922, Cash worked intermittently as a journalist for several newspapers, including the Charlotte Observer and Charlotte News, and as a freelance writer for magazines such as H. L. Mencken's American Mercury. In 1941 he published his masterpiece, The Mind of the South, described as "by common consent a classic work of history and social criticism" by George B. Tindall, who wrote Cash's entry in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. Cash died just a few months after The Mind of the South appeared.
Allan Gurganus's first novel, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, spent eight months on the New York Times best-seller list, has sold more than two million copies and been translated into twelve languages, and was made into a CBS movie starring Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland, and Cecily Tyson. Born in Rocky Mount in 1947, Gurganus studied as a painter and served in the U.S. Navy before turning to writing. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, O'Henry Prize Stories, Best American Stories, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, and Best New Stories of the South. His other books include The Practical Heart, Plays Well With Others, and White People, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Robert Morgan grew up in the Green River valley of western North Carolina, near Hendersonville, on a farm that has been in Morgan's family since the 1700s. He decided to become a writer while studying engineering and applied mathematics at North Carolina State University, transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to receive his degree in English, and later earned a master of fine arts degree from UNC Greensboro. Morgan has published more than twenty-five books of poetry and fiction, in addition to a 2007 biography of Daniel Boone. His novel Gap Creek won the 2000 Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was an Oprah's Book Club selection. His most recent book is October Crossing, a poetry collection.
Walter Hines Page was born in 1855 in what would become Cary. After studying at Trinity College (now Duke University), Randolph-Macon College, and Johns Hopkins University, he began his career in journalism at a small newspaper in St. Joseph, MO; within four years, he had worked for the New York World and moved on to found his own newspaper, the State Chronicle, in Raleigh. In 1885 he turned the State Chronicle over to Josephus Daniels and returned to the Northeast, where he worked as an editor of both magazines and books, including the Atlantic Monthly and Houghton, Mifflin, and Company. In 1899 he cofounded the publisher Doubleday, Page, and Company (now Doubleday Publishing, an imprint of Random House), where he worked with authors such as Ellen Glasgow and Booker T. Washington. President Woodrow Wilson named Page to be the nation's ambassador to the Court of St. James in London in 1913. Page died in Pinehurst in 1918.
Samm-Art Williams was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Burgaw. After graduating from Morgan State College in Baltimore, he studied with the Freedom Theater's Acting Workshop in Philadelphia under the direction of John Allen and Bob Leslie. As a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, he performed in such plays as The First Breeze of Summer, Eden, and Nevis Mountain Dew. He also wrote many plays, including Home,which received a Tony nomination in the category of best Broadway play and toured internationally. He had a lucrative career in television, where he took on roles as an actor, a writer, and executive producer for popular shows such as Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Martin. He has been nominated for two Emmy awards.
The NCLHOF 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 have collaborated 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.
Lyn Hawk's latest book for English teachers, Teaching Julius Caesar: A Differentiated Approach, was just released by the National Council of Teachers of English.
. . . to Eleanor Ross Taylor, who won the Poetry Foundation's $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, presented annually "to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition." Taylor will be honored at the Pegasus Awards ceremony in Chicago May 18.
"We live in a time when poetic styles seem to become more antic and frantic by the day, and Taylor's voice has been muted from the start. Muted, not quiet," said Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine. "You can't read these poems without feeling the pent-up energy in them, the focused, even frustrated compression, and then the occasional clear lyric fury. And yet you can't read them without feeling, as well, a bracing sense of spiritual largesse and some great inner liberty."
Karen Holmes. just had a poem accepted by the Sow's Ear Poetry Review.
Hats off to Rupert W. Nacoste on Plainview Press publication of his memoir, Making Gumbo in the University. Learn more atwww.makinggumbo.com.
Noted for honorable mention are Marjorie Hudson's "The High Life," Melanie Raskin's "Waiting for Azrael," and Kuruvilla Verghese's "A Life in the Shadow." Of these three and the winning story, final judge Kat Meads said, "I thought the characterizations were solid, the descriptions economical but resonant, and the image linkage – whether symbolic or no – very well done."
Meads says of McGuirt's winning story, "'Blind Faith' is fiction that mercilessly observes and indicts by the means by which all good fiction indicts: plot, pacing, powerful imagery, and characters who stay with the reader long after the reading is finished." She describes Verghese's "A Life in the Shadow" as "an economical, dexterous tale of the plight of a Brahmin widow, age twenty-two, whose life is at the mercy and whim of others until she takes back control by the only means at her disposal: suicide." Meads' description for "The High Life" praises Hudson's "hardscrabble story of a wise-beyond-his-years 'thrown-away' teen who manages to construct for himself something like a second family with the members of a traveling carnival … Dip's angst, longing, and discoveries are effectively delivered in the staccato rhythms of lessons learned quickly – and painfully." Of "Waiting for Azrael," Meads "appreciates and applauds the humor of Raskin's story and its characterizations, particularly brother Adrian." Meads also noted Steve Mitchell's "Platform," "with its 'I am the terrorist' twist," and Gregg Cusick's "ambitious" "A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions."
Meads, an eastern North Carolina native now living in California, is the author of the short story collections Not Waving and Little Pockets of Alarm and the novels Sleep and The Invented Life of Kitty Duncan Benedict Roberts. She chose the winning stories from finalists selected by the North Carolina Literary Review from the original 106 submissions, up from 62 in 2008. Meads noted that she "was impressed by the quality of many of the finalists."
The winning story will be published in the 2010 issue of the North Carolina Literary Review. Some of the finalists will also be invited by the NCLR editors to revise and resubmit for publication consideration. The 2008 Betts first- and second-place stories, as well as a play by and an interview with Kat Meads, will be in the 2009 issue of NCLR, due out this summer. For information on subscribing to NCLR, go to www.edu.edu/nclr.
Bob Mustin of Asheville, NC, is the winner of the 2008 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Award for his essay "Grandpa Tom's Cane." Mustin will receive a prize of $300 from the North Carolina Writers' Network, as well as possible publication in The Rambler magazine.
Malcolm Campbell of Charlotte is the winner of the Doris Betts Fiction Prize for his story "The Whales Moved On." Campbell will receive a prize of $200 from the North Carolina Writers Network. Second place, $100, is awarded to Gregg Cusick for "Have You Seen Me."
Southern Pines, NC – North Carolina is called "the writingest state" for a number of reasons.
Forty-two of those reasons can be found in the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. Three more will be added this fall, when the NCLHOF inducts poet James Applewhite, historian William S. Powell, and novelist Lee Smith.
The induction ceremony will be held Sunday, October 19, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines, where the NCLHOF is housed. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
Charlotte, NC – Registration is now open for the 2008 North Carolina Writers' Network Spring Conference, which takes place Saturday, April 26, from 8 a.m. until 5:45 p.m. in the Elliott University Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
The annual event draws hundreds of writers for intensive workshops in fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, poetry and publishing led by distinguished writing faculty from across the nation. Participants also attend panel discussions, faculty readings, and benefit from networking opportunities with publishers, editors, and other writers.
"Bringing together North Carolina's writers is the most important thing we do," says Ed Southern, the Network's executive director. "The state as a whole has a stronger literary tradition than any one of its towns or cities. Writers from every corner of the state benefit from being a part of that tradition."
Southern adds that while the Internet has forever changed the literary marketplace, writers' essential challenges remain the same. "Writers work alone," he says. "But we'll always need opportunities to improve our craft, to find an audience, and to share ideas and inspiration with other writers. The Network's conferences provide that sense of community."
Critically acclaimed poet Linda Gregg—author of six books and recipient of such honors as a Guggenheim Fellowship, Whiting Award, National Endowment for the Arts grant, and the PEN/Voelcker Award—will provide the keynote address. Gregg's one-hour talk, which begins at 3:30 p.m., is free and open to the public, as are the faculty readings, which begin at 4:30 p.m.
Conference participants may select from half- and full-day workshops covering such craft issues as plot, characterization and dialogue in fiction and creative nonfiction, and using sensory imagery in poetry and developing creative momentum from one poem to the next. Additional workshop selections feature instruction for screenwriters and playwrights.
Registration for the conference—made possible with support from the Center for Creative Writing in the Arts, UNC-Greensboro, and the North Carolina Arts Council—is $110 for Network members, $145 for non-members.
To register, visit www.ncwriters.org, or call (704) 246-6314 for more information.
Final judge James Applewhite, one of North Carolina's most distinguished poets, selected "In the Dawn Valley" by Joanna Catherine Scott of Chapel Hill as the winner of the 2008 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition of the North Carolina Writers Network. Applewhite also gave honorable mentions to "Haymaking" by Marjorie Hudson of Pittsboro and "Drought" by Allison Elrod of Davidson. Marjorie Hudson's "Salmon Fishing, Possession Bay" and "The Barred Owl's Visit" by Fred Bahnson of Efland also received commendation from Applewhite. Scott will receive a $200 award. Hudson and Elrod will each receive $50.