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North Carolina Writers & Books: July/August 2008Each month North Carolina Writers & Books showcases work by North Carolina writers of poetry, prose, and literary translation. Here, too, you'll find news, interviews, and features related to North Carolina's literary community and links to other literary Web sites of interest. North Carolina Writers & Books is a work in progress. If you have comments about this format or suggestions about content, please jot them down in an e-mail message: ncarts@ncdcr.gov. We'd appreciate your feedback and ideas. -- Debbie McGill, Literature Director, North Carolina Arts Council
A Word from the Poet Laureate
A Summer Celebration Deep in the heart—and heat—of summer we welcome several new voices to our site, as well as a group of talented students whose poetry was gathered together for us by Julia Ebel. Shirlette Ammons and Mike Smith have newly published books, ready to be picked up and carried home for summer reading. Shirlette Ammons is making her reputation as a performer as well as a poet. When Carolina Wren Press sent me her new work in manuscript a few months ago, I found it irresistible in its storytelling and verbal music. Mike Smith, who just happens to be the son of author Anne Barnhill, featured here in March, has recently published his first full-length collection. Kwame Dawes selected his chapbook, Small Industry, for the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook Series in 2006. As Dawes remarked in his judge's note: "His verse is beautiful, well-formed and shapely so that every ...inflection seems to be capturing the natural dialogue between mind and voice." 0ur third featured poet, Donna Glee Williams, is known professionally as a Center Fellow at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching. The two of us worked together a few years back in a seminar titled “Rhythms of the Heart,” which she directed. I learned then that Donne Glee is also a poet, but I had not read any of her work until my “Language Matters” column, "Saving the Adverb" appeared in The Sylva Herald. A mutual friend sent me Donna Glee’s poem "I Go Out," and I was so charmed by it that I asked to see more. We’re happy to invite Donna Glee out of the poetry closet, so to speak, and add "poet" to her professional NCCAT title. Another new voice belongs to Lonnie Busch, whose novella, Turnback Creek, was recently published by Texas Review Press. Lonnie is a member of Netwest and contributes frequently to its web site. He also helps edit The Pisgah Review, out of Brevard. Like Charles Price, whom we’re also featuring this month, Lonnie is an artist as well as a writer. Western North Carolina seems to be fast becoming the center of a creative renaissance! July 4th marks an important day in our country's history, of course, but this year it also marks an important day in North Carolina letters. This July 4th is the official publication date of Charles Price's masterly new novel, Nor the Battle to the Strong, set during the American Revolution. Charles has labored over this book since the attacks of 9/11, and his drawings grace the book's pages. We are proud to offer an excerpt from this novel, as well as an interview conducted by Britt Kaufman, whose poems we featured here last October. This July we can celebrate both our country's independence and the publication of this new work by one of North Carolina’s finest fiction writers. Bring on the fireworks!
Poetry
Shirlette Ammons Matching Skin, by Shirlette Ammons (Durham, NC: Carolina Wren Press, 2008). “John Anonymous” Music EP included.
Tattooed Smile Close to home as I been I’m just a child with a tattooed smile I live at the end of a dead-end street So I sit in my dead end gloom I’m destined to be a man one day so if you pray for me, I’ll pray for you
Click here to listen to Tattooed Smile, a song featuring Shirlette Ammons and Greg Humphreys on vocals, Daniel Hart on violin, Brevan Hampden on percussion, and Greg Humphreys on guitar. It was produced by Chris Boerner.
[More by and about Shirlette Ammons...]
Mike Smith
How to Make a Mummy, by Mike Smith (Cincinnati, OH: WordTech Editions, 2007)
Imaginary Music For Emily I. Sunday morning around a yoke of song: The rattle of what remained frozen in the jug You were right then to think of wind, II. My mother grew up in a household of music: By twelve she knew she had no gift for it. She said she simply couldn’t hear. This next part I’ve told you already, how later, III. She wasn’t the first, of course, or the last, again), drops of rain from the gutter You.
[More by and about Mike Smith...]
Donna Glee Williams
I Go Out I go out with adverbs, Later, [More by and about Donna Glee Williams...]
Student Poets
For writers and readers of all ages, roads led to the Jamestown Public Library on April 26th for the Jamestown Writers & Readers Festival. Twenty-three North Carolina writers, plus North Carolina Heritage Award-winning storyteller Orville Hicks, gathered to meet readers of all ages. Writers from the Piedmont and the mountains (Kevin Adams, Maggie Bishop, Joyce Moyer Hostetter, and Steve Kirk, to name only a few) came with a wealth of experience and their fine books for children and adults: history and mystery, nature and nurture, poetry and prose. Yet as the day began, all eyes were on 14 promising young writers, ages eight to 18, as they read their original poetry to an enthusiastic audience. The creativity of these young poets was delightful. Several of the high school poets wrote and read the poems that follow.
 A poem by Austin Greer
The greatest of poems The greatest of poems The greatest of poems The greatest of poems The greatest of poems The greatest of poems The greatest of poems The greatest of poems
Austin Grier is a rising senior at Andrews High School, in High Point. 
The historic Jamestown Public School building, constructed in 1915, houses the Jamestown Public Library. Following community efforts to save the columned brick building, the library opened in 1988 with a collection of 600 donated books and a volunteer staff. The old classrooms now hold about 15,000 volumes. [More by and about the student poets at the Jamestown Writers & Readers Festival...]
New & Recommended
 McFarland has just published Southern Appalachian Poetry: An Anthology of Works by 37 Poets. Edited by Marita Garin, this collection of 225 poems includes photographs and autobiographical essays to introduce each poet and his or her work. Notes explain colloquial, obscure, or historical references appearing in the poems. Ms. Garin, a past North Carolina Arts Council fellowship recipient, lives in Black Mountain. Her work has been published in numerous journals including Southern Humanities Review, The Hudson Review, Colorado State Review and The Hollins Critic. Prose
Charles Price Nor the Battle to the Strong: A Novel of the American Revolution in the South, by Charles F. Price (Savannah, GA: Frederic C. Beil, Publisher, 2008) 
Later, behind the canvas partition that set off his private quarter of the marquee, Greene read and signed the correspondence that Captain Pierce had prepared, then dashed off a brief note to General Pickens asking him to send up the powder needed to explode the works of the Star Fort. Putting that aside, he slumped in his chair and cupped his head in his hands and allowed the tiredness to take him as it had wanted to take him all day today and yesterday too and the day before that and yes, all the days since last December when he first came South to take up the command of the disgraced General Gates. But, maddeningly, along with the tiredness came the swarm of trials that always beset him in the watches of the night, that kept him from surrendering to the tiredness and to the sleep that would have been its remedy. Not only did he lack troops and provisions, there were feuds between his senior officers of the Continental Line and those of the militia and state lines; there were unbecoming disputes over rank among his subalterns. The soldiers had not been paid for months – Greene himself had not been paid in over three years. Hard money could not be had and no one would take the Continental paper, so most of the forage and supplies must be seized from the country folk, who then rose up outraged by what seemed outright robbery and joined the Tory outliers plaguing his outposts. Half his men were barefoot, yet he could get no shoes. The mails were uncertain; his orders from the Congress and the Minister at War and General Washington, when they came, were weeks out of date and bore no conceivable relation to the reality of events.
Excerpt from Nor the Battle to the Strong continued.
 [More by and about Charles Price...]
Lonnie Busch Turnback Creek, by Lonnie Busch (Huntsville, TX: Texas Review Press, 2007).
Winner of the 2006 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, this novella is Lonnie Busch’s first published work of longer fiction. Mr. Busch is co-editor of Pisgah Review, showcased below in ’Zines. He lives in Franklin.
The protagonist of Turnback Creek, retired heavy-equipment operator Cole Emerson, has lost his wife, is about to lose his only sister, and is estranged from his daughter. He sells his trailer in Oklahoma and moves into his sister Elsie's house on Hardman Lake, a sprawling man-made impoundment in the lush Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri. Elsie is dying. During the day, Cole cooks, cleans, and tries to keep her comfortable, napping when she naps, adapting his needs to her schedule. At night, he escapes into the dark solitude of Hardman Lake to fish for bass and clear his head, until one night in Turnback Creek he sees a mysterious girl who awakens in him a young man's desires and old buried memories. A scene from the novella appears below [More by and about Lonnie Busch...]
'Zines
Cover art by Raina Gentry The editors of Pisgah Review--Jubal Tiner, Lonnie Busch, and Sarah Carlson—describe the journal this way: “Pisgah Review seeks to publish the highest quality fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, both nationally and internationally, as well as regional writers. We strive to present contemporary writing that is broad in scope, entertaining, and insightful, publishing established authors as well as exciting new voices. Our main goal is excellence.” Subscriptions to this biannual magazine, based at Brevard College, are $12. Single copies are $7. The Winter, 2008 issue (vol. 3, #1) includes fiction by past North Carolina Arts Council writers’ fellowship recipient Aaron Gwyn, nonfiction by Jennifer McGaha, and poetry by Elinor Benedict and Jeff Daniel. Click here to sample the contents. Volume 3, #2 will be out in August.
Get Connected
Literary HappeningsSeptember 6: The third annual Charlotte Literary Festival will feature local, regional, and national literati including Susan Taylor (editor of Essence), science fiction writer Terry Brooks, and Linda A. Duggins, director of multicultural publicity at Hachette Book Group, USA, and co-founder of the Harlem Book Fair. Tickets are $10 adults; children will be admitted free. September 12 - 13: “Beloved Community”—a phrase made famous by Dr. Martin Luther King—is the theme of the third annual Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, in Burnsville. Georgia novelist and short-story writer Anthony Grooms will join Fred Chappell, John Ehle, Pamela Duncan, Robert Morgan and many other writers for this two-day event. Readings are free. Workshops are $25; participants may register online. September 13: The fourth edition of Bookmarks: Winston-Salem’s Festival of Books takes place all day in Historic Bethabara Park. Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Elizabeth Spencer, Denzil Strickland, Marisa de los Santos, and Glenis Redmond are just a few of the writers who’ll be on hand for readings, workshops, demonstrations by cookbook writers, and the “Young Readers Corral.” September 25 – 27: The Spirit of Black Mountain College is a festival in Hickory celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of this groundbreaking experimental learning institution. In addition to music, theater and dance events, writers directly or indirectly connected to Black Mountain will speak: Galway Kinnell, Michael Rumaker, Thomas Meyer, Lee Ann Brown, Jeff Davis, and Lisa Jarnot. September 26 – 27: The fifth Eastern North Carolina Literary Homecoming brings celebrated writers with a connection to the eastern part of the state to Joyner Library, on the campus of East Carolina University, for two days this fall. Clyde Edgerton, Randall Kenan, Bland Simpson, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Wanda Canada, Jim Grimsley, Eloise Greenfield, Margaret Maron, and Shelia P. Moses will give readings and participate in small-group, interactive workshops. Novelist Doris Betts will also be on hand, to receive the Roberts Award for Literary Inspiration. Readings, performances and book discussions will take place throughout the summer in Pitt and surrounding counties. Click here for that schedule. October 2 – 30: Tickets go on sale August 1st for the 18th annual Novello Festival of Reading, sponsored by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. Headliners include Scott Turow (Presumed Innocent) on October 2nd, Nancy Pearl (Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood) on October 12th, Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner) on October 15th, Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City series) on October 16th, graphic novelists Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and Alison Bechdel (Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic) on October 17th, John Hart (Down River) on October 21st, Colson Whitehead (John Henry Days) on October 25th, and Sara Paretsky (the V.I. Warshawski detective novel series) on October 30th. Tickets for these events are $15-$35. Many more events are free. October 19: The poet James Applewhite, historian William S. Powell, and novelist Lee Smith will be inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame at a celebration at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, in Southern Pines, where the Hall of Fame is housed. The ceremony is free and open to the public. October 31 – November 1: Meet best-selling writers and rising stars with books in all genres, for all age groups, at the fourth annual Crystal Coast Book Festival, in Morehead City. The agenda includes readings, discussion groups, autograph sessions, performances, and workshops for writers on literary craft. November 14 – 16: The North Carolina Writers’ Network’s annual fall conference will be at the Hilton Hotel in the Research Triangle. Check the Network’s Web site for details about the full schedule of readings and workshops that weekend.
Authors 'Round the SouthWant to know when your favorite writers are appearing in bookstores in North Carolina and across the South?
Literary CraftThe North Carolina Writers’ Network will host the Elizabeth Daniels Squire Summer Residency at Queens University July 25th to 27th. Check the Network's web site for details.
BuzzFour North Carolina writers have books that are finalists for the Southern Independent Booksellers Association’s 2008 book awards: The list includes
 John Hart for Down River (Thomas Dunne); poet Kathryn Kirkpatrick, of Boone, for Out of the Garden (Mayapple Press)  and North Carolina native Robert Morgan, for his biography, Boone (Shannon Ravenel Books).  Poems from Ms. Kirkpatrick’s work appeared in North Carolina Writers & Books last December. Video of Mr. Morgan reading from and talking about Boone appeared here last month.
The SIBA Book Awards were created to recognize great books of Southern origin, as determined by the independent booksellers who make up SIBA’s membership. SIBA will announce the awards Labor Day weekend at the Decatur (GA) Book Festival.
Late-breaking news: SIBA has just announced its 2008 Book Award Winners. Sarah Addison Allen won the fiction award for Garden Spells. Click 
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