DECEMBER 5 - 11

Have you visited the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC ?

This is one of my very favorite places on earth. I began taking classes there in 1995 and I've studied with many, many writers, authors and poets, over these fifteen years. Some of them are Julia Kate Howard, Darnell Arnoult, Steven Harvey, Vickie Hunt, Maureen Ryan Griffin, Ruth Zeufus, and , of course, Nancy Simpson, resident writer at JCCFS and editor of Echoes Across the Blue Ridge. Some other teachers I've had the opportunity to study with at JCCFS are past poet laureate of North Carolina, Kathryn Stripling Byer and poet, R.T. Smith. Google these names if you don't already know them.

Dr. Gene Hirsch, founder of the writing program at JCCFS is one of the instructors. His poetry classes are extremely interesting. Look for him at http://www.folkschool.org/ under instructors.

For those new students who register for classes within the next couple of months, click here to see how you can save $100 on tuition.

I will be teaching Writing Your Holiday Memories December 5 - 11, using as a text the anthology Christmas Presence edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. We will go back in time to those special days and times you will never forget, the stories you heard from your parents about Christmas and special holidays around Christmas time.

December is an excellent time to come to the Folk School when the Keith House is decorated in old fashioned style and music is everywhere.

In our writing classes we often form friendships that last long after we leave the writing studio. I hope you will come and be a part of this writing class.

Get into the spirit before the holiday begins.

SNOW DID NOT STOP OUR BOOK SIGNING

Phillips and Lloyd books on the square in Hayesville, NC hosted a book signing last Saturday. The light snow in the morning did not deter the customers looking for Christmas gifts in this delightful store. My friends and  family enjoyed shopping. Elizabeth and Joe filled a table with holiday cookies and we drank a pot of their good coffee.

Don K., Barry's good friend, came by to pick up a copy of Now Might as Well be Then. Don and Barry sang together in the Methodist Church Choir and also in the men's chorus, Singing Disciples. Don has inherited Barry's favorite hand carved wooden cane that he used for a short while.

From left: Janice Moore, author of Teaching the Robins, Karen Holmes, editor and publisher of the Netwest Newsletter, Award winning poet, Brenda Kay Ledford, Jo Carolyn Beebe, geneologist and writer, and Carole Thompson, poet and fiction writer all have work in the new anthology, CLOTHES LINES, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. They had fun and enjoyed signing both Christmas Presence, published last year by Catawba Publishing and Clothes Lines at Phillips and Lloyd books on Saturday, December 7.

Twenty Ten - planning ahead

Today I received my contract from John C. Campbell Folk School for a class I'm planning to teach in December 2010. Imagine, twenty-ten. That is next year and already I have plans for December. This class will be for folks who want to write their Christmas Stories. Don't we all have stories of Christmases past? I know I do.

The book published last year by Catawba Press, Christmas Presence, will be our text for this class. I am sure my students who often come from distant states will enjoy the Appalachian stories in this book.


The class I planned to teach in July at Tri-County College in Murphy NC had to be cancelled due to my husband's illness, but I hope we can hold that class in the fall of 2009. A number of former students had registered and I must ask their forgiveness but I know they understand.

Planning ahead is something I've always done. I keep a calendar and mark all important dates, but for over a year my life has been as uncertain as a summer thunder storm. I don't know what is coming, but I do see clouds gathering on the horizon. In the past I'd have closed all the windows, taken the clothes off the line, and called my dog inside.

Today, I look at those thunderheads forming and say to myself, they will blow over. I have no fear.

" Can I take it off now?"
Rocky did not like his Christmas sweater last year, perhaps because he is definitely not a Georgia Bulldog.


The rain let up today. I'm grateful it stopped. A good-sized group attended our Christmas Poems and Stories at the Moss Library in Hayesville tonight. Three women writers, Shirley Uphouse, Glenda Barrett and Brenda Kay Ledford read delightful stories. I enjoyed every one of them. Shirley's story was about a Christmas wish from a young girl who wanted a horse of her own, much the way I was when I was a kid. Glenda Barrett wrote a touching story about Mamaw, her wonderful grandmother. But Brenda Kay had us laughing out loud with her hilarious story of the 90 year old woman and the biker. Brenda Kay has a wonderful true mountain dialect that enhances her storytelling and her reading. Our only open mic reader was Richard Argo who read his always interesting and quirky Christmas Letter.

It hasn't seemed much like Christmas at our house this year, but when I drive down to the center of our little town, it reminds me of a Christmas Card. The courthouse square is decorated and all the shops have white lights, and I get that warm feeling inside I associate with the holy days.

I spent some time in the local bookstore today and wished I had the time to select a book, go back to the Dessertery with a cup of coffee and read while the sound of carols filled the shop. But hurry, hurry, I must because I don't yet have my gifts wrapped. I've done no baking, nor made the cornbread dressing I'll take to my sister's for Christmas dinner.

Tonight we are watching a Christmas concert by the Three Tenors. I love their voices, but some tunes they just shouldn't sing. It is comical to hear them belting out "Jingle Bells." That song wasn't meant to be sung by opera singers. Their rendition of Amazing Grace and Silent Night, however, rivals that of heavenly angels' singing.

CHRISTMAS PRESENCE MAKES GREAT GIFT

CHRISTMAS PRESENCE, a beautiful book of holiday stories, poems and essays written by 45 women writers, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham, will be one of the gifts I give this year.

Many of the writers are my friends and members of NCWN and Netwest, but more than that, I've enjoyed everything I've read in this book.

Some of the titles of work: Grandpa and the Snow Snakes, Memories of Wartime Christmases, Jewish Christmas, Miss Bessie Mae and the Christmas Biker,

And the Animals Knelt, A Logging Camp Christmas, and so many more.

The Christmas Socks touched me deeply. It is a war time story by Sonja Contois.

I haven't read the entire book because I want to savor it and read a little every day throughout the holidays.

Local bookstores in western NC are carrying the book and it can be ordered from Catawba Publishing.