Former poets laureate take high road on McCrory's appointment

Kathryn Stripling Byer

Many poets in the state are incensed that Gov. Pat McCrory bypassed standard procedure in selecting Valerie Macon of Fuquay-Varina as the new N.C. poet laureate, to follow the current poet laureate Joseph Bathanti and serve the state for two years.

Macon, who's 64, and a graduate of Meredith College, has two poetry chapbooks that are self-published.

Other poets laureate, in this state and throughout the nation, typically have a stellar list of  publications, awards and honors.

But two former poets laureate, Kathryn Stripling Byer of Cullowhee and Fred Chappell of Greensboro, want to help support Macon.

"I feel it's part of my role as a former poet laureate to offer my assistance to the incoming poet laureate, no matter the violation of protocol that led to her selection," says Byer.

Chappell hopes that Macon's friends in the poetry community will show her the ropes and help her learn to talk to young kids about poetry.

"The idea (of being poet laureate)," he says, "is to spark interest in literature in general, in poetry in particular and in N.C. poetry especially. And to make sure the laureateship is representative and not just about herself."

That doesn't mean that Byer and Chappell are happy the governor circumvented policy.
Byer feels the violation damages our "strong literary reputation throughout the nation and damages the state of North Carolina."

Chappell calls the violation an "arbitrary seizure of power that's liable to result in unfortunate circumstances."

McCrory bypasses N.C. Poet Laureate selection system

Big surprise.

Gov. Pat McCrory announced Friday that he's chosen a new poet laureate for the state of North Carolina to serve as "ambassador of North Carolina literature" for the next two years.

She's Valerie Macon of Fuquay-Varina, a New York native, a graduate of Meredith College and long-time North Carolinian with two collections of poetry, "Shelf Life" and "Sleeping Rough."

Both are chapbooks published by Old Mountain Press of Sylva, a company that advertises it's been "assisting authors (to) self-publish their books since 1992."

Macon has won awards from the N.C. Poetry Society, the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poets Series and the Writers Guild, Inc.

The surprise?

Only that McCrory completely by-passed the time-honored process of selecting this prestigious position, which includes a state-wide call for recommendations to the North Carolina Arts Council. The nominated poets then have sent a portfolio that included poems, a vision for the position, awards, publications and honors. In recent years, a committee of poets appointed by the Arts Council, has studied the portfolios, voted on the nominations and sent its recommendation or recommendations to the governor.

Traditionally, only then did the governor officially appoint the new poet laureate.


Macon will succeed Joseph Bathanti, who has served as poet laureate for the past two years.

I'll have more as the story unfolds.

 

Interested in writing romance novels? Myra Johnson offers inspiration

Myra Johnson

Six years ago, Myra Johnson of Charlotte had not published a single adult novel. Eight years later, she's the author of 10 novels (the 11th due in October), and the most recent one, "When the Clouds Roll By" (Abingdon Press), has just won the 2014 Christian Retailing's Best Award in the historical fiction category.

So what's her secret?

Long years of hard work, she says. Writing, writing, writing. Showing up at critique groups. Re-writing, re-writing, re-writing.

Then, a boost. In 2005, Johnson entered a manuscript in a contest and received a RWA (Romance Writers of America) Golden Heart for Best Inspirational Romance Manuscript.
In 2008, she read a notice that an editor at Abingdon Press was looking for unpublished romance writers "who had paid their dues."

Johnson sent a manuscript, and within a month she had landed a book contract with Abingdon. Within another month, she had a contract for a second novel with another publisher.

Johnson and her husband moved to Charlotte three years ago from Tulsa, Okla., to be near one of their two daughters, who was expecting her third child. They settled in an area just southeast of Charlotte, near Matthews, which also happens to be the locale of a recent trilogy of Johnson's: "A Horseman's Heart," "A Horseman's Gift," and "A Horseman's Hope" (Harlequin Romance).
The latest trilogy, which opens with the award-wining "When the Clouds Roll By," is set in Hot Springs, Ark., as World War I is ending.

Johnson is president of the Charlotte chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers. If you'd like to visit the group, email her at mj@myrajohnson.com.

 
 

A Great Reading List: The Long-List for a Prestigious First Novel Prize

The Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, started in 2006, recently released its long-list of first novels up for the award. The announcement grabbed my attention because it includes a 2014 favorite of mine -- the tender, achingly poignant first novel, "Byrd," by Raleigh lawyer Kim Church.
Among the 26 novels named, others with North Carolina connections include "Young God," by Wilkes County native Katherine Faw Morris; "The Word Exchange," by Durham native Alena Graedon; "The End of Always," by Chapel Hill's Randi Daveport; "The Invention of Exile," by Vanessa Manko, who graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and now  lives in Brooklyn; and "Life Drawing," by Robin Black, a graduate of Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers. Black lives in Philadelphia, and she is also the author of the prize-winning short story collection, "If I loved you, I would tell you this."
Another on the list I've put on my own reading list: "We Are Not Ourselves," by Matthew Thomas, 39, a former high school English teacher in New York City, who got more than a $1 million advance in this country and a six-figure UK deal at the London Book Fair after a bidding war over his 700-page manuscript, which took him 10 years to write.
Thomas is an Irish-American, who studied fiction with Alice McDermott at Johns Hopkins, after graduating from the University of Chicago. Set in the second half of the 20th century, the novel, says Publisher's Weekly, is a "sprawling portrait of the Irish-American Leary family -- Ed, Eileen and their son Connell -- as they move from Jackson Heights, Queens, to Bronxville, New York, in pursuit of the American dream." The book will be out in August.
The short-list for the prize will be announced in September, and thewinner in December. Stay tuned.

Queens Instructor Cathy Smith Bowers Wins Award for Poetry Collection

Cathy Smith Bowers

"The Collected Poems of Cathy Smith Bowers" (Press 53) has been named the SIBA winner in poetry for 2014. Selected by a jury of Southern independent booksellers, the award is presented each year to the best book in its category.

Bowers, a native of Lancaster, S.C., and a former N.C. poet laureate, lives in Tryon.
Fred Chappell of Greensboro, another former N.C. poet laureate, says of Bowers's poems:  "Hardship, cruelty, heartbreak, bleak sorrow -- these sad themes are plentiful in the pages of Cathy Smith Bowers. But in its smoldering heart, her poetry holds, like the pinata in 'The Party,' 'a sweet, dark center.' "

Bowers is an instructor in Queens University's low-residency MFA program. She is at work on a novel.

Others winners are Sarah Dessen of Chapel Hill in the young adult category for "The Moon and More" (Viking). Self-described as an "author, mother, worrier," Dessen is the author of ten young adult novels, among them the bestselling "What Happened to Goodbye."

In the novel category, the winner is "Whistling Past the Graveyard" (Simon & Schuster), by Susan Crandall of Indiana. A coming-of-age novel, set in Mississippi in the early 1960s, "Whistling" is Crandall's ninth novel.

John Currence's "Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey: Recipes from my Three Favorite Food Groups and Then Some" (Andrews McMeel) is the winner in the cooking category. Currence owns City Grocery Restaurant Group in Oxford, Miss., and the new book is also up for a James Beard Award.

In non-fiction, the winner is "Five Days At Memorial: Life and Death in Storm-Ravaged Hospital" (Crown) by Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter Sheri Fink. Fink is a physician who reconstructs the five days after Hurricane Katrina struck, when the floodwaters rose, the power failed and the heat climbed.

"The Girl from Felony Bay" (Walden Pond Books) by J.E. Thompson of Charleston, is the children's book winner. Thompson grew up reading the Hardy Boys books and worked for 25 years as an investment banker before turning to writing. (He says his daughter is his best critic.) "The Girl" is a fast-paced mystery for middle-schoolers, set on the coast of South Carolina.

Carolina Classics: The Red Clay Ramblers and 'Taffy at Torpedo Junction'

 

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Can you act and also ride an Outer Banks pony bareback? Then Bland Simpson, UNC prof and
pianist for the Durham-based stringband The Red Clay Ramblers, might come looking for you to star in a movie. Simpson bought the option to a North Carolina award-winning classic, "Taffy of Torpedo Junction," written in 1957 by Outer Banks native Nell Wise Wechter and re-issued by UNC Press with an introduction by Simpson.

As a school teacher near Cape Hatteras, Wechter could look out her classroom window and see the Germans sinking our ships. These events and the courage of the people who lived throug them inspired her story of Taffy.

Simpson and the Ramblers' Jack Herrick will spend the next four to six months drafting a screenplay of the book, then hustling up support for a film to be shot in North Carolina.
Besides 13-year-old Taffy, who exposes a ring of Nazi spies on Hatteras Island, the book includes  two male characters: a 40ish Coast Guard chief and a mid-60s grandfather who is raising Taffy. Simpson and Herrick will create two corresponding female roles, one of which will be the horsewoman.
"We'll move forward as quickly -- and thoughtfully -- as we can," Simpson says. "This is such a wonderful, beloved novel, and World War II on our coast was such a powerful clash. We certainly want our work to honor Wechter's book and the history that inspired it."

If "Taffy" is half as good as the Ramblers' musical, "Kudzu," "Fool Moon," or "Lone Star Love," it's another sure-fire hit.

Wilson Seeks Letters from the Late Novelist and UNC Prof Doris Betts

Doris Betts

Do you have letters from the late Doris Betts, the novelist and beloved UNC Chapel Hill creative writing professor, who died in 2012? Emily Herring Wilson of Winston-Salem is compiling a book of selected letters from Betts and would like to hear from you if you've kept any correspondence with her. Wilson is also working on a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, and she wrote the top-notch biography of Charlotte's own renowned gardener/writer Elizabeth Lawrence, "No One Gardens Alone " (Beacon Press, 2004) as well as "Two Gardeners, A Friendship in Letters: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence" (Beacon Press, 2002). She has received an Archie K. Davis Fellowship to work on the selected letters of Doris Betts.
Wilson: emilyhwilson@bellsouth.net