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About the book

This collection of poetry and prose centering around children.

Joy Acey, Princess of Poetry, is a children’s writer and poet who teaches classes through the Durham Arts Council. Her poems have won prizes from the NC Poetry Society and Poetry Council of North Carolina. She has two collections of poems for children, Monsters, Trolls and Other Odd Folks and Extra Hands, Extra Heart. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, NC.

Matthew G. Adams’ poetry has appeared in Mountain Time, Home for the Holidays, Looking Back, and Mountain High. Matthew lives in Jacksonville, NC.

Sandra Ervin Adams’ poetry has appeared in all previous Old Mountain Press anthologies. When she isn’t writing poetry, Sandra can be found practicing her organizational skills at home in Jacksonville, NC, reading books and watching DVDs about the paranormal, playing a trivia game on the UK Chatterbox site, and scooping kitty litter pans.

Dylan Fox Atkins is a 5th grade student at Western Harnett Middle School. While never formally trained in poetry he has spent his 10 years in daily contact with the poets, Catherine Murphy Haymore and Joseph Haymore, his grandparents. He has not chosen a life’s profession yet but one can only hope that creative writing will play a major role in whatever he does. Dylan lives in Broadway, NC

Joann Bishop wrote the included poem when her grandchild was born. Presently she is attending Barton College to finish her degree in Business Management. She would like to continue to write. Joann lives in Jacksonville, NC

Jerry Bradley spent the past thirty years in the US Air Force from which he retired in August 2008. He and his wife Laura were stationed at ten different military locations. During his career he wrote poetry off and now has the opportunity concentrate on his art. Most of his poems are related to his faith, his family or the military. He and his wife are currently living in Fayetteville, NC. 

Ethelena Jackson Brown was born in Baconton, GA, on January 8, 1915,and has lived in Macon, GA, since her graduation from college in 1937. For twenty years, she taught highschool English and an assortment of other subjects. Today the joy of her life is spending time with six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Excerpts from her recently published autobiography, Growing up Southern In Baconton, Georgia. made up her contribution to this anthology.

Stuart Burroughs has been involved since childhood in visual art, poetry, and music. She has taught English and art, and her art hangs in many homes. A collection of her poems, Beyond the Hills, can be purchased on Amazon.com or from The Chapel Hill Press. Stuart lives in Chapel Hill, NC, where she writes poetry, paints, and plays her piano program, “Music to Remember” every week at several locations.

Ed Cockrell, of Orange County North Carolina, writes poetry as a hobby, laughs and tears; he does not rely on poetry for income, which is wise.

Patricia Daharsh lives in Pinellas Park, FL. Big Blue Eyes, a memoir, recently won Second Place in Southern California Genealogical Society’s 9th Annual Writer’s Contest. She recently won First Place in the Adult Contemporary category at the ukiaHaiku Festival, an international competition, and has received Honorable Mentions for two Poetry Society of Texas annual contest entries. Her poems have appeared in the OMP anthologies Night Whispers and Southern Mist. She is working on a memoir. 

Tom Davis’s publishing credits include Poets Forum, The Caroli­na Runner, Triathlon Today, Georgia Athlete, The Fayetteville Observer’s Saturday Extra, A Loving Voice Vol. I and II, and Special Warfare. He’s authored a collection of short stories, The Life and Times of Rip Jackson; a children’s coloring book, Pickaberry Pig; a how to book on writing a ranger patrol order, The Patrol Order; and an action adventure novel, The R-complex. Tom lives in Fayetteville, NC.

Sue Farlow is a frequent contributor to Old Mountain Press. She is a past president of the North Carolina Poetry Society and remains on the board. She teaches English, journalism and yearbook at Asheboro High School. She has two grown sons and liveson a 55 acre farm in Climax, NC with her husband, dogs, cat and cows.

Rev. Dena M. Ferrari is the Vice-President of the Writers’ Ink Guild in Fayetteville, NC. Her poetry has appeared in the Phoenix, Fields of Earth and in Charles Weyant’s book, An Odyssey in Broken Rhythms and Ragged Lines. She and her husband, Peter, share a wonderful life of love and laughter. When not writing, Dena volunteers; ministering in prison, reading on the radio for the blind and remains spiritual in all her endeavors. Brightest Blessings.

Ann Fogelman, a writer of memoirs in prose and poetry, lives in Friendswood, Tx. Her work has been published in anthologies including Exit 109 and various school publications. She is a member of Bay Area Writers League, Gulf Coast Poets, Poetry Society of Texas, and The Arts Alliance Center in Clear Lake, TX. 

Dare Freeman Ford, of Hendersonville, NC, has a background in education. Ford published Don’t Make me Turn this Bus Around, a chronicle of her adventures as a teenage bus driver in her native Anson County, NC. Her work has appeared in several regional publications and Old Mountain Press anthologies, most recently, Exit 109. She also contributed to Christmas Presence, and Clothes Lines, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. 

James Gibson combined his love of the American West and his fascination with Native American shamanism to write the five novels of the Anasazi Quest series. He then wrote The Last Ride, a traditional Western set outside Tucson, Arizona. All his novels are available at www.pentaclespress.com. The Anasazi Quest novels are also available at Amazon.com, and through Barnes & Noble.

Thomas Gluzinski spends a lot of free time just writing poetry. He writes in many forms and has works in several of the Old Mountain Anthologies. He is working on several poetry books for publication and has had his work appear in several forums nationally and internationally as well as other anthologies that are now out of print. Tom lives in the great Midwest along the Illinois and Wisconsin border (Lindenhurst, IL) where seasons change and inspiration is plentiful. Visit his website at: www.warrior-poet.us

Marian Gowanis author of Notes from the Trunk, published by Old Mountain Press (www.oldmp.com/mariangowan.htm). She contributed to American Patchwork, St. Martins Press. Her work has appeared in several Old Mountain Press anthologies, as well as Christmas Presence, and Clothes Lines, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. 

Phyllis Jean Green, Chapel Hill, NC, transplant,has been around, er, ah, awhile. Her latest poetry credits include Sketchbook, Ardent!, and Taj Mahal Review. She has a lot of projects in the hopper. Wish her luck! 

Kerri Mai Habben lives in Raleigh, NC, where she works as a writer and a photographer. Her articles, essays, and poetry have appeared in literary journals and other publications. Some of her work can be read at www.newsobserver.com/nrn/habben/2007. She is currently working on a novel set in 1929 at a tuberculosis sanitarium.

MaXine Carey Harker, taught Writing for Publication for many years at Pitt Community College and Craven Community College and now at the Recreation Center in New Bern, NC. She has been published in national, state, and local newspapers and magazines and in NCPS and Old Mountain anthologies. Her personal writing preference is nonfiction and poetry. MaXine is a longstanding member of the: NC Poetry Society and NC Writers Network and the NC Haiku Society. She has lived in Grifton, NC for54 years.

Janet. L. Harvey lives in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. She has had numerous poems published in a variety of Canadian and US magazines and international anthologies, including: Sterling Silver, Feminine Magazine, Word Dance, Stella Showcase Journal, Spirit of Humanity (Artist for a Better World), Night Whispers, Exit 109 (Old Mountain Press), Borderless Skies (CCLA), and Cross Culture (Black Mail Press). Janet is Poetry Canada’s Global Contest Winner.

Catherine Murphy Haymore was born in Westerville, Ohio and lived in Columbus, Ohio until leaving to travel to Europe. She graduated from Whitehall-Yearling HS and attended Ohio State University. She is currently a member of the Writers’ Ink Guild of Fayetteville, NC where she conducts workshops on the writing of the sonnet. Her greatest joy is watching her three grandchildren as they grow.

Joseph Haymore is the current president of the Writers’ Ink Guild of Fayetteville/Cumberland County, NC. A native North Carolinian, he attended school Benhaven High School, Olivia, NC. He devoted 20 years to a military career before returning to his home in Harnett Co. He is largely self taught as a poet but owes any expertise he has gained to his wife and mentor, Catherine.

Elizabeth Hebron was Managing Editor of The MacGuffin, a literary magazine published by Schoolcraft College, for nearly ten years, before starting her own small literary magazine, Eratica – half a bubble off plumb. Her work has been published in places such as Bellowing Ark, Maxis Review, Water Flying Annual, Love, Grandma – Grandmother’s Against the War, The Outter Side of Life, and Exit 109. Elizabeth lives in Westland, MI, with her husband and two dogs.

Heather Ifversen has published in the e-zines Niederngasse and Alone Together. She currently works as a social worker and lives in Seneca, SC with her husband and two daughters.

Arnie Johanson is a philosophy professor from Minnesota, who retired to Durham, NC in 1999. He currently resides in Durham and, in the summers, in Minneapolis. His work has appeared in various periodicals, and he has published one chapbook of poetry, A Man and A Horse.

Jerry Judge lives in Cincinnati and is the author of six poetry chapbooks. He is active with the Greater Cincinnati Writers’ League and the Cincinnati Writers’ Project. He is the proud father of a college student and a firefighter/paramedic. He shares a home with a gorgeous wife plus a spunky terrier and three pampered cats.

K. D. Kennedy, Jr. has published two books of poetry, Our Place In Time (2002) and Waiting Out In The Yard (2006). He has been published in the Barton College Crucible, In the Yard, a poetry anthology, and several other anthologies. He is presently writing short stories along with poetry, and is researching a novel. KD and his wife Sara Lynn live in Raleigh, NC.

Jo Koster is Professor of English at Winthrop University, where she maintains an insanely busy schedule, or maybe is simply insane. Her work has appeared in a number of OMP anthologies, and a new chapbook, Nine Days’ Wonder, is forthcoming in early 2010. She and her cats Max and Neville dwell in chaos and in Rock Hill, SC.

Patsy Kennedy Lain resides in Hubert, NC. She has work appearingin multiple anthologies and online. She placed in local Senior Games for two years, and was one of the recipients of the adult student 2009 Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series. She continues to write and submit her work, and maintains her membership with the North Carolina Poetry Society.

Blanche L. Ledford’s work has appeared in Exit 109, Mountain High, Lights in the Mountains, and other publications. Her essay, Planting by the Signs, received first place in the Cherokee County Senior Games. Blanche lives and writes in Hayesville, NC.

Brenda Kay Ledford is a member of North Carolina Writer’s Network and North Carolina Poetry Society. She’s listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. Her work has appeared in Exit 109, Mountain High, Asheville Poetry Review, and other journals. She received the Paul Green Award for her poetry chapbooks, Patchwork Memories and Shew Bird Mountain. Brenda lives and writes in Hayesville, NC.

Michael Lythgoe lives with his wife, Louise, in Aiken, SC. His collection, HOLY WEEK, is available at Amazon.com. He teaches for the Academy For Lifelong Learning at USCA. Mike is the President of the Aiken Choral Society. His poetry & reviews appear in Windhover,Praesidium, Permafrost, Petigru Review, Caribbean Writer, & PSSC Yearbooks. 

Al Manning is a retired Navy officer, currently living in Pittsboro, Al is on the Board of Trustees for the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and is the NCWN representative for Chatham County. A Pushcart nominee, his short stories, poems and essays appeared in Lights in the Mountains, Mountain High, Southern Mist , and The Outer Side of Life. His latest book is Curmudgeon’s Book of Nursery Rhymes, available at independent bookstores or from the author.

Erin Myer lives in Raleigh, NC with her parents and two brothers. She is in the 10th grade; loves tennis, math and writing to her own beat.

Halle Meyer lives in Raleigh, NC, loving like crazy, Erin (who is now 15 and has yet to amass her babysitting fortune) and her two brothers, Taylor and Cooper. Halle’s work has appeared in a number of Old Mountain Press Anthologies.

Ruth Moose has published two collections of short stories and several books of poetry, most recently The Librarian and Other Poems (Main Street Press). She has been on the creative writing faculty at UNÇ-Chapel Hill since l996.

Jerome Norris lives with his beautiful wife by a pond near New Bern, NC. He’s a reformed lawyer who now devotes full time to writing stories and poems and watching the Baltimore Orioles lose baseball games. He has published stories and poems in a number of magazines and anthologies, but essentially remains a rank amateur. 

Martha O’Quinn, a native of NC, uses family stories and events as ideas for prose and poetry. She currently lives in Hendersonville, NC, and has contributed to six previous OMP anthologies, plus Christmas Presence, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. Her work has also appeared in WNC-Woman.

Margaret L. Parrish’spoems have appeared in Mountain High, the Lyricist, Poets for Peace, Poem and other publications. She lives and works in Raleigh, NC.

D. Davis Phillips is a writer of poetry and prose currently studying English at Winthrop University. His work most recently appeared in the Old Mountain Press anthology Exit 109. He currently resides in Rock Hill, SC.

Michael Potts is a native of Smyrna, TN and currently lives in Linden, NC. He is Professor of Philosophy at Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC. Several of his poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, and his chapbook, From Field to Thicket, won the 2006 Mary Belle Campbell Poetry Book Award from the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Dr. Lynn Veach Sadler, (former) college president, editor, poet, fiction/creative nonfiction writer, and playwright, is widely published in academics and creative writing. ElizaPress’s 2007 Writer-of-the-Year, she won Wayne State’s 2008 Pearson Award for a play on the Iraq wars and San Diego City College’s 2009 overall award (poetry and fiction). She lives in Sanford and has traveled around the world five times, writing all the way.

Joanna Catherine Scott is the author of the novels Child of the South; The Road from Chapel Hill; Cassandra, Lost; The Lucky Gourd Shop; and Charlie, the nonfiction Indochina’s Refugees: Oral Histories from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; and the prizewinning poetry collections Breakfast at the Shangri-la, Fainting at the Uffizi, and Night Huntress. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, she is a graduate of Duke University and lives in Chapel Hill, NC.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro practices as a psychologist and poet in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988),a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007) andtwo chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). She was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006 and again in 2008.

Sybil Austin Skakle, a retired pharmacist, living in Chapel Hill, is author of Searchings - Rocks Revelations Rainbow, a poetry book and two memoirs: Confessions of an Outer Banks Filly and Valley of the Shadow a journey through grief. She is working on a novel and another memoir.

Linda M. Smith lives in Hayesville, NC. She has studied creative writing at Tri-County Community College in Murphy NC and John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. She is a member of the NC Writer’s Network West. Her poetry and essays have been published in some Old Mountain Press anthologies, Lights in The Mountains and Freeing Jonah V. 

Dorothea Spiegel of Hiawassee, GA, has written poems for most of her 87 years. She belongs to NC Writer’s Network West. She studied Creative Writing and Poetry at Tri-County College, Murphy, NC and John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. Her poems have been published in previous Old Mountain Press anthologies, Lights in the Mountains, The Freeing Jonah series, Atahita Journal and The Spirit of Christmas.

Dorothy Anne Spruzen earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte and teaches creative and business writing in Northern Virginia. In another life she was Manager of Publications for a defense contractor. Her short stories and poems have appeared in several publications and a novel is seeking a good home. She currently lives in McLean, VA

Tonya Staufer has recently returned to writing.She is a real estate investment broker by day and a writer by night. She and her husband call Saluda, NC home.Her stories have appeared in Spirit of the Smokies, A Long Story Short, Western NC Woman, Moonshine Review, and numerous anthologies.

Cassie Premo Steeleis an award-winning and widely published poet and writer who lives inColumbia, South Carolina. She is the author of five books– the most recent is Easyhard: Reflections on the Practice of Creativity.She teaches workshops and coaches individuals through her Co-Creating business. More information can be found at:www.cassiepremosteele.com

Shelby Stephenson’sFamily Matters: Homage to July, the Slave Girl won the 2008 Bellday Poetry Prize. He lives near Benson, NC, on the farm he grew up on.

Jo Barbara Taylor lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her poems and academic writing have appeared in Mount Olive Review, Beacon, Bay Leaves, Ibbetson Street, Exit 109, on New Verse News and in The Broad River Review. She edits the newsletter for the North Carolina Poetry Society. 

Katherine Tracy lives in Thibodaux, LA and teaches English at Nicholls State University. She has edited, designed, or published more than a dozen books for Thunder Rain Publishing Corp. and other small presses. Her poems have appeared in Exit 109, Mountain High, Southern Mist, Night Whispers, Sand, Sea, & Sail, In the Arms of Words: Poems for Tsunami Relief and In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief. She also edits and compiles www.lintrigue.org and has a blog:

Kathleen Wanamakerhas lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina on an old farm with her indulgent husband since 1982. As mother with four children, she took on the seemingly impossible task of attending UNCP in order to graduate with a BA in English Literature and History. Many of her short stories have appeared in the Fayetteville Observer and more recently, in Exit 109. Kathleen wrote Stoking the Embers of Tradition for the Lumbee Indians. 

Betty Watson who writes short stories and poetry has been published in five previous OMP anthologies, in WNC Woman, moonShine Review and a 2009 anthology, Clothes Lines. In 1995 Betty and her husband Doug moved from MA to beautiful Flat Rock, NC to leave severe winters behind forever. Although she’s a cancer survivor (who happily didn’t lose her hair), In the Eyes of the Beholder was inspired by a dear childhood friend in upstate NY.

Evelyne Weeks is a writer of both poetry and prose. Most recently her work has been published in The Hollins Critic, Appalachian Heritage, and Out of the Rough: Women’s Poems of Survival and Celebration. Today she lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where she has taught English at Winthrop University since 1989.

Cecily Anne Hamlin Wells has published poems and short fiction in Long Story Short, MoonShine Review, Christmas Presence, a collection of stories and poems by 45 Western North Carolina writers and in several Old Mountain Press anthologies. She received an Honorable Mention for her entries in the 76th and 77th Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. She lives with her husband and dog, Tikka, in Hendersonville, NC.

Stella Ward Whitlock is a retired teacher and college instructor, the widow of a Presbyterian minister, mother of four children, and grandmother of seven. She is currently selling her house in Fayetteville and has recently moved to Glenaire in Cary, NC. Stella has one poetry chapbook published, titled Florida Heat, has had one play professionally produced, and numerous individual poems, stories, articles, and essays published.

Earl J Wilcox writes about teens, aging, baseball, and Southern culture. He has published more than four dozen political poems and several baseball poems. Many of his poems may also be found on his blog, Writing by Earl. Earl lives with his wife and their Sheltie (Lady) in Rock Hill, SC.

Glenda Sumner Wilkins grew up on a North Carolina tobacco farm, and daydreamed of faraway places. Decades later, she and her husband lived in both Luxembourg, and Geneva, Switzerland. Countries where published: USA; Canada; Spain: Luxembourg; Switzerland; Great Britain. She is a member of the NCPS and NCWN, and has won several poetry awards. Today, she resides in Winterville, NC, with her husband, and Bustopher, the cat about town.

Barbara Ledford Wright writes prose about her family, and is a family historian and teacher. She’s been published in several previous Old Mountain Press anthologies including Exit 109. Her work has appeared in Readers are Leaders (Express Yourself 101 Vol.2. also published in: A Southern Journal, Fireflies and June Bugs, Christmas Presence. She has forthcoming publications due in the fall. She presently resides in Shelby, NC.

C. Pleasants York of Sanford, NC, does love children. She has educated students for 37 years – beginning with Project Head Start and ending with community college. She and her husband, Guy, are the parents of three published poets – Adam, Emily, and Jonathan. Their latest love is grandson Noah who, at seven months, is a connoisseur of both poetry and prose. So far, he loves listening to stories as he chews the corners of books.

Joseph Youngblood is a professional counselor and mental/behavioral healthcare therapist. He writes for pleasure about things that interest him, and has contributed to several OMP anthologies. He currently lives in Fayetteville NC.