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About the book

Matthew G. Adams is currently inspired by the works of George Lucas. Having recently contributed regularly to the Old Mountain Press Anthology Series, he is attempting to take his poetry into new dimensions. Matthew lives in Midway Park, NC.

Sandra Ervin Adams remembers her father quoting poetry to her from memory, and her mother helping her to complete a poem for an elementary school assignment. She later discovered that words were her favorite toys. In 2006, Sandra’s first chapbook was, Union Point Park Poems, and in 2011, her second was, Through a Weymouth Window. She lives near Jacksonville, NC and depends on her memory to write many of her poems. 

JoAnna Arnold’s piece is her reaction to a recent encounter with her beloved grandfather, whose mind and body—like all of ours—is failing. Although she teaches high school French and Spanish, her heart is in her writing and in mission work in Haiti and Costa Rica. This is her first publication with Old Mountain Press. JoAnna lives in Americus, GA, with her husband and three children.

Katherine Russell Barnes lives in Wilson, NC. She is a retired nurse, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and great-grandmother. She studied writing at BartonCollege and WilsonCommunity College and has written poetry for three decades. Her poems have been published in Crucible, Pembroke Magazine, Dragonfly and many other magazines and anthologies. She has held offices in The NC Poetry Society and The Poetry Council of NC.

Fred Basset’s poems have been published in more than 60 journals and anthologies. His most recent books are The Old Stoic Faces the Mirror: A Life in Poems (Salt Marsh Cottage Books, 2010) and South Wind Rising: A Novel (ATTM Press, 2010). Now retired from academia, he lives with his wife Peg in Greenwood, South Carolina, near their grandchildren.

Jerry Bradley spent thirty years in the US Air Force from which he retired in August 2008. He and his, wife, Laura, were stationed at the different military locations. During his career he wrote poetry off and on and now has the opportunity to concentrate on his writing. Most of his poems are related to this faith, his family or the military. They raised three children, a daughter in the Army, a daughter married to Army, and a son in the Air Force. Jerry and Laura currently live in Raeford, NC.

Ethelena Jackson Brown was born in Baconton, GA, on January 8, 1915, and lived in Macon, GA, since her graduation from college in 1937. For twenty years, she taught highschool English and an assortment of other subjects. The joy of her life was spending time with six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Excerpts from her autobiography, Growing up Southern InBaconton, 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, paints, and plays her piano program,Musicto Remember, every week at several locations.

Vicki Collins’ poem was written as part of Authors Respond to Art, an annual activity of The Authors Club of Augusta. An active member of The Augusta Poetry Group, she teaches English at the University of South Carolina Aiken. She and her husband David, who live in Graniteville, SC, have recently been smitten by a new granddaughter named Allyson.

SonjaContois is an errant explorer who exhibits disdain when being defined. She lives in Waynesville, surrounded by the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina.

RuthCronan writes her days away beneath the shadow of ChilhoweeMountain in the majestic Chilhowee National Forest of Benton, Tennessee. She is a wife, momma, mamaw, and volunteer in her community. Her primary role is a lover of Appalachia and God who created these ancient, blue, smokey mountains.

Tom Davis’s publishing credits include Poets Forum, The Caroli­na Runner, Triathlon Today, Georgia Athlete, The Fayetteville Observers 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 Webster, NC.

CATHERINE E. ENTROCASO thinks in italics. She currently teaches English to aspiring high school writers in Fayetteville, NC. 

Terri Kirby Erickson, a North Carolina native, is the award-winning author of three collections of poetry, including her latest book, In the Palms of Angels (Press 53), with an Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Ron Powers. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, anthologies and other publications, such as the North Carolina Literary Review, JAMA, Verse Daily and many others. For more information about her work, please visit her website at www.terrikirbyerickson.wordpress.com or www.press53.com

PatriciaFanelli-Cavener is a talented writer, who has a B.A. in English and Psychology; she also holds an MA in English. She taught at FayettevilleTechnicalCommunity College in Fayetteville, NC, for several years. Presently, Mrs. Fanelli-Cavener is compiling her poetry for publication, as well as working on a novel.

Dena M. Ferrari is a regular contributor to OMP, Dena’s poetry are featured in Westchester Community College of NY Phoenix (1975); placed several times in Fields of Earth, sponsored by the Writers’ Ink Guild; in Charles Weyant’s book, An Odyssey in Broken Rhythms and Ragged Lines (2006). Writers Alliance Poets World-Wide anthologies has many of her works. Dena’s own book, Poems From the Hearth (2010) shows diversified writing styles. She and her husband, Peter live in Vass, NC.

Ann Fogelman has been published in The Noble Generation, That Thing You Do, Pets Across America, Boundless 2011, They That Go Down to the Sea, Old Time Mountain Music and other anthologies and school publications. She is a member of Bay Area Writers League, Gulf Coast Poets, Poetry Society of Texas, The Arts Alliance Center at ClearLake and OLLI at UTMB, Galveston. Ann lives in Friendswood, TX. 

James Gibson (Northvilles, Michigan) combined his love of the American West and his fascination with Native American culture to write the five novels of the Anasazi Quest series. He has also written a “traditional” Western novel, The Last Ride, set outside Tucson, Arizona. All six novels are available at www.pentaclespress.com, and through Old Mountain Press. TheAnasazi Quest novels are also available at Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble.

RalphGillum is a retired teacher and guidance counselor who resides in Northville, Michigan. He has published in a number of journals and anthologies as well as written numerous articles and two books on his hobby of field trial beagles. He especially enjoys assisting other aspiring writers in editing their work and his monthly meetings with friend and motivator, Jim Gibson. 

ThomasGluzinski is a seasoned contributor to the OldMountain anthology series of poetry and prose anthologies and has published in other areas as well. His poetry is generated by his life experiences and subject matter that peaks his interest. He writes with many different styles and most of his work is thought provoking in form. He is working on three personal collections and a private website to showcase his work and the work of others.

MarianGowan of Hendersonville, NC is author of Notes from the Trunk, Old Mountain Press (www.oldmp.com/mariangowan.htm). She has contributed to several anthologies, including Christmas Presence, Clothes Lines, and Women’s Spaces Women’s Places edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham, American Patchwork, St. Martins Press, and several from Old Mountain Press. 

Kerri Mai Habben lives in Raleigh, NC where she works as a writer, photographer, and local historian. A graduate of PeaceCollege and North CarolinaStateUniversity, her articles, essays, and poetry have appeared in literary journals, the News and Observer, and other publications. She is currently working on a collection of her essays.

AndreaHaighmoved to Fayetteville, NC, over a year ago. She enjoys spending time with family, friends and her puppy Duffy.

MaXine Carey Harkerand husband Berkley, have lived 57 years in the little one-stop-light town of Grifton, NC, reared 5 children who have produced grandchildren and great grandchildren in far-flung places. Published in national, state and local publications. She prefers non-fiction, sonnets, and haiku. Taught Writing for Publication for 30+ years at Community Colleges, now RecCenter in New Bern. MaXine is 82, her doctor tells her she is 65. 

Dorothy Hassan (D. A. Spruzen) earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte and teaches creative writing for the Fairfax County Adult and Community Education Department. In another life she was Manager of Publications for a Northern Virginia defense contractor. Her short stories and poems have appeared in several publications, and she has written two novels, one set in World War II England, and the other in New York City and Northern Virginia. She lives in McLean, VA.

JosephHaymore has submitted his first piece of prose for publication in this anthology. He hopes it will be found enjoyable by Old Mountain Press readers. He is a former president of the Writers’ Ink Guild of Fayetteville and published his first chap book in 2004 entitled, Of Love and War.

ArnieJohanson is a retired philosophy professor now living in Durham,NC (summers in Minnesota). His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has published two chapbooks.

Jerry Judge lives in Cincinnati with his beautiful wife, Michele, two imperial felines and a former shelter dog named Luna who stole his heart. He has work in several journals and has published seven chapbooks. He’s the proud papa of two grown sons, Nick and Devin.

K.D. Kennedy Jr. has published three (3) books of poetry, short stories, and essays Our Place In Time, Waiting Out In The Yard, and For Rhyme Or Reason. He has published works in over twenty anthologies and periodicals. He has four (4) children who are (1) A Broadway Leading Lady (2) A President of a Corporation (3) A Real Estate Developer and (4) A Mother of four (4) grandchildren. He humbly gives thanks to his wife of 46 years, Sara Lynn.

Jo Koster and her cats Max, Neville, and Tippy live in Rock Hill, SC, where she teaches at WinthropUniversity and wishes she had more time to write. In the last six months she has spent more time in airports than she would like, which will eventually end up in a poem somewhere.

Patsy Kennedy Lain lives in Hubert, North Carolina, continues to be inspired by life, both past and present, with published works in anthologies, literary journals and online magazines. Recipient of Senior Literary and Visual Arts awards for past four years, and a Gilbert-Chappel Distinguished Poet Series Adult Student Poet in 2009. She continues as a member of the Coastal Poetry Consortium, North Carolina Poetry Society, Onslow Council for Arts, and Onslow Art Society.

Blanche L. Ledford’s work has appeared in OldTimeMountain Music, Traveling Time, Just Between Us, They That Go Down to the Sea, You GottaLove’em, Exit 109, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and other anthologies. Blanche lives in Hayesville, NC. Her hobbies include reading, gardening, writing, and quilting.

Brenda Kay Ledford lives in Hayesville, NC, and holds a MA in Education. Her work has appeared in OldTimeMountain Music, Traveling Time, Just Between Us, They That Go Down to the Sea, You GottaLove’em, Exit 109, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, and other anthologies. She received the 2011 Paul Green Award for her book, Simplicity, co-authored with Blanche L. Ledford. Visit Brenda’s blog: www.blueridgepoet.blogspot.com.

Valerie Macon finds a rich source of inspiration for her poetry right in her home town of Fuquay Varina, NC. She has received awards for her poetry from the N.C. Poetry Society, The Writer’s Inc Guild, and the Gilbert-Chappel Distinguished Poets Series. She recently published her first book of poetry, Shelf Life. When not writing, she enjoys teaching ESL and Sunday School, book group, gardening and spending time with family. 

DavidTreadway Manning lives with his wife Doris in Cary, NC and has work in a number of journals, seven chapbooks (most recently Continents of Light, Finishing Line, 2010), and two full-length collections, The Flower Sermon (Main Street Rag, 2007) and Yodeling Fungus, see www.oldmp.com/DaveManning.htm (Old Mountain Press, 2010).

Celia Miles is the author of several novels and short story collections and co-editor of three anthologies of women writers’ works. A retired community college instructor, she lives in Asheville, NC.

Jerome Norris has written one unpublished novel that came back from the publisher so quickly that it must have been the mailroom boy who rejected it. He has written many shorter but equally undistinguished stories and poems. Nevertheless, he lives happily beside a pond inNew Bern, NC with his still-gorgeous spouse, and persists in writing all sorts of trash on a more-or-less continuous basis.

Martha O’Quinn writes poetry and non-fiction based on family facts and lore. Her work has appeared in previous OMP anthologies as well as other regional publications. She was recently elevated to the status of great-grandmother. She and her husband live in Hendersonville, NC.

Margaret L. Parrish poems have appeared in Mountain High, Bay Leaves, Poem, Poets for Peace, and other publications. She lives and works in Raleigh, NC.

Dylan D. Phillips is currently pursuing an M.A. in English at WinthropUniversity in Rock Hill, SC. He recently won an award for a critical essay on Jonathan Swift published in The Sigma Tau Delta Review, and his poetry has most recently appeared in the Atlantic Pacific Press as well as the OMP Anthologies Words, Traveling Time, Just Between Us, They That Go Down to the Sea, and You Gotta Love ‘em

Jordan Rhodes is an actor/writer. He has written plays & films. He lives in West End, NC.

EWINA ROOKER grew up in Warrenton, NC, lived in Bridgeton, NC, on the Neuse River, and now lives at The Courtyards of Berne Village in New Bern, NC.  She holds degrees from Duke University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Her poems have appeared in several OMP anthologies.  Her newspaper column Observations appears in The Warren Record.

(Dr.) Lynn Veach Sadler, (former) college president, editor, poet, fiction/creative nonfiction writer, and playwright, is widely published in academics and creative writing. She has seven chapbooks and another and two full-length collections in press. One story appears in Del Sol’s Best of 2004 Butler Prize Anthology; a novel will soon join her novella and short-story collection. From Sanford, NC, she has traveled around the world five times and works fulltime writing and editing.

Joanna Catherine Scott is the author of the prizewinning poetry collections Breakfast at the Shangri-la, Fainting at the Uffizi, and Night Huntress; and the prizewinning chapbooks Birth Mother and Coming Down from Bataan. Her recently published collection, An Innocent in the House of the Dead, was written in collaboration with ex-Death Row inmate John Lee Conaway, who is now her legally adopted son. Her website is www.joannacatherinescott.com.

Judy Lewis Shacklefordgrew up in Atlanta and wrote a weekly column for the Atlanta Journal before moving to N.C. where she wrote about dogs for the Fayetteville Observer. Her interest in dogs led her to a career of instructing people and dogs in the art of understanding dog behavior through obedience training. Being a romantic has led her writing to encompass love in all it’s aspects. She lives with her husband and a house full of rescued dogs in Fayetteville, NC.

MarianKaplun Shapiro, a previous contributor to OMP, is a four-time and current Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts. She is the author of a professional book, many journal articles, over 200 published poems, and three books of poetry. She practices as a psychologist in Lexington, MA. 

Sybil Austin Skakle has lived in the same house in Chapel Hill for fifty-three years. Since retirement from pharmacy in 1990, she has published two books of poetry- Searchings– Rocks Rainbow Revelations and Loves and Lives of Living and Loving;two memoirs- Confessions of an Outer Banks Filly and Valley of the Shadow– a journey through grief; contributed poetry and prose to numerous anthologies; and has another memoir in progress. 

LINDA M. SMITH  has lived in the mountain-lake town of Hayesville, NC with her husband since 1989. She is a member of the NC Writers Network West and enjoyed its many critique groups and workshops. Her poems were published in their two anthologies, Lights in the Mountains and Echoes Across the Blue Ridge.  Her poems and essays were also published in many of the Old Mountain Press books and in Freeing Jonah V. 
 

NancySollosi of Jamestown, North Carolina, is the step-daughter of William Kyle Bobbitt, to whom she dedicates this poem. Her daddy, Kyle, changed the course of her life and helped mold her into the woman she is today. A woman who understands, death is but a dream. They may visit in a dream, or touch us on a breeze. But the loves we lose to death remain constant.

Dorothea Spiegel, 90 years old in February 2012, moved from Hiawassee, GA to live with her daughter just outside Gainesboro, TN, surrounded by mountain forest. She belonged to writing clubs in GA and NC, and has attended meetings of a club in a library in TN. She says she has always written poetry, her mother had one of her poems published in the newspaper when she was a teenager, and she has had many published in anthologies and magazines. She studied reading and poetry writing at JohnCampbellFolkSchool and at TricountyCollege.

TonyaStauferfound her way back to writing a few years ago. 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.

Jo Barbara Taylor lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her poems have appeared in Bay Leaves, Ibbetson Street, Bee Culture, on New Verse News and in The Broad River Review and several Old Mountain Press anthologies. Her chapbook One Or Two Feathers was released in fall 2010 by Plan B Press; Jake and Jill, the story of a marriage, summer 2011 by Ridgeline Press; and Cameo Roles, in October 2011 from Big Table Publishing. 

Betty Watson has enjoyed ice cream sugar cones and root beer floats as long as she can remember! She’s pleased to have poems in eight previous OMP collections. Her short stories are published in WNC Woman, moonShine review and anthologies Clothes Lines and Women’s Spaces Women’s Places in 2011. The Watsons migrated from the coast of MA to Flat Rock in 1995 and never regret our decision to live 3000 feet above sea level. 

Evelyne Weeks is a writer of both poetry and prose. 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 WinthropUniversity since 1989.

Meg Wethington currently resides in New Bern, NC.

Charles “Hawk” Weyant, lives in Fayetteville, NC, where he has been a member of Writers’ Ink Guild for over twenty-seven years. He read on Public Radio for ten years. A true imagist poet, his work appears in more than a dozen anthologies, and his book An Odyssey In Broken Rhythms And Ragged Lines was nominated for a Push Cart Award.

Stella Ward Whitlock (widow of a Presbyterian minister, mother of four, grandmother of seven) is a writer, teacher, and traveler. She has camped in all forty-eight contiguous states, traveled in Alaska and Hawaii, and toured more than forty-five countries. Her stories, poems, and articles have been published in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies. Her chapbook Florida Heat was published in 2008. Stella currently lives in the Glenaire Retirement Community, Cary, NC.

Glenda S. Wilkins grew up on an eastern NC tobacco farm, and believed she’d never live beyond the county line. Decades later, she moved to Europe for almost a dozen years. Her poems are published in the U.S.A.,Canada, Spain, Luxembourg,Switzerland, and Great Britain. Along the way, she has won several poetry awards. Today, she lives with her husband on an airstrip outside Winterville, NC. 

Charlotte Wolf’s short stories and poems have appeared in several anthologies published mostly in North Carolina. She has lived in Hendersonville, NC, since moving from Bucks County, PA, in 1995. Surrounded by woodland and wildflowers she currently shares her home with five cats.

Barbara Ledford Wright an associate editor to Moonshine and Blind Mules is a frequent contributor to Old Mountain Press anthologies including Old Time Mountain Music. A special 150th publication for ClayCounty, and CherokeeCountyNC Civil War Sesquicentennial Souvenir Edition.Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Express Yourself 101 Vol 2 For Your Eyes Only, Kaleidoscope, Fireflies and June Bugs, Yesterdays Magazette, Christmas Presence, Clothes Lines, Fresh, Mused, Bread ‘N Molasses, and Women’s Spaces Women’s Places.

C. Pleasants York of Sanford, NC, weaves remember whens, times that were, past perfects, days of old into poetry and prose, memory boxes, Victorian collage, antique decoupage. She creates tapestries of time, begems, bejewels, houses of dreams and schemes, mannequins of memories, chimney sweeps, and tiny peeps on wings that sing. She crafts remnants and remains, once-weres, but now-ares. Her wisdom words are Pleasantries, Weaver of Destiny and Dream Within a Dream.

Joseph Youngblood’s works have appeared in several previous anthologies. Joseph lives in Fayetteville, NC, where he has a private practice at a mental/behavioral healthcare therapist. Joseph writes for pleasure and about things he feels strongly for.