So not only did you teach me about writing memoir, you also taught me about reading and thinking about how others write memoir. Thank you so much! Rebecca

Accepting what is to come

You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails.
Showing posts with label Zoom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zoom. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

A New Writers Circle Around the Table for 2025

After my husband, Barry, died of cancer in 2009, I felt completely lost. I did not see how I could go on without him. We had spent the past year dealing with radiation, chemotherapy, his unimaginable pain, and my constant fear of losing him. After weeks and weeks in Emory Hospital where I was with him around the clock, I insisted he come home, not to our home in the mountains, but to my sister's and brother-in-law's house in Roswell, GA. It was evident that if he had more chemo, it would kill him. He had a heart condition already. It had been suggested to me by medical staff that unless I wanted him to have more chemo, I should call Hospice Care. That was my only recourse. When his body swelled horribly and he had to be sedated most of the time, I knew I had to do the hardest thing I had ever faced.

Barry and Glenda at Chimney Rock, NC 

With my loving family and our dear friends, I finally got through it all. I came home to an empty house except for our dog, really Barry's dog, Rocky, who grieved for his master. Our sweet canine kid, sat by the bedside for hours waiting for the man who would not come home again.

I had resigned from NCWN-West as Program Coordinator when Barry was diagnosed. I wanted nothing to interfere or need my attention other than his care. I did not go back to church after he died. I knew I could not face the kindnesses and sympathy I would find there. My tears were always on the surface and I didn't want to break down at church.

I lost interest in our writing groups. Nothing mattered to me anymore. Two months after he died, I had cataract surgery. I needed him to help me with the eye drops that were required, but I had to depend on myself now. I didn't eat anything that required cooking. What would I do with all the leftovers?


I had always wanted to attend Wildacres retreat in Little Switzerland, NC  the highlands of western NC Appalachians. I was accepted for a residency there in 2008, but in a couple of months, Barry was diagnosed. I refused the invitation. 

As I sat at home miserable and wondering what would become of me, I received a notice about the Wildacres Fall Gathering, a week for all artists, craftspeople, painters, or writers to spend time working on a project of their choice. I thought about going, but I felt so alone, and I would not know anyone there. I decided not to mention that my husband had just died. I would pretend all was well in my life.

Packing the car and driving alone for several hours was new to me. I had never gone off on a trip without him. For forty-five years, he drove the car when we traveled. He packed the car after I made everything ready to go. He was in charge of the route we took. I never looked at the map. I had confidence that Barry would get us there with no problems. 

Filled with excitement and anxiety, I found a parking place near the front door of the building where registration was going on. I entered a big room with a huge fireplace and chairs and sofas. It was the lobby of the main lodge, a large two-story building, wood no brick, if I remember. Inside I signed in and was given directions to my room and instructions about meals, place and times.

Since it was a little while before dinner, a cocktail party was happening between the two large buildings that would house us, and I meandered down to the area. I stopped to look at the view to my right. Wow, I thought. I am on top of the world. I could just sit out here, feast my eyes on the mountains, the sky, and not think about anything else. I didn't need people. I didn't need to talk to anyone. I could sit and drink in the everlasting vastness spread before me.

I did not reach out to anyone or try to start a conversation. They all seemed to know each other. My misgivings stirred inside me and I thought, Maybe I will just go into the main lodge and sit down. 

Just as I entered the door, an attractive woman with a sweet face, came to me and introduced herself. I relaxed and we struck up a conversation. I liked her. I learned she was the sister of the director of Wildacres. 

I brought my mother up here because I thought it might help her. She lost her husband, my father a few weeks ago, they had been married for over fifty years. She said to me.

That seemed to be a cue for me to say, "I just lost my husband a few months ago." So much for keeping that quiet. Well, it changed everything. 
(Names have been changed)

Kathleen told me she was a nurse. She had helped care for her father and was now looking after her mother.  Let me introduce you to Mother. She took my hand and walked me over to a small woman with gray hair talking and laughing with others. Helen did not appear to be mourning. She was enjoying the people, chatting and laughing. I wished I could do that, keep the pain and grief buried so I could talk, laugh, and not think about the huge void in my life. 
Throughout the week I spent time with Helen talking about losing our husbands and not knowing what to do with ourselves. The family made me feel welcome, and after that afternoon, I felt right at home.

When we went to dinner down the hill to the dining room, I sat with strangers because Kathleen and Helen sat with the director at a special round table out of sight of the guests. The round tables sat eight or ten people. Too big to talk across so I tried to engage with someone beside me. On one side sat a husband and wife who had their own private thing going on, but on the other side, a woman was more approachable. I met painters, quilters, potters, and other artists in the following days while eating family-style meals.

By the time I left Wildacres at the end of the week, I had become good friends with another writer. She was working on a memoir. We talked and shared our reasons for being there. We had an instant feeling of friendship. She was a Morman living in North Carolina. I found her to be most interesting. 

My major goal for being at the retreat was to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. 
I made lists. What did I really like to do? What did I not want to do?
I liked writing and taking writing classes. I liked being my own boss.

During that week at Wildacres, I devised a plan. I decided to make the basement level of my house a writing studio. Finally, I had a reason to be. I would help other writers and do something that I totally enjoyed. My mind went wild with plans.

I encountered some opposition from one of my best friends. She thought I was abandoning NCWN-West but I wasn't. I even asked if my studio could be a part of Netwest, but was told it would be best to do it as my own. With fresh paint on the walls and some simple decor, the daylight basement became my writing studio. Writers Circle Around the Table became synonymous with excellent teachers and pleasant classes. 

Today I am in new surroundings. I am teaching from home using Zoom. But my business is still Writers Circle Around the Table. I will continue to teach and ask good instructors to teach at reasonable prices just as I did in 2010 in Hayesville. Beginning writers will be comfortable in an encouraging non-competitive environment. With technology being what it is today, most people have learned how to study online. Even the John C. Campbell Folk School offers online instruction. I will help anyone who doubts their ability to participate.

For the past 2 years, I have taught memoir courses with three 2 hour sessions on Tuesday evenings. I will continue that format with classes on March 11, 18 and 25. We meet from 6:00 PM EST - 8:00 PM EST.  Many of my students register for each class I teach because they enjoy it so much and it helps motivate them to make writing a priority. As all writers know, few non-writers recognize your writing time as important. 

I look forward to my writer friends who teach holding classes at the new Writers Circle Around the Table.
If you want more information or wish to register for the March classes, email me: at gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com  Write "Writing classes" in the subject line.





Monday, May 15, 2023

Successful Zoom writing events

We, (NCWN-West) are continuing to hold Writers' Night Out through June on Zoom. 
This event was begun about ten years ago by Karen Holmes, an outstanding poet who lives in Atlanta but also has a home in Towns County, Georgia on Lake Chatuge. 
Karen Paul Holmes
We met in various places during those ten years and just before the pandemic struck, we were planning to meet in a new venue near the lake. But once COVID-19 invaded our world, we could not hold face-to-face meetings, so I learned how to use Zoom and suggested to Karen that we hold WNO on Zoom.
I found it to be fun and exciting to meet new writers from distant places. 

Not many of our local writers felt comfortable using Zoom and some still have trouble signing in, but we always had a good number of participants at our once-a-month online event. We used the opportunity to invite guests from distant cities and states and found some who said they deeply appreciated our holding this meeting where they could be a part of it. Some regulars are Abbie Taylor, a fellow blogger, who lives in Wyoming, and Jill Jennings, a highly published writer, who lives in Florida. Karen invited poets who published with her publisher and they came from many different places. 

Although Writers' Night Out will be ending in June 2023, for several reasons, I will miss those evenings together with writers I will not likely see in person. I hope they will continue to visit us at Mountain Wordsmiths, a Zoom meeting facilitated by Carroll S. Taylor. That group meets once a month at 10:30 AM Eastern time. In May, Carroll will host the writer Bill Lightle, author of 

Race & Politics in the American South: A Personal History


Bill grew up in Albany, Georgia where I lived half my life. We both went to the same schools. I read this book and think he will be a very interesting person to listen to on May 25. I agree with his insight into race and politics in the deep south, especially in southwest Georgia. 

To attend this online program, you will have to be invited by Carroll Taylor. Contact me and I will put you in touch so you can receive a link. 

Carroll S. Taylor

I am trying to use a different desktop computer most of the time and the Internet still doesn't recognize it so I am having problems with WiFi and internet service. I am convinced that Internet Technology is trying to make us older folk completely crazy. At times I want to throw up my hands and say, "OK. I give up. I will not touch a keyboard again."

But I am a writer and I must continue to write.  I hope to see you soon on Zoom if not in person.

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Writers are enjoying community in far west Netwest region

One thing writers usually know or realize is that we all need a community of writers. 
Whether online or in person, we crave the company of and conversation with others who write. For most of my life, I wrote alone with no other writers with whom I could share my work. I didn't know any other writer when I lived in south Georgia. For years I wrote personal essays, some poetry and short stories which no one ever saw. I had no one except family to read my work. I believe family is of no help with deciding if my writing is good or not. My poetry was criticized because it did not rhyme. No one in my family group enjoyed free verse poetry. My true stories were criticized because I didn't include my siblings in the narration. 

Nancy Simpson, Program Coordinator and co-founder of NCWN-West


But, when I moved to North Carolina in 1995, and joined the NC Writers' Network- West, I automatically became a part of a fantastic writing community. Nancy Simpson, poet and teacher, founder and Program Coordinator of NCWN-West, encouraged me, advised me, and supported me in writing and in taking leadership roles. The others in the poetry groups and prose group did the same. I took classes at the John C. Campbell Folk School with excellent writers who were instructors. I began publishing my poetry the year after I arrived in the mountains of North Carolina.

Some have said that writers don't need NCWN-West now because we have the Internet, but they are wrong. Here in the mountains of Appalachia, we need the community of writers who live near us. We have always been a very generous group that wants to help each other improve and get published. 

We have a monthly poetry group that meets in Young Harris, Georgia. We also have a monthly poetry group that meets in Hayesville, NC. 

Coffee with the Poets and Writers meets monthly at the library in Hayesville, NC. All groups are open to the public. 

When the pandemic hit, we had to stop meeting in person for two years. We moved to Zoom to hold meetings online. Our monthly Writers' Night Out has become a Zoom event with writers from distant states joining us. 

Mountain Wordsmiths meets monthly, on Zoom, at 10:30 AM and has become popular with our members from all nine NC counties and north Georgia counties. 

I am happy we were able to keep our community going through Zoom meetings even though some of our members have not been that comfortable going online. It was of utmost importance to keep our members safe during the worst of COVID-19. Now that we can get vaccinated and practice social distancing and wearing masks, it is safer to meet in person. 

I think our writing community has survived the pandemic and it will continue to be a stable program for writers in the remote mountain areas of North Carolina and north Georgia. 

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Want to write poetry? Take this workshop with poet and professor, Catherine Carter

 Saturday, September 11th, 1:30-3:30 PM

Fee is only $25 and beginners, as well as more experienced poets, are welcome.

Carter will teach a two-hour workshop for NCWN-West via Zoom from 1:30-3:30 on Saturday, September 11th.  Wherever you live, if you can get Zoom on your computer, you can participate in this class.


The workshop focuses on using the addition of internal slant rhyme to poems to echo off existing keywords and increase poems’ music, along with close attention to the impact of lines’ end words. 
For the first hour, poets will look at published poems and the ways in which their sounds enhance their content. 
For the second hour, participants will work on enhancing the sounds in a short poem of their own and, if they like, share the results with the group. 

Participants are asked to have on hand a HARD COPY of a draft of a short poem of their own, less than one page long, for this activity.


To register: Send a check or money order for $25 made to NCWN-West, %Glenda Beall, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904. We need to receive the fee by September 6, and we will then send you the link to the class. 

Monday, July 12, 2021

Why Do You Write?

Bobbie Christmas, editor and writer, published this article on LinkedIn

Why Do You Write? is a good question to ask yourself. Bobbie answers this question and tells us what we should do according to who we write for, who we want to read our words, where we hope to publish, and what we want to do if we publish a book.

Students gather around the table for a class in my studio before COVID


I have scheduled my next writing class for September 27 - November 1, Mondays 2:30 - 4:30 PM.

The classes will be on Zoom as my last several classes have been. The Institute for Continuing Learning will sponsor the class. Visit  www.iclyhc.org to see when registration begins for this class. 

Check the calendar for all 2021 fall classes. No matter where you live if you can get Internet coverage and can connect with Zoom.com, you are welcome to join locals in my region of the Appalachian Mountains in my class. 





Monday, June 7, 2021

Writers' Night Out on Zoom June 11

Friday evening, June 11,7:00 PM, I will host Writers' Night Out on Zoom from my home.
We are excited to have as our featured guest, P.C. Zick, author of over thirty books. P.C. is a woman writer who lives in Tallahassee, Florida, but during the summer she lives in Murphy, NC, not far from my home in Hayesville, NC.


I look forward to our conversation that night and to P.C. reading from some of her publications.
She writes contemporary fiction, romance novels, and nonfiction books. I found that her book, The Author's Journey, a road map for writers from draft to published book, a necessary part of my library, and I refer to it often as well as use it when teaching my writing students.

If you are a regular reader of this blog and would like to join us Friday evening on Zoom, contact me by email and I can send you the link to the meeting.

P.C. Zick is a woman whose name is Pat, and I look forward to learning why she writes using her initials. 

If you want to know more about this author, check out her website: www.pczick.com  

Friday, September 25, 2020

Sorry if you missed the dialogue class on Zoom today. Carol Crawford taught her first Zoom workshop and her students, including me, had an informative two hours with an editor who knows her stuff.

We hope to have Carol teach again in a few months. As we hunker down this winter, would you like to experience an excellent writing class with a well published writer, editor and poet? Let me know what you are interested in learning more about.

If you are an instructor of poetry or prose with a resume', please email and let's get to know each other. 

We are not offering classes or workshops in Writers Circle around the Table, the actual studio, because of COVID and some other problems, but we can continue bringing writers the best writing teachers by using Zoom online. 

Thanks to Carol Crawford and those who attended today.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Dr. Steven Woolfe on No Labels


Dr. Steven Woolf is guest on No Labels for a 3:00 PM Citizen Call on Zoom.
You can see Dr. Woolf and those who question him. One of the things I learned was that since the 1980s, the life span in the United States has fallen below that of other life expectancy in other developed countries.

He speaks of the ripple effect of this virus. Many more people will die from chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Most importantly, he says we have not invested in public health. Our CDC and State Health Departments were not prepared although we were warned of such a crisis many years ago.
He speaks of the many children likely to suffer from PTSD in years to come. Our mental health will be affected deeply by this pandemic.

I have said for years that we have a broken health care system, but Dr. Woolfe says it is fragmented with lots of different entities involved. He says, and I agree, we need a National Health Care system which we don't have today. I think we can all see how this is necessary from the debacle we have had with this COVID -19

Watch this informative program. You will likely have to click on the arrow to bring up the speaker.