Today and tomorrow I’ll be enjoying the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival in Burnsville, NC. This isn’t a Christian writers event, but even though my focus is on Christian fiction, I think it’s equally important to keep up with secular writing. And there are some wonderful writers in attendance!
Robert Morgan, Fred Chappell, Tony Earley, Charles Price, Vicki Lane, Wiley Cash and new NC Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti will all be there. This is a FREE event (unless you take one of three or four workshops which run about $25 each–bargain!). It brings together some of the finest writers in our little stretch of Appalachia and is largely aimed at readers rather than writers.
Saturday morning, I’m participating in Fred Chappell’s poetry workshop. Yes, fiction is where my heart is these days, but poetry was my first love and I’m looking forward to fiddling with words again. I shared one of the poems I submitted for class on this blog about a year ago if you’d like to read it again.
FIREFLY FLY AWAY HOME
I didn’t notice when they left,
the fireflies that danced
all summer in the yard.
But on a September night I saw
the last one lying in the grass,
glowing steady. Unblinking.
An accusing eye
that would not close.
Frozen wide in shock,
or wonder, or dying.
Then as the dark grew darker
and the first of the cold, colder,
I saw it was more than unblinking,
it was slowly burning out.
Like leaving home in a car at night,
the local radio station fading,
gradually,
into static.
Meet Sarah
