Award-winning poet Cecilia Woloch will offer a workshop for local writers, “Our Lives Which Can Never Run Dry: Workshop for Writers in Short-Form Prose & Poetry,” which will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21, at St. David's Episcopal Church, Cullowhee. 

Hello from Room 510 at the Delta Hotel. The nonstop hustle and bustle of Interstate 81 just outside the window in Bristol, Virginia. For the last few days, I’ve been up here covering the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, one of the largest and most beloved festivals within Americana, bluegrass and country music circles. 

Getting out of bed Sunday morning, I moseyed over to the kitchen and readied the things needed for a delicious breakfast on a lazy, hazy day of midsummer. Coffee (with whip cream). Eggs. Red peppers. Onions. Fresh loaf of bread. Cast iron skillet. Slice. Dice. Crack. Mix accordingly. Two plates for her (Sarah) and I. Eat with gusto. 

Like some mountain man who’s happy in his holler, I’m happy to live up Moses Creek. It’s the right place to read, write and ramble in the woods around our house — the 3Rs of retirement for me. But sometimes, days having passed, and wondering how the water flows, I’ll drive down the creek to the Tuckasegee River, where the valley opens up and traffic rushes past, and looking around, I’ll think, “So, this is the world!” 

Anyone who has ever found themselves looking at a public map — from a trailhead to a mall directory — has seen that little arrow or star or red dot accompanied by the words “you are here.”  

Benjamin Cutler will launch his new book of poetry, “Wild Silence,” at 6 p.m. Friday, May 31, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. 

Poets Jane Hicks and Thomas Alan Holmes will present their latest book of poems, “The Safety of Small Things” and “In the Backhoe’s Shadow,” at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. 

All of us, to one extent or another, make our way through a world of unexamined phenomena. 

It’s a complex world, and we generally glide through it without thinking too much of its parts and machinery. We all carry mini-computers in our pockets, but ask us to explain how we can look at the screen of our phone and read a newspaper from New Delhi, and the best most of us can do is shrug.

In a November 2022 interview with The Smoky Mountain News, storied writer Fred Chappell, a Haywood County native who was 86 at the time, was asked what the culmination of his life meant to him looking back. 

I love the energy surrounding a new year. Why are beginnings so enchanting? Perhaps it’s the hope and anticipation of the unknown or maybe an open opportunity to shed old habits, behaviors and beliefs that are no longer serving us.