City Lights welcomes Bowles, Winchester
Melanie Sue Bowles will join Renea Winchester for a conversation about their books, publishing and Bowles’ work at the Proud Spirit Horse Sanctuary at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 10, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
Asheville poet focuses on the ‘Now’
As a practitioner and student of poetry all my life, I’ve noticed that while there is a lot of poetry written well and with talented reach, at the same time, there is little current poetry that I’ve experienced that one would classify as being “wise” or “transcendent.”
Thoreau found God in the natural world
“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey,
but rather spiritual beings on a human journey.”
Teilhard de Chardin
— from: “Thoreau’s God”
A look at the 30s glitterati in ‘Rules of Civility’
Having read and relished Amor Towles’ “A Gentleman in Moscow,” I picked up the first novel he published, “Rules of Civility” (Penguin Books, 2012, 368 pages) prepared to enjoy it as well. Unfortunately, some satisfying experiences elude repetition.
The search for origins and identity
Having grown up in proximity to a Cherokee community (Little Snowbird in Graham County), I’m familiar with and sensitive to the history and the psychology of Native peoples who have been marginalized and worse from their cultural roots and their homelands.
Hoofing it from DC to NYC
“The simple act of walking and taking in what I saw and puzzling over what I encountered as I went. The rhythm and simplicity of it.”
— Neil King Jr.
Collect books, like precious pearls
When it comes to reading, I can tend to be “the bigger, the better” type reader. I search for thick novels, dive headfirst into fantasy worlds, and am never dissuaded by the word trilogy (or better yet, series).
Let it find us doing ordinary things
The goal of a writer is to pen words that inspire, educate or entertain, but sometimes, when the world feels heavy, it’s challenging to think of a topic that will resonate. As a decade-long columnist for The Smoky Mountain News, my readers have come to mean a lot to me.
‘Stories of the Saraha’ paints a vivid picture
Early in the 1970s, while living and working in Spain, Chen Maoping read a story in “National Geographic” about the Sahara Desert, and it captured her imagination. She became determined to live there.
Poet sets a new path for humanity
“In time, maybe the land will decide.”
Scott T. Starbuck is an award-winning poet, career fisherman, climate activist and longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest. His most recent book, “Bridge at the End of the World (New and Selected Poems)” is a culmination of his major published poetic output.
