2004

December:  Join us for our Holiday Pot Luck and Book Sale!  Enjoy a lovely meal and do your Christmas shopping all in the same evening.  In addition to being able to buy the Guild's latest anthology, Migrants and Stowaways, you can also purchase Knoxville Bound and other books authored by Guild members.  Bring a dish to share and join us as authors from Migrants and Stowaways and Knoxville Bound read from their works. December 2 at 7 pm at the Laurel Theatre, 16th St. and Laurel Avenue.  Visitors are welcome!

November: Three women and one man will arrive at the KWG meeting on Thursday, Nov. 4, ready to share information about something every writer is interested in--freelancing.  These successful writers prove that you can make a living by staying at home and working, but working hard. As a freelancer, you are your own boss, your own editor, and your own agent, and when things go wrong, there's nobody to complain to but yourself.

Dorothy Foltz-Gray is a contributing editor for Health, Arthritis Today, and Alternative Medicine magazines. Her articles have appeared in Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, Family Fun, Fitness, Good Housekeeping, Lifetime; O, The Oprah Magazine; Organic Style, Outside, Parenting, Prevention, Reader’s Digest, Real Simple, Redbook, Self, Woman’s Day, Yoga Journal, and others. She has been a guest speaker at the American Society of Journalists and Authors annual conference, a guest faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Writers Institute, and a guest instructor for the University of Tennessee Journalism Department. She is a past decorating editor for HGTV Ideas Magazine, past dance critic for The Knoxville News-Sentinel,and prior to becoming a free-lance writer, was a magazine and book editor at Whittle Communications in Knoxville.  In 2002, she received a Mature Media Gold Award for a magazine article, "My Husband’s Hands." Three of her Health magazine articles have been nominated for Maggy Awards, given by the Southwest Magazine Association. She is currently writing Alternative Treatments: An A to Z Guide to be published in 2005 by the Arthritis Foundation. She is also writing With and Without Her, a memoir about being and losing a twin

Anne Krueger has worked in the publishing business for 26 years. She has worked from coast to coast—with well-known companies such as Time Inc., Scholastic, Whittle Communications, and E.W. Scripps. She has created and launched magazines, websites, book series, and CD-roms. As a former editor-in-chief of Parenting magazine and the author of Parenting Guide to Your Baby’s First Year and Parenting Guide to Toilet Training, Ms. Krueger has a special interest in family, health, and home/design issues. For several years she was the editor of HGTV Ideas, a magazine for Scripps Howard’s popular Home & Garden Network and she currently edits HGTV.com’s monthly online decorating newsletter. She has also been the editor of a children’s magazine, the managing editor of American Health and Success magazines, and a custom-publishing editorial director/senior producer. Krueger has covered topics ranging from business to celebrity nonsense and written for a variety of publications and websites, including The New York Times, InStyle, Martha Stewart Living, Health, AARP Magazine, Alternative Medicine, Good Housekeeping, This Old House, McCall’s, People, Working Woman, American Health, Parenting, hgtv.com, odaddy.com, babycenter.com, and a wide variety of targeted custom publications.

Meriikay Waldvogel, a nationally known quilt authority, is a free-lance author, curator, and lecturer. Raised in the Midwest, she taught English as a Second Language in Chicago after graduation from college. In 1977 she moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where over the next 10 years she held a variety of jobs (Director of the Knoxville Women’s Center, Director of the Appal-Art Gallery during the 1982 World’s Fair, and English Instructor at UT and Maryville College). Meanwhile, her interest in collecting quilts evolved into a writing career. In 1986, she wrote Quilts of Tennessee: Images of Domestic Life Prior to 1930 with Bets Ramsey, based on their statewide quilt search. Her other books (now all out of print) are: Soft Covers for Hard Times: Quiltmaking and the Great Depression; Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair; and Southern Quilts: Surviving Relics of the Civil War.

With each book, her career grew in unexpected ways—generating enough income for her to leave a teaching career and make quilt research and writing a full-time, year-round occupation. Her magazine articles have appeared in: McCall’s Quilting, Quilters Newsletter, Better Homes & Gardens/American Patchwork, Quilting Today-Traditional Quiltworks, HGTV Ideas, and Appalachian Life. She also lectures widely to museum and quilting audiences. She has appeared on HGTV "Simply Quilts" and "Country Style" and has curated quilt exhibits for museums and quilting trade shows in the USA and Japan. Merikay has a B.A. in French from Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois and an M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan. She is a past Board Member of the Knoxville Writers Guild and the American Quilt Study Group. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for American Quilts. She was the 2003 Visiting Faculty Scholar at the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Jon Jefferson is a veteran writer and documentary maker. His articles and essays have been featured by the New York Times, Newsweek, and National Public Radio, among others. His television documentaries, more than twenty so far, have aired on A&E, the History Channel, and the National Geographic Channel. His two Nat Geo documentaries about the University of Tennessee’s “Body Farm,” which introduced him to anthropologist William Bass, have been seen by millions of viewers around the world. The book Death’s Acre—which he co-authored with Dr. Bass—was published last fall by Putnam, with a Berkley paperback edition released this fall. Death’s Acre is now in its fifth hardcover printing in the United States, with overseas editions either in print or in preparation in more than a dozen foreign countries.

Jefferson and Dr. Bass are now collaborating on a series of crime novels for William Morrow and Sons; he’s also currently researching a History Channel documentary about Walt Disney World.

October:  Anne Le Clair , author of seven acclaimed novels, will be the featured speaker at the October 7 meeting of the Knoxville Writers' Guild.  Le Claire says that she takes most of her story ideas from real life. In fact, her latest novel was born one morning when Anne was reading a piece in the New York Times about two sisters, one of whom had given the other a kidney. "The article started me wondering," she said. "'What if two sisters were estranged for six years and now one of them needed a kidney?' That question and the incredibly fertile ground it suggested was all it took to get me off and running." The resulting novel, The Law of Bound Hearts , explores the precarious nature of even the strongest of ties and the terrible ease with which we can abandon each other.  LeClaire's books deal mainly with family relationships.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the Laurel Theater at 16th and Laurel Avenue, in the University area. The meetings are free and the public is cordially invited. LeClaire's visit is co-sponsored by the University of Tennessee English Department. Refreshments will be served.  To learn more about Anne LeClaire, visit www.anneleclaire.com.

September:   Poet, singer, storyteller and Nashville performance artist Minton Sparks and guitarist John Jackson appear at the monthly meeting of the Knoxville Writers’ Guild at 7 p.m., Thursday, September 2, at the Laurel Theater.

“Minton Sparks sounds like my momma, my Aunt Dot, my Aunt Grace and even a bit like my Uncle Jack – only better and wilder and heartbreakingly more powerful,” writes novelist Dorothy Allison. “If I could have heard poetry like this as a girl, I wouldn’t have had to waste all those years thinking we were dumb as dirt.” In Minton Sparks’ work, a boy is killed chasing a water balloon, a square dance caller succumbs to heat exhaustion, a naked woman wanders into church, a daisy-print housedress speaks its secrets and “Highway 50 fights us like a wet cat locked in a doll house.” Four generations of working Southern women speak through her vocal artistry. Sparks will be accompanied by the haunting guitar of John Jackson, who previously played back up for Bob Dylan.
 
Sparks has appeared on NPR, on the international Wood Songs Old-Time Radio Hour, on Oxford, Mississippi’s Thacker Mountain Radio Show, and has played Nashville’s Bluebird Café, Douglas Corner, Sutler’s Talkabilly Theater, the Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan, Ladyfest South and the Southern Festival of Books. Minton Sparks won a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship, teaches poetry in high schools, has directed a residential facility for women recovering from addiction and prostitution, facilitates wilderness camps, and is adjunct professor of psychology at Tennessee State University.

At the Laurel Theater, Minton Sparks will perform pieces from her CDs, This Dress and Middlin’ Sisters, a collaboration with Darrell Scott and Waylon Jennings which All Music Guide called “one of the finest spoken word recordings issued in America in more than ten years.” She will also share pieces from her newest CD, recorded this August, as well as answer questions on performance art and the special challenges of working with family material. For more information, visit her website:  http://www.mintonsparks.com

August :   Kristin Robertson, J. Brian Long, Kara Borum, and Brad Tice will read selections from their works at the Thursday, August 5 meeting.  Kristin Robertson teaches creative writing as a lecturer in the English Dept. at the Univ. of Tennessee.  In addition to receiving a graduate poetry prize from U.T., her poems have appeared in Whiskey Island Magazine and Yemassee Literary Journal. 

J. Brian Long’s works have appeared in various magazines and literary journals.  His recent book The Singing of the Wheels is published by Wind Publications.

Kara Borum will read from her collection of poems about her “shotgun house” on Gillespie Avenue.  Her poems are “still about the lower-class neighborhood and the people.”  She will also read some poems from her “to Adam” series, a set of love poems about an unpleasant person who she ”couldn’t help falling for.”

Bradford Tice, a Ph.D. student at the Univ. of Tennessee, has published his poetry and fiction in periodicals such as North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Nimrod, Mississippi Review, and the anthology Gents, Bad Boys, and Barbarians 2 (Windstorm Creative).

June:  On June 3 musician and poet R.B. Morris will read from his new book of prose and poetry, The Littoral Zone , a mixture of new and old works, all powerfully steeped in Knoxville lore.  Of the pieces in The Littoral Zone, Morris says, "Some are very new, some first appeared in the 'Hard Knoxville Reviews' of the early 80's.  But they all overlap and are one piece in place and spirit."  Morris has recorded a number of albums of music over the years, including "Zeke and the Wheel" (Koch, 1999); "Take That Ride" (Oh Boy, 1997); and "The Knoxville Sessions" (Rich Mountain Bound, 1998).  A new CD of Morris' original music is anticipated later this year.
May:   Tracy Barrett is the author of numerous books and magazine articles for young readers.  She holds a Bachelor's Degree with honors in Classics-Archaeology from Brown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Italian Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarly interests in the ancient and medieval worlds overlap in her fiction and nonfiction works.

A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study medieval women writers led to the writing of her award-winning young-adult novel, Anna of Byzantium. Her most recent publication is a middle-grade novel, Cold in Summer (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers). Her next book will be The Ancient Greek World (Oxford University Press, February, 2004), followed by On Etruscan Time (Holt, a sequel to Cold in Summer) and then The Ancient Chinese World (Oxford). She is currently writing a middle-grade novel with the working title The Other Side of the Story.

Since 1999 Tracy Barrett has been Regional Advisor for the Midsouth (Tennessee and Kentucky) with the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She has taught courses on writing for children and on children's literature at various institutions and frequently makes presentations to groups of students, librarians, teachers, and others.

She teaches Italian, Women's Studies, and Humanities at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit her website:  http://www.tracybarrett.com

April:   Daniel Lewis from Overmountain Press will be the featured speaker at the Thursday, April 1 meeting of the Knoxville Writers' Guild. The meeting date will fall on April Fools' Day, but Lewis will be presenting the straight pitch about submitting manuscripts, publishing policies, and all the other elements involved in getting a book out, including proposals and submission letters as well as many other aspects of the trade.

Lewis is the grandson of the founder of the press, Archie Blevins, who started the press in 1970. At the young age of 27, Daniel Lewis has been in the publishing and printing business all his life, he jokes. He is now managing editor of the press, production manager, and a member of the submissions committee. Overmountain Press got its name from the first manuscript  submitted to it, called Overmountain Men.

 March:   Sandra Ballard and Pat Hudson , co-editors of the anthology, Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia (University of Kentucky Press) will discuss the six-year editorial odyssey that resulted in the publication of their book and the creative process involved in the birth of a book. Listen Here is a literary anthology of poetry, fiction, drama and creative nonfiction written by 105 women writers whose identities have been marked by life in Appalachia. The motivation for creating the collection came from the absence of Appalachian womens voices in national literary reference books and anthologies. "The editors hope this book will spread the word that Appalachia has many women writers worthy of recognition," notes a reviewer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Laboring for half a decade to assemble the collection, Ballard and Hudson have realized that hope and more."

Publishers Weekly writes: "The editors wisely incorporate a mix of both famous and unfamiliar authors to present an impressive and stirring display of (mostly) contemporary writings..." Says author Robert Morgan: "This is a collection to brag about and treasure, and most of all to read and re-read...."

Sandra L Ballard is the editor of Appalachian Journal and professor of English at Appalachian State University. Patricia L. Hudson, a former reference librarian at the University of Tennessee, is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in American Heritage, Appalachian Heritage, Americana, and Southern Living. The two women also co-authored The Carolinas & Appalachian States , a volume in the Smithsonian Guide to Historic America series.

February:   Arthur Stewart will read from his new book, Rough Ascension and Other Poems of Science , at the Feb. 5 meeting of the Knoxville Writers' Guild. Stewart is an aquatic ecologist and ecotoxicologist, with a Ph.D. from Michigan State University. He retired from ORNL last year, but remains adjunct research professor in the UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In addition to his scientific publications, he has had literary essays published in Big Muddy, the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, and Breathing the Same Air. His poetry has been published in The Sows Ear Poetry Review, Quantum Tau, Eclectic Literary Forum, Now & Then and many other publications.

January: Happy New Year!   Winners of the Fourth Annual Robert Burns Poetry Award/ Terry Semple Memorial Contest will read their work on Thursday, January 8 at the Knoxville Writers Guild monthly meeting in the Laurel Theater. Members of the Knoxville Scottish Society will provide traditional music of bagpipe and dulcimer as well as men in kilts. Established by Knoxville poet and artist Marybeth Boyanton in honor of her late husband, Terry Semple, the competition seeks fine original poetry boldly and broadly exploring the themes of Heritage. An additional prize given by the Scottish Society honors poetry drawn from the Celtic tradition.

The Knoxville Scottish Society was founded in 1986 to promote a common interest in Scottish heritage; its members draw from 75 clan affiliations. The winner of the Robert Burns Poetry Award/Terry Semple Memorial Contest receives a cash prize, a night for at the Maplehurst Inn B&B and tickets to the Societys Robert Burns Night celebration on January 24, featuring Scottish dance, verse, food and drink. Tickets to the celebration are available for purchase after the reading.

 The public is invited to this evening of poetry, music, and celebration of Knoxvilles diverse literary and cultural heritage.
 

Archive of program speakers, 1998 to present