Exit 109: A Poetry and Prose Anthology

Barbara Ann Adams lives with her husband on a farm in southwestern Oklahoma. Agraduate of Cameron University, her work has been featured in a number of journals including Ruminate, Westview, Oklahoma Review, Whistling Shade, and Passager.

Sandra Ervin Adams’ poetry has appeared in all previous Old Mountain Press anthologies. When she isn’t writing poetry, Sandra can be found practicing her organizational skills at home in Jacksonville, NC, reading books and watching dvds about the paranormal, playing a trivia game on the UK Chatterbox site, and scooping kitty litter pans.

Katherine Russell Barneslives in Wilson, NC. She has had many poems published in literary journals and anthologies including Crucible, Pembroke Magazine, Wellspring, Here’s to the Land, Earth and Soul, Poets for Peace, Looking Back, and others. She has served on the boards of the NC Poetry Society and the Poetry Council of NC.

Frederick Bassett’s poems have been published in more than fifty journals and anthologies. Paraclete Press has published two books of poetry that he created from “found” lyrics — Love: The Song of Songs (2002) and Awake My Heart (1998). A retired academic, he currently lives at Hilton Head with his wife Peg.

Joann Bishop has been published in a book Tale Spinners in Canada. Her poems include “Birds Walking on Wire”, “Peacocks” and “Wildlife Preservation”. She enjoys writing about botanical gardens, historical sites and nature poems. She is in the processing of completing a nature book of poems with photographs she has taken herself. She currently lives in Jacksonville, NC.

Ervene Boyd has published previously in OMP’s Anthologies and various publications over the years. This poem was written in memory of her father, a social maverick seeking independence and adventure all the days of his life. She lives in her native town of Raleigh, NC. As a poet, multi-media artist, wedding minister, reiki teacher and traveling adventure-seeker herself, Ervene enjoys family, friends and new experiences in the paradox of diversity abundant around her.

Jerry Bradley spent the past thirty years in the US Air Force from which he retired in August 2009. He and his wife Laura were stationed at ten different militarylocations during that time frame. He has the opportunity to write many poems during his career, most of which are related to his faith, his family or the military. He and his wife are currently living in Fayetteville, NC.

Ethelena Jackson Brown was born in Baconton, GA, on January 8, 1915,and has lived in Macon, GA, since her graduation from college in 1937. For twenty years, she taught highschool English and an assortment of other subjects. Today the joy of her life is spending time with six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Excerpts from her recently published autobiography, Growing up Southern In Baconton, Georgia. made up her contribution to this anthology.

Stuart Burroughs has been involved since childhood in visual art, poetry, and music. She has taught English and art, and her art hangs in many homes. A collection of her poems, Beyond the Hills, can be purchased on Amazon.com or from The Chapel Hill Press. Her poems have appeared in anthologies and other publications. Stuart lives in Chapel Hill, NC, where she writes, paints, and plays piano for others.

Bud Caywood lives and works in Alexander County, NC, where he is a freelance furniture designer, artist and writer. He has been creating art and word for more than thirty-five years. His prose and poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies including Thundersandwich, Iodine Poetry Journal, Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum, and Pinesong by The NC Poetry Society. He has written one full-length collection of poetry and eleven chapbooks.

Jim Clark is the Elizabeth H. Jordan Professor of Southern Literature at Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina. His books include Notions: A Jim Clark Miscellany, Dancing on Canaan’s Ruins, Handiwork, and Fable in the Blood: The Selected Poems of Byron Herbert Reece. He has also released a CD of original poems and Appalachian folk music, Buried Land, and two CDs, Wilson and Words to Burn, with his band The Near Myths.

Ed Cockrell lives in Orange County just outside Chapel Hill, NC. He writes poetry when he can.

Jacob Collett, was born in Birmingham, AL and currently lives in Berry, AL. He attends Berry High School where he is currently a junior. He is seventeen years old. Someday he would like to have his own book of poetry to share with the world.

Sonja Contois is an award-winning author with short stories in Mountain High, The Outer Side of Life, and Christmas Presence. A former factotum, Sonja is now a full-time writer living in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina.

Russell Crews lives in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He was born and reared in Dothan, Alabama. His work has appeared in OMP’s Sand, Sea and Sail; Night Whispers; and Southern Mist. He recently published his second book of poetry Windows of the Heart. Russell teaches Physical Education at Allendale Elementary School in Allendale, South Carolina. His short story, “William’s Triumph”, is based on a true story.

Dawn Culverwell has been published in WNC Woman, Old Mountain Press. She writes stories, poems and she is currently finishing a children’s series, The Adventures of Amanda Starr, using her author name, DC ROWE, for hopeful publication Dawn resides in Hendersonville, NC, with her husband and cat.

Phebe Davidson is Reviews Editor of Yemassee and a staff writer for The Asheville Poetry Review. Her most recent books of poems are Fat Moon Rising (Main Street Rag, 2008) and The Surface of Things (David Robert Books, 2009). A new chapbook, Seven Mile, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. She lives in Westminster, SC with her husband Steve and their cat Fripp.

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of Thread Count. Her second collection, Telling Tales of Dusk, is forthcoming from Press 53 in September, 2009. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming in Bay Leaves, Blue Fifth Review, Broad River Review, Christian Science Monitor, Dead Mule, JAMA, Long Story Short, Muse India, Old Mountain Press, Paris Voice, Pinesong, Pisgah Review, Relief, Smoking Poet, Still Crazy, Thieves Jargon, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and many others.

Sue Farlow is the president of the North Carolina Poetry Society. She is a previous contributor to Old Mountain Press. She teaches English, yearbook and journalism at Asheboro High School. She has two grown sons, two grandpuppies and lives on a 55 acre farm in Climax, NC with her husband, cows, dogs and psycho cat LouLou.

Ann Fogelman, a writer of memoirs in prose and poetry, was born in Reading, Pa. She reads at open mics, workshops, seminars and various writing groups. Her work has been published in several anthologies including The Outer Side of Life and various school publications. She is a member of the Bay Area Writers League, The Arts Alliance Center, Gulf Coast Poets,and Poetry Society of Texas. Ann lives in Friendswood, TX.

Dare Freeman Ford, of Hendersonville, NC, has a background in education. Ford published Don’t Make me Turn this Bus Around, a chronicle of her adventures as a teenage bus driver in her native Anson County, NC. Her work has appeared in several regional publications and Old Mountain Press anthologies, most recently The Outer Side of Life. She also contributed to Christmas Presence, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham.

James Gibson combined his love of the American West and his fascination with Native American shamanism to write the fivenovels of the Anasazi Princess series. He also wrote The Last Ride, a traditional Western set outside Tucson, Arizona. All six novels are available at www.pentaclespress.com. The Anasazi Princess novels are also available at Amazon.com and through Barnes & Noble bookstores.

Tom Gluzinski has written poetry since he was a child and continues to write and publish today. His work covers many areas of interest and he uses several forms in his writing. This is his third effort for an Old Mountain anthology; De Oppresso Liber being the first, Night Whispers the second, Southern Mist, and now Exit 109. Tom lives in Lindenhurst, IL.

Marian Gowan, a graduate of Tufts University, retired to Hendersonville, NC from western NY. She contributed to American Patchwork, St. Martins Press. Her work has appeared in regional publications, including WNC-Woman, and in several Old Mountain Press anthologies, most recently, The Outer Side of Life. She contributed to Christmas Presence, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham.

Bill Griffin is a small town family doc (Elkin, NC) who has trimmed many an old woman’s toenails. His most recent chapbook is Snake Den Ridge, a bestiary (March Street Press 2008), illustrated by his wife Linda French Griffin.

Kerri Mai Habben lives in Raleigh, NC, where she works as a writer and a photographer. Her article, essays, and poetry have appeared in literary journals and other publications. Some of her work can be read at www.newsobserver.com/nrn/habben/2007. Currently, she is working on a novel, set in 1929 at a tuberculosis sanitarium.

Ken Hada’s poetry appears in his latest book, The Way of the Wind, and in journals such as Oklahoma Today, Flint Hills Review, Poesia, and others. He directs the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival and lives in Ada, OK.

Mark Harden is a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3. He manages Veterans Affairs at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. He lives in Georgetown, Texas with his wife, Kathy.

JanetL. Harvey lives Thornhill Ontario, Canada shehave had numerous poems published in a variety of Canadian and US magazinesand anthologies including Sterling silver, feminine magazine, Word dance. Stella showcase Journal, Artist for a better world-sprit of humanity. Old mountain press- Night whispers. She is Poetry Canada’s Global contest winner.

MaXine Carey Harker is a wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, poet/writer,teacher of creative writing, information junkie, who grewup in the sagebrush country of SW Idaho later exchanging it for the lush greenery of Eastern NC. She lives with her husband, Berkley, inGrifton, NC in the same little house on the same street for 50+ years. Her epitaph? She tried to do it all before she died –and it killed her.

Joseph Haymore is the current president of the Writers’ Ink Guild of Fayetteville/ Cumberland Co. A native North Carolinian, he attended Ben Haven High School in Olivia, NC. He spent 20 years in the military, retiring as an Army SFC. He is largely self-taught as a poet. His mentor and chief critic is his wife, Catherine.

Elizabeth MacKenzie Hebron lives in Westland, MI, with her husband and two dogs. Her work has been published in Bellowing Ark, Maxis Review, Water Flying Annual, and in two anthologies, Love Grandma: Grandmothers Against the War and The Outer Side of Life.

Karen Luke Jacksonis a retreat leader and facilitator with the Center for Courage & Renewal who uses the power of story to help people connect role and soul. Her poems and essays have appeared in Alive Now, Hungryhearts, Mountain High, and Ascent Aspirations, a Canadian anthology.Karen lives in Hendersonville, NC, where she enjoys hiking and playing with grandchildren.

ArnieJohanson retired from a career as a philosophy professor in Minnesota, moving to Durham, NC, where he currently resides, in 1999. His work has appeared in various periodicals and he is the author of one chapbook of poetry, A Man and A Horse.

Jerry Judge lives in Cincinnati and is the author of six poetry chapbooks with the latest being Outlaw Poet (Pudding House Publications, 2008). He is active with the Greater Cincinnati Writers’ League and the Cincinnati Writers’ Project. He works for Big Brothers Big Sisters. He’s the proud father of two grown sons – a college student and a firefighter/paramedic. He and his gorgeous wife share a home with three cats and a dog.

Debra Kaufman, a poet and playwright, is the author of the poetry collections Family of Strangers (Nightshade), Still Life Burning (Poetry Society of South Carolina), A Certain Light (Emrys), and, most recently, Moon Mirror Whiskey Wind (Pudding House). She is working on a full-length play, The Fairest. She is a member of the Black Socks poets and lives in Mebane, NC.

K. D. Kennedy, Jr. has published two books of poetry, Our Place In Time (2002) and Waiting Out In The Yard (2006). He has been published in the Barton College Crucible, In the Yard, a poetry anthology, and several other anthologies. He is presently writing short stories along with poetry, and is researching a novel. KD and his wife Sara Lynn live in Raleigh, NC.

Jo Koster teaches medieval literature and writing at Winthrop University. Recent work has appeared in the collections The Outer Side of Life(Old Mountain Press) and A Cadence of Hooves (Yarroway Mountain Press) and in the e-zine More than Words. Her most recent chapbook, No Going Home, was published by Devil’s Millhopper Press. She lives in comfortable chaos and in Rock Hill, SC.

Patsy Kennedy Lain lives in Hubert, NC, and was selected as one of the 2009 Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series adult students. Her works include: short stories in The Daily News, and the Art Council’s 2008 anthology, New River High Tide; short stories and poetry in a local senior’s 2007 Ol’ Timers’ Tales; poetry in 2008 anthology, The Outer Side of Life; and poetry online with Dead Mule, March 2009. Patsy placed in both 2008 and 2009 Senior Games.

Blanche L. Ledford’s work has appeared in Mountain High, Southern Mist, Moonshine and Blind Mules, Lights in the Mountains, and other publications. Her essay, Planting by the Signs, received first place with the Cherokee County 2008 Senior Games. Blanche lives in Hayesville, NC and enjoys gardening, reading, and writing.

Brenda Kay Ledford is a member of North Carolina Writers’ Network and North Carolina Poetry Society. She’s listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. Her work has appeared in Mountain High, Southern Mist, Appalachian Heritage, Asheville Poetry Review, Our State, and other journals. She received the Paul Green Award for her chapbook, Shew Bird Mountain. Finishing Line Press released her poetry chapbook, Sacred Fire, in 2008. Brenda lives in Hayesville, NC.

Michael Hugh Lythgoe’s chapbook, BRASS, won the Kinloch Rivers Contest in 2006. He is a retired Air Force officer now living in Aiken, SC. Mike teaches for the Academy For Lifelong Learning at USCA. His full collectionof poems,HOLY WEEK, is available at Amazon.com. He is a contributing editor and reviewer for Windhover. Lythgoe graduated from St. Louis U. His MFA is from Bennington.

David Treadway Manning is a California native living in Cary, NC. A Pushcart nominee, his poems have appeared in various journals, five chapbooks and the full-length collection,The Flower Sermon, published by Main Street Rag in 2007. He admits to an affinity with the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Susan McKendree is a poet, writer, and collage artist who builds shrines using paper, textiles, boxes, and found materials. She calls herself a Poet Midwife. Her work has appeared in a previous OMP anthology, as well as WNC Woman. She has published a chapbook of poems entitled The Age of Miracles. Susan lives with three rare diminutive tigers who graciously share their home with her outside Weaverville, NC.

Halle C Meyer, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, resides joyfully in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, three children and three cats! She bleeds light blue. Go Heels!

Philip S. Morse, a previous contributor to Old Mountain Press, is a professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Fredonia. A 2007 award winner in the North Carolina Poetry Council Contest, Phil is the author of a book for the parents and caregivers of young children, Does a Pigeon Bark?: 212 Fun, Educational Activities for Young Children and a children’s story, Gloria Mae: The Heroine of Dunkirk Harbor. His website is www.anteaterbooks.com.

Jerome Norris lives with his beautiful wife by a pond near New Bern, NC. He’s a reformed lawyer who now devotes full time to writing stories and poems and watching the Baltimore Orioles lose baseball games. He has published stories and poems in a number of magazines and anthologies, but essentially remains a rank amateur.

Martha O’Quinn, a native of NC, uses family stories and events as ideas for prose and poetry. She currently lives in Hendersonville, NC, and has contributed to five previous OMP anthologies, plus Christmas Presence, an anthology edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham; The Independent Weekly; and in WNC-Woman.

D. Davis Phillips was born in Beaufort on the coast of South Carolina, but raised in the Carolina mountains, and is currently a working writer of poetry and prose, studying in the Charlotte, NC area at Winthrop University. When not at school, Davis resides in Walhalla, SC.

Michael Potts is a native of Smyrna, TN and currently lives in Linden, NC. He is Professor of Philosophy at Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC. Several of his poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, and his chapbook, From Field to Thicket, won the 2006 Mary Belle Campbell Poetry Book Award from the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Joyce Richardson is the author of an Appalachian novel, On Sunday Creek, and a tarot chapbook, The Reader. Her short works have been anthologized in Love After 70 and Bedpan Banter. Her short stories and poems have appeared online in Moondance and Niteblade and in print in Appalachian Heritage, Pinesong, The Writer, and Riverwind among others. A poetry chapbook, Sailing without a Sail is in the works at Pudding House. Joyce lives and works in Athens, OH where she lives with her writer, husband, Phil.

Phil Richardson retired from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio where he met his wife in a writing class. His story, “The Joker is Wild,” was nominated for the 2005 Pushcart Prizeby Storyteller Magazine. His work has appeared inNorthwoods Review, Storyteller, Cafe Irreal, Digitalis Obscura, Word Catalyst, Bending Spoon, Short Story Library, Love After 70 Anthology, Writing On Walls Anthology, Outa’ Side of LIfe Anthology, and The Love of Monsters Anthology

Edwina Rooker grew up in Warrenton, NC and currently lives in Bridgeton, NC, on the Neuse River where she writes poetry and nonfiction. She hold degrees from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her poems have appeared in several Old Mountain Press publications. Her newspaper column, Observations appears in The Warren Record.

Dr. Lynn Veach Sadler, a former college president, has published widely in academics and creative writing. Editor, poet, fiction/creative nonfiction writer, and playwright, she has published a novella, short-story collection, and chapbooks and has a full-length poetry collection and novel forthcoming. She was named 2007 Writer of the Year by California’s elizaPress and won Wayne State’s 2008 Pearson Award for a play on Iraq. She lives in Sanford, NC.

Joanna Catherine Scott is the author of the novels Child of the South, The Road from Chapel Hill, The Lucky Gourd Shop, Charlie, and Cassandra, Lost; the non-fiction Indochina’s Refugees: Oral Histories from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; and the prizewinning poetry collections Night Huntress, Fainting at the Uffizi, and Breakfast at the Shangri-la. A graduate of the University of Adelaide and Duke University, she was born in England, raised in Australia, and now lives in Chapel Hill, NC.

Judy Lewis Shackleford grew up in Atlanta and wrote a weekly column for the Atlanta Journal before moving to N.C. where she wrote about dogs for the Fayetteville Observer. Her interest in dogs led her to a career of instructing people and dogs in the art of understanding dog behavior through obedience training. Being a romantic has led her writing to encompass love in all it’s aspects. She lives with her husband and a house full of rescued dogs in Fayetteville, NC.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro practices as a psychologist and poet in Lexington, MA. She is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988); a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007); and two chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007).She was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006 and again in 2008.

Sybil Austin Skakle’s poems have appeared in several anthologies, as well as her own book, Searchings-Rocks Revelations Rainbows.She has contributed to several works of prose, has published a memoir, Confessions of an Outer Banks Filly and will soon introduce another. Sybil lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Susan Snowden’s stories, poems, and interviews have appeared in ten anthologies and a variety of literary journals, including New Orleans Review, Now and Then, Pisgah Review, and moonShine review. She has received awards for her writing from Writer’s Digest magazine, the North Carolina Writers’ Network, the Appalachian Writers’ Association, and others. An Atlanta native, Susan now lives in western North Carolina, where she works as a freelance book editor (www.SnowdenEditorial.com).

Dorothea Spiegel lives in Hiawassee, GA, belongs to NC Network West. She studied Creative Writing at Tri-County College and John Campbell Folk School. She has been published (usually poems) in various newspapers, previous Mountain Press anthologies, and Lights in the Mountains, the Freeing Jonah series, Atahita Journal and The Spirit of Christmas.

Tonya Staufer and her husband of thirty-six years live in their new lake home outside Saluda, NC. Tonya has recently returned to writing after a long hiatus. She is as a real estate investment broker by day and a writer by night. Her stories have been published in Spirit of the Smokies, Long Story Short, Western North Carolina Woman, Moonshine Review, and anthologies Sand, Sea and Sail, Mountain High, Night Whispers, Southern Mist, Looking Back, Christmas Presence, and The Outer Side of Life.

Jo Barbara Taylor lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, but is an Indiana farm girl at heart. Her poems and academic writing have appeared in Mount Olive Review, Beacon, Bay Leaves, Ibbetson Street, and on New Verse News and will soon appear in The Broad River Review. She edits the newsletter for the North Carolina Poetry Society.

Katherine Tracy lives in Thibodaux, LA with her husband Chuck Dellert. She was born at Camp Leroy Johnson in New Orleans, LA. She is the mother of two sons and a daughter, and the grandmother of three beautiful girls. She holds a M.A. in English and teaches freshmen and sophomore English at Nicholls State University.

Kathleen Wanamaker has lived in North Carolina on an old farm with herindulgent husband since 1982. As a mother with four children, she took on the seemingly impossible task of attending UNCP in order to graduate with a BA in English and History. A further perk was that she graduated with Chancellor’s honors do to excellent professors. She now lives in Fayetteville, NC.

BETTY WATSON writes both poetry and short stories. Her stories have appeared in WNC Woman and moonShine review and her poems have been published in four previous Old Mountain Press anthologies. Betty and her husband Doug raised four daughters and moved to Flat Rock from MA in 1995.

Charles “Hawk” Weyant lives in Fayetteville, NC., where he has been a member of Writers’ Ink Guild for over twenty years. A true imagist poet, he read on Public Radio for ten years. He has been published in a dozen anthologies and his first bookAn Odyssey In Broken Rhythms And Ragged Lineswas published in 2006.

Stella Ward Whitlock, author of Florida Heat, was a minister’s wife, mother of four children, public school teacher, writer, Bible Study leader, Sunday School teacher, church pianist, “mother” to five exchange students, and adjunct instructor at Pembroke, UNCC, and Methodist University until her last retirement in December of 2008. She has just moved from Fayetteville, NC, to Glenaire Retirement Community in Cary, NC, where she hopes to have more time for her own writing.

Glenda Sumner Wilkins grew up on a North Carolina tobacco farm, and daydreamed of faraway places. Decades later, she and her husband lived in both Luxembourg, and Geneva, Switzerland. Countries where published: USA; Canada; Spain: Luxembourg; Switzerland; Great Britain. She is a member of the NCPS and NCWN, and has won several poetry awards. Today, she resides in Winterville, NC, with her husband, and Bustopher, the cat about town.

Nancy H. Womack lives near Rutherfordton, NC, in a house with 32 windows. Her goal is to be able to look out any one of them and see something beautiful–360 degrees of gardens surrounding the house. When not gardening, she enjoys reading, writing, and entertaining. Her work has appeared in various journals and several OMP anthologies.

Barbara Ledford Wright is a native of Clay County. She’s been published in several previous Old Mountain Press anthologies including The Outer Side of Life, Readers are Leaders (Express Yourself 101 Vol.2), Muscadine: A Southern Journal, Fireflies and June Bugs,Christmas Presence and others. She’s a teacher, quilter, family historian, wife and mother and presently resides in Shelby, NC.

C. PLEASANTS YORK is writing a book about World War II and the influence on the small town of Monroe, NC, telling about the “shadow children” in a military family who grew up in the shadow of the war. She lives in Sanford, NC, and works at The Artists’ Loft for the Lee County Arts Council.

Joseph Youngblood is a retired Navy Deep Sea Diver, Merchant Mariner, and Civil Service Mental Health Counselor, serving for forty years. Joseph has traveled the world and lived for extended periods in five countries other than the United States, as well as in many of the States. He is currently in private practice as a psychotherapist in Fayetteville, NC, which he calls home - and where he lives with his family.