Sandra Ervin Adams’ poetry has appeared in all previous Old Mountain Press anthologies. She is listed in A Directory of American Poets and Writers. In 2009 she won Second Place in the Statewide Contest of The Lyricist, and Honorable Mention in the Heart Poetry Award Contest. Her first book of poetry was Union Point Park Poems. Sandra lives in Jacksonville, NC.

Cathy Burroughs loves to write, and hopes you enjoy this first. She is the mother of six and grandmother of eight. She lives with her husband Craig in Hendersonville, NC. Cathy was recommended for this anthology by Tonya Staufer. 

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. Stuart lives in Chapel Hill, NC, where she writes poetry, paints, and plays her piano program, “Music to Remember” every week at several locations.

Jim Clark is the Elizabeth H. Jordan Professor of Southern Literature and Writer in Residence at Barton College in Wilson, NC. His most recent book is Notions: A Jim Clark Miscellany. Forthcoming is The Service of Song, a CD of Clark’s musical settings of twelve poems by North Georgia poet Byron Herbert Reece.

Ed Cockrell lives in Orange County North Carolina with his wife, two dogs, and a cat. He writes poetry when the muse insists, and he is current president of the Poetry Council of North Carolina.

Sonja Contois is an award-winning author with short stories in Christmas Presence, Exit 109, Mountain High, and The Outer Side of Life. Her magazine credits include Western North Carolina Woman and the premier edition of Fresh, A Literary Magazine. A former minister and therapist, Sonja is now a full-time writer living near Waynesville in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina..

Sue Farlow is a former contributor to Old Mountain Press. She is past president of the North Carolina Poetry Society and remains on the board. She teaches English, yearbook and journalism at Asheboro High School. She lives on a 55 acre farm in Climax, NC with her husband, dogs, cows and cat.

James Gibson combined his love of the American West and his fascination with Native American shamanism to write the five novels of the Anasazi Quest series. He also wrote The Last Ride, a traditional Western set outside Tucson, Arizona. All six novels are available for purchase at www.pentaclespress.com. The Anasazi Quest novels can also be purchased through Amazon.com and Barnes & Nobleas well as through www.PentaclesPress.com.

Phyllis Jean Green lives within a hearty Beeeat Dooook of UNC-Chapel Hill. Her latest poetry credits include Sketchbook and Taj Mahal Review. 

Kerri Mai Habben lives in Raleigh, NC, where she works as a writer and a photographer.Her articles, essays, and poetry have appeared in literary journals and other publications.She is working on a novel set in 1929 at a tuberculosis sanitarium and also on compiling a collection of essays.

Ken Hada lives in Ada, OK, where he is a professor at East Central University. He also directs the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival held each April. His two latest books of poetry are The Way of the Wind (Village Books Press, 2008) and Spare Parts (Mongrel Empire Press, 2010). 

MaXine Carey Harker, taught Writing for Publication for many years at Pitt Community College and Craven Community College and now at the Recreation Center in New Bern, NC. She has been published in national, state, and local newspapers and magazines and in NCPS and Old Mountain anthologies. Her personal writing preference is nonfiction and poetry. MaXine is a longstanding member of the: NC Poetry Society and NC Writers Network and the NC Haiku Society. She has lived in Grifton, NC for54 years.

Joseph Haymore is the current president of the Writers’ Ink Guild of Fayetteville/ Cumberland County, NC. A native North Carolinian, he attended school Benhaven High School, Olivia, NC. He devoted 20 years to a military career before returning to his home in Harnett Co. He is largely self taught as a poet but owes any expertise he has gained to his wife and mentor, Catherine. He can be read in several Old Mountain Press Anthologies including Mountain High, Exit 109, The Outer Side of Life and You Gotta Love ‘Em.

Elizabeth Hebron’s work has been published in Bellowing Ark, Maxis Review, Water Flying Annual, Love, Grandma: Grandmothers Against the War (an anthology), and in several previous OMP anthologies. She is honored to share the joy of writing, as well as the friendship of five very special women who just celebrated their 21st anniversary together as a writing group. She lives in Westland, Michigan, with her husband and three dogs.

Debra Kaufman is the author of Family of Strangers, Still Life Burning, A Certain Light, and, most recently, Moon Mirror Whiskey Wind. Her poems and short plays have appeared in many literary magazines, including Virginia Quarterly Review, Pembroke, Carolina Quarterly, Spoon River Quarterly, and Greensboro Review. She lives in Mebane, 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). Her most recent chapbook, No Going Home, was published by Devil’s Millhopper Press. She and her cats live in comfortable chaos and in Rock Hill, SC.

Patsy Kennedy Lain’s work appears in several anthologies, Old Mountain Press, Onslow Arts Council, Volumes II and III of OnslowSenior Writers’ OLD TIMERS’ TALES, THE COHESIAN and THE LYRICIST. Patsy lives in Hubert, North Carolina, has published poetry online with DEAD MULE, was one of two chosen adults to receive 2009 Gilbert-Chappel Distinguished Poet Series, placed in 2008 and 2009 Senior Games, and recently won 4th place in the Albert Anthony Foundation contest.

Blanche L. Ledford’s work has appeared in You Gotta Love ‘em, Exit 109, Mountain High, Lights in the Mountains, and upcoming in Echoes Across the Blue Ridge. Her essay, Planting by the Signs, received first place in the Cherokee County Senior Games. Blanche lives and writes in Hayesville, NC. 

Brenda Kay Ledford is a member of North Carolina Writers’ Network and North Carolina Poetry Society. Her work has appeared in You Gotta Love ‘em, Exit 109, Our State, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and upcoming in Country Extra. She received the 2009 Paul Green Award from NC Society of Historians for her poetry chapbook, Sacred Fire. Brenda lives and writes in Hayesville, NC. Visit her web site at www.brendakayledford.com. View her blog:

David Treadway Manning is a California native living in Cary, NC. A Pushcart nominee, his poems have appeared in a number of journals, six chapbooks, and the full-length collection, The Flower Sermon (Main Street Rag, 2007). A new chapbook, Continents of Light is expected from Finishing Line Press in 2010.

Florence Nash, a freelance writer and editor formerly at Duke, has published two poetry books, Crossing Water (Gravity Press 1996) and Fish Music (Gravity Press, 2010). She has taught poetry and chamber music for Duke Continuing Education and now leads the poetry workshop at Duke’s Osher Life-long Learning Institute. Selected for the Blumenthal Writers and Readers series, she was designated one of ten Emerging Poets of the New South at Vanderbilt University, 2000. Florence was recommended for this anthology by Debra Kaufman.

Conrad Neumann, born and brought up on the island of Martha’s Vineyard has been commercial fisherman, sea-going scientist, researcher, published poet and professor of geological oceanography. He presently lives in Durham NC and is emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jerome Norris is a retired lawyer who lives with his beautiful wife next to the pond that is the subject matter of his poem in this anthology. He writes stories and poems and occasionally tries to sell one – usually without success – but it doesn’t matter much, as he doggedly continues to consider himself an undiscovered genius.

Margaret L. Parrish’s poems have appeared in Mountain Time, Poem, Poets for Peace, Bay Leaves and other publications. She lives and works in Raleigh.

Edwina Rooker grew up in Warrenton,NC and now lives in Bridgeton,NC on the Neuse River. She was an English teacher and high school media specialist until her retirement. Currently she writes a newspaper column,Observations, for The Warren Record. She has won awards for poetry and nonfiction in 5 states.

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 six 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 prizewinning poetry collections Breakfast at the Shangri-La, Fainting at the Uffizi, and Night Huntress; and the prizewinning chapbooks Birth Mother and Coming Down from Bataan. Her website is: www.joannacatherinescott.com.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro 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) andtwo chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). A resident of Lexington, MA., she was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006 and again in 2008

Dorothy Anne Spruzen earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. In another life she was Manager of Publications for a Northern Virginia defense contractor. Her short stories have appeared in several publications, and she is working on a novel set in England during WWII.

Tonya Staufer has recently returned to writing. She is a real estate investment broker by day and a writer by night. She and her husband call Saluda, NC home. Her stories have appeared in Spirit of the Smokies, A Long Story Short, Western NC Woman, Moonshine Review, and numerous anthologies.

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.

Barbara Ledford Wright, an associate edition/contributor to Moonshine and Blind Mules, was published in several Old Mountain Press anthologies including You Gotta Love ‘Em. Others : Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal,Express Yourself 101 vol.2 For Your Eyes Only,Fireflies and June Bugs, Christmas Presence,Clothes Lines,Fall and Winter ‘09 Yesterdays Magazette. She holds an education degree from Gardner-Webb University, and post graduate work in writing. She’s a native of Clay Co, North Carolina.

Joseph Youngblood is a retired Navy veteran and retired Army counselor who lives in Fayetteville, NC. He writes for pleasure and his works have appeared in several previous OMP anthologies.