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authors ~ books ~ readings Writers’ Workshop Poetry Contest
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26th Annual Poetry Contest, open to any writer regardless of residence. 1st Place: Your choice of a 2 night stay at our Mountain Muse B&B; or 2 free workshops (in person or on-line); or 10 poems line-edited and revised by our editorial staff. – All work must be unpublished. – Your name, address, email and title of work should appear on the first page. The entry fee is $25 ($20 for Workshop members) for up to three poems. Each poem should not exceed two pages. – Enclose legal size self-sealing SASE for critique and list of winners. Do not use Fedex, certified mail, etc. Make check or money order payable to The Writers’ Workshop, and mail to: Annual Poetry Contest, 387 Beaucatcher Road, Asheville, NC 28805. Entry fee is payable online at www.twwoa.org. – Emailed submission may be sent to writersw@gmail.com, with “Poetry Contest” in the subject. Deadline: postmarked or emailed by February 28, 2016.
Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition
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Entries are now being accepted for the 8th Annual Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition, sponsored by the historic Lanier Library. The competition is open to adult and high school poets from North and South Carolina. Keith Flynn, awardwinning poet and founder and editor of the Asheville Poetry Review, will judge this year’s entries and present prizes at a ceremony held at the library on Saturday, April 23. Prizes of $500, $250 and $100 for adult winners and $100, $75 and $50 for high school students will be awarded. Deadline for submission of entries is Tuesday, March 1, 2016. For more information about the competition, including entry forms and a link for online submissions, visit www.lanierlib.org.
‘Best Worst’ cont’d from page 29
probably because their story is so exquisitely tragic and their suffering is pretty much unnecessary. They get bonus points for the suffering they inflict on other characters. The moody, sweeping English landscape adds an extra touch of sublime melancholia. Mr. Rochester and Antoinette Cosway in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.
Published in the 20th century but reflecting back on 19th-century colonial Jamaica, this is one of the most beautiful and haunting books I’ve ever read, and it justifies Mr. Rochester’s brutal punishment in Jane Eyre. Eustacia Vye, Damon Wildeve, and Clym Yeobright in The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.
Thomas Hardy’s beautiful, tragic novel revolves around the gorgeous and hopelessly bored Eustacia Vye, whose marriage to the cosmopolitan Clym backfires when he decides to open a school instead of return to the glamour of continental Europe. The lothario Wildeve wants Eustacia too. It’s a Thomas Hardy novel, so lots of people end up dead because of this scenario.
‘Staff Recommendations’ cont’d from page 29
twist. The Career of Evil will have you shivering – but in the end, you won’t be able to wait for the next installment!
HANNAH RICHARDSON SELECTIONS
PG. 19
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We’ve all been there, sitting in bed at some wildly unholy hour with a book in one hand and a computer screen open on our laps as we peruse last minute flights to whatever country/city/town we have just fallen in (literary) love with. In the morning we sometimes regret it (“Did I really just purchase a flight to Limerick in mid-February courtesy Angela’s Ashes!?”), but it’s hard to turn down new love, especially when it comes in the form of vast landscapes, colorful markets and seaside towns that smell like marsh water. I unabashedly admit that while I often find companionship in a book’s characters, I more often than not fall head-over-heels for where they live, be it Mumbai, India or Monhegan Island, Maine. Much like I am a sucker for certain actors, I have almost no control when it comes to a book with a strong sense of place, the more rural the better. That said, here is a list of books that have almost had me packing my bags. Miss Rumphius, Barbara Cooney
34 February 2016 — RAPID RIVER ARTS & CULTURE MAGAZINE — Vol. 19, No. 6
Count and Countess Fosco in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. The Count and Countess actually have a healthier relationship than most of the other characters on here, though it’s partially dependent on the Countess’s unquestioning obedience of / obsession with her larger-than-life husband, one of literature’s most compelling and charming villains (he is also a true animal lover!). This couple proves that conspiring to murder and identity theft is the best way to keep the spark alive in your marriage. Neither the truly sensational mystery surrounding the mysterious woman in white nor the exceptionally intelligent Marian Holcombe can pull Fosco away from his Countess in the end. Mr. Rochester, Jane Eyre, and Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
This – perhaps my favorite – love triangle explodes in a conflagration of epic proportions. It’s probably not a best practice to keep your actual wife locked up while trying to pursue another woman. While Rochester and Jane end up finding their forever love, it’s not without its price. Tsk tsk, Mr. Rochester.
Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog Solo: On Her Own Adventure, Susan Fox Rogers Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe Wild, Cheryl Strayd Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verhese Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin
KAIA’S SELECTIONS For Younger Readers (or for the Young at Heart!) Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton – It’s 1969 and Mimi Oliver has moved to a new town much less accepting of her half Japanese, half Black roots. Life through her eyes, in verse. A poetic masterpiece for tweens and teens. Rating: A Favorite The Marvels by Brian Selznick – A future classic told through pictures and words. Full of plot twists and mystery. Follow Joseph as he unravels the secrets of his own family history and that of The Marvels. A story within a story for tweens and teens. Rating: Obsessed with this Book Recommended for tweens and teens – Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Louis Carroll.