Valerie Nieman v. 3.0

This fall it seems like I've been scheduling a lot of workshops at new places. A novel workshop here, a character workshop there. While I have a handful of "tried and true" programs to work from, it's a lot more fun for the teacher to have something new as well. One of the m ost successful "brainstorms" to come up with a fresh workshop on a theme happened a few days ago at Tate Street Coffee. I'd already worked withTerri Dowell-Dennis, associate curator of education for the Weatherspoon Art Museum, on an ekphrasis workshop. I had gotten a note from Richard Krawiec about a Poets for Change day on September 24 - he wanted to get poets thinking about what they could do in their communities to promote literacy and general Good Things on that day. The date clicked with the new United Arts Council "17 Days" of arts happening in September and October all around Greensboro. Why not put these together? I emailed Terri to ask if she was interested... ...

If you're picking up some novels for summer reading, Ed Davis had nice things to say about Blood Clay.   Author Ed Davis: Great Summer Reading: A Writer to Watch Speaking of watching writers - Ed's novel won the Hackney Award, so watch for him moving up the charts in a few months.

1st Author Interviews: Interview with Valerie Nieman Author of 'Blood Cla... : "Book Title: Blood Clay Publisher: Press 53 Author: Valerie Nieman Genre: Literary fiction/Southern fiction Amazon: Blood Clay [paperb..."

Indie bookstores keep the flame of literature alive. Press 53 is supporting "indies" all over the nation with "Support our Indie Friends Weekend" right now - including one of my faves, Barnhill's in Winston-Salem. June 25 is "Save a Bookstore" day, and all of us readers who enjoy browsing and sipping some good coffee need to come on out and show the love by actually (ahem) buying a book. Me, I'll be at McIntyre's in Fearrington Village, where I'm scheduled to read at 11 a.m. Maybe I'll see you there!

Seems like things come in threes - most recently, three Q&As. Two I've just sent off to their respective e-publications, but the first of the trio is now up at StorySouth . Ben Klinkner, formerly of the Greensboro Review, did a great review of Blood Clay , and sent a list of questions to follow the review. They were interesting, and demanding - the questions that come when a person has read the book and taken mental notes - I was hard pressed to respond in kind. (I have to say, being likened to Alice Munro will give an author the big head!) Since leaving journalism, I've found myself on the opposite side of the table from my 25-year experience as an interviewer. Now I'm the one trying to make a cogent sentence, or come up with a name or title from the lumber room of my  memory. And it's tough. Hats off to those celebrities and newly formed celebrities who have to be poised and polished for a ceaseless round of interviews.

For all of us who read our work in public - here's a great piece by Joe Mills, a fellow Press 53 poet and a truly excellent workshop leader and reader. We owe it to our audiences to be as practiced and prepared as any other performing artist.

The best writing, in my experience, comes out of direct experience of a place, a people, a time. These are things you know in your body, a somatic memory that allows your character to move in a developed, authentic setting. Grounding, some call this, and it’s a good analogy – like Anteus we take strength from touching our mother earth. Sometimes people write best what they have left behind or lost. Nostalgia perhaps, but it can also be powerful. So what makes a place/setting? Macrosetting is the larger place and time, including the historical and political milieu, artistic and religious presence, climate, architecture, scientific or technological advancement and ethical concerns. And microsetting is the immediate, intimate surround of the story – whether an Atlanta apartment or a West Virginia hill farm. Specifics are the key – a mountain valley in the Smokies has its own biota, from trees to birds, as well as geographic underpinnings, the land-record of logging and farming and mini...

I've been reading a lovely book of poetry, "Living Above the Frost Line,"and it's become essential preparation for my trip this week to the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia. You see, I'm living out of the mountains for the first time in my life. From the rolling Allegheny Plateau to the hills of north-central West Virginia, I've been wrapped in mountain mists and lulled by the sounds of flowing streams and deep-woods birds such as vireos and thrushes. But in 1997 I came down to the flatlands, to Greensboro, and it has been a wonderful transition but not without some pangs for a former life. Nancy Simpson's book of new and selected poems, out last year from Carolina Wren Press, takes me back. In 108 pages, it covers a lifetime as woman and poet, from 1977 to 2009. I've begun to know something of this devoted teacher and activist, beyond the exchanged e-mail messages when she drew me into the family of the John C. Campbell Folk School. I still rem...