A CAROLINA CHRISTMAS by The Pamlico Writers
The Pamlico WritersGroup is thrilled to announce the upcoming release of our 2016 anthology of
short stories and poems written by our members with a section of award winning
prose and poetry from our 2015 and 2016 competition winners.
A
Carolina Christmas isn’t your traditional holiday feast of tinsel and sugar
plums. While there is still a smattering of stars sprinkled through the pages
and a little glitter and artificial snow lighting up a few plastic Santas,
these stories are filled with more than ornaments and figgy pudding. From
broken hearts to hopeful reunions, holiday anxiety to joyful tidings, the
truest gift of Christmas is still found to be family, faith and friendship. But
these stories are not fairy tales and every holiday is not Peace on Earth.
“Readers are in for a holiday treat
with the 2016 Pamlico Writers Anthology with its Christmas theme.” ~Marni
Graff, award-winning author of The Nora Tierney English Mysteries and The Trudy
Genova Manhattan Mysteries
“A
Carolina Christmas establishes itself as a holiday classic, a must read.
The journey isn’t your typical holiday adventure.” ~Angela Beach Silverthorne,
author of Depression Cookies,
two-time silver medalist in Women’s Fiction and Chick Lit for Readers’ Favorite
and Cries of Innocence, a five-star
Contemporary Christian Fiction.
Author/Poets & Titles
Suzannah Lynn Cockerille: How I Can Be So Sure Santa is
Real (creative non-fiction)
Jonathan Clayborne: Winter Finds the Cardinal (poem)
Jerry Cuthrell: Unsolicited (poem), Candles (poem)
Nancy Eure
Cordano: Misfits of Christmas Eve
Anne Blyth Davis: Orbit (2015
High School Competition ~ Poetry First Place)
Pam Desloges: Christmas
Chaos (poem)
Deborah H.
Doolittle: My Mother’s Rocky Road to Dublin (#1), Here
I am Laughing with Bears (#2), Elizabeth Bishop Attends to the
Amarilli (#3)--(2016 Adult Poetry Competion~ First Place)
Diane de
Echeandia: Christmas Cards-Bah Humbug! (poem), Spring
Melt (2015 Adult Poetry Competition~First Place)
Polly Frank: My
Christmas Tree (prose)
Sarah Haglund: Pray
For Her (2016 High School Competition~ First Place Poetry)
Ted Harrison: In The
Same Country (recreation of Biblical story)
Sherri
Lupton-Hollister: Lexie and Ethel, Season of Hope, and Three
Dresses (fiction)
Jeanne Julian: Allison’s
Adventures on Christmas Eve, Holiday Flotillia (poem)
James Keen: Christmas
Stocking Conversation (creative non-fiction)
Richard Knowles: Long,
Cold Road (2016 Adult Competion First Place Non-Fiction)
James Lupton: Christmas
Adventures (creative non-fiction)
Michaela
Rappleyea: Rolling in Her Grave (2016 High School
Competition~First Place Prose)
Doris Schneider: Innocence
on Holiday (creative non-fiction), The Gift (creative
non-fiction), and Christmas Confession (fiction)
Merry Simmons: The
Naming of Things (2016 Adult Competition First Place Fiction)
Millie Johnson
Sparks: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Courtney Staton: A Letter From a Gifted Kid (2015
High School Competition ~ Prose First Place)
Allison Stuart: The Combination (2015 Adult
Competition First Place Fiction)
K D Wilson: Forgetful Adjustments (fiction)
Michael Worthington: Ayden Racial Unrest (2015
Adult Competition First Place Non-Fiction)
The Pamlico Writers
Group is from the Innerbanks of North Carolina, where the Tar and the Pamlico
rivers meet in the town of little Washington. They’re housed just off the river
in the old Turnage Theater, the oldest still-standing Burlesque Theater House
still standing in North Carolina and home of the Arts of the Pamlico. The
Pamlico Writers are a non-profit group and we affiliated with the Arts of the
Pamlico.
The Turnage Theater stands on Main Street just one street over
from the waterfront. The town of Washington is on the Inner Banks of North
Carolina, where the Tar and Pamlico Rivers meet, just down the sound from the
Atlantic Ocean. Forestry, watermen, and Military history are abundant in
Washington and Beaufort County.
The Pamlico Writers Group hopes to use the funds generated by this
anthology to assist in this, our fifth annual Pamlico Writers Conference March
17 and 18, 2017 with Keynote speaker Zelda Lockhart.
Pamlico Writers Group
Officers/anthology organizers:
PWG chairperson: Sherri
Lupton-Hollister in charge of planning, theme and media
Financial Director:
James “Jim” Keen in charge of formatting anthology and setting up Submittable
and Drop-Box
Programming Director:
Kay Wilson assisted with all aspects of planning and media
Conference Director:
Doris Schneider in charge of editing and cover planning
Member: Jeanne Julian
assisted with editing
Member: Marni Graff
marketing
2016 Pamlico Writers Competition Winners
(L to R) James Kelley, Michaela Rappleyea, Michael Worthington,
Merry Simmons, Marty Silverthorne (in front), Richard Knowles, Sarah Swan,
Deborah Doolittle, Jack Fay.2016 Winners of the Pamlico Writers Competition
photo taken at the back of the Turnage Theater after the 2016 Pamlico Writers
Conference. Photo taken by Sherri
Lupton-Hollister
2015 Pamlico
Writers Group Competition
Pamlico
Writers Competition is an annual juried writing contest featuring adult and
student authors. Started in 2013, the current event featured adult contests in
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and student contests in Prose and Poetry. First, Second, and Honorary Mention Cash
Prizes were awarded in the Adult competition while a cash student scholarship
was awarded in each student contest.
(L to R) Nancy
Clark, Alison Stuart, Kayla Wyrick, Courtney
Staton, Polly Frank, Diane De Echeandia, Debra Kornegay, Michael Worthington, Anne Blythe Davis.
Heather Bell Adams and Lane Schroeder were not present.
Connect with the Group here:
Richard began writing after retiring, about six years ago. Sincethen he has been a winner in a number of writing contests. He is a two-time
winner in both the Pamlico Writing Contest, and the Carteret Writers Contest.
This year he was also a winner in the Porter Fleming Literary Competition,
sponsored by the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia. Richard’s favorite
genres are nonfiction and fiction. He currently resides and writes on Harkers
Island, with his wife Jill and Labradoodle Rosie.
Michaela has beenhomeschooled from K-12, and has always loved writing. She is also voracious
reader, and has made her way through a list of "100 Books From Classic
Literature to Read Before You Die.”
In High School, Michaela
enjoyed volunteering and then working at her local children’s library. Other
activities include performing with Smiles and Frowns Children’s Theater, taking
her award winning research on Honey Bees to the North Carolina Science and
Engineering Fair, singing in church choir, and learning sign language with her
friends. She is currently pursuing a degree in Speech Therapy at BYU
Doris was born in
Rosenburg, Texas, but moved all over the United States and Canada as a child.
She moved to North Carolina in 1971 where she has spent most of her adult life.
She taught Theatre Arts at William Carey University in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, and at North Carolina Central University in Durham. She has
written numerous articles for professional journals, a theatre textbook (The
Art and Craft of Stage Management), and two novels (Borrowed Things and By
Way of Water). She is currently working on another novel, The
Little Drummer Girl, and a collection of short stories. Doris is an
artist/owner of the Lemonade Art Gallery in Washington, where she displays her
masks and jewelry.
Facebook.com/dorisschneiderbooks/
Rock my
Words dorisschneider252.com
Director
of the Pamlico Writers Conference Steering Committee.
Doris Schneider has been
the driving force behind the Pamlico Writers Conference since its inception.
She is an amazing, talented person and I'd like to share her story.
Me: You have had
an interesting life from traveling as a child to your years in academia.
Juggling your life, work and leadership of the Pamlico Writers Conference; how
has your experience influenced your art? Your writing? Your leadership? How did
the conference come to be?
Doris Schneider:
My writing and my life seem to have “grow’d like Topsy”. I paused in this
writing to look that idiom up. It refers to a fictional character from Uncle
Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and means something that grows
in spurts without design or intention.
That describes my first novel—something
that began as a real experience and then grew in plot and characters as it went
along, often without direction or control. It also describes my life which has
meandered across this continent, through the arts, and through relationships. The
only thing stable has been my love of family and of teaching.
After thirty-three years
as a professor of theatre in higher education, I retired and moved to
Washington with I ½ unedited novels on my computer. Writing had been my bridge
over the empty chasm I felt without teaching in my life. So the first thing I
did was join a journaling class to hone my writing skills, to make sense of my
past, and to meet other writers. I soon found myself writing longer pieces that
were often fiction rather than journal entries limited to my own experiences.
Somehow, a brochure about a literary symposium in New Bern found its way to my
mailbox. The event included a writing competition. So I rewrote two of my
favorite stories, one fiction and one non-fiction, and sent them in.
In the meantime, my
husband had knee replacement surgery with many medical mishaps that kept him in
bed for a month while I ran up and down the stairs, seeing to his every need. I
received a phone call that I was a winner in the competition, but they would
not tell me what place I had won or for which genre. My protective negative
side said, “probably honorable mention”.
I found someone to sit
with my husband while I attended the awards ceremony with a friend. It was held
at the Bank of the Arts and was a lovely affair. The spokesperson called the
names of the winners, beginning with poetry, then non-fiction, then fiction.
For each genre, the honorable mention, then third, then second, and finally
first place was called. When she started on non-fiction, I was ready to step
forward for my honorable mention. But my name was not called. With each level,
I was ready to step forward. Then she began with fiction and the same thing
occurred. My foot was raised and ready with the calling of each name. Finally, the
only category left was first place fiction. My friend and I looked at each
other in disbelief and for a moment I wondered if I had been phoned about being
a winner by mistake. Then my name was called.
I have heard my name
called before, and I have received awards before, but this was different. After
a month of nursing my husband, in a town where we were still new with few
friends, still recovering from the trauma of retirement, I needed this moment
of confidence-building in the new art form that had become my passion.
Encouraged, I joined the
Pamlico Writers Group (PWG) where I could focus on fiction and meet more
serious writers. After another year, the New Bern conference and competition
ended. Knowing how important that event had been to me, I wanted it to be an
accessible opportunity for other writers in eastern North Carolina. So I asked
Jim Keen, the leader of the PWG, about holding a conference in Washington. He
liked the idea, and I offered to talk to Joey Toler, the head of the Beaufort
County Arts Council, about helping us sponsor it. The Pamlico Writers
Conference and Competition was born.
As hosts of the event,
we could not participate in the competition, but we could recreate each year
that wonderful moment I had experienced and give to other writers the
encouragement and confidence to persevere and grow (like Topsy).
Behind the Curtain
(article in June PWG Newsletter by: SL Hollister & Doris Schneider)
Merry holds a BA and anMA in English from Southern Methodist University. For fifteen years, she taught
at both the high school and university level. Then she discovered more people
wanted houses than grammar and switched to a career in real estate.
After retiring, she
returned to her love of words and began writing. She’s sold over a dozen short
stories to most of the major science fiction and fantasy magazines as Meredith
Simmons and currently has four historical romances available writing as Hannah
Meredith.
Merry lives in Wilson,
NC with her husband of nearly fifty years, Bob.
Sherri has been writing and dreaming since she was a young child. After they
raised six sons, her husband asked her what she was waiting for! With the help
of her friend, library supervisor Robina Norman, Sherri attended a couple of
Romantic Times Conventions. After winning the Ann Peach Scholarship for new
writers, she joined Romance Writers of America, Heart of Carolina, and Pamlico
Writers Group and began pursuing a career as a writer. Sherri writes romantic
suspense with southern grit and charm, set on the coast of North Carolina.
Twitter @Jeanelia1964
Member of the Pamlico
Writers Conference Steering Committee
Manages the Facebook and
Twitter accounts for PWG
Present Pamlico Writers
Chairperson
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