top of page
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram

A Lifetime of Words

"I love writers whose words skate in swirls

or whoop into a room."

​

These lines, by my friend and fellow writer, Juanita Teshner, perfectly describe my lifelong relationship with words. Some writers get stuck in a single genre--fiction, poetry, journalism--and some find a form within that genre--the sestina, flash fiction, haiku, or free verse--and become so comfortable, they never leave it.

 

I learned early that words tell stories in all kinds of shapes. Like a woodcarver finding the face in a chunk of a tree, the words themselves must find their form, whether a poem, a play, or a memoir. Maybe as some say, we are all just telling the same story over and over, skating and whooping into each room to see where it fits best. 

​

​Books

 

Otherwise, I'm Fine: A Memoir. University of South Carolina Press, forthcoming Mar. 2025.

​

Blue Star (poems). Press 53, 2016. 

​

Piece Work (poems). Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2007. Winner of the Cleveland          State University First Book Prize, 2006; Selected as All-Freshman Read for students at                 Guilford Technical Community College, 2010-11; Selected as All-Freshman Read for                   students in the Honors Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2009.

​

Sherry’s Prayer (poems). NC Humanities Council, 2004.  Winner, the Linda Flowers Prize,                2003.

​

Los Hijos (poems). Longleaf Press, 2002.

​

Unravelings (poems). Longleaf Press, 1998. Winner, the Longleaf Press Poetry Chapbook                  Competition, 1998;  Winner, the Oscar Arnold Young Prize, 1998.

​

Snake Dreams (poems). Nightshade Press, 1994. Winner, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize,                1995.

​

Collections

 

You Are the River (NC Museum of Art, 2021). Ed. Helena Feder.

​

Crossing the Rift:  NC Poets on 9/11 and Its Aftermath (Press 53, 2020). Ed. Joseph Bathanti               and David Potorti.

​

“Pauline Learns To Sew,” Our State Magazine, April 2014. “10 Poems Every North Carolinian         Should Read.”

​

Women's Realities, Women's Choices: An Introduction to Women's Studies (Oxford University,              2014).

​

Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont (UNC Press, 2011). Ed Georgann Eubanks.

​

Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia (University of Kentucky Press, 2006).

​

Earth and Soul:  An Anthology of North Carolina Poetry (Kostroma Project, 2003).

​

Word and Witness:  100 Years of North Carolina Poetry (Carolina Academic Press, 2001).

​

Claiming the Spirit Within:  A Sourcebook of Women’s Poetry (Beacon Press, 1997).

 

Plays

 

Company K: From Asheboro to the Fields of France (full-length play). Commissioned by the                 Randolph Library and the City of Asheboro, produced by Rhinoleap Productions and                 performed at the Sunset Theatre, Asheboro, NC, on Sept. 29, 2018, Aug. 23-25, 2019,                 and Feb. 2-4, 2023. Filmed for PBS NC, 2023.

​

Piece Work (play). Adapted for stage by Brenda Schleunes and performed by the Touring                    Company of North Carolina at 12 NC community colleges, 2010-11.

5dd43fb1ca595.webp

Brenda Schleunes  directs the cast of Piece Work, the play.

Nelson Kepley/News & Record

James Alton stars in Company K: From Asheboro to the Fields of France. 

bottom of page