NCLR Online 2017 – North Carolina Literary Review

Special Feature: North Carolina Literature and the Other Arts

cover art by Jane Desonier

NCLR Online 2017 press release [PDF]

Pushcart Nominations
James Applewhite
Kathryn Kirkpatrick

Insight and Inspiration Across the Arts

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor

“My appreciation of the arts is inspired largely by my parents. My father’s tales gave me my love of story and are now finding their way into my new writing; and while I inherited none of my mother’s talent in the visual and textile arts, I do believe she influenced my aesthetics.”

Babble
a poem by Nicole Sarrocco
art by Margaret Sartor

Alone on the Holiday Campus
a poem by James Applewhite
art by Paul S. Kelly, III

Acceptable Losses: A Refrigerator Note to My Daughter
a poem by Russell Colver
art by Barbara Fisher

“Music of the Spheres” Heard as “world was opening onto world”: An Interview with Robert Morgan
by Rebecca Godwin

Resourceful and Urnfield
two poems by Robert Morgan
art by Hanna Jubran

sun – rising, – downing
a poem by Kathryn Kirkpatrick
art by Jacqueline Herrmann Gourevitch

Recruitment
fiction by Michael Parker
art by Jason Craighead

Auricles
a poem by Peg Bresnahan
art by Ellen Hathaway

Communion
a poem by Kathryn Stripling Byer
art by Ellen Hathaway

1970/1670
a poem by Susan Schmidt
art by Herb Jackson

Misadventure in Montclair
creative nonfiction by Suzy T. Kane
art by Melinda Fine

Do you know
a poem by Joan McLean
art by Melinda Fine

Cave of Hands
a poem by Diana Pinckney
art by Paris Alexander

Basketball Is a Kind of Poetry
a poem by Paul Jones
art by Murry Handler

“to sing praise”
a review by John Steen
Fred Moten, The Little Edges

The Cosmology of the Daughter Who
Emerged from an Unrecognizable Place
a poem by Kristi Carter
art by Christina Córdova

Getting from Here to There
a poem by Susan Lefler
art by Christina Córdova

You Used to Greet Trees
a poem by Nilla Larsen
art by Sondra Dorn

Yesterday’s Snow
a poem by Gina Malone
art by Sondra Dorn

“part of a little counterculture”: An Interview with Musician Turned Writer Nic Brown
by Leslie Maxwell

Flashbacks: Echoes of Past Issues

Reviewing the Writingest State’s Writers

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor

“In my early years as editor, my colleague Peter Makuck shared his review philosophy with me: hew writes at least one review a year…, conscious of his own wish to have his books reviewed. I have never forgotten the generosity and self-awareness in that philosophy.”

The Art of Becoming an Author
a review by Sharon E. Colley
Michael K. Brantley, Memory Cards:
Portraits from a Rural Journey
Lee Smith, Dimestore: A Writer’s Life

The Arts and Sciences of Tar Heel Waters
a review by Scott Hicks
David S. Lee, Gulf Stream Chronicles:
A Naturalist Explores Life in an Ocean River
Bland Simpson and Ann Cary Simpson, Little Rivers and Waterway Tales:
A Carolinian’s Eastern Streams

Light and Dark, Dark, and Light
a review by Warren Rochelle
Fred Chappell, A Shadow All of Light

Minding the Gaps: Necessary Scholarship
on the Works of Ron Rash
a review by Elisabeth C. Aiken
John Lang, Understanding Ron Rash
Randall Wilhelm, ed., The Ron Rash Reader

Jill McCorkle Receives 2016 Thomas Wolfe Prize

Hooks Like Question Marks: New Poetry and Fiction from Peter Makuck
a review by Marly Youmans
Peter Makuck, Mandatory Evacuation and Wins and Losses

Historical Truth in Fictional Form
a review by Rebecca Godwin
Miriam Herin, A Stone for Bread
Robert Morgan, Chasing the North Star
Terry Roberts, That Bright Land

Collaborators Become Co-Recipients of the
2016 Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award

The Allegiances of Strangers
a review by Rhonda Armstrong
Taylor Brown, Fallen Land
Philip Gerard, The Dark of the Island

Margaret Maron: First Mystery Writer in
the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame
presentation remarks by Bland Simpson

Murder, with a Side of Green Beans
a review by Teresa Bryson
Ruth Moose, Wedding Bell Blues:
A Dixie Dew Mystery

Sheila Turnage: Third Time Lucky
Poems of the Elemental: Heart and Home
a review by Susan Laughter Meyers
J.S. Absher, Mouth Work
Janet Joyner, Waterborne

Four North Carolina Poets Honored

Northeast to Down East: Four Diverse North Carolina Authors Revisit Their NCLR Interviews
interviews by Sheryl Cornett

North Carolina Miscellany

Expanding the North Carolina Literary Community

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor

“If you would be willing to review for us —new scholar seeking some publication experience or established writer wanting to give back — do not hesitate to contact me with either your genre of interest or particular books you would like to review. And I welcome interview suggestions, too.”

A Little Mercy Left in the World After All
a review by Jim Coby
Matthew Griffin, Hide
Michael Keenan Gutierrez, The Trench Angel

Fathers, Villains, Heroes
a review by Laura Sloan Patterson
Alice Osborn, Heroes without Capes
Jennifer Whitaker, The Blue Hour

“a seeker among seekers”
a review by Joan Romano Shifflett
Rebecca Foust, Paradise Drive

Restoring Faded Glory
a review by Jeanne Julian
David E. Poston, Slow of Study

2016 Hardee-Rives Dramatic Arts Award

Family Business and “Non-Stupid Optimism”
a review by Catherine Carter
Sam Barbee, The Rain that We Needed
Scott Owens, Thinking About the Next Big Bang
in the Galaxy at the Edge of Town

What the Owl Knows
a review by John Hoppenthaler
Noel Crook, Salt Moon
Kelly Michels, Disquiet

Raiders of the Lost Cherokee Ark
a review by Kirstin L. Squint
Holly Sullivan McClure, Conjuror

Chosen Vocations
a review by John Steen
Aaron Belz, Glitter Bomb
Eric Ekstrand, Laodicea

The Power of Place
a review by Peter Makuck
J. Scott Brownlee, Requiem for Used Ignition Cap
Mary Kratt, Watch Where You Walk:
New & Selected Poems

Time Spent
a review by Al Maginnes
Michael Colonnese, Double Feature
Gibbons Ruark, The Road to Ballyvaughan