Michael Banks
Teller of stories capturing life’s moments — both real and imagined.
Member Websites
Go in-depth and get to know some of our members!
Brian Biswas Chapel Hill
Brian Biswas has published over sixty short stories in the United States as well as internationally. His short story “A Betrayal” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and anthologized in The Irreal Reader. A shorter story collection, A Betrayal and Other Stories, was published by Rogue Star Press in 2018. A novel, The Astronom, will be published by Whisk(e)y Tit Press in the spring of 2023 and a second collection, Blister and Other Stories, in the fall of 2023. He is listed in the International Writers and Authors Who’s Who, Marquis Who’s Who, and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Brian was born in Columbus, Ohio. He received a B.A. in Philosophy from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1988, he moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his wife, Elizabeth, and their son, Mark. Their daughter, Eliza, was born several years later. He lives in an old neighborhood in Chapel Hill with his wife and an ever changing assortment of animals.
Sarah P. Blanchard Weaverville
Sarah P. Blanchard lived many years in New England, on farms large and small. After several decades working in corporate communications on the mainland and five years teaching at University of Hawaii-Hilo, she now lives and writes in western North Carolina. Her poems, nonfiction and short stories have appeared in several publications including Welter, Calyx, The Write Launch, Sixfold, and PenDust. Her story “Playing Chess with Bulls” was a finalist for the 2021 Doris Betts fiction prize.
Teri M. Brown Calabash
Born in Athens, Greece as an Air Force brat, Teri M Brown graduated from UNC Greensboro. She began her writing career helping small businesses with content creation and published five nonfiction self-help books dealing with real estate and finance, receiving “First Runner Up” in the Eric Hoffman Book Awards for 301 Simple Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home Now, finalist in the USA Best Books Awards for How To Open and Operate a Financially Successful Redesign, Redecorate, and Real Estate Staging Business and for 301 Simple Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home Now, and Honorable Mention in Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award for Private Mortgage Investing. In 2017, after winning the First Annual Anita Bloom Ornoff Award for Inspirational Short Story, she began writing fiction in earnest, and published Sunflowers Beneath the Snow in January 2022. Her second novel, An Enemy Like Me, launches in January 2023. Teri is a wife, mother, grandmother, and author who loves word games, reading, bumming on the beach, taking photos, singing in the shower, hunting for bargains, ballroom dancing, playing bridge, and mentoring others.
Kim Church Raleigh
Kim Church is the author of Byrd (Dzanc Books), winner of the Crook’s Corner Book Prize and an Independent Publisher Book Award for Literary Fiction, a Chautauqua Prize finalist, and longlisted for the SIBA Award and the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction. Her short work appears in the Norton anthology Flash Fiction Forward, The Great Books Foundation Short Story Omnibus, The Sun Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The Believer Logger, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has received fiction fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council and residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Millay Colony for the Arts, Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, and Vermont Studio Center. She has taught workshops in diverse settings—from conferences and classrooms to homeless shelters and prisons, including death row. A former trial attorney, she lives with her husband, artist Anthony Ulinski, in Raleigh.
Charles M Clemmons Durham
Charles was born in the countryside near Clayton, North Carolina, on what was then an NC State Forest Service tree nursery. He received degrees in Engineering and Business from NC State University and the University of Connecticut. After retiring from the corporate world in 1994, Charles pursued his interests in documentary filmmaking, photography, and the history of his family in coastal North Carolina. He has received two New England Emmy Awards (writing and production) for the American Public Television documentary, Mystic Voices: The Story of the Pequot War. After 40 years in Connecticut, Charles returned to the South where he now resides in Durham, North Carolina.
Sherry Comstock Burlington
I’ve a semiretired nurse. and have just started my career as an author. My blog is there as well as a store for purchasing my book.
Suzanne Cottrell Oxford
Suzanne Cottrell is a member of Taste Life Twice Writers and NC Writers’ Network. She writes poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction, which have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She’s the author of three poetry chapbooks: Gifts of the Seasons, Autumn and Winter & Spring and Summer and Scarred Resilience; and a hybrid book, Nature Calls Outside My Window, A Collection of Poems and Stories. She is an outdoor enthusiast and retired teacher, who enjoys reading, writing, knitting, hiking, yoga, and Pilates. She lives with her husband in rural Piedmont North Carolina.
Donna Everhart Dunn
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Donna Everhart is the USA Today bestselling author of authentic, vivid Southern fiction, including the Southeastern Library Association Award-winning The Road to Bittersweet, Indie Next Pick and Amazon Book of the Month, The Education of Dixie Dupree, The Forgiving Kind, The Moonshiner’s Daughter, and her most recent, The Saints of Swallow Hill. Her sixth book, (currently untitled) releases in February 2024. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, she now lives with her husband in a small town in the Sandhills region, and is most likely working on her next novel. She is a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
Laurel Ferejohn Durham
A prize-winning writer and independent editor, Laurel Ferejohn offers editing services for writers of fiction and memoir. See testimonials and a list of her published writing on her website.
Nicholas W. Fuller Wilmington
Nicholas W Fuller has been writing all of his life. He began writing his first novel while still in fifth grade—a science fiction story featuring an alien race inspired by his neighbor’s basset hounds. While that work remains incomplete, Nicholas has worked on various blogs and stories over the years, including earning an honorable mention from ElegantLiterature.com. When Nicholas is not writing, he’s probably thinking about writing, maybe playing video games, possibly tickling one or both of his two children, or perhaps traveling with his wife… but likely also pondering writing. He hopes to continue to make things up and put them on paper for an ever wider audience.
Katherine Fuoco Fairchild Pittsboro
Katherine Fuoco Fairchild has lived in five states and in Singapore, Belgium, Australia, and Hong Kong. She translates her interest in relationships—how families, friends, colleagues relate—to novels, short stories, and essays. Hers is a family of writers and artists: her husband, SJ Fairchild, is an author. (fairchildsj.com) Her daughter, Lyn Fairchild Hawks, is a novelist and writing consultant. (lynhawks.com) And her daughter, Antonia Fairchild, is a theater producer and professor.
Ruben Gonzales High Point
Ruben was born and raised in East Los Angeles but has called North Carolina home since 1976. After college Ruben served in the Peace Corps including two years as a volunteer elementary school teacher in a small African village where he spent his evenings reading and writing by candlelight. Since retiring, Ruben now writes full time. His first published novel, The Cottage on the Bay, was published by Moon Shine Cove Publishing and came out in 2018. His second book, Murder on Black Mountain, came out in 2020, from Fire Star Press. His third book, the second book in his Black Mountain Mystery series, came out in June 2022, by Indigo Sea Press. He has a contract for a stand-alone thriller/suspense book due for release in 2023. He belongs to several writer’s groups including the NC Writers Network, Triad Writers, Winston-Salem Writers and the local chapter of Sisters in Crime. Ruben is currently spending many hours a day trying to write a memoir of growing up as a Mexican American and suffering through the predictable “pangs” of selective memory. Ruben lives in High Point, NC with his wife, a former teacher and journalism major, and his most valued critic.
DJ Hicks Charlotte
DJ Hicks currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina but considers himself a man of many places and many faces. When not waiting for his luggage in an airport somewhere, he enjoys being in and around sports and eating the best thing possible at any moment in life. Most of his writing work has only appeared in his head, but it’s slowly making its way to the pages. His first official novel will be published in early 2023 with Warren Publishing. He has no other fancy credentials to put here, but he did make over 1,000 consecutive jumps on a pogo stick once. Ask him about it.
J. Edwards Holt Raleigh
Born in North Carolina, United States, J. Edwards Holt always knew that he wanted to be a writer. After graduating high school, he attended college and pursued a degree in education, but later decided to change course and follow his dream to become a novelist and children’s author. Now a bestselling author, ordained minister, and mental health advocate, Holt spends his free time reading and helping the less fortunate in his community. He is passionate about spreading Christian messages through his writing, watching science fiction and superhero movies, and collecting comic books.
Marjorie Hudson Pittsboro
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Marjorie Hudson is the award-winning author of Searching for Virginia Dare, Accidental Birds of the Carolinas, and a new release, Indigo Field, a novel.
Justin Hunt Charlotte
JUSTIN HUNT grew up in rural Kansas and lives in Charlotte. Fluent in German and Spanish, Hunt has won several poetry awards, most recently 1st place in the Porter Fleming Literary Competition, 2nd place in the River Styx and Strokestown (Ireland) international contests, and honorable mentions and commendations in numerous other competitions, including the NORward Prize (New Ohio Review), the Patricia Cleary Miller Award (New Letters), the Rumi Prize (Arts & Letters), the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize, the Bridport Prize (U.K.), and the Gregory O’Donoghue Competition (Ireland). Hunt’s work also appears or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Five Points, Michigan Quarterly Review, American Literary Review, Nimrod, The Florida Review, Solstice, The Journal, Puerto del Sol, Terrain.org and Bellingham Review, among other publications. He is currently assembling a debut poetry collection.
Rebecca Hodge Raleigh
Rebecca Hodge is a former veterinarian and clinical research scientist who lives and writes in North Carolina. Her novels WILDLAND and OVER THE FALLS both place memorable characters in situations filled with suspense. She has three grown sons, two crazy dogs, and one patient husband. When not writing on the back porch or brewing yet another mug of tea, she loves hiking, travel, and (of course) curling up with a good book. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram (@rhodge.fiction) and check out her website to sign up for her newsletter, which offers a book giveaway in every issue.
Paul Jones Triangle Area
Of publications and events that involve Paul Jones – mostly poetry
Karen Luke Jackson
Karen Luke Jackson draws upon contemplative practices, oral history, and the natural world for inspiration. She is the author of GRIT (Finishing Line Press, 2020), a poetry chapbook chronicling her sister’s life as an award-winning clown, and The View Ever Changing (Kelsay Books, 2021), a full-length collection exploring the power of place and family ties. Karen has also published poems and short stories in numerous journals including Broad River Review (Rash Poetry Award), Ruminate (Janet McCabe Poetry Award, Honorable Mention), Atlanta Review, One, Susurrus, Willows Wept, Reckon Review, Nobody’s Home, and Kakalak. A member of the North Carolina Writers Network, Netwest, and the North Carolina Poetry Society, Karen was privileged to study with Pat Riviere-Seel in the 2018 NCPS Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series. She holds a doctorate in education from North Carolina State University and is a retreat leader and facilitator with the Center for Courage & Renewal. Karen resides in a cottage on a goat pasture in Flat Rock, North Carolina, where she writes and companions people on their spiritual journeys. Living in the Blue Ridge Mountains and being a grandmother are two of her greatest joys.
Matthew Johnson Greensboro
Matthew is the author of the poetry collection, Shadow Folk and Soul Songs, published by Kelsay Books in 2019, and his second collection, Far From New York State, is scheduled for an early 2023 release through New York Quarterly Press. Among selected journals, Matthew’s poetry has appeared in Maudlin House, Maryland Literary Review, New York Quarterly, Northern New England Review, Roanoke Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Up the Staircase Quarterly, I-70 Review, and The Front Porch Review. Matthew, who is a three-time, Best of the Net nominee, is also the managing editor of the literary magazine, Portrait of New England, and the poetry editor of the magazine, The Twin Bill. He is a M.A. graduate of UNC-Greensboro and a member of the writing networks: The North Carolina Writers Network, the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, and the Connecticut Poetry Society. A native of New Rochelle, New York, and raised in Stratford, Connecticut, he now lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. Matthew is a former sports journalist and editor and has written for The Carolinian, Fansided, The Daily Star (Oneonta, NY), and USA Today’s College; he remains a freelance editor.
Cathy Rigg Monetti Columbia, SC and Burnsville, NC
Cathy Rigg Monetti is a writer, blogger, and maker who heartily advocates the joys of living a creative life. Her poetry has been published in the Clinch Mountain Review, and a short story, THE DESCENT OF EDNA ALLEN, was published in Still: The Journal and nominated for Best of the Net. She is currently at work on her second novel, a work of historical fiction set in Southwest Virginia at the turn of the century, amidst the timbering of the region’s ancient forests. She and her husband make their home in Columbia, South Carolina and spend as much time as they can in the Western North Carolina mountains, where they stare at the view and obsess over the black bears at their place on a ridge high above Asheville.
Laura Mullen Winston-Salem
Laura Mullen is the author of eight books and the William R. Kenan Jr Chair in the Humanities at Wake Forest University.
Val Nieman The Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem)
Valerie Nieman’s latest, In the Lonely Backwater, a mystery in the Southern gothic tradition, has been named the 2022 Sir Walter Raleigh Award winner for the best novel by a North Carolina writer. To the Bones, her genre-bending folk horror/thriller about coal country, was a finalist for the 2020 Manly Wade Wellman Award. She is also the author of Blood Clay (Eric Hoffer Award) and two other novels. She has published a short fiction collection and three poetry collections, most recently, Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse, which was runner-up for the Brockman-Campbell Prize. She has published widely in journals and anthologies, and appears regularly in juried reading series such as Piccolo Spoleto, Why There Are Words, and Women of Appalachia. She has held state and NEA creative writing fellowships. Nieman has degrees from West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte, and was a reporter and farmer in West Virginia before moving to North Carolina, where she worked as an editor and a creative writing professor at NC A&T State University.
E. Veronica Noechel Raleigh
E.V. Noechel lives with OCD, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, severe chronic pain, and an assortment of delightful rescued animals. Her work has received multiple Pushcart nominations and generous support from the North Carolina Arts Council, Vermont Studio Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, United Arts, Culture and Animals Foundation, and I-Park.
Jacques Nyemb Graham, NC
Founder and writer at Not So Super Publishing, an independent publisher of thrilling and inclusive comics, picture books, and short stories. Jacques aims to produce quality literature with dignity and respect for our artists and fans. The “Not So Super” title is a subtle dig at superhero books, losing sight of the remarkableness of being an ordinary person. The books aim to remind our readers of their greatness.
Katherine O’Hara Wilmington, NC
KATHERINE O’HARA received an MFA with Distinction from UNCW and is a Tin House Workshop alumna. She is the communications director for the NC Writers’ Network—the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers. She’s also marketing manager of Longleaf Review and reads submissions for storySouth and Hub City Press. She has worked formerly for Beloit Poetry Journal, Ecotone, and Lookout Books. Among others, Katherine’s writing has appeared in the Hayden’s Ferry Review, NELLE, Artemis Journal, and YES POETRY. As far as writing, she is pitching her hybrid novel that features poetic interpretations of grief in rural Louisiana, where her family is from.
Lauren Oertel Austin, Texas
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Lauren is a writer and community organizer in Texas and New Mexico. She’s passionate about supporting authors, books, writing communities, and local bookstores. She lives in Austin, Texas, but loves to visit North Carolina as often as possible.
Leslie Pietrzyk Winston-Salem
Leslie Pietrzyk’s collection of linked stories set in DC, Admit This to No One, was published in 2021 by Unnamed Press. Her first collection of stories, This Angel on My Chest, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Short fiction and essays have appeared in, among others, Ploughshares, Story Magazine, Hudson Review, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, The Sun, Cincinnati Review, and The Washington Post Magazine. Awards include a Pushcart Prize in 2020. She teaches fiction and CNF in the Converse University low-res MFA program in SC.
Bob Slentz-Kesler Durham
Bob lives and writes in Durham. His work has appeared in Litro Magazine, The Blotter, STORGY Magazine, The Font, Fiery Foods Magazine, All About Jazz, and The Rappahannock Review.
Elizabeth Solazzo Graham
Elizabeth Solazzo is a writer living in the Piedmont of North Carolina who enjoys writing about family and relationships. Her most recent publication is Mountain Mercies, the 2nd book in a trilogy called the Clinch Mountain series. The books feature the relationship between a 100-year-old widow struggling to survive in the hills of Appalachia in the early 20th century along with a young female doctor opening her first medical clinic in those same mountains at the end of the century. Other releases include her first novel, Mountain Melodies, three collections of Non-Fiction stories and one collection of fictional short stories entitled Chasing the Wind. She is now at work on the third and final novel in the Clinch Mountain series.
A.L. Sirois
The official website of writer / ghostwriter / editor / illustrator A.L. Sirois
Stanley B. Trice New Bern
Stanley B. Trice has had more than two dozen magazines and journals publish his short stories. Also, he has self-published four books. Stanley lives in eastern North Carolina where he belongs to several writing groups and volunteers at nonprofits to write grants. More about him can be found at stanleybtrice.com.
Judith Turner-Yamamoto Cincinnati, Ohio
JUDITH TURNER-YAMAMOTO, author of LOVING THE DEAD AND GONE (Regal House Publishing, 9/22), grew up in central North Carolina in a small mill town. Her work has appeared in over thirty journals and anthologies, and she has won more than fifteen awards and fellowships – including the Ohio Arts Council, the Virginia Arts Commission, the Sewanee Writers Conference-Scholar, the Washington Prize for Fiction, and the Virginia Screenwriting Award. Judith taught fiction at the Chautauqua Writers’ Center, the Danville Writer’s Conference, and the Writers’ Center, Bethesda, Maryland. She was a featured author and panelist at the 2022 Kentucky Book Festival, the 2022 Books by the Banks Festival, the 2023 Ohioana Book Festival, and speaker at the 2023 Santa Barbara Writers Conference and the 2023 Friends of the Library Sunset Signature Series, Asheboro. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY calls Loving the Dead and Gone “A bittersweet and fantastical debut.” FOREWORD REVIEWS says “Loving the Dead and Gone is a moving, insightful novel about growing through tragedy.” A dynamic interviewee, Judith’s own on-air interviews have been featured on NPR affiliate WVXU. Over 1000 articles have appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, Elle, Interiors, Art & Antiques, The Los Angeles Times, and Travel & Leisure, and many others.
Landis Wade Charlotte and Durham
Short Bio: Landis Wade writes light-hearted legal thrillers and mysteries with a historical or holiday touch (cozies with a bit of a thrill). He is a recovering trial lawyer (after 35 years of law practice) and founder of Charlotte Readers Podcast (where he has conducted 500+ author interviews), whose third book—The Christmas Redemption—won the Holiday category of the 12th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards and whose recent novel – Deadly Declarations– won more than five awards including Winner in the 2022 American Fiction Awards in the Cozy Mystery category. He compiled The Write Quotes series–8 books that release monthly beginning March 1, 2023. Book 1: The Write Quotes: The Writing Life, features inspirational and practical quotes from 500+ interviews with hard-working, award-winning, and New York Times bestselling authors in more than 33 U.S. states and five countries. He spends time in Charlotte, Durham, and Watauga County, North Carolina, where he writes and podcasts, plays with his grandchild, and fly-fishes. Visit his podcast website here: www.charlottereaderspodcast.com Visit his author website here: www.landiswade.com
Norman Weeks Asheville
Experiential writer: Books on travel/culture, nature, memoir, and psychology.
Cheryl Wilder Haw River
Cheryl Wilder’s collection Anything That Happens, a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection (Press 53, 2021), was named Second Finalist in the 2022 Poetry Society of Virginia North American Book Award and received Honorable Mention in the Brockman-Campbell Book Award. Her chapbook What Binds Us (Finishing Line Press) was published in 2017. Cheryl’s work appears in Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath (Press 53, 2021), Barely South Review, and Architects + Artisans, among other publications. She served as writer-in-residence at SistaWRITE, held residency at SAFTA, and received a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Support Grant for 2023. Co-founder of Waterwheel Review and president of the Burlington Writers Club, Cheryl earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts
John Thomas York Greensboro
John Thomas York is a retired teacher of high school English and creative writing. He has published four chapbooks and one full-length poetry collection, Cold Spring Rising (2012, Press 53). His work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, KROnline (Kenyon Review), Appalachian Journal, and several other magazines. He has won both the James Applewhite Poetry Prize and the Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize from North Carolina Literary Review.
