Rita Riddle Book Release

It's not often that I get to moonlight as the poet and writer afficionado, but this week I get a chance to read other's work as well as my own.

This coming Thursday the 24th there will be a tribute reading of Rita Sizemore Riddle's posthumously published collection of poetry All There Is To Keep, at Radford University, Radford, Virginia. The event will be held in the Flossie Martin Art Gallery at 7:00 pm. The Southern Appalachian Writer's Cooperative (SAWC) donated funds to publish this book, Iris Press worked diligently in putting it together, and all proceeds from the sale of her poetry book will go to a scholarship for an RU creative writing student. Rita passed away in 2006, but left her mark on the world through her personal, unapologetic, and touching poetry. A small group of her friends and fellow writers will read select poems from her book. Speakers are: Dana Wildsmith, Felicia Mitchell, Jim Webb, Beto Cumming, Ron Houchin, Jack Higgs, David Owens, and myself.

On Thursday, April 25 of this week, in conjunction with the Riddle reading, some of us, including others that couldn't make the Radford University engagement, will read some from our own work from 3:30-5 at the Floyd Country Store in nearby Floyd, Virginia, with writers from that neck of the woods as well as from other stretches of the Appalachians. I'm excited not just to be sharing my poetry with others, but that their famous Friday Night Jamboree follows our reading from 6:30 until 10 or 11. I'm looking forward to listening to some good Ole Time and Bluegrass music I grew up on living around Galax, Virginia.