The Tryon Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) will host the second annual Porcelain, Poetry and Prose, a fundraising tea for the Eileen White Scholarship Fund, on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 2 p.m. at historic Sunnydale in Tryon. The tea’s featured authors are Cathy Smith Bowers, Rick McDaniel, Michel Stone and Pam Stone.  This event is by reservation only.
Named North Carolina’s poet laureate in February 2010, Cathy Smith Bowers received her BA and MAT in English at Winthrop University and continued her graduate work in Modern British Poetry at Oxford University in England. Her poems about family and loss have appeared widely in publications such as ‘The Atlantic Monthly,’ ‘The Georgia Review,’ ‘Poetry,’ ‘The Southern Review’ and ‘The Kenyon Review.’ Currently she is on the faculty for Queens’ M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program, UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program and at Wofford College in Spartanburg.
She has authored four collections of poetry: ‘The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas,’ ‘Traveling in Time of Danger,’ ‘A Book of Minutes and The Candle I Hold Up To See You.’ Bower’s topic of discussion will be writing about what scares you.
Rick McDaniel, a working journalist for more than 30 years, is a senior contributing writer for the ‘Asheville Citizen-Times’ and writes for several regional magazines. For eight years he wrote a weekly syndicated column on Southern cooking. McDaniel learned his love of Southern food from “four generations of small women who were giants in the kitchen.” His book, An Irresistible History of Southern Food:  Four Centuries of Black-Eyed Peas, Collard Greens and Whole Hog Barbecue (The South), published in April 2011, is a delectable blend of ingredients and cooking techniques exploring the history of more than 150 recipes, from Maryland stuffed ham to South Carolina chicken bog to New Orleans shrimp Creole, without forgetting the meal’s crowning glory: dessert. McDaniel will share his thoughts about “From Angel Biscuits to Demon Rum:  400 years of Southern Food.”