The Tryon Area Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) will host the fourth annual Porcelain, Poetry and Prose scholarship fundraising tea on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 2 p.m. at Sunnydale in Tryon. Featured speakers are Dale Neal, Dr. Christine Swager, Frances Flynn and Norman Powers.

Dale Neal authored the novels, “The Half-Life of Home” and “Cow Across America,” winner of the 2009 Novello Literary Prize. His short fiction and essays have appeared in many literary journals. He is a prize-winning journalist for the Asheville Citizen-Times. A native of North Carolina, he lives in Asheville with his wife and dogs. When his nose is not buried in a book, he’s bound to be out on the trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Dr. Christine R. Swager is a retired educator. Her first two books, cited for their historical accuracy, “Black Crows and White Cockades” and its sequel, “If Ever Your Country Needs You,” are historic fiction for young adults.

Her nonfiction novel, “Come to the Cow Pens!” geared to young adults, is also hailed as “a good read for all”. She has written five books on the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution. Her latest, “The Valiant Died,” is nonfiction adult, covering the war in the South from 1778 – 1782. She has a passion for the great southern militia leaders and writes about their contributions in the fight for America’s independence.

Frances Flynn arrived in the United States from England at age 24 and a year later met her husband, Tryon native Shields Flynn, in New York City. In 1965, she visited Tryon and fell in love instantly. She has a degree from Wheaton College, Mass., raised two daughters and worked as a journalist, technical writer and editor for more than 20 years. She and her husband moved to Tryon in 2004. Her ongoing interest in poetry began early with Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses”. .

Instrumental in the creation of the Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition, this year she was part of a new literary festival celebrating poetry. Some of the country’s most respected poets led a variety of writing workshops at the Lanier Library. The festival closed with a public reception to announce the winners of the sixth annual Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition. The library published a book of the Poetry Contest Winners, which is available for sale.

Local author Norman Powers, a native of Massachusetts, lived and worked in Manhattan for 25 years in the television and film industry; first as a studio technician and then as a writer and producer for his own production company. As a free-lance journalist and photographer, his work has appeared in regional magazines and newspapers, most recently for the arts and culture monthly Bold Life and the quarterly Carolina Home and Garden. His play “Dottie & Fred,” based on the relationship between New Yorker writers Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, has been presented by The Director’s Company in Manhattan and by Duke University’s Triangle Theater Festival. He is a past recipient of the Hub City Writers Project’s Hardegree Prize for his memoir, “Building Stories.” His novel “End Credits” was published in June 2009. His new novel, “Lily’s Game,” is set against the social turmoil of the Vietnam War years and is a tale of secrecy and deception driven by the rules of a game that turns deadly.

The event is by reservation only. Seating is limited and early reservations are suggested. For ticket information, call 828-817-2443.

 

— article submitted 

by Audrey Ortiz