Brenda Kay Ledford


				*Brenda Kay Ledford*

(These photos and the biography below are from 2 articles in the Smoky Mountain Sentinel on June 7, 2006 by Glenda Beall and January 17, 2007 by Ann B. Doran. They are used here with the authors permission)
Visit Brenda Kay Ledford's blog: http://blueridgepoet.blogspot.com

Brenda Kay Ledford is a native of Clay County, NC. Brenda earned her Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University and went on to study Journalism at the University of Tennessee and TriCounty Community College. She's former Creative Writing Editor of Tri-County Communicator.

Brenda Kay Ledford writes of her rich Smoky Mountain heritage. She most recently has published "Shew Bird Mountain," a poetry collection depicting portraits of a vanishing mountain world.

Her first poetry chapbook, Patchwork Memories, received the 2005 Paul Green Multimedia Award from North Carolina Society of Historians. Previously, Ledford's writings have appeared in Pembroke Magazine, Asheville Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Appalachian Heritage, Cappers, Our State Magazine and other journals.

Ledford's primary themes are nature, a sense of place and family - themes that writers have often explored. But consider one of Ledford's favorite quotes: "Nature is universal, i.e., a waterfall in Africa is in content the same as a waterfall in North Carolina." In other words, one can always relate to universal themes - particularly when they are crafted into such lean yet redolent lines of verse as in Ledford's poems.

Her poems offer readers a motif of hues and textures of Ledford's beloved Clay County home ground: Matheson Cove, Shew Bird Mountain, Trout Cove, mule plowed fields, simple joys and tough virtues, Hyatt's Mill Creek, Cut Worm Phillips Store in Hayesville and more. As author Charles Price said of Shew Bird Mountain, "Anyone who loves this place will see it here." I spoke with Brenda Kay Ledford shortly after the publication of Shew Bird Mountain.

Brenda Kay Ledford is a member of the following organizations:
(Click on a name to visit their web site.)

North Carolina Writers Guild

North Carolina Story Telling Guild

North Carolina Poetry Society

Publications List

Brenda Kay Ledford's poetry chapbook, SACRED FIRE, will be released, Sept., 2008, by Finishing Line Press. To order, go to: www.finishinglinepress.com and click on "New Releases".

Shew Bird Mountain, Published in 2006 by Finishing Line Press.
Available at: Amazon.com

Shew Bird Mountain received the 2007 Paul Green Multimedia Award from North Carolina Society of Historians.

Patchwork Memories: Poems by Brenda Kay Ledford

North Carolina Society of Historians - Award Winner

This book is available at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC and Phillips & Lloyd Bookstore on the square in Hayesville, NC

Sacred Fire Available in September 2008

to order go to Finishing Line Press and click on New Releases

All materials copyright Brenda Kay Ledford