North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue on Friday announced she has chosen Cathy Smith Bowers as the state’s new Poet Laureate. Meanwhile, poet Pat Riviere-Seel will be in Davidson Thursday, Feb. 4, as the guest speaker at a meeting of Charlotte Writers’ Club North. Those and other literary tidbits below, including details about when to get your tickets for Margaret Atwood’s Feb. 25 appearance at Davidson College.

WRITERS CLUB WELCOMES POET

Pat Riviere-Seel

On Thursday, Feb. 4, Charlotte Writers’ Club North will welcome poet Pat Riviere-Seel as its guest speaker.

Pat is the author of two poetry collections: “The Serial Killer’s Daughter” (2009), a finalist in the Main Street Rag Publishing Co.’s Chapbook Contest, and “No Turning Back Now” (2004), a finalist in Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices Chapbook Contests and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

An associate editor of Asheville Poetry Review, Ms. Riviere-Seel teaches poetry writing classes and workshops at universities and colleges throughout North Carolina. A former political reporter for The Fayetteville Observer, she was editor of Voices, the journal of Rural Southern Voice for Peace based in Celo, N.C., and the founder and president of For the Record, a public and government relations firm in Annapolis, Md.

“The Serial Killer’s Daughter” has been adapted for performance by Louise Rockwell, and will be performed as a benefit on Friday, Feb. 5, at 7:30 pm at the Warehouse Performing Arts Center in Cornelius.

Founded in 1922, CWC is a membership organization whose mission is to support Charlotte’s community of writers. Charlotte Writers’ Club North meets at 7 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month at The Sanctuary, 108 S. Main Street, in Davidson.

The public is welcome to attend. For more information, please visit our website at www.charlottewritersclub.org ^[1].

N.C. GETS A NEW POET LAUREATE

SOURCES: Office of Gov. Beverly Perdue, Queens University

Gov. Bev Perdue announced Friday the appointment of Cathy Smith Bowers of Tryon as North Carolina’s Poet Laureate. Smith Bowers will be installed at a ceremony scheduled Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 4:30 p.m. at the State Capitol. The ceremony is open to the public.

“Cathy’s powerful poems open new avenues of thought, and are a reflection of the love of words and learning. She believes poetry inspires and instructs North Carolinians of all ages,” Gov. Perdue said.

Ms. Smith Bowers teaches in the UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program and in the M.F.A. program at Queens University of Charlotte where she received the 2002 J.B. Fuqua Distinguished Educator Award. She also received the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Award given by the North Carolina Poetry Society in 2006 and 2007. Smith Bowers received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C.

Ms. Smith Bowers helped Queens launch its MFA program. In a press release, Mike Kobre, co-director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program and Dana Professor of English, said: “Cathy was a founding member of the MFA faculty at Queens in 2001, was a mainstay of undergraduate creative writing program here before that. Without her work nurturing creative writing and mentoring some fabulous students there would not have been a foundation for the MFA program.”

She is the author of four poetry collections: “The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas,” Texas Tech University Press, 1992; “Traveling in Time of Danger,” Iris Press, 1999; “A Book of Minutes,” Iris Press, 2004; “The Candle I Hold Up To See You,” Iris Press, 2009.

MARGARET ATWOOD READING FEB. 25

Davidson College invites the public to attend a literary talk and reading by author Margaret Atwood on Thursday, Feb. 25. Atwood’s novels include “The Edible Woman,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Robber Bride,” “Alias Grace,” “The Blind Assassin,” and her most recent work, “The Year of the Flood.”

The Booker Prize-winning author’s appearance is presented as the college’s annual Conarroe Lecture, and begins at 8 p.m. in the Duke Family Performance Hall. A book signing will follow.

Tickets are free, but must be picked up in person at the College Union Ticket Office beginning Thursday, Feb. 11 for the general public. (College faculty, students and staff may pick up tickets beginning Feb. 4.) For information call 704-894-2135.

LITERARY CALENDAR

THURSDAY, FEB. 4, 7 p.m., The Sanctuary of Davidson, 108 S. Main St. – Charlotte Writers’ Club North presents Pat Riviere-Seel, poet and associate editor of Asheville Poetry Review. Free. For more information, please visit our website at www.charlottewritersclub.org ^[2].

SATURDAY, FEB. 13, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. – Weathers Creek Writers Series offers another in its series of writers workshops at a farm between Cleveland and Mooresville. This month: award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker Georgann Eubanks on “Many Beginnings.” Also coming up: March 13, a songwriting workshop with singer/songwriter/producer Don Dixon; April 10, novelist and former newspaperman John Jeter  leads a session on “Be The Camera: Showing The Story and Reporting The Fiction.”  Sessions  $75 each and include lunch. For a registration form, directions and other information, go to our website, www.weatherscreek.net/. ^[3]

THURSDAY, FEB. 25, 8 p.m., Davidson College Duke Family Performance Hall – Annual Conarroe Lecture, by Margaret Atwood, the Booker Prize-winning author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Blind Assassin.” The lecture will be free, but tickets will be required, available beginning Feb. 4 for those affiliated with the college, Feb. 11 for the general public. Details on the Davidson College tickets page. ^[4]