WE’VE BEEN HERE SINCE 1983
WE’VE BEEN HERE SINCE 1983
In 2023, Carteret Writers will be celebrating forty years of building community among Eastern North Carolina writers and readers. During that time, you’ve put in a lot of miles to attend open mic readings and to connect with fellow storytellers, poets, and literature lovers. You’ve learned to make Zoom work for critique groups when in-person wasn’t possible. When the days seemed darkest, you continued to encourage one another to pursue your writing goals. Through it all, you’ve generously shared your experience, enthusiasm, and expertise to help other writers grow.
Thank you, members, for making us possible.
WE’VE GOT BIG PLANS FOR 2023
Your new board members have high hopes and big ideas for celebrating our upcoming Carteret Writers Quadrennial including:
Workshops, seminars, and a local conference to encourage growth
Social events to cultivate community and connect writers
A new blog to show off our members’ stories and insights
Plus, you’ll still be getting all of the Carteret Writers membership perks you’ve always had including:
Two monthly newsletters to get caught up on member achievements and writerly opportunities
Support for launching new critique groups or finding new members for an existing group
Promotion of your published writings to build your writer platform
A complimentary copy of Shoal, a professionally-produced journal featuring our annual contest winners

Summer Doldrums Challenge Golden Lines
Blu reached for my cold hand and took it in both of her hands as if it were an injured bird or a fragile piece of glass.
If only I could remember. Someone was singing or was it a play and I was part of the audience? Caliban had this problem too, except I don’t cry to dream again, but rather break my wand on Prospero’s pate and sate my delight with silly rhymes. Zhuangzi’s butterfly is my muse while I amuse the dreamer who will never wake until I am stuffed half way upon the black bird’s craw. Caw, Caw. Oh could I remember who I was and wanted once again to be but will never and so to be. Buzz away my sorrow.
“I’m not sure how much longer I have on this earth. They say that youth is wasted on the young. I am not sure what is wasted on the old. Wisdom would be my guess. I survived all these years, garnered all this wisdom, and for what? To just wither away?”
We’re all helpless without fire. It’s what keeps us alive keeps us burning, making our mark in the world.
But had that happened, would I have looked beyond the familiar and tried something new?
You would think that after not blogging for a year and a half that I’d be pouring forth with words to write but writing has been tough for me over the past few years, really since the pandemic.
Before today, all my days were an illusion,
I have no recollection of their pain,
No twists and turns, I feel anew,
Was that street even there yesterday?I’ve lived in other people’s stories,
Blind to my potential,
The veil revealed my sunny street,
Or was my aptitude so blinding?
There I was – driving sixty miles per hour in a dark, narrow tunnel, fifty feet under water, miles from shore – and with one of my contact lenses laying somewhere in my lap.
The boy, whom I named Shellorba in English, comes from a planet so far on the other side of the Universe our planet doesn’t even know it exists.
Oh if only her seeing eye had been this good when she was younger! She could have lived a much better life. She wouldn’t have taken all those wrong turns. As it was, she had spent a good portion of her life turning around, backtracking after those wrong turns. And now? Now she could see how things would turn out but she had fewer twists and turns in her road. Does it matter if you make a wrong turn when it’s all cul de sacs ahead?
Wasting away on the poison of certainty is not what life is all about.
Beyond it was a rather faded couch and an equally faded woman.
We hugged, we stared into each other’s eyes and soaked in the sights.
Most people say it would be when they met someone and had children. Family life is good, even if it might turn out bad. But a single event that changes a life would be when the purpose the person is alive is realized.
The ring on her little finger had my name engraved on it. I found it a bit ominous.
Two steps down a response appeared, wisdom is wasted on the old.
I’ve had dreams that seemed so real that upon waking I wondered if the events had happened or if they were remnants of a movie. I’d dozed off watching earlier in the night. But my dreams had a purpose a few years ago. One day I decided to write a novel. Countless times while I was composing it, I’d find myself with a cliff hanger on the paper, but no resolution in sight.
But I’m angry and want to place responsibility for my feelings on anyone other than myself, so I’m sprinkling blame on everyone like sprinkles on a cupcake. And I hope they choke on it.