Author, poet, and blogger Brenda Kay Ledford is a retired educator. She received her Master of Arts in Early Childhood Education from Western Carolina University and studied Journalism at the University of Tennessee. She holds a diploma of highest honors in Creative Writing from the Stratford Career Institute.
She’s former editor of Tri-County Communicator at Tri-County Community College and previous reporter for the Smoky Mountain Sentinel. She received an award from the North Carolina Press Association for her feature on the John C. Campbell Folk School.
Ledford belongs to the North Carolina Writer’s Network, North Carolina Poetry Society, Ridgeline Literary Alliance, Georgia Poetry Society, and a charter member of the Byron Herbert Reece Society. She’s listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, North Carolina Literary Map, and received the 2019 Marquis Who’s Who in America Lifetime Achievement Award for writing and as an educator.
Her work has appeared in many journals including Lyricist, The Broad River Review, Pembroke Magazine, Asheville Poetry Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Town Creek Poetry, Appalachian Heritage, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Our State, Byron Herbert Reece Website, Our State, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Angels on Earth, 40 Old Mountain Press anthologies, and many other publications.
Aldrich Press published two of her poetry books: Crepe Roses and Red Plank House. She received the Paul Green Multimedia Award from North Carolina Society of Historians for these books. Ledford has won the Paul Green Award a dozen times for her books, blogs, and collecting oral history on Southern Appalachia.
Ledford gives poetry readings throughout the Southeast and has taught creative writing at the John C. Campbell Folk School and for workshops. She’s appeared on “The Blue Sky Show” on WJUL/WJRB Radio Station and read poetry on “The Common Cup,” on Windstream Communications Cable Television. Her interview appeared on the City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC on their Podcast. Clay County, NC Chamber of Commerce interviewed Ledford on YouTube and she appeared on “The Chamber Commerce” on Windstream Cable TV.
She has studied poetry under Karen Paul Holmes, Dr. Will Wright, Dr. Michael Dietrich, Dr. Scott Owens, Dr. Bettie Sellers, Dr. Ted Olson, Dr. Steve Harvey, Dr. Robert Brewer, Katherine Stripling Byer, Nancy Simpson, Dr. Catherine Carter, Dr. Celia H. Miles, Maureen Ryan Griffin, former North Carolina Poet Laureate Dr. Shelby Stephenson, and Richard Krawiec.
Paperback: 45 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (January 10, 2021)