ARTICLES

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From "Arts Alive" 2008 Nov/Dec:  Joan Noeldechen began a novel on the eve of her 28th birthday and has been continuously writing ever since. In between solo projects, she coauthored three screenplays and one play. Leaving everything she knew and inspired by the writings of Thomas Wolfe, Joan packed up for the mountains of Western North Carolina. She has also worked with disabled adults on Martha’s Vineyard and has been published in June Cotner’s Dog Blessings, Pocket Prayers, 2006 Everyday Blessings, House Blessings, Bedside Prayers and Bless the Day, in Who’s Who In America, Who’s Who Among American Women, and in various journals and magazines. Joan focuses on poetry, women’s mainstream fiction, screenwriting, editing, and marketing. Her latest works, Ashes & Embers, a collection of poetry, Eve’s Song, a North Carolina novella, and Dreamers Out of Step, a Floridian novel are now available online and in bookstores. Takoma Poems, Return to the Mountain, and Joy In My Soul are her latest poetry works. Joan is the author of the Dead Actors Trilogy and is currently working on several projects. She is a resident of Greene County who also works in Columbia County and has written poetry about this area. She can be reached at: http://thewriteangel.blogspot. com/  or http://hometown. aol.com/jnoeldechen/index. html Following is an excerpt from Joan’s Eve’s Song, From the Void, August 1959: “My name is not important and I would much rather you didn’t know. I have a family to consider. It’s all I have left. My daughter is a beautiful accomplished woman.  And I have my little miracle. Somehow I have to protect them both from what I’ve done.  We can’t go back to where we were before the accident. We can never go back to the safety of innocence. But this comes ripe in the telling of the story. I wish it were only a story. Then I could close the book or throw it in the trash that’s taken from my hospital room every day. No, this is not a story. This is life, which has no ending. When we die the processes are not over. Oh, no. It is just beginning. I believe there is no ending and memories swirl in what my daughter refers to as the Collective Unconscious. When I think of swirling thoughts I recall the Blue Ridge autumns from my life. I am a child from the mountains just south of Asheville, North Carolina. My people drifted over from East Tennessee. You can’t tell from my voice where I was born. I’ve erased every trace of Southerness when I was a girl. In those days I was ashamed of everything in me which was Southern, until MLK and Elvis redeemed my soul. Before then, I felt just like a bastard child of the United States – although my father died on a beach in Guam. That’s what Mama said. He had been a Marine. They always go in first Mama told me. My father had never seen an ocean before the war. Most people in this country glorify that war as something holy. My family said the war stole my father from us. I can’t forgive God for taking him. Maybe it was the Devil. Mama insisted from early on, “You have his blue eyes and gift of tongue.” “What did you give me, Mama?” I asked her. “The sorrow and joy of being born a woman.” I never understood what Mama meant by those words until I saw no light in the dark brown eyes of David and fell into the starriness of his soul. He attracted an assortment of women. I think of them as chocolate bons-bons he popped into his mouth out of boredom. Most of the women in summer stock lifted their skirts on picnic blankets.  These girls lost their minds and cherries around midnight. Oh, God, he was better than a feast set before you at Oprah’s house. I’m getting ahead of myself.”
I Love You Greene! is a publication opportunity featuring local (Greene and Columbia Counties) writers established through the Greene County Council on the Arts. Authors interested in submitting their work for possible publication, please contact the program’s coordinator, Doreen Perrine at doreenperrine@netzero.net for further information.