Events

Sun 5/2  2pm A staged reading of poems by Pat Riviere-Seel The Serial Killer’s Daughter is a poetry collection that arises from the life and execution of Velma Barfield. Told from different points of view, the poems explore the mother/daughter relationship between Velma and her grown daughter. Velma Barfield, from Robeson County, NC, was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death in 1978. After numerous appeals, she was executed November 2, 1984. Louise Rockwell, producer and director, has brought the poems to life through an outstanding cast. Appearing in this production: Terri Wolfe (the daughter) teaches writing through Queens University of Charlotte and The Warehouse Performing Arts Center in Cornelius. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Cave Wall, Iodine, Main Street Rag, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and in various anthologies. She is the co-author of Riding Out: Poems of Grief and Redemption, and lives in Charlotte with her husband and two exuberant dogs Richard  Allen Taylor (Stuart Taylor, the brother, the daughter’s husband, a police officer, kin) lives in Charlotte, NC, and  is a former co-editor of  Kakalak  Anthology of Carolina Poets, author of two poetry collections,  Something to Read on the Plane (Main Street Rag 2004) and   Punching Through the Egg of Space is (Main Street Rag, May, 2010).  In 2009, he was awarded the Deane Ritch Lomax Poetry Prize for a single poem, “The Essence of Art.”     Pat Riviere-Seel (Velma) is a former newspaper reporter, editor, publicist and lobbyist. Her poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals and anthologies. A writer and runner, she lives in Asheville, NC, with her husband and two spoiled cats.         Suzanne Baldwin Leitner (the reporter)is a native North Carolinian who lives in Cornelius, North Carolina with her husband, daughter and Australian shepherd.  Leitner is the author of one chapbook of poetry, String Quilt (Main Street Rag, 2005), and one novella, Sessions With a Cheater’s Wife (Main Street Rag, 2008). She has a B.A. in English from Appalachian State University and a J.D. from the Wake Forest University School of Law. She sings in the choir at her church, dances in the dark in her kitchen and, mostly, tries to stay out of trouble