The North Carolina Writers Network and The Brandy Bar + Cocktails present ANDREW CLARK and MICHAEL COLONESE as next in their series “In the Company of Writers”

The program offers a series of personal and conversational dialogues featuring guest writers/poets followed by an open mic forum. These inspirational gatherings will elucidate and entertain those attending. The guest authors speaks from 7-8 PM with an open mic from 8 -9 PM. The Chicago blues music of “Hollywood Johnny Cosgrove” (accompanied by Charlie Wilkinson) welcomes you, continues during intermission, and closes the evening. Sign-ups for the open mic sheet is posted at the entry.

Andrew K. Clark is a writer from Western North Carolina where his people settled before the Revolutionary War. His poetry collection, Jesus in the Trailer was published by Main Street Rag Press and shortlisted for the Able Muse Book Award. His debut novel, Where Dark Things Grow, was released by Cowboy Jamboree Press in September of 2024. A loose sequel, Where Dark Things Rise will be published by Quill and Crow Publishing House in the fall of 2025. His work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, UCLA’s Out of Anonymity, Appalachian Review, Rappahannock Review, The Wrath Bearing Tree, and many other journals. He received his MFA from Converse College. Connect with him at andrewkclark.com.

Michael Colonese is currently retired and living in Hendersonville. Michael taught for many decades at Methodist University, where he directed the Creative Writing program and held an endowed professorship in American Literature. He was also the managing editor of Longleaf Press, co-founded with his wife, novelist and poet Robin Greene. Before becoming a professor, he held various jobs: beer-truck driver, advertising copywriter, real estate agent, chemical salesman, lobster fisherman, armed Pinkerton guard. He’s the author of the award-winning Sex and Death, I Suppose, a hard-boiled detective novel (Oak Tree Press); of a poetry chapbook, Temporary Agency (The Ledge Press) and of a full-length poetry collection, Double Feature (Big Pencil Press) selected by U. S. Poet Laureate Steven Dunn for the Gell Poetry Prize from Writers and Books. Michael’s poems, fiction, and essays have also appeared in over 90 literary journals.