Join us for a night of poetry reading featuring two published authors from the Iredell County area.

Joyce Compton Brown

Joyce Compton Brown grew up in Troutman North Carolina, in a family with deep rural traditions. After graduation, she received her B.S. and M.S. from Appalachian State University. She earned a doctorate in American literature from the University of Southern Mississippi and returned to teach a Gardner-Webb University. After retirement she returned to Troutman where she had time to put more effort into her lifelong interest in writing.

Hard-Packed Clay, deeply imbued with her Iredell County roots, is her fourth book. The three others are Bequest (Finishing Line), Singing with Jarred Edges (Main St. Rag Publications), and Standing on the Outcrop, published by RedHawk Press, as is her latest book.

She lives in Troutman with her husband, biologist and writer Les Brown, and the cat, who rules them both.

Alana Dagendart

Statesville native, Alana Dagenhart is a poet, artist, and teacher who likes to think about the intersection between science, art, and poetry. She teaches composition, creative writing, and literature at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte. Her chapbook Blood was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016, and Yellow Leaves, her first full length collection of poems, was published by Redhawk Publications this year. One of her earliest memories is walking on the low brick wall in front of the library on West Broad Street, holding her mom’s hand on the way to Story Time. She still believes that sitting in a circle on the floor, listening to someone read is the most powerful thing there is.