Menu Bar

Home           Calendar           Topics          Just Charlestown          About Us

Monday, February 27, 2017

Two announcements from the Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center

The Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center is pleased to announce the inauguration of The Octagon House Press.

The rise of digital book production has changed the landscape of publishing. While commercial and university presses are publishing fewer and fewer books each year, a new age of self-publishing has flooded the marketplace with books of all sorts. 

Commercial and university presses use a process of anonymous readings--called ‘blind readings’--to decide on the publication worthiness of manuscripts, but self-publications do not rely on this process.

The Octagon House Press will fully vet books by local writers who are part of the Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center writing community by providing a rigorous assessment process using blind readings by a series of literary experts.

The first book to be published by The Octagon House Press will be Small Moments by Narragansett writer Patricia Pierannunzi. A collection of short fiction that explores pivotal moments in the lives of suddenly awakened characters, it will be available in a reasonably-priced paperback at the Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center during next fall’s HopArts Studio Trail.


The Octagon Writers have several books in progress. Tentative titles include: Six Bronze Stars, Poems and Meditations, Creating a Writing Life, and On Ninigret Pond. Our list will include novels, poetry, short stories, memoir, and guides for writers.

The Octagon House Press, through its editor, personally invites a Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center writer to submit a manuscript for blind readings. No unsolicited manuscripts are acknowledged or accepted.

The Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center announces its next ten-week writing session beginning on Tuesday March 28 and running through Tuesday May 30 from Ten to Noon at the Octagon House in Carolina.

The sessions are led by Grace Farrell, Ph.D in English from Brown University, author of five books, and an award-winning teacher of writing and literature in universities for 35 years. Grace, co-founder of the Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center, is both a writer and weaver who has developed a process of writing as weaving; writers double weave, layer in and change threads. “We spin yarns out of memory and imagination and develop craft without damaging creativity.”

An Amherst Writers and Artists International Affiliate, sessions include prompts, craft exercises, and manuscript reviews in a creative and relaxed atmosphere. Members write for pleasure, self-discovery, and/or publication. Limited to 8 writers. 

 Contact  gfarrell@butler.edu to pre-register. 

The cost is $250 for the full session or $150 for any 5 weeks.

The Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center is located in the Octagon House on Rt. 112 in the Carolina Mill Village. Parking is in the field north of the house, at the corner of Rt. 112 and Shannock Hill Rd. 

We have been asked not to park along the driveway to the house.