BY FAYE M. DASEN

Features Editor

Poetry is the focus of a gathering Sunday, Nov. 6, at 2 p.m., at The Country Bookshop, in Southern Pines. Poets Kimberly Becker and Maureen Sherbondy will share their some of their poems.

Kimberly L. Becker is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and is of Cherokee/Celtic/Teutonic descent.

"Words Facing East" is her first book of poetry. She was a featured reader for "Native Writers in D.C." at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Current projects include adapting Cherokee myths into plays for the Cherokee Youth in Radio Project at the Cherokee Youth Center, also in Cherokee.

Her website is www.kimberlylbecker.com

Maureen Sherbondy's poems have appeared in numerous -publications, including European Judaism, Calyx, Feminist Studies, 13th Moon, Cairn, Comstock Review, Crucible, The Roanoke Review and The News & Observer.

Her poems have won first place in The Deane Ritch Lomax Poetry Prize, The Lyricist Statewide Poetry Contest, the Carrie McCray Poetry Award, and the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award (Kent State University).

Sherbondy's -fiction has won the Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open. A short story was selected as a -runner-up in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Contest.

Main Street Rag published her first book, "After the Fairy Tale," in 2007. "Praying at Coffee Shops" was published in 2008. Her short story collection, "The Slow Vanishing," was released in 2009. "Weary Blues"was published by Big Table Publishing in 2010.

Sherbondy lives in Raleigh with her husband and three sons. She is pursuing her master's of fine arts at Queens University of Charlotte. She teaches workshops on publishing and creative writing at different venues.

Her website is www.maureensherbondy.com.

On Friday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m., in the Literary Hall of Fame Room at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, poet Evie Shockley will read some of her poems.

Shockley is the author of two books of poetry, "The New Black" (Wesleyan UP, 2011) and "A Half-Red Sea" (Carolina Wren Press, 2006), and two chapbooks, "31 Words" (Belladonna Books, 2007) and "The Gorgon Goddess" (Carolina Wren Press, 2001).

Shockley currently serves as a contributing editor to Evening Will Come, a monthly journal of -poetics. She is an associate professor of English at Rutgers University.