Welcome. My name is Barbara Kidd Lawing and I live just north of Charlotte, North Carolina. It is my great privilege to be a writer and work with writers: individual editing/revision assistance, classes, performance poetry events, and weekend writing retreats. Details on pages at left.

I am often at the microphone or onstage sharing my poetry. Find my book, 117 Poems, at the online bookstore: Main Street Rag. Also available, a 2005 publication called Tuesday's Children with work by 8 NC writers. I edited that book. My portion of it tells what life was like on Jim and Nettie Kidd's farm in the 1950s in northern Mecklenburg County. (My grandparents.)

I lead freewrite sessions for all ages, plus weekend retreats in a summer paradise and oceanfront, and a variety of classes from Creative Writing to Fiction to Storytelling. By computer I work as freelance editor with people in many states who are preparing their work for publication.

For Central Piedmont Community College I instruct Creative Writing for the Contd. Ed. Dept. For Charlotte's Levine Jewish Community Center and The Pines at Davidson I lead writing groups for senior adults. For three performance poetry groups in Mecklenburg County I am founder/organizer. I often judge writing contests.

Find here a suggested assignment, samples of my poetry, and the schedule for classes, retreats and poetry events. If you find the schedule in need of an update, just contact me.

Also, I'd appreciate your help: Inform me of opportunities to promote my book and to lead workshops or seminars. And inform me (locally) of venues where my performance groups can do guest appearances. We enjoy doing shows for civic clubs and business organizations. Thanks in advance for your help.

See quotes from editing clients at right. Please note that the relationship between editor and client is confidential. I don't tell until you do. The most recent public commendation for my editing is a paragraph at the beginning of a textbook called Child Welfare: Social Work, from Allyn and Bacon Publishers, Boston. Phillip Popple, with UNC-Charlotte, and Francine Vecchiolla, with Springfield College in Massachusetts, headed that project and hired me to do the final edit. I had expected my first "big" recognition for my editing skills to come when a fiction client achieved a top-selling book. Was a surprise to find it in a textbook. My thanks to Phil and Francine.

I love editing fiction best of all. But... most fiction writers aren't writing fiction, I've discovered. And those who are generally are not willing to do the number of revisions necessary to get the text ready for publishing. Please understand that if you are writing your story in third person and calling it fiction, it is not fiction. Fiction by definition is "made-up." (Which isn't to say that your experience won't show up in the fiction. It will.) I suggest that you read Robert Olen Butler's From Where You Dream.

Fiction requires a fictional character, a compelling narrative voice, and much more. A fiction writer lets the characters tell the story. A fiction writer discovers - is surprised by! - the story's details. (My play - yet to be titled - has me speaking in four fictional voices. I often write in their voices at freewrite sessions.)

If you want to write your story, go for memoir. It uses the scene-building and intrigue of narrative voice that makes good fiction, but it's your story. Your key to success? The truth. Step onto the stage (page) with your courage in hand and tell your truth.

Is poetry what you like to write? Even that I can help with. I can help you see your strengths and weaknesses in whatever kind of writing you're doing. Hope you'll be in touch. Hope you'll come to North Carolina for one of my weekend retreats, or invite me to your writing community to do a reading. Hope you'll decide to purchase my 117 Poems. The book is available at bookstores. If your store does not have it, tell them to check with their distributors.

I'll have a CD of readings from my book ready for market soon.

Thanks for visiting the site. I look forward to hearing from you.
704-875-6112, bklawing@earthlink.net