Former host of ‘Tales from the South’ featured at WNP
Paula Martin, a Little Rock poet, barefoot trail runner, Reiki healer, black belt martial artist, and former host of the popular UALR Public Radio podcast “Tales from the South” will be featured this week at Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee+Tea,
110 Central Ave. The regular open mic session for all poets will begin at 6:30 p.m. Martin will begin at 7 p.m., followed by another round of open mic. Admission is free and open to all ages.
Born in Pine Bluff, and living in 10 different places in 15 years, Martin has settled back in Little Rock and called it home for the last
18 years. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans. A mother of three kids, four cats, and two dogs, Martin makes her living by teaching creative writing and martial arts, as well as offering Shamanic Reiki Sessions.
Writing and storytelling are the lifeblood that pumps through her experiences, the thread that connects the many facets of her life. “I have written poetry as long as I can remember. It has always been my first love. My poetry is mystical, lyrical, and brief. I am inspired by nature, by a phrase in an overheard conversation, by a longing to connect with others,” she said in a news release.
Many know Martin from her longtime stint as the producer and host of the nationally recognized radio show “Tales from the South.”
“Beginning in 2005 recording in the studio of KUAR 89.1, and soon after recording in front of a live audience at the Starving Artist Cafe in the Argenta Arts district until 2014, then touring around Arkansas as part of the Arts on Tour program with the Arts Council, TFTS was a unique gem of rich oral tradition storytelling, with true stories told by the Southerners who lived them. Not only Southerners loved the concept; the show was distributed weekly on the world radio network to 130 million listeners worldwide. Martin’s work with TFTS earned her numerous awards including an Arkansas Arts Council Governor’s Arts Award (2013) and an Innovative Community Project Award from the Arkansas Community Development Society, as well as others. TFTS ceased production in 2016 after over a decade of tremendous storytelling,” the release said.
Since then, Martin has had more time to focus on her own writing and creative/spiritual pursuits. Her individual fiction pieces and poems have been published widely in anthologies, journals, and literary magazines. She has published five volumes of TFTS, two novels, and two poetry chapbooks. She has been the featured reader at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, Argenta Readers’ Series, Arkansas Literary Conference, and twice featured as an emerging writer at the International Conference on the Short Story in English. In 2017, Martin was inducted into the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame. She will have books for sale at WNP.
Other than her writing pursuits, “I am a barefoot trail runner. My background also includes extensive mentorships in shamanism and new paradigm healing, attunement in Usui Reiki III, and Shodan (first-degree black belt) in Cuong Nhu Martial Arts, where I earned my black belt three weeks before my 50th birthday,” she said.
This week marks 1,593 consecutive Wednesdays of open mic poetry in downtown Hot Springs since Feb. 1, 1989. Email the host, Kai Coggin, at wednesdaynightpoetry@gmail.com for more information.