Arlene S. Bice, owner of the indie By the Book@ U & I Gift Shop in Bordentown, New Jersey for 20 years, now lives in Farmville, Virginia. She is a speaker, author, poet, publisher, teacher, workshop presenter, and artist.
She penned The Readers’ Corner book review column for the Register News for ten years. As a representative for the International Women’s Writing Guild, she led writing groups in Mt. Holly and Bordentown, both in Burlington County, New Jersey.
Ms. Bice has led a writers’ group at the Senior Center in Warren County, North Carolina that resulted in Listen Up! and Dancin’ Thru Life chapbooks. The Day Dawns, Heartspeak, Insights/Outsights, Seasons, What If and Fraser Firs, Palm Trees & Spanish Moss anthologies were published for her Littleton, NC and South Hill, VA writing groups; also, Tuesday Afternoons for her Ridgeway, NC group.
As co-founder, Ms. Bice worked side by side with founding member Thomas H. Park and with Sterling M. Cheston in the Warren Artists’ Market (WAM) located in Warrenton, North Carolina, to keep the mic open, drawing writers and readers to the First Friday Poetry night. The annual WAM anthology was published to give writers the opportunity to have the world read their work.
She has published four memoirs, Life & Labyrinth, Afternoon Crowd, A Nosegay of Violets and Running with the Horses. She offers Telling Your Story memoir workshops and makes the program available without leaving your home.
As the recipient of the Florence Poets Society Poet of Distinction Award she also has poetry and prose published in many anthologies. The Annual Literary Oakley Hall Award came to her for contributions made toward literature in Warren County, North Carolina. Her poems A Writer’s Pandemic and New Orleans were performed in the Pandemic Blues at the Kirby Theatre directed by Fred Motley in Roxboro, (NC).
She’s worked at a variety of jobs, in libraries, as wholesale liquor sales, waitress, bartender, genealogist, real estate sales, real estate appraiser, gift and new, used, and rare book shop owner, before becoming a writer and fulfilling the dream of a fourth grader.
In addition to writing Ms. Bice uses the painting arts for expression and has won local and state competitions in both oils and watercolors.
Travel has been a passion since her teen years, loving the old in villages, houses, and history. She’s traveled in North Africa, Spain, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, Ireland, Italy, England, Wales and all states except Alaska, Oregon, and Washington in the USA.
“It seems that travel, my variety of jobs, and the ten different places I’ve called home have given me lots to write about.”
She holds membership in the (TAF) Triangle Association of Freelancers, (NFAA) Non-Fiction Authors Association, (IWWG) International Women’s Writing Guild and is a founding member of (WAM) Warren Artists Market.
IWWG