Charlotte’s community of readers and writers lost one of its mainstays on October 10, 2024, with the passing of Dannye Romine Powell. For half a century, Dannye contributed to Charlotte’s literary scene as a journalist, editor, poet, and teacher.
Dannye made her debut on the Charlotte literary scene in 1975 when she became the book editor for The Charlotte Observer. She remained the paper’s book editor until 1992. Back in those days, the paper published a two-page book section every Sunday. It included original book reviews, interviews with authors, and news about local literary events. In her role as book editor, she often interviewed authors. Even after she stepped away from her position as the paper’s book editor, she occasionally published interviews with authors in The Charlotte Observer. In April 2022, for example, the paper ran an interview that she conducted with Charlotte writer Judy Goldman about Judy’s memoir Child.
In 1994, Dannye collected twenty-three of her author interviews in a book titled Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers. The North Carolina publisher John F. Blair brought out the book in 1994. The authors featured in the book include Maya Angelou, Pat Conroy, Shelby Foote, Alex Haley, Reynold Price, William Styron, and Eudora Welty. The book received excellent reviews. Publishers Weekly praised Dannye for bringing together “these diverse, engaging interviews” and for providing “gracefully written” introductions for each interview.
In addition to her interview book, Dannye published five poetry collections. The first of these was At Every Wedding Someone Stays Home (1994), followed by The Ecstasy of Regret (2003), A Necklace of Bees (2008), Nobody Calls Me Darling Anymore (2015), and In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver (2020). Two of her poetry collections won the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Award for best book by a North Carolina poet.
Dannye often shared her interest in writing poetry with aspiring poets. She organized a weekly poetry critique group in her Dilworth home, and she frequently taught classes and lead poetry workshops for the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts (Charlotte Lit). In 2021, she coordinated Charlotte Lit’s yearlong “Poetry Chapbook Lab,” in which she guided participants through the process of writing and publishing their own poetry chapbooks.
On a personal note, I am grateful to Dannye for taking an active interest in my Storied Charlotte blog. She often emailed me about various blog posts, and she occasionally suggested authors or books that she thought I might be interested in featuring. In my opinion, when a legend offers you advice, you should take it. I always did.
Dannye Romine Powell was a Storied Charlotte legend, and her legacy will live on for years to come.