Calendar of Events
Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.
Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.
Join Dolly Parton and James Patterson for the virtual launch of Run Rose Run on Sunday, March 6, 2022 at 7:30 PM ET!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Tickets are $30.00 each (plus applicable tax and shipping). Each ticket includes an unsigned hardcover copy of Run Rose Run and a link to access the live event on YouTube. The virtual event is hosted by Little, Brown and Company. Purchase your ticket below.
The link required to attend will be emailed to you prior to the event. Please make sure you submit the correct email address with your ticket purchase and that your email filters will allow messages from addresses @malaprops.com.
Ticket sales end on March 6, 2022, at 1:00 PM ET.
NOTE: Books bundled with event tickets may be shipped ONLY to United States addresses. Books will not be shipped before publication date, March 7, 2022. Postal delivery times vary.
From America’s most beloved superstar and its greatest storyteller—a thriller about a young singer-songwriter on the rise and on the run, and determined to do whatever it takes to survive.
Dolly Parton is a singer, songwriter, actress, producer, businesswoman, and philanthropist. The composer of more than 3,000 songs, she has sold over 100 million records worldwide, and has given away millions of books to children through her nonprofit, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author. The creator of Alex Cross, he has produced more enduring fictional heroes than any other novelist alive. He lives in Florida with his family.
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This month we’re discussing Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey. The Leicester Library Book Discussion Group meets the second Tuesday of each month at 1 pm in the Community Room at the library. Masks and social distancing required. Newcomers welcome! |
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event. Pre-order Fitz and Cleo Get Creative from Malaprop’s to get a signed and personalized copy. Please request signing and/or personalization in the “comments” section during checkout.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
The dynamo team behind Llama Destroys the World continue their delightful and hilarious ghostly hijinks in their early reader graphic novel series, perfect for fans of Elephant & Piggie and Narwhal & Jelly. These two know how to keep spirits high and the good times rolling! In their first-ever second book, join the most adorable apparitions this way of the afterlife through ten gut-busting creative farces, including flexing their storytelling muscles with ghost stories, songwriting, and directing their first film.
Jonathan Stutzman is the author of numerous books for children, including Fitz and Cleo, Llama Unleashes the Alpacalypse, Llama Destroys the World, Santa Baby, and Don’t Feed the Coos, as well as the Tiny T-Rex series. He received his masters at Temple University for film and digital media. He lives in Lititz, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Heather Fox.
Heather Fox is an illustrator and graphic designer, creating art in pen and ink, digital, and gouache. She is the illustrator of Fitz and Cleo, Llama Unleashes the Alpacalypse, Llama Destroys the World, Santa Baby, and Don’t Feed the Coos. She lives in Lititz, Pennsylvania, with her husband, Jonathan Stutzman.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
When Neema Avashia tells people where she’s from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving “There are Indian people in West Virginia?” In Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, Avashia examines both the roots and the resonance of her identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole.
Neema Avashia was born and raised in southern West Virginia to parents who immigrated to the United States. She has been a middle school teacher in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. Her essays have appeared in the Bitter Southerner, Catapult, Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere.
Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a physician and writer with work in Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Electric Lit, The Millions, Joyland, Michigan Quarterly Review and elsewhere. Her poetry and prose juxtapose Hindu epics, other myths and histories, and the survival of sexual harassment and racialized sexual violence by diverse women of color. She has received a MacDowell Colony fellowship, Sewanee Writers Conference scholarship and Henfield award for her writing. Follow her on Twitter at @chayab77 including for upcoming readings and events.
In this wonderful book, Kimmerer highlights many of the wonderful lessons in life we can learn from nature and indigenous traditions. For this particular meetup, I’m going to ask everyone have read (and bring their copy of) the book. We will each discuss our favorite chapter/lesson learned from the book.
I hope this advanced notice gives everyone time to read!
Join US VIA Zoom for a
Discussion led by Brandon Johnson, Program Manager, Blue Ridge National Heritage Area
Register at [email protected]
Thomas Wolfe Short Story Discussions are a partnership between the Wilma Dykeman Legacy and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial State Historic Site. Our text is The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, edited by Francis E. Skipp with a Foreword by James Dickey (New York: Scribner’s, 1987). This book is on sale at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial and at local bookstores.
Join us for an event featuting Phoebe Zerwick, author of Beyond Innocence and Joe Neff, an NC investigative journalist for The Marshall Project. This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event. Pre-order Fitz and Cleo Get Creative from Malaprop’s to get a signed and personalized copy. Please request signing and/or personalization in the “comments” section during checkout.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Darryl Hunt is a seminal figure in the annals of wrongful convictions, both for what he endured and for his remarkable legacy. A young Black man falsely accused of murdering a white woman in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and sentenced to life in prison, he spent 19 years behind bars before his tireless attorneys were able to prove his innocence. After his exoneration in 2004, as depicted in the acclaimed documentary, The Trials of Darryl Hunt, Hunt became a national advocate for social justice, devoted himself to alleviating the “civil death” almost every ex-prisoner faces upon re-entry into society, and in time inspired lasting reforms, among them a law that allows those on death row to appeal their sentence with evidence of racial bias and a state agency unique to North Carolina that investigates and adjudicates claims of innocence. He was a beacon of hope for so many—until he could no longer bear the burden of the injustice he had experienced and in 2016 took his own life.
Phoebe Zerwick had investigated Hunt’s case as a newspaper reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal in a series of articles that led to his DNA exoneration. Deeply troubled at his death by the idea that she and others who fought for Hunt’s freedom had missed something, she set out to understand the full story of Hunt’s life. In BEYOND INNOCENCE Zerwick restores the humanity of an extraordinary man who had wanted nothing more than to live a decent life, whose story should inspire us all.
Phoebe Zerwick is an award-winning investigative journalist, narrative writer, and college professor. Her writing has appeared in O Magazine, National Geographic, The Nation, Winston-Salem Journal, and Glamour, among other publications. Her work has been recognized by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, Investigative Reporters, and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, Columbia University, and the North Carolina Press Association, and featured in the HBO documentary The Trials of Darryl Hunt. She is the director of the journalism program at Wake Forest University.
The club will meet virtually during the Covid-19 pandemic. If you are interested in attending, please email [email protected] for instructions about how to attend the club event.
Join host Tena Frank for Malaprop’s Mystery Book Club! Click here to see a full schedule of what the club is reading. Club attendees get 10% off the book at Malaprop’s!
The club meets at Malaprop’s on the second Monday of every month at 7:00 pm.
| Join us via Zoom to discuss this month’s book: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
All book club meetings will be held virtually until further notice. Registration is required for the Zoom link. The North Asheville Book Club meets on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. |
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Taking its inspiration from Great Expectations, this novel teases us with the question of what Pip might have been like had he grown up in the American South of the 1960s and 1970s and faced the explosive social issues–racial injustice, a war abroad, womenís and gay rights, class struggle–that galvanized the world in those decades. A guilty encounter with an escaped felon, a summer spent working for an eccentric man with a mysterious past, conflicted erotic feelings for his employerís niece and nephew–these events set the stage for a journey of sexual and moral discovery that takes Newt Seward to New England, Rome, and Paris–all before returning home to confront his lifeís many expectations and disappointments. Deftly combining elements of coming-of-age story, novel of erotic discovery, Southern Gothic fiction, and detection-mystery thriller, FURNACE CREEK leaps the frame of Dickensí masterpiece to provide a contemporary meditation on the perils of desire, ambition, love, loss, and family.
Joseph Boone has written a page-turning novel, a spirited American retelling of an English classic. The American South is our own Dickensian England, and Boone brings both worlds vividly alive with his ebullient prose. A joyously ambitious debut! – Marianne Wiggins, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee for Evidence of Things Unseen, Joe Boone’s FURNACE CREEK is a funny, moving, and true rendition of everybody’s story: surviving our childhoods, which can be uniquely challenging if you’re Southern, and queer. Boone is a natural novelist, and FURNACE CREEK is a genuine accomplishment.–Michael Cunningham
Joseph Allen Boone grew up in the piedmont foothills of North Carolina and earned his BA from Duke University, where Reynolds Price numbered among his creative writing teachers. Now a professor of English at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, he is the author of three works of non-fiction, a musical adaptation of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, and a forthcoming short story collection from BSPG, Conditions of Precarity. Furnace Creek, his debut novel, was a finalist in four international competitions.
Elizabeth Kostova is the author of the international bestseller The Historian. She graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress.
Cousins: Connected Through Slavery, a Black Woman and a White Woman Discover Their Past
Fairview Evening Book Club will be reading Cousins: Connected Through Slavery, a Black Woman and a White Woman Discover Their Past by Betty Kilby Baldwin and Phoebe Kilby for the month of January and discussing it Tuesday, January 18, at 7pm via ZOOM!
This powerful book weaves together the eloquent stories of two impressive women—stories of survival, determination, and awakening, of honesty, spirituality, and success. They give us a detective story and a mystery, a reconciliation and a celebration. A reader will be grateful for all of them. ~Edward L. Ayers, Recipient of the National Humanities Medal
The Fairview Book Club meets via Zoom the third Tuesday of each month at 7pm. Email [email protected] if you would like more information or would like to attend one of our discussions.
Future Books and Book Club Dates:
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas ~ February 15
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson ~ March 15
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murder and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann ~ April 19
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Fairview Evening Book Club will be reading Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson for the month of March and discussing it Tuesday, March 15, at 7pm via ZOOM! Wilson turns a bizarre premise into a beguiling novel about unexpected motherhood. ~ Publishers Weekly The Fairview Book Club meets via Zoom the third Tuesday of each month at 7pm. Email [email protected] if you would like more information or would like to attend one of our discussions. |
Sourcebooks launches its Booklight Events seres with a virtual Women’s History Month event with authors Marie Benedict, Kate Moore, Heather Webb, and Katharine Gregorio and host Mary O’Malley of Skylark Bookshop. They will be speaking about telling the stories of forgotten women in history, showcased in their new releases.
Click here to register for the free online event, hosted by Sourcebooks.
Order books from Malaprop’s below and receive a signed bookplate.
MARIE BENEDICT is a graduate of Boston College, with a focus in history and art history, and the Boston University School of Law. Marie, author of The Other Einstein, Carnegie’s Maid, The Only Woman in the Room, and Lady Clementine, views herself as an archaeologist, telling the untold stories of women. She is a lawyer in Pittsburgh, where she lives with her family.
About Her Hidden Genius:
The next novel from New York Times bestselling powerhouse Marie Benedict (more than 750,000 sold), shining a light on Rosalind Franklin, the woman who died to make a world-changing scientific discovery of our very DNA, a woman whose thinking was suppressed by the men around her but whose relentless drive gave us profound knowledge of humankind.
KATE MOORE is the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls. A British writer based in London, she has published numerous Sunday Times bestsellers, writing across various genres including history, biography, true crime, gift and humor. She has written more than fifteen books and her work has been translated into more than 12 languages.
About The Woman They Could Not Silence:
From the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Radium Girls comes a dark, dramatic, but ultimately inspiring biography of Elizabeth Packard, the forgotten woman whose fight for her own justice brought about lasting change to science and human rights for all women.
HEATHER WEBB is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of seven historical novels. Her novels have been Goodreads Top Picks, honored by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award, finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA award finalist in the UK, and more. To date, Heather’s books have been translated to over a dozen languages. She lives in New England with her family and one feisty rabbit.
About The Next Ship Home:
A thoughtful historical novel inspired by true events and for fans of Kristina McMorris and Hazel Gaynor about dark secrets of Ellis Island, when entry promised a better life but often delivered something drastically different, and when immigrant strength and female friendship found ways to triumph even on the darkest days.
KATHARINE GREGORIO, the great-niece of Katharine Clark, holds a BA in History from Dartmouth College, an MSc in International Relations from The London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MBA from The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. She currently works in product marketing for Adobe.
About The Double Life of Katharine Clark:
A gripping biography that illuminates a remarkable chapter of the 20th century, one that shows how an unwavering commitment to truth, justice, and freedom of the press prevailed even in the hardest of circumstances. It is the untold story of Katharine Clark, a woman who forged a career in a male-dominated profession and risked her life to expose the truth about Communism to the world. Written by Katharine’s great-niece.
Mary Webber O’Malley is a writer and a Virtual Bookseller for Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri, reading and blurbing books across many genres. She is also the Author Liaison and Scheduling Producer for A Mighty Blaze, and co-host of the Blaze Boudoir. When not reading or writing, Mary and her husband love spending time with their grandchildren and tending their little suburban homestead outside Chicago, Illinois. She can be found on FB and Instagram @Blurb_Your_Enthusiasm.
Join us for a special virtual Miss Malaprop’s Storytime event with Alice Faye Duncan!
Duncan will share a short video reading from Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free, read from the book, Just Like A Mama, and lead a poetry writing activity.
Registration is not required for this event, but you can RSVP here to receive a reminder email with the YouTube link. To attend the event, please go to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MalapropsBookstoreCafe
Every year, Opal looked forward to the Juneteenth picnic–a drumming, dancing, delicious party. She knew from Granddaddy Zak’s stories that Juneteenth celebrated the day the freedom news of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation finally sailed into Texas in 1865–over two years after the president had declared it! But Opal didn’t always see freedom in her Texas town. Then one Juneteenth day when Opal was twelve years old, an angry crowd burned down her brand-new home. This wasn’t freedom at all. She had to do something! Opal Lee spent the rest of her life speaking up for equality and unity. She became a teacher, a charity worker, and a community leader. At the age of 89, she walked from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C., in an effort to gain national recognition for Juneteenth.
Featuring the illustrations of New York Times bestselling illustrator Keturah A. Bobo (I am Enough), Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free celebrates the life and legacy of a modern-day Black leader while sharing a message of hope, unity, joy, and strength.
Alice Faye Duncan is a National Board Certified Teacher, who writes for young learners. Memory is her motivation. She writes to help children remember important moments from African American history. Her books are celebrated for vivid imagery and lyrical texts that sound like music. Alice’s most popular titles include A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks; Just Like a Mama; Honey Baby Sugar Child; and Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop, which received a 2019 Coretta Scott King Honor Medal. Alice lives in Memphis, Tennessee, where at a young age, her mother nurtured her writing talent with prayer, poetry books, and praise. Her website is www.alicefayeduncan.com.
The Humanities Program at UNC Asheville invites you to a virtual panel of “Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Language and Storytelling.”
Featured panelists will include Sol Neely, Juan G. Sánchez Martínez, Gilliam Jackson aka Doyi, and Trey Adcock (ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ, enrolled Cherokee Nation) – a group whose work and experience is intimately informed by and connected to Indigenous cultures of North and South America. Among other things, the panel will discuss some of the ways Indigenous cultures see and understand the world, how Indigenous languages reflect worldviews rooted in relationships, and how storytelling serves to communicate knowledge across generations.
Tune in to the panel on Zoom.
And later that afternoon, from 5 – 7 pm, students, staff and faculty are invited to attend an in-person fire circle at Mullen Park to engage in informal conversation around the themes of language, storytelling, and indigenous worldviews. These events are made possible with support from the Humanities Program, Center for Diversity Education, Center for Native Health, Key Center for Community Engaged Learning, Siwar Mayu, and assistance from CTL.
About the panelists:
Sol Neely, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is the director of composition at Heritage University (located on the Yakama nation). He earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University’s Philosophy & Literature program (2009), with specializations in Theory and Cultural Studies, Native American Literature and Critical Indigenous Studies, Composition Theory, Ethics, and Literary Studies. In 2012, Neely started a prison education program called The Flying University, bringing university students inside the prison for mutual and collaborative study.
Juan G. Sánchez Martínez grew up in Bakatá/Bogotá, Colombian Andes. He dedicates his creative and scholarly writing to Indigenous cultural expressions from Abiayala (the Americas.) His book of poetry, Altamar, was awarded in 2016 with the National Prize Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia. He collaborates and translates for the online publication Siwar Mayu, A River of Hummingbirds. He is currently an Associate Professor of Languages and Literatures, and Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of North Carolina Asheville.
Gilliam Jackson aka Doyi is a full-blood Cherokee fluent speaker. He has led and developed several nonprofit organizations during almost 50 years of his professional life. He started teaching sixth grade and is currently teaching at the University of North Carolina Asheville and Stanford. Early in his professional career, he realized the need to preserve the history, language and culture of his isolated community. He has audio and video recorded several oral histories of the Snowbird Community. He is presently working part-time as Executive Director of Snowbird Cherokee Traditions, which operates a summer and after-school Cherokee Language Program.
Trey Adcock (ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ, enrolled Cherokee Nation), PhD, is an associate professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and the director of American Indian & Indigenous Studies at the University of North Carolina Asheville. He was named one of seven national Public Engagement Fellows in 2018-2019 by the Whiting Foundation for his work documenting a Bureau of Indian Affairs run day school in the TutiYi “Snowbird” Cherokee Community. Adcock’s work has been published in the Journal of American Indian Education, Teaching Tolerance and Readings in Race, Ethnicity and Immigration. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Native Health and sits on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Cherokee Studies.
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Join us for the Enka-Candler History Book Club! We read historical fiction and non-fiction books. The next book for discussion is, “Dress Codes: How the laws of fashion made history” by Richard Thompson Ford. All newcomers are welcome. We will be meeting in the library community room. Books are available for pick up at the front desk. To register for this program please email [email protected] or call 250-4758. |
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Join us for a book discussion hosted by the Friends of the Skyland/South Buncombe Library! The book club will be held virtually on Zoom for the month of February, due to health concerns and the extended Buncombe County mask mandate. Future months may be held either online or in-person — make sure to check this event calendar for updates! This month we will be reading Nomadland by Jessica Bruder. The book is available in both physical and digital editions through Buncombe County Public Libraries, and we will also have a few extra copies to borrow at the South Buncombe branch that you can stop by and sign out. From the publisher: From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads. On frequently traveled routes between seasonal jobs, Jessica Bruder meets people from all walks of life: a former professor, a McDonald’s vice president, a minister, a college administrator, and a motorcycle cop, among many others―including her irrepressible protagonist, a onetime cocktail waitress, Home Depot clerk, and general contractor named Linda May. In a secondhand vehicle she christens “Van Halen,” Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying Linda May and others from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy―one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable “Earthship” home, they have not given up hope. |
Order your copy of HER LAST AFFAIR below and you’ll receive a special code to virtually attend this live event at New York City’s Symphony Space!
You’ll also receive a signed bookplate and, if you’re in Asheville, you can pick up some popcorn (while supplies last).
A NIGHT FOR BOOKLOVERS! AMY RYAN, JOHN SEARLES & HER LAST AFFAIR
Academy Award-nominated actress, Amy Ryan, joins in what promises to be a fun and insightful conversation with New York Times bestselling author, John Searles. The evening is a celebration of the release of his much anticipated, genre-bending, new novel Her Last Affair, published by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. Her Last Affair has been praised by critics as “a tense, intricately woven tale of heartbreak, retribution and redemption” (Publishers Weekly) and “a twisted thriller that explores despair and loneliness with cinematic flair.” (Kirkus). Amy Ryan starred in the film adaptation of Searles’s critically-acclaimed novel, Strange But True, currently streaming on HBO Max. The evening’s ticket price includes a signed copy of Her Last Affair.
New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, John Searles, is the author of HER LAST AFFAIR, to be published by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers on March 22, 2022. Praised as “a twisted thriller that explores loneliness and despair with cinematic flair…” (Kirkus) and “a tense, intricately woven tale of heartbreak, retribution and redemption,” (Publishers Weekly) HER LAST AFFAIR is a genre-bending read that tells the story of three seemingly separate, desperate characters, each of whom “makes a date” with a significant person from their past…to deadly effect. John’s previous novels— HELP FOR THE HAUNTED, STRANGE BUT TRUE, BOY STILL MISSING—have been voted best of the year or top picks by Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Salon and the American Library Association. He has written for written for the New York Times and Washington Post as well as appearing frequently on NBC’s Today show and CBS This Morning to discuss his favorite book selections.
Academy Award-nominated actress, Amy Ryan, is well-known for her work on the big and small screen alike, as well as her Tony-nominated work on stage. Ryan recently wrapped a starring role opposite Joaquin Phoenix in writer/director Ari Aster’s DISAPPOINTMENT BLVD for A24. She was last seen starring opposite Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez in Hulu’s ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING. Some notable film credits include: WORTH, BIRDMAN, CLEAR HISTORY (all with Michael Keaton), LOST GIRLS, LATE NIGHT, STRANGE BUT TRUE, GONE BABY GONE, BRIDGE OF SPIES, WIN WIN, JACK GOES BOATING, CAPOTE, GREEN ZONE, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, and KEANE Television credits include: THE WIRE, THE OFFICE, IN TREATMENT. BROAD CITY and HIGH MAINTENANCE. Her work onstage earned two Tony nominations for A Streetcar Named Desire and Uncle Vanya and an OBIE award for her performance in LOVE LOVE LOVE.
The Common Word Community Read, curated by New York Times bestselling author and fellow UNC Asheville alumnus, Wiley Cash ’00, brings the UNC Asheville community together to engage in a collective educational experience. Each semester, one book will serve as the focus of numerous virtual and in-person lectures and discussions that will allow participants to delve deeper into the text. Over the course of the academic year, participants will read one book each semester, gaining insights and sharing ideas in a welcoming and respectful environment. Learn more and pick up your copy of the spring 2022 community read selection: “The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home” by Denise Kiernan.
The Emmy Award-winning film America’s First Forest: Carl Schenck and the Asheville Experiment tells the story of how Carl Schenck, a German forester, came to America in 1895 to manage the forests at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Schenck not only helped restore the land there, but he also established the country’s first forestry school and helped launch the American conservation movement.
For more information, visit: giving.unca.edu/alumni/the-common-word-community-read/
This event is the second of three events for the Spring 2022 Common Word Community Read series. Additional events include a talk with Dan Pierce, professor of history, “What George Vanderbilt Saw: Asheville and the Western North Carolina Mountains in 1887 – 88” (February 8), and a visit from Denise Kiernan, author of “The Last Castle”, in conversation with Wiley Cash (April 26).
Community Expectations
As members of this community, we care about everyone. Faculty, staff, students, and visitors have a shared commitment to take the necessary precautions to avoid spreading COVID-19 while following all recommended health guidelines. Please see UNC Asheville’s Community Expectations. Masks are required of all students, faculty, staff, and visitors.
Accessibility
Find accessibility information for campus buildings at maps.unca.edu. For accessibility questions or to request event accommodations, please contact [email protected] or 828.250.3832.
Visitor Parking
Visitors must have a permit to park on campus — please visit the Transportation website to register.
CFL Speaker Event: Wholehearted Faith with Jeff Chu
Register for this free event HERE by Tuesday, March 1.
Books will be available for purchase from Malaprop’s at the event.
Rachel Held Evans is widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith. At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness.
With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays that ask candid questions about the stories we’ve been told—and the stories we tell—about our faith, our selves, and our world. Several groups within the church will be reading and reflecting on this book. We will have a Wednesday evening group to discuss God’s grace and love and explore our questions about beauty, becoming, and belonging.
First Baptist Church’s Center for Faith and Life is also hosting a Wholehearted Faith Book Study on Wednesdays, February 9 through 23 at 6:00 p.m.
More information here or contact First Baptist Church at (828) 252-4781.
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
The harvesting of wild American ginseng ( panax quinquefolium), the gnarled, aromatic herb known for its therapeutic and healing properties, is deeply rooted in North America, but nowhere has it played a more important role than in the southern and central Appalachian Mountains. Made possible by a trans-Pacific trade network that connected the region to East Asian markets, ginseng was but one of several medicinal Appalachian plants that entered international webs of exchange. As the production of patent medicines and botanical pharmaceutical products escalated in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, southern Appalachia emerged as the United States’ most prolific supplier of many species of medicinal plants. The region achieved this distinction due to both its biodiversity and the persistence of certain common rights that guaranteed widespread access to the forested mountainsides, regardless of who owned the land.
Following the Civil War, root digging and herb gathering became one of the most important ways landless and smallholding families earned income from the forest commons. This boom influenced class relations, gender roles, forest use, and outside perceptions of Appalachia, and it began a widespread renegotiation of common rights that eventually curtailed access to some plants such as ginseng.
Based on extensive research into the business records of mountain entrepreneurs, country stores, and pharmaceutical companies, Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia is the first book to unearth the unique relationship between the Appalachian region and the global trade in medicinal plants. Historian Luke Manget expands our understanding of the gathering commons by exploring how and why Appalachia became the nation’s premier purveyor of botanical drugs in the late nineteenth century and how the trade influenced the way human residents of the region interacted with each other and with the forests around them.
Luke Manget is an assistant professor of history at Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia. He is a contributor in Southern Communities: Identity, Conflict, and Memory in the Nineteenth-Century American South, edited by Steven E. Nash and Bruce E. Stewart.
Daniel S. Pierce is professor of history at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His books includeTar Heel Lightnin’: How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World, Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France, and Corn from a Jar: Moonshining in the Great Smoky Mountains.
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
The inspiring, little-known story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine, created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America. Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first‑ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers, The First Kennedys is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.
Neal Thompson is a journalist and the author of five highly acclaimed books, including A Curious Man, Driving with the Devil, and the memoir Kickflip Boys. A former newspaper reporter, he has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, Outside, Men’s Health, Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal and more. Neal has appeared on NPR, PBS, The Daily Show, CNN, Fox, TNT, The History Channel, and ESPN. He lives in Seattle with his family.
Denise Kiernan is an author, journalist, producer, and host of “CRAFT: Authors in Conversation.” Her latest book, We Gather Together, arrived winter 2020. Her last book, The Last Castle (Sept., 2017), was an instant New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback and was also a Wall Street Journal bestseller. She is also the author of The Girls of Atomic City, which is a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and NPR bestseller and has been published in multiple languages. She lives in North Carolina.
Join host and Malaprop’s Bookseller Allison to dive into the wreck of the wily and wonderful world of science fiction, fantasy, weird fiction, speculative fiction, and literary horror with a healthy mix of underappreciated classic and contemporary books. Meets the last Monday of every month at 7 pm on Zoom. Also meets on the second Monday of every month at 7 pm to discuss the film adaptations of the books we read. Click here to see a full schedule of what the club is reading and contact the club host to join. Club attendees get 10% off the book at Malaprop’s!
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Carry On meets Arthurian legend in this funny, subversive young adult fantasy about what happens after the chosen one wins the kingdom and has to get married to keep it…and to stay alive. Arek hadn’t thought much about what would happen after he completed the prophecy that said he was destined to save the Kingdom of Ere from its evil ruler. So now that he’s finally managed to (somewhat clumsily) behead the evil king (turns out magical swords yanked from bogs don’t come pre-sharpened), he and his rag-tag group of quest companions are at a bit of a loss for what to do next. As a temporary safeguard, Arek’s best friend and mage, Matt, convinces him to assume the throne until the true heir can be rescued from her tower. Except that she’s dead. Now Arek is stuck as king, a role that comes with a magical catch: choose a spouse by your eighteenth birthday, or wither away into nothing. With his eighteenth birthday only three months away, and only Matt in on the secret, Arek embarks on a desperate bid to find a spouse to save his life–starting with his quest companions. But his attempts at wooing his friends go painfully and hilariously wrong…until he discovers that love might have been in front of him all along.
F.T. Lukens is the author of In Deeper Waters and five young adult novels published through Interlude Press. Their book The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic was a 2017 Cybils Award finalist in YA Speculative Fiction, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Gold Winner for YA fiction, the Bisexual Book Award for Speculative Fiction, and on ALA’s 2019 Rainbow Book List. F.T. lives in North Carolina with their spouse, three kids, three dogs, and three cats.
Steven Salvatore is a gay, genderqueer author, writing professor, Mariah Carey lamb, and Star Wars fanatic. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. They currently live in Peekskill, New York, with their amazingly patient husband, whose name is also Steve. They are the author of CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY and AND THEY LIVED…. They are also the co-founder of Pride Book Fest.
Romance Book Club is a space to celebrate love in literature. Whether it’s set in early 1800s London, a distant planet years into the future, a fantasy world of magic, or our own contemporary universe, we are here for the stories that end with a happily-ever-after (or at least a happily-for-now).
Meetings will take place at 7:00 PM ET on the last Tuesday of each month via Zoom. Please visit the Romance Bookclub page for the monthly selection, and email Samantha at [email protected] for the link to join.
Due to Covid-19, we are posting Storytime on Instagram in lieu of an in-store event. Join us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/malapropsbookstore/ to tune into Miss Malaprop’s Storytime from your home.
Join us with your wee ones on Wednesdays at 10 am for classic and contemporary stories sure to enchant and entertain. Together, we’ll introduce children to the wonderful world of books! Recommended for ages 3-9.
This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited amount of seats available to attend the event in-store. Registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance.
Please click here to register for the VIRTUAL event. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
Please click here to register for the IN-PERSON event. Note the important event details on the RSVP form.
If you decide to attend and purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
About Chasm:
Two months have passed since Patch Collins narrowly escaped the Board, leaving her loved ones behind to navigate the escalating tensions in America. Patch finds herself in an unfamiliar world, struggling with her mental health, and surrounded by those who abandoned the very idea of American diplomacy long ago. When a familiar enemy resurfaces and she learns the previously unknown fate of a loved one, Patch must make a choice: stay and live a life of relative safety, or risk everything to expose the Board’s actions to the world.
Jacqui Castle is a professional freelance writer and novelist. She lives and writes in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. Jacqui was selected as the 2020 Indie Author of the Year by the Indie Author Project(in collaboration with Library Journal and Biblioboard). Her debut novel, The Seclusion, is a Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award winner in Science Fiction and the winner of the North Carolina Author Project. The sequel to The Seclusion hits shelves on March 1, 2022. When not writing, Jacqui can be found consuming too much caffeine, and spending time with her husband and two children.
Rachael Sparks is a local Asheville author whose first novel, Resistant, was published in 2018, which was the same year that she met Jacqui here at Malaprops, and it was the beginning of a friendship peppered with pranks, bets, and an expanding group of author buddies. Rachael is a microbiologist with a background in transplants, who now leads marketing for a healthcare startup. She lives in North Asheville with her incredibly attractive and talented husband, her brilliant young daughter, and her amazing mother.
Damon Akins, Professor of History at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, will give a talk focused on the history of writing about Native California, Indigenous sovereignty, and settler colonialism. Atkins’ recent book (with William J. Bauer), “We Are The Land: A History Of Native California”, will serve as the backdrop for his remarks.
Register for the talk through Zoom
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Become the healthiest and happiest version of yourself using wellness tools designed specifically for BIPOC and LGBTQ folks.
The lack of BIPOC and LGBTQ representation in the fields of health and nutrition has led to repeated racist and unscientific biases that negatively impact the very people they purport to help. Many representatives of the increasingly popular body positivity movement actually add to the body image concerns of queer people of color by emphasizing cisgender, heteronormative, and Eurocentric standards of beauty. Few mainstream body positivity resources address the intersectional challenges of anti-Blackness, colorism, homophobia, transphobia, and generational trauma that are at the root of our struggles with wellness and self-care.
In Decolonizing Wellness A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation, registered dietitian and nutritionist Dalia Kinsey will help readers to improve their health without restriction, eliminate stress around food and eating, and turn food into a source of pleasure instead of shame. A road map to body acceptance and self-care for queer people of color, Decolonizing Wellness is filled with practical eating practices, journal prompts, affirmations, and mindfulness tools. Ultimately, decolonizing nutrition is essential not only to our personal well-being but to our community’s well-being and to the possibility of greater social transformation. This is a body positivity and food freedom book for marginalized folks. It’s a guide to throwing out food rules in exchange for internal cues and adopting a self-love-based approach to eating. It’s about learning to trust our bodies and turning mealtime into a time for celebration and healing. It’s also a love letter to those of us who struggle with our bodies and a gentle plea for us to do the work it takes to accept, trust, and love ourselves.
Dalia Kinsey is a Registered Dietitian, Decolonized Wellness Coach, and the creator of the Body Liberation for All podcast. On a mission to spread joy, reduce suffering, and eliminate health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC community, Dalia rejects diet culture and teaches people to use nutrition as a self-care and personal empowerment tool to counter the damage of systemic oppression. Dalia works at the intersection of holistic wellness and social justice, continually creating wellness tools and resources that center the most vulnerable, individuals that hold multiple marginalized identities.