The Mars Hill University Weizenblatt Gallery is showing a collection of works created by North Carolina Glass Center artists. The reception will be held on Wednesday, January 22. You’ll have an opportunity to see the works and to meet and talk with the artists. The exhibition runs daily through February 6.

Weizenblatt Gallery is in the Moore Fine Arts Building on the Mars Hill University campus.  As always, the reception and the gallery are free.

Caroline Christopoulos and Lauren Harr of Gold Leaf Literary Services, LLC will hold an informational session for authors on best practices for working with bookstores to create a mutually beneficial relationship. They will discuss publishing options and how they affect bookstore relationships, ways to help boost sales, making the most of author events, and more. Christopoulos and Harr have decades of experience in the book industry and have taught courses for authors through the Great Smokies Writing Program, Flatiron Writers Room, and NC Writer’s Network. More on Gold Leaf Literary at www.goldleafliterary.com. This event is free, but does require registration. The deadline to register is January 15th. To register, email [email protected] with the subject: Malaprop’s session.

Blue Spiral 1’s most diverse annual exhibition presents artists who have never previously shown in the gallery. This year’s show features nine artists working in a range of media, including painting, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, photography, and wood.

Artists: Anna Buckner, Mark Flowers, David Knox, Hiromi Moneyhun, Kris Rehring, Ben Strear, Gregor Turk

IMPACT! is about humans’ affect on the environment. It embraces our negative impact on the environment, as well as solutions for the problems we have created, success stories and the hope for a better tomorrow. Come join us as we creatively explore this topic. The show encompasses a variety of artists who all have studio spaces in Pink Dog Creative. Each artist takes to this show, a unique way to express and interpret the theme. From oil paintings, to stained glass, to jewelry and much more, each artist uses their own unique styles and creative talents to show how humans have affected the environment in which we live. Exhibiting artists include Joseph Pearson, Karen Brown, Pat Phillips, Patti Anastasi, Lucy Cobos, May Rhea, Sandi McAllen, Ralph Burns, Noel Yovovich, Stephanie Grimes, Leene Hermann, Andrea Kulish and more.

E. Patrick Johnson’s Honeypot opens with the fictional trickster character Miss B. barging into the home of Dr. EPJ, informing him that he has been chosen to collect and share the stories of her people. With little explanation, she whisks the reluctant Dr. EPJ away to the women-only world of Hymen, where she serves as his tour guide as he bears witness to the real-life stories of queer Black women throughout the American South. The women he meets come from all walks of life and recount their experiences on topics ranging from coming out and falling in love to mother/daughter relationships, religion, and political activism. As Dr. EPJ hears these stories, he must grapple with his privilege as a man and as an academic, and in the process he gains insights into patriarchy, class, sex, gender, and the challenges these women face. Combining oral history with magical realism and poetry, Honeypot is an engaging and moving book that reveals the complexity of identity while offering a creative method for scholarship to represent the lives of other people in a rich and dynamic way.

E. Patrick Johnson is Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author and editor of several books, most recently No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Theory, also published by Duke University Press.

This event is free and open to the public. We ask that you purchase the books you want to be signed at our events from Malaprop’s. When you do this you are not only supporting the work it takes to run an events program, you are also telling the publishers that they should keep sending authors here. Can’t make it to the store for the event? Call us or order the book on our website in advance, and we’ll get it signed for you. Make sure you write your preferences in the comments if you purchase online.

Blue Spiral 1’s most diverse annual exhibition presents artists who have never previously shown in the gallery. This year’s show features nine artists working in a range of media, including painting, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, photography, and wood.

Artists: Anna Buckner, Mark Flowers, David Knox, Hiromi Moneyhun, Kris Rehring, Ben Strear, Gregor Turk

Redirect is an exhibition that critically and philosophically engages with technology, each artist examining the web, social media, mobile devices, or other contemporary technology with a calculated sense of intentionality or caution. Redirect investigates our contemporary digital lives from various perspectives but always with a lens that looks deeper than the surface treatment. Unsearchable former content, spotlights on web censorship, crystallization of load times, and the physical manifestation of unseen systems come together to create a meditation on our present-day technological attachments.

Featuring artists: Conrad Bakker, Victoria Bradbury, Ben Duvall, Janna Dyk, Benjamin Grosser, Joyce Yu-Jean Lee, Jorge Lucero

Opening reception with panel discussion: January 24th, 6-8pm

Blue Spiral 1’s most diverse annual exhibition presents artists who have never previously shown in the gallery. This year’s show features nine artists working in a range of media, including painting, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, photography, and wood.

Artists: Anna Buckner, Mark Flowers, David Knox, Hiromi Moneyhun, Kris Rehring, Ben Strear, Gregor Turk

Join us at Little Jumbo for CRAFT: Authors in Conversation, a new series conceived and hosted by New York Times bestselling author Denise Kiernan! Little Jumbo, located at 241 Broadway Street in Asheville, features classic and classically-inspired craft cocktails, food, live music and more. Their staff will create a specialty cocktail or mocktail for each event. The doors will open at 2:30 pm and the event will begin at 3:00.  If you are not already a Little Jumbo member, there is one-time $1.00 fee. The event is otherwise free of charge and Little Jumbo offers free parking at the corner of Broadway and Monroe. Visit https://www.littlejumbobar.com/ for more information.

A small number of reserved seats will be available to those who purchase the featured book from Malaprop’s prior to the event. Additional seating and standing room will be allotted on a first-come, first-served basis. 

Starting off CRAFT’s inaugural year is New York City author Ada Calhoun, who will join Kiernan to discuss, Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis, an expansion of Calhoun’s viral story for Oprah.com about the distinct issues facing Generation X women. She and Kiernan will discuss the book, Calhoun’s inspiration and research, and the craft of writing at the event. 

Calhoun is also the author of Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give and St. Marks Is Dead. Calhoun has worked as an A-list ghostwriter, collaborating on fourteen nonfiction books, including several New York Times bestsellers. She has written for Time, National Geographic Traveler, O: The Oprah magazine, the Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, Billboard, Cosmopolitan and Redbook and her national news reporting has won multiple awards. 

Denise Kiernan is an author, journalist and producer whose latest book, The Last Castle, was an instant New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, as well as a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Her previous title, The Girls of Atomic City, is a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and NPR bestseller and has been published in seven languages. 

oin us to celebrate the launch of Things That Women Do, by Cynn Chadwick. Marie Hefley, editor of the Great Smokies Review, will moderate a panel discussion between Chadwick and authors Vicki Lane, Mildred Barya, Laura Hope-Gill, Jennifer McGaha, and Ellen J. Perry.

After Anna Shields receives an invitation from her estranged Aunt Lydia, she flies to Tennessee to find a number of older women-Tasha, Sadie, and Chloe-also living on Lydia’s farm. Losing power during a blizzard, the women share dark and startling secrets. Skating between past and present, they reveal frighteningly desperate things that they have done. Anna begins to realize, to her shock, that these things are connected to her own past and become key to her future.

Cynn Chadwick is an author of seven novels: Cat Rising, Girls With Hammers, Babies, Bikes, and Broads, Cutting Loose, Angels, and Manners, As The Table Turns, and That’s Karma, Baby… Her books have been nominated for the Lambda, Golden Crown, and Stonewall Literary Awards. Over the course of her career, she has done readings and speaking engagements including: Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans, The Authors’ Arena at Book Expo America in Chicago, Human Rights Campaign Headquarters, DC, AWP in Atlanta, Amelia Island Book Festival, FL, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville and UNCA are just a few of her past speaking and reading engagements. She holds a BA from Norwich University and both an MA and MFA from Goddard College in Vermont. Over the last, nearly, thirty years, she taught creative writing to fifth-graders and senior citizens, teachers and homeless teens, college students and convicted felons and have been equally touched by each of their stories. She lives with her wife Elenna and their Springer Spaniel, The Amazing Andy, in the Blue Ridge Mountains is where she taught in the English Department and Creative Writing program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

Blue Spiral 1’s most diverse annual exhibition presents artists who have never previously shown in the gallery. This year’s show features nine artists working in a range of media, including painting, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, photography, and wood.

Artists: Anna Buckner, Mark Flowers, David Knox, Hiromi Moneyhun, Kris Rehring, Ben Strear, Gregor Turk

Mary Cassatt Miller falls for famous photojournalist Ethan Graham. But it’s complicated. For months at a time, Ethan’s work takes him to Afghanistan, and Cass, who’s passionate about her job in Atlanta, wants a husband who comes home at night. Then, there’s the issue of family–he wants one; she doesn’t.

What they do want is a life together, so Ethan agrees that after three years, he will stop traveling–whether Cass agrees to children or not. But for Cass, who grew up with a mother who didn’t want her and a father who was never home, even thinking about children is troubling.
Now, nine weeks before their third anniversary, Cass wonders whether Ethan will try to squeeze in one final trip to Afghanistan. When he does, she’s unsure if he will ever give up the work he loves. And if he won’t, well, she will not repeat the life her parents had.
As the clock counts down, it doesn’t help that Singer, the artist-bartender, is always in Atlanta, and the enthralling Setara, the subject of Ethan’s most famous photograph, is also his business partner. Then, a new danger in Afghanistan changes everything.
In this elegant and honest debut novel, Cass and Ethan must navigate that fine line between the things they want for themselves and the life they want together, and it appears that Cass will have to choose one or the other.

Cynthia Newberry Martin grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. After first practicing law, she earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her website features the How We Spend Our Days series for writers. She lives in Columbus, Georgia, with her husband, and in Provincetown in a little house by the water. Tidal Flats is her first novel.

This event is free and open to the public. We ask that you purchase the books you want to be signed at our events from Malaprop’s. When you do this you are not only supporting the work it takes to run an events program, you are also telling the publishers that they should keep sending authors here. Can’t make it to the store for the event? Call us or order the book on our website in advance, and we’ll get it signed for you. Make sure you write your preferences in the comments if you purchase online.

Blue Spiral 1’s most diverse annual exhibition presents artists who have never previously shown in the gallery. This year’s show features nine artists working in a range of media, including painting, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, photography, and wood.

Artists: Anna Buckner, Mark Flowers, David Knox, Hiromi Moneyhun, Kris Rehring, Ben Strear, Gregor Turk

We know special events and festivals have long been employed as powerful tools in supporting business, motivating entrepreneurship, and promoting the arts. Additionally, the City of Asheville is focusing on special events and how they can help build an equitable and inclusive community. But government doesn’t just change on its own. What internal and external efforts are needed to maximize returns? Hear from the City’s Outdoor Special Events office about their collaborations with the City’s Office of Equity & Inclusion. Learn about the confines we’re all working within as community members, and why it takes an inside effort within government to push forward. Where are your opportunities to create and participate in special events that help build an equitable and inclusive community?

Speakers: City of Asheville Outdoor Event Manager Jon Fillman and Business Inclusion Manager Rosanna Mulcahy

We know special events and festivals have long been employed as powerful tools in supporting business, motivating entrepreneurship, and promoting the arts. Additionally, the City of Asheville is focusing on special events and how they can help build an equitable and inclusive community. But government doesn’t just change on its own. What internal and external efforts are needed to maximize returns? Hear from the City’s Outdoor Special Events office about their collaborations with the City’s Office of Equity & Inclusion. Learn about the confines we’re all working within as community members, and why it takes an inside effort within government to push forward. Where are your opportunities to create and participate in special events that help build an equitable and inclusive community?

Speakers: City of Asheville Outdoor Event Manager Jon Fillman and Business Inclusion Manager Rosanna Mulcahy

The City of Asheville’s Community & Economic Development department is responsible for outdoor special event administration. This office develops and manages partnerships with organizations that produce events, coordinates support services, and oversees regulatory and permitting requirements for temporary uses of parks, streets, and undeveloped city-owned property.

See Kitty as you’ve never seen her before: EXERCISING (reluctantly) in the latest installment of the phenomenally successful New York Times–bestelling series. Kitty is terribly out of shape—she can barely torment Puppy without needing a break to huff and puff! When Kitty’s owner catches her wheezing, Kitty is told it’s time to EXERCISE. It takes some serious convincing, a high-stakes competition, and a little bit of trickery but eventually Kitty gets into the competitive spirit . . . albeit reluctantly. What did you expect? Will our favorite feline friend learn what it means to be a good sport? Find out in this hilarious addition to the Bad Kitty series.

Nick Bruel is the author and illustrator of the phenomenally successful Bad Kitty series, including the CBC Children’s Choice Book Award winners Bad Kitty Meets the Baby and Bad Kitty for President.

Join us to kick of the tour for Nick Bruel’s newest book!

See Kitty as you’ve never seen her before: EXERCISING (reluctantly) in the latest installment of the phenomenally successful New York Times–bestelling series. Kitty is terribly out of shape—she can barely torment Puppy without needing a break to huff and puff! When Kitty’s owner catches her wheezing, Kitty is told it’s time to EXERCISE. It takes some serious convincing, a high-stakes competition, and a little bit of trickery but eventually Kitty gets into the competitive spirit . . . albeit reluctantly. What did you expect? Will our favorite feline friend learn what it means to be a good sport? Find out in this hilarious addition to the Bad Kitty series.

Nick Bruel is the author and illustrator of the phenomenally successful Bad Kitty series, including the 2012 and 2013 CBC Children’s Choice Book Award winners Bad Kitty Meets the Baby and Bad Kitty for President. Nick has also written and illustrated popular picture books, including A Wonderful Year. Nick lives with his wife and daughter in Westchester, New York. nickbruel.com

This event is free and open to the public. We ask that you purchase the books you want to be signed at our events from Malaprop’s. When you do this you are not only supporting the work it takes to run an events program, you are also telling the publishers that they should keep sending authors here. Can’t make it to the store for the event? Call us or order the book on our website in advance, and we’ll get it signed for you. Make sure you write your preferences in the comments if you purchase online.

Blue Spiral 1’s most diverse annual exhibition presents artists who have never previously shown in the gallery. This year’s show features nine artists working in a range of media, including painting, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, photography, and wood.

Artists: Anna Buckner, Mark Flowers, David Knox, Hiromi Moneyhun, Kris Rehring, Ben Strear, Gregor Turk

Blue Spiral 1’s most diverse annual exhibition presents artists who have never previously shown in the gallery. This year’s show features nine artists working in a range of media, including painting, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, photography, and wood.

Artists: Anna Buckner, Mark Flowers, David Knox, Hiromi Moneyhun, Kris Rehring, Ben Strear, Gregor Turk