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.
There are two ways to download ebooks and audiobooks from Buncombe County Public Libraries.
All library card holders can download books from the North Carolina Digital Library with the Libby app. In addition, you can now download the Hoopla digital mobile app or visit Hoopla from our web page to begin enjoying thousands more items available to borrow 24/7. Your User ID is your library card number with no spaces, and your PIN is the last four digits of your phone number.
If you don’t have a library card, you can contact your library to get one free of charge. Use your library anytime, anywhere with our digital resources.
This 10-week course will introduce basic principles that are foundational to all Tai Chi movements. Tai Chi is proven to be effective in decreasing pain, stiffness, and risk for falls while improving balance, postural stability, strength, cognitive focus, immune system function, and more. Wednesdays noon -1 pm; August 24th-October 26th. This course has a general public cost of $60. There is no additional cost for members, the course is included.
Register before September 31st on our YWCA App, by calling (828) 254-7206 ext. 213 or emailing [email protected].
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!
Three Muses won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction and is a love story that enthralls; a tale of Holocaust survival venturing through memory, trauma, and identity, while raising the curtain on the unforgiving discipline of ballet. In post-WWII New York, John Curtin suffers lasting damage from having been forced to sing for the concentration camp kommandant who murdered his family. John trains to be a psychiatrist, struggling to wrest his life from his terror of music and his past. Katya Symanova climbs the arduous path to Prima Ballerina of the New York State Ballet, becoming enmeshed in an abusive relationship with her choreographer, who makes Katya a star but controls her life. When John receives a ticket to attend a ballet featuring Katya Symanova, a spell is cast. As John and Katya follow circuitous paths to one another, fear and promise rise in equal measure. Three muses—Song, Discipline, and Memory—weave their way through love and loss, heartbreak and triumph to leave readers of this prize-winning debut breathless.
Martha Anne Toll writes fiction, essays, and book reviews, and reads anything that’s not nailed down. Her debut novel, Three Muses, won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction and is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing on September 20, 2022. Toll brings a long career in social justice to her work covering BIPOC and women writers. She is a book reviewer and author interviewer at NPR Books, the Washington Post, Pointe Magazine, The Millions, and elsewhere. She also publishes short fiction and essays in a wide variety of outlets. Toll has recently joined the Board of Directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.
Gavin Larsen is a writer, teacher, and former professional ballet dancer. Born and raised in New York City, Gavin received her professional dance training at the School of American Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and the New York School of Ballet. Over the course of her 18-year professional career, she was a member of Pacific Northwest Ballet, Alberta Ballet, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, and Oregon Ballet Theatre, dancing prominent roles in ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Anthony Tudor, James Kudelka, Christopher Wheeldon and Paul Taylor, as well as the major classical works and numerous original contemporary pieces.
🍂Registration is now open for October’s Cozy Up for Fall Retreat!🍂
RELAX, RECHARGE & BE INSPIRED with our 2-hour live spiritual retreat.
Wednesday, October 19th 7 pm to 9 pm ET
https://soulkyst.com/virtual-spiritual-retreats/
Opening Meditation and Closing Visualization
Facilitated by Randi Botnick
EFT Pro Tapping Workshop
Facilitated by Karen Berzanski
During this retreat, you’ll learn how to use the mind-body tool, Pro EFT™ Tapping to:
Look at the past year and identify what you want to release and let go of
Get super clear on what you want and don’t want moving into the final months of the year
Leave with inspired ideas on how to create the most luxurious and pleasurable holiday season you’ve ever experienced.
Take these 2 hours of well-deserved relaxation time to slow down and reset, and experience personal breakthroughs.
For more details and to register: https://soulkyst.com/virtual-spiritual-retreats/
Some of our greatest art has come in response to the pain of this world: war, accident, crime and punishment, physical and mental illness, racial and class-based inequities. As Asheville resident Nancy Sehested has written, “The deeply human questions of forgiveness, redemption, and mercy emerge from the ruins of broken lives…Pain is not the last word.”
On eight evenings from September to December, the Wilma Dykeman Legacy and the West Asheville Library will celebrate four memoirs of resilience and hope from the mountains of Western North Carolina. All events are free and will be at the West Asheville Library, except for the digital event on December 8.
About the Wilma Dykeman Legacy
The Wilma Dykeman Legacy is a tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 2012 to sustain and promote Wilma Dykeman’s values by sponsoring diverse workshops, events, and other programs. The core values of this extraordinary woman from Buncombe County included environmental integrity, social justice, and the power of the written and spoken word. For more information, visit www.wilmadykemanlegacy.org.
There are two ways to download ebooks and audiobooks from Buncombe County Public Libraries.
All library card holders can download books from the North Carolina Digital Library with the Libby app. In addition, you can now download the Hoopla digital mobile app or visit Hoopla from our web page to begin enjoying thousands more items available to borrow 24/7. Your User ID is your library card number with no spaces, and your PIN is the last four digits of your phone number.
If you don’t have a library card, you can contact your library to get one free of charge. Use your library anytime, anywhere with our digital resources.
The Book for October is: ‘The Love Songs of W.E.B DuBois by Fanonne Jeffers
The 2020 National Book Award–nominated poet makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.
Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.
To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/books/review/the-love-songs-of-web-du-bois-honoree-fanonne-jeffers.html
This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited number of seats are available to attend the event in-store. The event is free but 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.
This event includes a book signing. If you can’t attend in person you may request a signed copy using the order comments field. For personalization, include the name of the person to whom the book should be signed, e.g. “to Matt.”
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do 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!
For fans of unexpected-yet-badass female sleuths, meet former FBI agent-turned-boardinghouse landlady Ethel Fiona Crestwater. Her age affords her precious invisibility. She can outthink and outshoot most men–and women–half her age.
When someone murders one of her boarders, Ethel springs into action–much to the surprise of her double-first-cousin-twice-removed, Jesse, who has recently come to stay with her while he attends university. As he watches her photograph the crime scene, conceal evidence, and speed-dial the Secret Service Director, Jesse realizes that there’s much more to Ethel than appearances suggest.
When Jesse is assaulted and the gym bag full of cash Ethel had hidden is stolen from the basement, the pair decides it’s time to launch their own unofficial investigation. With no one to trust but each other, this unlikely duo learns that the only thing truly worth risking your life for is family.
Mark de Castrique grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina where many of his novels are set. He’s a veteran of the television and film production industry, has served as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte teaching The American Mystery, and he’s a frequent speaker and workshop leader. He and his wife, Linda, live in Charlotte, North Carolina. www.markdecastrique.com
Terry Roberts’ debut novel, A Short Time to Stay Here, won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, and his second novel, That Bright Land, won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award as well as the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South. Both novels won the annual Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, given to the author of the best novel written by a North Carolinian. His third novel, The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival, was published by Turner in 2018. His newest book, My Mistress’ Eyes Are Raven Black, a literary thriller set on Ellis Island, was published by Turner in 2021. Born and raised near Weaverville, North Carolina, Roberts is the Director of the National Paideia Center and lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, Lynn.
Description: Renowned entomologist, environmentalist, and best-selling author Doug Tallamy joins us to pay homage to a giant of the plant kingdom — the mighty oak tree — and share how it plays an irreplaceable role in the health of our environment. Tallamy discusses why “keystone” species are crucial to any ecosystem and why oak trees spectacularly fill that niche in so many places. Join us for this fascinating talk in the Arboretum’s tree-themed October, and we guarantee you’ll never look at a “common” oak tree the same way ever again! We provide a helpful resource for oak species to plant for the betterment of your landscape and for the betterment of our region’s ecosystem!
Douglas W. Tallamy is a professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at University of Delaware where he has taught and conducted research for 41 years. His books Nature’s Best Hope and Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants have become central to the native plant movement. The Nature of Oaks The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees is a timely reminder of the oak’s irreplaceable role in the health of our environment. Tallamy is a recipient of the National Wildlife Federation’s Conseravtion Leadership Award and is co-founder of HOMEGROWN NATIONAL PARK.
This club meets in-person and virtually. If you are interested in attending, please email [email protected] for more info and instructions!
Join host and Malaprop’s bookseller Patricia Furnish to discuss a range of books across different periods of history. The club tackles challenging subjects, hence “NOTORIOUS.” 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 3rd Thursday of every month at 7:00 pm.
There are two ways to download ebooks and audiobooks from Buncombe County Public Libraries.
All library card holders can download books from the North Carolina Digital Library with the Libby app. In addition, you can now download the Hoopla digital mobile app or visit Hoopla from our web page to begin enjoying thousands more items available to borrow 24/7. Your User ID is your library card number with no spaces, and your PIN is the last four digits of your phone number.
If you don’t have a library card, you can contact your library to get one free of charge. Use your library anytime, anywhere with our digital resources.
The Friends of Pack Library will have their Annual Antique and Collectible book sale the third weekend in October at Pack Library in downtown Asheville. There will be a box sale the following Tuesday.
The Oct. 21 and 22 sale will feature antique and collectible books on the lower level of the library, along with comic books and music CDs. Bookends Used Book Store will have a half-price sale on both days. On the second day of the sale, Oct. 22, everything in the sale will be half off.
On Tuesday, Oct. 25, there will be a box sale with a box of books for only $25 or half the price of the books, whichever is lower. Boxes will be provided.
FREE | All ages (under 14 must be with adult)
Lace up your skates and roll-bounce to a soundtrack of Halloween favorites. Skates not provided; bring your own.
MSC is an empirically-supported 9-session program that helps participants develop and deepen the skills of self-compassion. Activities include meditation, talks, discussion, and experiential exercises. This class will be held rain or shine outdoors in a beautiful setting over nine Saturdays, 9/17-11/19, skipping 10/15.
We will meet from 10:30AM-2PM with a 30-minute break for lunch midway through each session. Each class participant will receive a copy of The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook.
Register at mindfulselfcompassionasheville.com by 8/30 for early-bird pricing.
The Friends of Pack Library will have their Annual Antique and Collectible book sale the third weekend in October at Pack Library in downtown Asheville. There will be a box sale the following Tuesday.
The Oct. 21 and 22 sale will feature antique and collectible books on the lower level of the library, along with comic books and music CDs. Bookends Used Book Store will have a half-price sale on both days. On the second day of the sale, Oct. 22, everything in the sale will be half off.
On Tuesday, Oct. 25, there will be a box sale with a box of books for only $25 or half the price of the books, whichever is lower. Boxes will be provided.
When it comes to Breast Cancer, we know that early detection saves lives! The Buncombe County Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program (BCCCP) offers free lifesaving mammograms to qualifying Buncombe women and transgender individuals who don’t have health insurance. “Last program year, over 1,000 qualifying residents got free mammograms,” reports BCCCP coordinator, Melanie Evans. Melanie continues, “Thanks to our services, eight of those women were diagnosed with breast cancer and were able to seek treatment.”
Receiving a cancer diagnosis is life-changing news. “At Buncombe County BCCCP, we do our best to show up for all of our clients in this emotional time,” says Melanie. “We are here to hold your hand through testing, potential diagnosis, and subsequent treatment to make sure you have all the support and information you need.”
We also offer resources to cover the cost of cancer treatment! NC Breast and Cervical Cancer Medicaid is available to help all individuals who receive a cancer diagnosis through the BCCCP program, pay for cancer treatment. This added layer of service allows those who receive a cancer diagnosis to focus of self-care and healing instead of expensive medical bills.
One of our clients lost her job during COVID. Here is what she had to say about our services:
” What I thought would be no more than 2 months out of work, turned into 7 which challenged me in many ways, financially included. The services and assistance you all offered me was exceptional. The entire cost for my breast imaging was covered and I was able to rest assured that I am cancer free. Please know that you greatly enhance people’s lives and truly are a godsend to this community. ”
Remember, early detection saves lives. Find out if you qualify for BCCCP services on our website www.buncombecounty.org/pink. If you meet eligibility criteria and are in need of your annual mammogram, call (828) 250-6006 to schedule your appointment today.
Be a lifesaver and share this information. Do you have friends or family who may qualify for BCCCP services? Send them a link to this article. You could be the one who saves their life.
There are two ways to download ebooks and audiobooks from Buncombe County Public Libraries.
All library card holders can download books from the North Carolina Digital Library with the Libby app. In addition, you can now download the Hoopla digital mobile app or visit Hoopla from our web page to begin enjoying thousands more items available to borrow 24/7. Your User ID is your library card number with no spaces, and your PIN is the last four digits of your phone number.
If you don’t have a library card, you can contact your library to get one free of charge. Use your library anytime, anywhere with our digital resources.
There are two ways to download ebooks and audiobooks from Buncombe County Public Libraries.
All library card holders can download books from the North Carolina Digital Library with the Libby app. In addition, you can now download the Hoopla digital mobile app or visit Hoopla from our web page to begin enjoying thousands more items available to borrow 24/7. Your User ID is your library card number with no spaces, and your PIN is the last four digits of your phone number.
If you don’t have a library card, you can contact your library to get one free of charge. Use your library anytime, anywhere with our digital resources.
The Friends of Pack Library will have their Annual Antique and Collectible book sale the third weekend in October at Pack Library in downtown Asheville. There will be a box sale the following Tuesday.
The Oct. 21 and 22 sale will feature antique and collectible books on the lower level of the library, along with comic books and music CDs. Bookends Used Book Store will have a half-price sale on both days. On the second day of the sale, Oct. 22, everything in the sale will be half off.
On Tuesday, Oct. 25, there will be a box sale with a box of books for only $25 or half the price of the books, whichever is lower. Boxes will be provided.
Join authors Constance Lombardo and Shannon Hitchcock to celebrate the launch of Tiny Spoon vs. Little Fork and Story Quilts: Appalachian Women Speak.
This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited number of seats are 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.
This event includes a book signing. If you are not attending in person you may request signed books by using the order comments field when you order below. For personalization include the name of the person to whom the book should be signed, e.g. “To Marisol.”
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!
Tiny Spoon vs. Little Fork
Two mortal enemies set aside their animosity for the sake of a common cause in this WWE-mimicking kitchen smackdown. When a kitchen clock announces “Time for breakfast!!!” Tiny Spoon, a yellow implement, and purple Little Fork jump out of their respective drawers, determined to win the heart, mind, and, most importantly, mouth of an energetic infant. Dialogue balloon text by Lombardo (Everybody Says Meow) is comically high-strung: “I’ve always fed the baby,” says Spoon. “She loves to SIP! And SAVOR! And SLURP!” But Fork insists “now Baby wants to BITE! And CHOMP!” Dynamic paneled cartoons in nursery hues by creative team Dan & Jason (the Blue, Barry & Pancakes series) reach a fever pitch when pj-sporting Baby, who’s portrayed with light brown skin and saucer eyes, toddles onto the scene, addressing the battling cutlery with equal enthusiasm as “Spood” and “Frok,” and then gleefully hurtling them (and a much bedraggled pink stuffed rabbit) clear across the kitchen. But in this high-energy conflict turned collaboration, the duo make their way back to the table and prove they’re a mighty mealtime force. “I got the oatmeal!” says Spoon, while Fork chimes in “Scrambled eggs! I’m on it!”
Story Quilts: Appalachian Women Speak
History books have forgotten most Appalachian women, many of whom were poor or lacked formal education. Yet these women spoke through the quilts they created from scraps of cloth collected over time. Piece by piece, these patchwork quilts revealed the beauty of mountain life.
Constance Lombardo is the author/illustrator of 4 books, including the 3 books in the Mr. Puffball series and the picture book, Everybody Says Meow, which was a 2020 Anna Dewdney Read Together Award Honor Book. Her passion for classic movies and classic comedy shines through in her work. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Shannon Hitchcock was born in North Carolina and grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Along with N.H. Senzai, she is a co-author of the middle-grade novel Flying Over Water. In addition, Shannon has written three other middle grades, One True Way, Ruby Lee & Me, and The Ballad of Jessie Pearl. Her books have been featured on many state awards lists and have received acclaimed reviews. Shannon and illustrator Sophie Page previously teamed up for the picture book biography, Saving Granddaddy’s Stories–Ray Hicks the Voice of Appalachia. She Sang for the Mountains is their second collaboration.
Opportunity to learn more about cochlear implants – is it right for you? Two recipients of cochlear implants plus an audiologist will share practical tips to navigate the process.
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.
There are two ways to download ebooks and audiobooks from Buncombe County Public Libraries.
All library card holders can download books from the North Carolina Digital Library with the Libby app. In addition, you can now download the Hoopla digital mobile app or visit Hoopla from our web page to begin enjoying thousands more items available to borrow 24/7. Your User ID is your library card number with no spaces, and your PIN is the last four digits of your phone number.
If you don’t have a library card, you can contact your library to get one free of charge. Use your library anytime, anywhere with our digital resources.
This 10-week course will introduce basic principles that are foundational to all Tai Chi movements. Tai Chi is proven to be effective in decreasing pain, stiffness, and risk for falls while improving balance, postural stability, strength, cognitive focus, immune system function, and more. Wednesdays noon -1 pm; August 24th-October 26th. This course has a general public cost of $60. There is no additional cost for members, the course is included.
Register before September 31st on our YWCA App, by calling (828) 254-7206 ext. 213 or emailing [email protected].
Join University of North Carolina food historian and editor Marcie Cohen Ferris and associate editor KC Hysmith as they discuss the book, “Edible North Carolina: A Journey across a State of Flavor.” The new book from University of North Carolina Press provides a 360-degree view of a state known for its farming and food, with compelling essays from leading North Carolina writers, cooks, farmers, entrepreneurs, and food equity activists.
The Foodie Book Club is a club about food writing. The club meets on the last Wednesday of every month at 7:00 PM. Click here for details and monthly picks!
There are two ways to download ebooks and audiobooks from Buncombe County Public Libraries.
All library card holders can download books from the North Carolina Digital Library with the Libby app. In addition, you can now download the Hoopla digital mobile app or visit Hoopla from our web page to begin enjoying thousands more items available to borrow 24/7. Your User ID is your library card number with no spaces, and your PIN is the last four digits of your phone number.
If you don’t have a library card, you can contact your library to get one free of charge. Use your library anytime, anywhere with our digital resources.
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!
Off The Yoga Mat follows three characters approaching 40 on a rollicking journey of love, transformation, and jealousy as Y2K approaches. Nate, a graduate student researching jealousy in Darwin and Shakespeare, denies he ever experiences that emotion. In shielding himself from disappointment, he almost misses out on a scintillating romance. After she breaks up with Nate, Nora, fueled by the desire to have a baby, takes a temporary job at Nokia in Finland. She sweats in the sauna, tries on men like miniskirts, and embraces the Finnish concept of sisu: perseverance despite setbacks.
Nate’s yoga teacher, Lulu, yearns to get to the bottom of her nightmares of childhood abuse. An experiment concocted by Nate’s friends to test his ability to withstand jealousy pushes him into a steamy tryst with Lulu. While she aids her ailing mother in New Orleans, Lulu meets a woman who helps her confront her violent past. After they become lovers, Nate (jealous this time) reconnects with Nora at a wedding. Their boozy nostalgic reunion complicates everything.
Cheryl J. Fish is a poet, fiction writer and environmental humanities scholar. Her recent books of poetry include Crater & Tower, on trauma and ecology after the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption and the terrorist attack of 9/11/01, and The Sauna Is Full Of Maids, poems and photographs celebrating Finnish sauna culture, the natural world, and friendships. She has been a Fulbright Professor and she teaches at City University of New York.
Christy Alexander Hallberg is the author of the award-winning novel Searching for Jimmy Page (Livingston Press, 2021) and host of Rock is Lit: A Podcast About Rock Novels, from Pantheon Podcast Network. She is a Teaching Professor of English at East Carolina University, where she earned her BS and MA in English. She received her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Goddard College. She is Senior Associate Editor of North Carolina Literary Review. Her short fiction, creative nonfiction, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in such journals as North Carolina Literary Review, The Main Street Rag, Fiction Southeast, Riggwelter, Deep South Magazine, Eclectica, Litro, STORGY, Entropy, storySouth, Still: The Journal, and Concho River Review. Her creative nonfiction essay “The Ballad of Evermore” was a finalist for the Sequestrum 2020 Editor’s Reprint Award. Her flash story “Aperture” was chosen Story of the Month by Fiction Southeast for October 2020. The editors of the Best Small Fictions anthology series chose it for inclusion in their 2021 issue. Find her at www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/ and on Twitter/Instagram @ChristyHallberg.
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!
Join Dahlia Lithwick, author of Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America and novelist and scholar Siri Hustvedt. This event is hosted by Books and Books, Writers for Democratic Action and Book the Vote.
After the sudden shock of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, many Americans felt lost and uncertain. It was clear he and his administration were going to pursue a series of retrograde, devastating policies. What could be done?
Immediately, women lawyers all around the country, independently of each other, sprang into action, and they had a common goal: they weren’t going to stand by in the face of injustice, while Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican party did everything in their power to remake the judiciary in their own conservative image. Over the next four years, the women worked tirelessly to hold the line against the most chaotic and malign presidency in living memory. There was Sally Yates, the acting attorney general of the United States, who refused to sign off on the Muslim travel ban. And Becca Heller, the founder of a refugee assistance program who brought the fight over the travel ban to the airports. And Roberta Kaplan, the famed commercial litigator, who sued the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. And, of course, Stacey Abrams, whose efforts to protect the voting rights of millions of Georgians may well have been what won the Senate for the Democrats in 2020. These are just a handful of the stories Lithwick dramatizes in thrilling detail to tell a brand-new and deeply inspiring account of the Trump years. With unparalleled access to her subjects, she has written a luminous book, not about the villains of the Trump years, but about the heroes. And as the country confronts the news that the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, will soon overturn Roe v. Wade, Lithwick shines a light on not only the major consequences of such a decision, but issues a clarion call to all who might, like the women in this book, feel the urgency to join the fight. A celebration of the tireless efforts, legal ingenuity, and indefatigable spirit of the women whose work all too often went unrecognized at the time, Lady Justice is destined to be treasured and passed from hand to hand for generations to come, not just among lawyers and law students, but among all optimistic and hopeful Americans.
Dahlia Lithwick is the senior legal correspondent at Slate and host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the law. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Commentary, among other places. Lithwick won a 2013 National Magazine Award for her columns on the Affordable Care Act. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October, 2018.
Siri Hustvedt is a novelist and scholar, has a PhD in English literature, and is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is the author of a book of poems, seven novels, four collections of essays, and two works of nonfiction, most recently, Mothers, Fathers, and Others: Essays (Simon & Schuster, 2022). She has published papers in various academic and scientific journals and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, the European Charles Veillon Essay Prize, an American Academy of the Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction for The Blazing World, which was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.