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.
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Join us as we discuss, The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri. We will meet in person at the Library with the option to join in via ZOOM. Only ZOOM participants need to pre-register. |
We are hopeful that by May, we will be able to host what we believe will be our largest event yet – and it will coincide with the release of the full-length movie Where the Crawdads Sing in June!
If you have already purchased tickets, we ask you to please mark your calendar for Thursday, May 5, 2022. If you can attend the new date, you may do so with your current tickets and requested seating arrangements. Nothing will need to be done on your part.
If you cannot attend the new date, you may contact LuAnn Arena, 828-254-3442 ext. 206 or email [email protected] with your preferences to either:
Donate the cost of the ticket, which will be a fully tax-deductible gift
– OR –
Request a refund which will be processed promptly and credited to your account within 10-14 business days.
– New York Times bestselling author Delia Owens will keynote Literacy
Together’s 13th Annual Authors for Literacy Dinner & Auction on October 28, 2021.
Delia Owens lived in some of the most remote areas of Africa for twenty-three years while she conductedscientific research on lions, elephants, and others. Based on these expeditions and adventures, sheco-authored three internationally bestselling nonfiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist.
She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from the University of Georgia and a Ph.D. in
Animal Behavior from the University of California in Davis. She has won the John Burroughs Award for Nature Writing and has been published in Nature, Journal of Mammalogy, The African Journal ofEcology, and International Wildlife, among many others.
Where the Crawdads Sing is her first novel, with more than 11 million copies sold worldwide and over 2½ years on the New York Times Bestseller List, it is soon to be a major motion picture.
The Authors for Literacy Dinner & Auction featuring Delia Owens will begin with a cocktail hour
followed by a three-course dinner and presentation by a current Literacy Together student. Delia Owens will then give the keynote presentation and autograph guests’ books. Malaprop’s Bookstore & Café will
manage book sales.
Event guests may upgrade tickets to attend a VIP reception just before the event with Delia Owens. This reception will include the opportunity to spend one-on-one time taking pictures and talking with the author and enjoy hors d’oeuvres. There are a limited number of VIP tickets available.
Proceeds from the Authors for Literacy Dinner benefit Literacy Together’s programs, which provide
comprehensive literacy and English language skills to 300 students and over 4,300 book recipients in Buncombe County annually. Literacy Together transforms lives and communities through the power of literacy. Literacy and English language skills are tools that help people rise out of poverty, get better-paying jobs to support their families, and read to their children. Improved literacy skills benefit the struggling reader and everyone in our community regardless of age, race, gender, or background.
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An eclectic mix of music in TFAC’s popular Peterson Amphitheater awaits you this spring! From energetic folk to blends of country and rock, TFAC’s lineup of 90-minute, outdoor concerts will fill the air with music and have you singing & dancing.
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Join other literature lovers to discuss your favorite books at the library! This month’s pick is My Mistress’ Eyes are Raven Black, by local author Terry Roberts. Mr. Roberts will be joining our discussion in person, so bring any questions you want to ask the author! |
Join host and Malaprop’s Bookseller Patricia Furnish to discuss a range of books across true crime and public affairs. The club meets the first Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. Click here to learn more about the club, view important news, and find the pick for this month.
Led by Stewart/Owen Dance Co-Directors, Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart, this open level adult contemporary dance class gradually awakens the body and senses through guided improvisation and a follow along warm-up, followed by foundational across-the-floor exercises and center-work combinations. All experience levels welcome!
In person: $10, pay at the door
Online: $7 suggested donation, contact [email protected] for class link and details.
About Stewart/Owen Dance: Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a husband and wife duo, are the co-directors of Western North Carolina based Stewart/Owen Dance. Their choreography has been presented by festivals and companies across the U.S., and their careers have most notably taken them around the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington D.C. based Company E. In 2017 they made North Carolina their home base where they work towards building a sustainable community for professional dance artists to set roots. They have choreographed music videos for artists such as Moses Sumney, Sylvan Esso and Ben Phantom. Gavin and Vanessa won the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Dance Gallery Festival 2018, were commissioned as Dance Gallery 2019 Level UP Artists, are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Project Grant, a North Carolina Artist Support Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by 2020 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Since the pandemic, they have focused on producing COVID-conscious dance experiences for live audiences, including drive-up performances and a guided walk-along dance exhibit presented in residence with Asheville’s beloved Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
Led by Stewart/Owen Co-Directors, Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart, this class begins with full body conditioning followed by a series of technical modern exercises, and culminates in either phrase creation or Stewart/Owen repertory. Dancers are encouraged to modify for their own bodies and spaces! We recommend this class to experienced dancers who are looking for a fast-paced contemporary class that pushes their physical and mental boundaries.
In person: $10, pay at the door
Online: $7 suggested donation, contact [email protected] for class link and details.
About Stewart/Owen Dance: Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a husband and wife duo, are the co-directors of Western North Carolina based Stewart/Owen Dance. Their choreography has been presented by festivals and companies across the U.S., and their careers have most notably taken them around the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington D.C. based Company E. In 2017 they made North Carolina their home base where they work towards building a sustainable community for professional dance artists to set roots.They have choreographed music videos for artists such as Moses Sumney, Sylvan Esso and Ben Phantom. Gavin and Vanessa won the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Dance Gallery Festival 2018, were commissioned as Dance Gallery 2019 Level UP Artists, are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Project Grant, a North Carolina Artist Support Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by 2020 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Since the pandemic, they have focused on producing COVID-conscious dance experiences for live audiences, including drive-up performances and a guided walk-along dance exhibit presented in residence with Asheville’s beloved Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
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!
A 2022 Katie Couric Media Must-Read New Book – A personal meditation on love in the shadow of white privilege and racism
Child is the story of Judy Goldman’s relationship with Mattie Culp, the Black woman who worked for her family as a live-in maid and helped raise her–the unconscionable scaffolding on which the relationship was built and the deep love. It is also the story of Mattie’s child, who was left behind to be raised by someone else. Judy, now eighty, cross-examines what it was to be a privileged white child in the Jim Crow South, how a bond can evolve in and out of step with a changing world, and whether we can ever tell the whole truth, even to ourselves. It is an incandescent book of small moments, heart-warming, heartbreaking, and, ultimately, inspiring.
Judy Goldman is the award-winning author of seven books – three memoirs, two novels, and two collections of poetry. Her new memoir, Child, will be published May 2022. It was named a Katie Couric Media Must-Read Book for 2022. Her recent memoir, Together: A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap, was named one of the best books of 2019 by Real Simple magazine and received a starred review from Library Journal. Her work has appeared in USA Today, Washington Post, Charlotte Observer, Real Simple, LitHub, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, Crazyhorse, Ohio Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She lives in Charlotte, NC, with her husband. They have two married children and four grandchildren.
Abigail DeWitt is the author of three novels: LILI (WW Norton), DOGS (Lorimer Press), and NEWS OF OUR LOVED ONES (forthcoming from Harper in 2018). Her short fiction has appeared in Five Points, Witness, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has been cited in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, nominated for a Pushcart, and has received grants and fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Tyrone Guthrie Center, the McColl Center for the Arts, and the Michener Society.
In this provocative and resonant autobiography, world-renowned artist and feminist icon Judy Chicago reflects on her extraordinary life and career.
The Flowering is her vivid and revealing autobiography, fully illustrated with photographs of her work, as well as never-before-published personal images and a foreword by Gloria Steinem. Chicago has revised and updated her earlier, classic works with previously untold stories, fresh insights, and an extensive afterword covering the last twenty years. This powerful narrative weaves together the stories behind some of Chicago’s most significant artworks and her journey as a woman artist with the chronicles of her personal relationships and her understanding, from decades of experience and extensive research, of how misogyny, racism, and other prejudices intersect to erase the legacies of artists who are not white and male while dismissing the suffering of millions of creatures who share the planet.
DISCUSSION BOUND
This monthly discussion is a place to exchange ideas about readings that relate to artworks and the art world, and to learn from and about each other. Books are available at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café for a 10% discount. To add your name to our Discussion Bound mailing list, click here or call 828.253.3227 x133.
On the day of the event, we will send a reminder email with the link required to attend.
Like most of our events, this event is free. 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!
Romare Bearden (1911-1988), one of the most prolific, original, and acclaimed American artists of the twentieth century, richly depicted scenes and figures rooted in the American South and the Black experience. Bearden hailed from North Carolina but was forced to relocate to the North when a white mob harassed his family in the 1910s. His family story is a compelling, complicated saga of Black middle-class achievement in the face of relentless waves of white supremacy. It is also a narrative of the generational trauma that slavery and racism inflicted over decades. But as Glenda Gilmore reveals in this trenchant reappraisal of Bearden’s life and art, his work reveals his deep imagination, extensive training, and rich knowledge of art history.
Gilmore explores four generations of Bearden’s family and highlights his experiences in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Harlem. She engages deeply with Bearden’s art and considers it as an alternative archive that offers a unique perspective on the history, memory, and collective imagination of Black southerners who migrated to the North. In doing so, she revises and deepens our appreciation of Bearden’s place in the artistic canon and our understanding of his relationship to southern, African American, and American cultural and social history.
Glenda Gilmore is the Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History Emerita at Yale University.
Introducing LEAF’s first master class series occurring on the LEAF grounds at Lake Eden, Camp Rockmont and the historic Black Mountain College. For the first time, you’ll be able to experience camp life and classes from legendary masters in a pristine, natural setting, culminating in a performance on the first day of the LEAF Retreat, May 12, 2022.
There are 2 tracks of study for this year’s series: Writing (prose, spoken word and performance poetry) & Music (theory, history and percussion). Each track is three days in total, with all-day & evening events to enjoy. Check out the full Lineup of artists, full schedule, and different packages below!
There will also be pop-up workshops with several, amazing dancers that will liven up the courses with some creative movement, featuring:
African Dance with Shea-Ra Nichi
Belly Dancing & Latin Dance with Monika Guerra
Click the links below to explore the full Learning Journey schedule and different registration packages! We’ll see you this May for this amazing and uplifting journey into music and writing!
There are 2 packages we offer, The Wayfarer and The Lakeside Dweller packages.
Below are the breakdowns of each package:
Wayfarer Package (staying offsite) – $945
Package includes:
- 3 days of Pre-Retreat master classes (does not include pass for LEAF Retreat).
- Breakfast, lunch and dinner for the days at the Learning Journey. Includes non-alcoholic beverages and (1) complimentary alcoholic beverage at dinner. Additional alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase.
- Special workshops from amazing dancers and entertainers.
- Camp activities such as paddleboarding, rock climbing wall, hiking, and more.
- Performance at Retreat on Thursday evening as part of the Retreat’s grand opening for all members.
- Special activities such as evening performances and campfire jam sessions.
- Electives like the Black Mountain College historical tour.
- Enjoy Lake Eden. A unique way to experience and explore the beautiful grounds that make up the LEAF Retreat and Festival Experience.
Lakeside Dweller Package (staying onsite) – $1,195
Package includes:
- Everything in the Wayfarer package, with the addition of onsite lodging for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited number 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.
The in-person event will include a book signing. If you are not attending in person and would like a signed and personalized copy, pre-order prior to May 12 and use the order comments field to tell us to whom the book should be signed.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. You can purchase online below or in the store. 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!
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth–all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
Hernan Diaz’s TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another–and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.
At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.
Hernan Diaz‘s first novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is also the author of a book of essays, and his fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Playboy, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. A recipient of a Whiting Award and the William Saroyan International Prize, he has been a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His second novel, Trust, is being translated into more than twenty languages.
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!
Marcie Cohen Ferris gathers a constellation of leading journalists, farmers, chefs, entrepreneurs, scholars, and food activists–along with photographer Baxter Miller– to offer a deeply immersive portrait of North Carolina’s contemporary food landscape. Ranging from manifesto to elegy, Edible North Carolina’s essays, photographs, interviews, and recipes combine for a beautifully revealing journey across the lands and waters of a state that exemplifies the complexities of American food and identity. While North Carolina’s food heritage is grounded in core ingredients and the proximity of farm to table, this book reveals striking differences among food-centered cultures and businesses across the state. Documenting disparities among people’s access to food and farmland–and highlighting community and state efforts toward fundamental solutions– Edible North Carolina shows how culinary excellence, entrepreneurship, and the struggle for racial justice converge in shaping food equity, not only for North Carolinians, but for all Americans.
Starting with Vivian Howard, star of PBS’s A Chef’s Life, who wrote the foreword, the contributors include Shorlette Ammons, Karen Amspacher, Victoria Bouloubasis, Katy Clune, Gabe Cummings, Marcie Cohen Ferris, Sandra Gutierrez, Tom Hanchett, Michelle King, Cheetie Kumar, Courtney Lewis, Malinda Maynor Lowery, Ronni Lundy, Keia Mastrianni, April McGreger, Baxter Miller, Ricky Moore, Carla Norwood, Kathleen Purvis, Andrea Reusing, Bill Smith, Maia Surdam, and Andrea Weigl.
Marcie Cohen Ferris, author of The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region and Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South, is professor emerita of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
KC Hysmith is a Texas-bred, North Carolina-based multi-hyphenate with an academic and professional background in food writing, food photography, recipe testing, and research. She is currently finishing her PhD in American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Fine Arts Center, Greenville County’s public high school for pre-professional arts study, is proud to present their first annual showcase. Sponsored by the Fine Arts Center partners, Synovus, Atticus Creative, and Steve Bichel, this event features the top student performers from the FAC Performing Arts Programs – Dance, Theatre, Creative Writing, Digital Film Making, and Music. Audience members will have the opportunity to view work from FAC student visual artists before taking their seats in the theatre for an evening of entertainment by the top talent from the school.
Led by Stewart/Owen Dance Co-Directors, Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart, this open level adult contemporary dance class gradually awakens the body and senses through guided improvisation and a follow along warm-up, followed by foundational across-the-floor exercises and center-work combinations. All experience levels welcome!
In person: $10, pay at the door
Online: $7 suggested donation, contact [email protected] for class link and details.
About Stewart/Owen Dance: Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a husband and wife duo, are the co-directors of Western North Carolina based Stewart/Owen Dance. Their choreography has been presented by festivals and companies across the U.S., and their careers have most notably taken them around the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington D.C. based Company E. In 2017 they made North Carolina their home base where they work towards building a sustainable community for professional dance artists to set roots. They have choreographed music videos for artists such as Moses Sumney, Sylvan Esso and Ben Phantom. Gavin and Vanessa won the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Dance Gallery Festival 2018, were commissioned as Dance Gallery 2019 Level UP Artists, are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Project Grant, a North Carolina Artist Support Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by 2020 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Since the pandemic, they have focused on producing COVID-conscious dance experiences for live audiences, including drive-up performances and a guided walk-along dance exhibit presented in residence with Asheville’s beloved Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
Led by Stewart/Owen Co-Directors, Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart, this class begins with full body conditioning followed by a series of technical modern exercises, and culminates in either phrase creation or Stewart/Owen repertory. Dancers are encouraged to modify for their own bodies and spaces! We recommend this class to experienced dancers who are looking for a fast-paced contemporary class that pushes their physical and mental boundaries.
In person: $10, pay at the door
Online: $7 suggested donation, contact [email protected] for class link and details.
About Stewart/Owen Dance: Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a husband and wife duo, are the co-directors of Western North Carolina based Stewart/Owen Dance. Their choreography has been presented by festivals and companies across the U.S., and their careers have most notably taken them around the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington D.C. based Company E. In 2017 they made North Carolina their home base where they work towards building a sustainable community for professional dance artists to set roots.They have choreographed music videos for artists such as Moses Sumney, Sylvan Esso and Ben Phantom. Gavin and Vanessa won the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Dance Gallery Festival 2018, were commissioned as Dance Gallery 2019 Level UP Artists, are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Project Grant, a North Carolina Artist Support Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by 2020 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Since the pandemic, they have focused on producing COVID-conscious dance experiences for live audiences, including drive-up performances and a guided walk-along dance exhibit presented in residence with Asheville’s beloved Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
The Academy at Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance presents their Spring Showcase on May 14th at 2 pm and 7 pm. This showcase will feature students from all levels of the Academy. Under the direction of Cynthia Ridler, Academy Principal Director, the original ballet “The Velveteen Rabbit” will headline this showcase. This ballet features choreography by many members of the Academy faculty. Also, Academy dancers will appear in original contemporary works choreographed by faculty member Jamie Brege and Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance Artistic Director Heather Maloy.
The Academy at Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance presents their Spring Showcase on May 14th at 2 pm and 7 pm. This showcase will feature students from all levels of the Academy. Under the direction of Cynthia Ridler, Academy Principal Director, the original ballet “The Velveteen Rabbit” will headline this showcase. This ballet features choreography by many members of the Academy faculty. Also, Academy dancers will appear in original contemporary works choreographed by faculty member Jamie Brege and Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance Artistic Director Heather Maloy.
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!
Welcome to Dark Factory! You may experience strobe effects, Y reality, DJ beats, love, sex, betrayal, triple shot espresso, broken bones, broken dreams, ecstasy, self-knowledge, and the void. Dark Factory is a dance club: three floors of DJs, drinks, and customizable reality, everything you see and hear and feel. Ari Regon is the club’s wild card floor manager, Max Caspar is a stubborn DIY artist, both chasing a vision of true reality. And rogue journalist Marfa Carpenter is there to write it all down. Then a rooftop rave sets in motion a fathomless energy that may drive Ari and Max to the edge of the ultimate experience. Dark Factory is Kathe Koja’s wholly original new novel from Meerkat Press that combines her award-winning writing and her skill directing immersive events to create a story that unfolds on the page, online, and in the reader’s creative mind. www.Darkfactory.club
Kathe Koja writes novels and short fiction, and creates and produces immersive fiction performances, both solo and with a rotating ensemble of artists. Her work crosses and combines genres, and her books have won awards, been multiply translated, and optioned for film and performance. She is based in Detroit and thinks globally.
Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts in 1970, but spent most of his life in the South. He studied literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the University of New Orleans. Among other things, he has been a cook on oil rigs and barges, a waiter, and a bartender in New Orleans. He now lives in Asheville.
On the day of the event, we will send a reminder email with the link required to attend.
Like most of our events, this event is free. 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 order online below or pre-order books when you visit the store. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Set during the swampy summer in 1982, this stunning debut novel follows eleven-year-old Sunshine Turner and her troubled father Billy as the secrets of their family’s past swirl around them in the one-road town of Fingertip, Louisiana. During a hot summer of June moods, grubworms, and dark storms, Sunshine discovers stones in her chest – and learns the dangers her coming-of-age will bring about in the yellow house she shares with her father. Without the vocabulary to comprehend Billy’s actions or her own changing body, Sunshine turns to an apocryphal story passed down from her grandmother: in the dark waters of the Black Bayou lives a crocodile with an insatiable appetite and a woman with a mysterious healing gift. As Sunshine’s summer unspools, she turns to the one person who will need no explanation of the family secrets she carries–the crocodile bride.The Crocodile Bride is at once a heartbreakingly tender coming-of-age tale and a lyrical, haunting reflection on generational trauma. Reminiscent of Jesmyn Ward and Helen Oyeyemi, Ashleigh Bell Pedersen is a promising new voice in American fiction.
Ashleigh Bell Pedersen’s fiction has been featured in New Stories from the South, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, Design Observer, The Silent History, A Strange Object, and the New York Public Library’s Library Simplified app. Her story “Small and Heavy World” was a finalist for both Best American Short Stories and a Pushcart Prize, and her story “Crocodile” won The Masters Review 2020 Flash Fiction Contest. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was the recipient of a teaching fellowship and Turow-Kinder Award. She currently resides in Brooklyn.
Leah Hampton is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers and the winner of the University of Texas’s Keene Prize for Literature, as well as North Carolina’s James Hurst and Doris Betts prizes. Her work has appeared in storySouth, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Appalachian Heritage, North Carolina Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times, Ecotone, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. A former college instructor, Hampton lives in and writes about the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Grab your friends, grab your family and join Odyssey Community School for an evening of music, dance and joy! Ticket includes food, 1 drink and headphones for our Silent Disco fundraiser event!
A spectacular professional production by Western North Carolina’s own Ballet Company, directed by Ann Dunn. This event features exciting new work by resident choreographers, including Lyle Laney, Fleming Lomax, Megan Jones Medford, Tricia Renshaw, Sandi Weinberg, and Stephanie Wolfe.
Image by Rose Pillmore.
Led by Stewart/Owen Dance Co-Directors, Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart, this open level adult contemporary dance class gradually awakens the body and senses through guided improvisation and a follow along warm-up, followed by foundational across-the-floor exercises and center-work combinations. All experience levels welcome!
In person: $10, pay at the door
Online: $7 suggested donation, contact [email protected] for class link and details.
About Stewart/Owen Dance: Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a husband and wife duo, are the co-directors of Western North Carolina based Stewart/Owen Dance. Their choreography has been presented by festivals and companies across the U.S., and their careers have most notably taken them around the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington D.C. based Company E. In 2017 they made North Carolina their home base where they work towards building a sustainable community for professional dance artists to set roots. They have choreographed music videos for artists such as Moses Sumney, Sylvan Esso and Ben Phantom. Gavin and Vanessa won the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Dance Gallery Festival 2018, were commissioned as Dance Gallery 2019 Level UP Artists, are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Project Grant, a North Carolina Artist Support Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by 2020 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Since the pandemic, they have focused on producing COVID-conscious dance experiences for live audiences, including drive-up performances and a guided walk-along dance exhibit presented in residence with Asheville’s beloved Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
Led by Stewart/Owen Co-Directors, Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart, this class begins with full body conditioning followed by a series of technical modern exercises, and culminates in either phrase creation or Stewart/Owen repertory. Dancers are encouraged to modify for their own bodies and spaces! We recommend this class to experienced dancers who are looking for a fast-paced contemporary class that pushes their physical and mental boundaries.
In person: $10, pay at the door
Online: $7 suggested donation, contact [email protected] for class link and details.
About Stewart/Owen Dance: Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a husband and wife duo, are the co-directors of Western North Carolina based Stewart/Owen Dance. Their choreography has been presented by festivals and companies across the U.S., and their careers have most notably taken them around the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington D.C. based Company E. In 2017 they made North Carolina their home base where they work towards building a sustainable community for professional dance artists to set roots.They have choreographed music videos for artists such as Moses Sumney, Sylvan Esso and Ben Phantom. Gavin and Vanessa won the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Dance Gallery Festival 2018, were commissioned as Dance Gallery 2019 Level UP Artists, are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Project Grant, a North Carolina Artist Support Grant and were voted “Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body” by 2020 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Since the pandemic, they have focused on producing COVID-conscious dance experiences for live audiences, including drive-up performances and a guided walk-along dance exhibit presented in residence with Asheville’s beloved Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
Annual student showcase of Asheville Academy of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, official school of the Asheville Ballet.
A spectacular professional production by Western North Carolina’s own Ballet Company, directed by Ann Dunn. This event features exciting new work by resident choreographers, including Lyle Laney, Fleming Lomax, Megan Jones Medford, Tricia Renshaw, Sandi Weinberg, and Stephanie Wolfe.
Image by Rose Pillmore.
Malaprop’s is pleased to partner with host Congregation Beth Israel and the Rosenwald Collaborative to present this hybrid event with Andrew Feiler.
There is an option to attend virtually and a limited number of seats are available to attend in person at Congregation Beth Israel. 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. Masks are encouraged but not required for the in-person audience at Congregation Beth Israel.
Andrew Feiler is a photographer and author and a fifth generation Georgian. Having grown up Jewish in Savannah, he has been shaped by the rich complexities of the American South. Feiler has long been active in civic life. He has helped create over a dozen community initiatives, serves on multiple not-for-profit boards, and is an active advisor to numerous elected officials and political candidates. His art is an extension of his civic values.
Feiler’s newest book of photography, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America, was recently published by the University of Georgia Press. This work is the first comprehensive photodocumentary of the program created by Tuskegee Institute principal Booker T. Washington and Sears, Roebuck & Company president Julius Rosenwald. From 1912 to 1937, this collaboration built 4,978 schools for African American children across 15 southern and border states and transformed America.
Feiler’s Rosenwald school images have received a number of early honors. Photolucida named them a 2020 Top 50 portfolio and Photoville selected them for “The Fence,” an outdoor exhibition displayed internationally in eleven cities. They were also part of the Currents 2020 exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. The solo exhibition of this work is now on tour and is on view at the Charlotte Museum of History in Charlotte, January 15, 2022 – June 18, 2022.
Feiler’s earlier book, Without Regard to Sex, Race, or Color, was also published by the University of Georgia Press. Focused on the largely abandoned campus of an historically black college, this body of artistic documentary photography offers a new way into the debate raging in our society about the essential role education has played as the foundation of the American Dream.
Feiler’s photographs have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, Slate, Architect, Preservation, Eye on Photography, Lenscratch, Oxford American, The Bitter Southerner, The Forward, numerous other magazines and newspapers, and on CBS News and NPR. His work has been displayed in galleries and museums including solo exhibitions at such venues as the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, and International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC. His work is in public and private collections including that of Atlanta University Center and Emory University.
Feiler earned his bachelor’s in economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a master’s in modern history from Oxford University and a master’s in business administration from Stanford University. Feiler’s work can be seen at andrewfeiler.com.
Introducing our ReadWNC series! Join the Western North Carolina Historical Association (WNCHA) for these three events. With authors and historians, we will explore the facts behind the fiction in these books centered in WNC. We encourage you to read the books in advance and bring your own questions to the discussion. You can find all three books at Malaprop’s Bookstore here in Asheville.
Each event airs live via Zoom, and will be recorded for later viewing. Register for individual events or for all three at a discounted rate!
The series dates are:
Tuesday, May 24 from 6:00-7pm – Even as We Breathe
Tuesday, July 19 from 6:00-7pm – Guests on Earth
Tuesday, October 4 from 6:00-7pm – The Ballad of Frankie Silver
Our series begins with the 2021 winner of our Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle’s novel Even As We Breathe. Dr. Catherine Frank, Chair of the award selection committee, says, “Even As We Breathe immerses us in a specific place and time, Asheville’s Grove Park Inn when it was being used to house Axis diplomats and their families in 1942, and in the Qualla Boundary where Cherokee traditions are deeply embedded but in conflict with an ever encroaching outside world. But the story of Cowney Sequoyah and Essie Stamper is also timeless and universal, exploring what it means to lose innocence and to find ‘who we are supposed to be.’ Most importantly, the book is beautifully written, with convincing, well-drawn characters and compelling imagery that tie the various stories together. This first novel by an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians exemplifies the quality of the most compelling regional writing.”
About the Presenters:
Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and resides in Qualla, NC with her husband, Evan and sons Ross and Charlie. She holds degrees from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her debut novel, Even As We Breathe, was released by the University Press of Kentucky in 2020, a finalist for the Weatherford Award and named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020. In 2021, it received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. Her first novel manuscript, Going to Water is winner of the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium (2012) and a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (2014). Clapsaddle’s work has appeared in Yes! Magazine, Lit Hub, Smoky Mountain Living Magazine, South Writ Large and The Atlantic. After serving as executive director of the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, Annette returned to teaching at Swain County High School. She is the former co-editor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies and serves on the board of trustees for the North Carolina Writers Network.
Dr. Barbara R. Duncan received her Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. She coordinated “Folk Arts in the Schools” in Macon County for several years, worked for The Foxfire Fund, and went on to spend twenty-three years at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, where she wrote grants, researched, wrote books, and coordinated festivals and community-based programs to revitalize Cherokee traditions. Now retired from the Museum, Duncan teaches Cherokee language as Assistant Adjunct Professor at University of North Carolina Asheville. With a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, she has created a new method for learning Cherokee language and authored a series of textbooks and a website at www.yourgrandmotherscherokee.com. Duncan has written award-winning books about Cherokee history and culture, including Living Stories of the Cherokee, which received the Thomas Wolfe Literary Award and the World Storytelling Award; and The Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook (co-authored with Brett H. Riggs) which received the Presidential Preserve Freedom Award and the Willie Parker Peace Prize. Her most recent book is Cherokee Clothing in the 1700s, published by the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.
Tickets: We hope you will register for the entire series, but individual event tickets are available as well. We also have two no-cost, community-funded tickets available per event.
—For this event only – $5 for WNCHA members/$10 for general admission
—For the entire series – $10 for WNCHA members/$20 for general admission
Note* For those registering for the entire series, you need only to register here once. You will be manually added to the upcoming events.