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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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.

We will begin with a 1-hour small engine diagnostic, repair, and maintenance demonstration led by Community Farm Manager Chris Link. The workshop will be followed at 6 pm by a “Repair Cafe“, which helps folks repair household goods. This Repair Cafe session will be especially well-equipped for small engines and other farm/garden related jobs like blade sharpening, handle replacements, and power tool repair. FREE and open to the public
Farm Beginnings is training the next generation of farmers in the many skills required to start and expand a successful farm business: passion, clear goals, production experience, financial and marketing know-how, and more. Farm Beginnings® will help you build these skills through one year of farmer-led training, mentoring, and networking.
We support individuals in clarifying their goals and strengths, developing agricultural skills, and growing profitable, equitable, and ecologically sound farm businesses. We use a holistic management frame, farmer-led classroom sessions, on-farm tours, mentoring, and an extensive farmer network.
$100 off tuition if you apply by August 1st!
Who should apply?
This course is ideal for those who are considering full-time farming, or part-time farming while pursuing outside employment. Farm Beginnings is a great opportunity for those wanting to change careers to start farming or develop an existing agricultural hobby into a more serious business. Students do not need to currently own land, but 1 season minimum of experience doing farming or garden work in the last five years is required.
Apply today! Scholarships are available.
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.
Halloween can be just as much fun for adults as it is for children—especially if you find creepy things fun to play with! Indulge your dark side this Halloween weekend by creating a creepy curiosity cabinet!
Curiosity cabinets were pieces of furniture or entire rooms where 19th century people displayed items they had collected in their travels or scientific investigations. These Victorians also had a fascination with the morbid and peculiar juxtapositions of people, animals, and things.
In this frighteningly fun workshop, mixed media artist Kate Corcoran will show you how to create a miniature curiosity cabinet that you can pull out each October or display all year round. In the process, you’ll learn how to compose, layer, and adhere mixed media materials: skills that you can apply to all mixed media projects!
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.
Interactive workshop for adult beginners wishing for a stage to shine on (or behind), with a scriptwriting lesson and mock auditions using scenes from the feature script ‘BILLIE’S SONG, AN URBAN FAIRY TALE’.
This fun lesson and opportunity to get up perform is an introduction to the ‘BILLIE’S SONG’ Theatrical Readings Project being planned for Spring 2023. The script has half Black characters and half White (with a few roles that can be other). For the theatrical readings we will be recruiting community members from diverse neighborhoods to be both cast and creative team, with wardrobe, props, and set pieces all obtained in a community scavenger hunt or created by community members. The goal will be to rotate performance locations, from an art gallery to a church to a public housing community center to a storefront business, to draw-in people who wouldn’t normally turn out together.
Script Synopsis: Billie, a struggling working-class Black actress estranged from her family, becomes involved with Benjamin, an emotionally conflicted wealthy white man angling to secure a leadership position he has on a probationary basis. Initially, Billie and Ben amuse, then need and support each other. But the differences in their communities—and the personal demons they don’t reveal to each other—eventually put them up against each other in a potentially violent fight for survival (for Billie physical survival, for Ben spiritual vs face-saving survival).
“I think the script is wonderfully written, well-paced, fun, and serious without taking itself seriously. I especially love the ending!” – Erin Clare, Story Parlor founder, formerly Creative Director of the Austin Film Festival and its Writer Conference
Led by Trayce Gardner (Writer/Teacher/Guerilla Filmmaker/Community Organizer) and recent refugee from Brooklyn, NY, where she taught beginning scriptwriting and short filmmaking classes for seven years at New York City College of Technology’s Continuing Ed.

Join us for our monthly poetry event featuring three poets and coordinated by Mildred Barya. This month, we welcome Sarah Cooper, Barbara Costas-Biggs, and AE Hines. 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. 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.
This event includes a book signing. If you are not attending in person but would like a signed book you may request one using the comments field when you order online or by call the store at 828-254-6734 during store hours.
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! Feel free to email [email protected] with questions. We look forward to seeing you, whether in-person or online!
Sarah Cooper is the author of two poetry collections: Permanent Marker (Paper Nautilus, 2020) and most recently, 89% (Clemson University Press 2022). Her poems also appear in Lunch, Sinister Wisdom, Iron Horse and other anthologies and literary journals. Currently, Sarah is a PhD candidate in Rhetorics, Communication and Informational Design at Clemson University. Her dissertation project explores how spatial practices intersect with lesbian identity. She is a professor of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies at Clemson University where she received the Holman Award for teaching, was a 2021 LGBTQ+ Faculty Excellence Award winner, a 2022 Gentry Award winner for teaching excellence and the 2022 Tee A. Corrine Fellow at the University of Oregon. For more, visit https://www.sarahcooperpoet.com/poetry
Sometimes, a poem can show us a map of the human heart and all its pumping valves, all the blood it welcomes and lets go. In 89%, Sarah Cooper gives us that map from all angles-the love and loss of a mother, the loss and love of self, the way romantic love can scare us into silence. In this stunning debut collection, Cooper splays open these moments of tenderness with precision and skill. This book is both the carving knife and the soothing balm. These poems have an unflinching eye-they see all the way through us and then swaddle us in whole, critical heartbeat of truth. 89% won the poetry prize for the Clemson-Converse Literature Series.
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Barbara Costas-Biggs is a poet and librarian from Southern Ohio. Her work has appeared in Appalachian Review, Northern Appalachian Review, The Pikeville Review, 8Poems, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, The Other Shore, was a finalist for the Washburn Prize from Harbor Review. She holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and an MLIS from Kent State University. For more, visit http://stilljournal.net/interview-barbara-costas-biggs.php
“Things can be idyllic and then ugly,” Barbara Costas-Biggs writes. “A basket of pears in ochre, then piss the same color.” In Broken On the Wheel, the familiar is made strange, as it is in dreams. The speaker of these poems is a mother, a griever, a “hope-against-hoper,” so it’s no wonder this collection is packed with epiphanies and memories and crapshoots—“That in-between stuff./ What we, I hope, are mostly made of.” Broken On the Wheel is a perceptive, masterful debut.
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AE Hines’s debut collection, Any Dumb Animal, received Honorable Mention in the North Carolina Poetry Society’s 2022 Brockman-Campbell Book contest, and was also a daVinci Eye finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book award. His work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Rhino, American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, The Greensboro Review, Ninth Letter, The Missouri Review, Tar River Poetry and elsewhere. Born and raised in rural North Carolina, AE resides in Charlotte and Medellín, Colombia. For more, visit https://www.aehines.net
Any Dumb Animal (Main Street Rag, 2021), AE Hines’s poetry collection, presents a memoir-in-verse as told by a gay man raised in the rural South who comes of age during the AIDS crisis. Flashing back and forth in time, a cast of recurring characters and circumstances are woven into a rich tale of survival and redemption, exploring one man’s life as a queer son, father, and husband, over a span of more than thirty years.
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.
Looking for a great holiday gift? You’ve probably seen these super soft, super snuggly blankets in your favorite home goods store for over $100. Now you can make your own for a lot less, once you learn the technique. No knitting experience required!
Non-knitter Pam Robbins will step you through the process. First, she’ll show you how to “cast on” to start your project. Then, you’ll learn how to “knit” your blanket until it’s approximately 45”x 60”. Finally, Pam will show you how to “bind off” your piece to give it a professional look. And you’ll do all of this using just your hands; no needles required!
Inspired by nature and following the self-published released of How to Heal the Planet from Wherever You Are, Cortina Jenelle introduces Oshanna Church of Spiritual Activism, with Oshanna debuting as a dynamic experience rooted in ceremony and inviting nature as a co-facilitator through theater, art and spoken word. After each production, all ticket proceeds are donated to a mission partner who is doing work in service to Mother Earth while also furthering truth, healing and reconciliation across race, gender and class.
Black Starseed: Immaculate Conception is the second installment of the Black Starseed series, which goes back in time as a prelude to Black Starseed: Revolutionary Reimagination (2020) – a debut partnership between adé PROJECT and PechaKucha Asheville co-creating a storytelling experience in voice of Black women at the intersection of creativity x spirituality. In this prelude, the life story of Cortina Jenelle becomes a moving memoir and an embodiment of a shared story from the matriarchs of Black, indigenous descent in a world where femininity, Blackness, sovereignty and indigeneity were not just criminal, but a threat to society. Black Starseed: Immaculate Conception may appear to just tell the story of one, yet is actually one version of the same story that constantly loops through time. Do you know how purposeful, brilliant and divine you already are, Starseed? This is heart song of the black sheep generation + millennials, and those born torn between ancestral remembrance and playing the game of life to win. Join us in a gathering of art, theater, ceremony (with a bonus book signing post-show) and storytelling and leave reminded of how to heal the planet from wherever you are.
Ticket proceeds benefit cleanup of the French Broad River with our mission partner for this show, Asheville Greenworks.

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.
Looking for a great holiday gift? You’ve probably seen these super soft, super snuggly blankets in your favorite home goods store for over $100. Now you can make your own for a lot less once you learn the technique. No knitting experience necessary!
Purple Crayon owner Pam Robbins will step you through the process. First, she’ll show you how to “cast on” to start your project. Then, you’ll learn how to “knit” your blanket until it’s approximately 45”x 60”. Finally, Pam will show you how to “bind off” your piece to give it a professional look. And you’ll do all of this using just your hands; no needles required!
This holiday season, give your friends and family (or yourself) beautiful alcohol ink gifts that they can use to accessorize their home or wardrobe!
If you’ve been wanting to try a new and vibrant medium that works on a wide variety of materials and surfaces, you’ll love alcohol inks. As you drip, blow, and manipulate the brilliant colors of this art form, you’ll be amazed at the intricate patterns that emerge!
The multi-talented Deana Murchison will show you how to create beautiful, professional-looking artwork with very little effort. You’ll leave with at least one print, a ceramic coaster(s), a fashionable 11”x60” silk scarf, and a nifty stuffable cotton tote. Only you (and your fellow classmates, of course!) will know how quick and easy your masterpieces were to make!
No dyeing, drawing, or painting experience necessary!
We are grateful to offer a benefit event again this December, the first since 2019.
This year’s performance will feature Chautauqua performer Carol Kessler, as Emily Dickinson, and the Asheville Flute Choir lending their talents to benefit Our Voice.
In the spirit of inclusivity and equity, PAN HARMONIA offers donation-based, pay-as-you-can community concerts. All are welcome.
Our VOICE serves all individuals in Buncombe County affected by sexual assault and abuse, through counseling, advocacy and education. https://www.ourvoicenc.org/
Advanced reservations are encouraged, as seating is limited. Those planning to attend are expected to be fully vaccinated for the safety of our community.
Email [email protected] or call the office at (828) 254-7123, if you have questions.
panharmonia.org
Though we usually don’t get a lot of snow in Asheville, this super cute needle felted snowman is sure to get you into the holiday spirit! Join us for this fun workshop with fiber artist, Camille Daunno.
In just a few hours, you’ll learn the basics of needle felting, including what fibers are appropriate for creating a needle felted structure, how to build a three-dimensional piece (and how to shorten the process by using a Styrofoam ball), and how to embellish creations by needle felting details and attaching accessories.
You’ll leave the class with an adorable 8-1/2” free-standing snowman that will make a charming addition to any seasonal décor!
Punch Bucket Lit, West Asheville’s reading series at Cellarest Beer Project is back for more live readings in our taproom featuring authors Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn and Emily Paige Wilson. While the authors vary month-to-month you can always count on inspiring poetry, moving essays and heartfelt original literary works read aloud in the contemplative company of other lit nerds and creative types alike. We’ll booze, we’ll listen, we’ll feel feelings and we’ll see the world through a different lens for an evening.
– FULLY SEATED SHOW
THE MOTH resumes their recurring monthly Asheville StorySLAM at The Grey Eagle on the third Thursday of each month through December at 7:30pm! This month’s theme is….
ANNIVERSARY: Prepare a five-minute story about milestones. Enduring love or loss. The fondness of nostalgia and the lessons of growth. Seconds, minutes, hours, or when time stood still. Paper or silver…extra points if you make it to platinum. Rejoice or reflect on the past while plotting the course ahead. Cheers to many more years!
Camps are Mon-Thurs, December 19-23 and 26-29th from 9:00 am – 3:30 pm, with a daily and weekly sign-up option!
The age group for these camp sessions is 6-11-years-old (K-5th grade).
Sign up for Session 1 here: https://ashevillescience.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5af64a890dd5e292ce82d197b&id=8f3d934c4e&e=16408a818c
Daily rates start at $60 per participant/day and $225 per participant/week!
To learn more, contact [email protected].
Poetry Open Mic Hendo is the all-new sister event of Poetry Open Mic Asheville, the longest-running open mic in Western North Carolina, this weekly event welcomes all people and all forms of creative expression at Hendersonville’s only Kava lounge.
Camps are Mon-Thurs, December 19-23 and 26-29th from 9:00 am – 3:30 pm, with a daily and weekly sign-up option!
The age group for these camp sessions is 6-11-years-old (K-5th grade).
Sign up for Session 2 here: https://ashevillescience.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5af64a890dd5e292ce82d197b&id=dd3c976dc2&e=16408a818c
Daily rates start at $60 per participant/day and $225 per participant/week!
To learn more, contact [email protected].
Gelli printing is an easy, innovative way to create vibrant, one-of-a-kind monoprints. The results are striking, and all you need is a gelli plate, acrylic paint, and some kind of substrate (paper, canvas, etc.). In this fun, hands-on workshop, paper artist Kristen Grady will teach you everything you need to get started with this super versatile process.
Among other techniques, you’ll learn how to build multiple layers of design, create textures and an “old wall” look, and add stenciling and shimmer to your prints. Kristen will also teach you how to create two-sided prints, work with multiple prints at the same time, create a theme for your prints, use thick and thin paints in different ways, and find your color palette.
There will be plenty of time to practice each technique, and you’ll complete at least four, two-sided prints. You’ll also leave with plenty of ideas on how to use your finished prints, including incorporating them into junk journals, and how to care for and store your gelli plate, which will be yours to keep—a $25 value!
Do you have intentions to start making art, but for some reason aren’t? Or were you making stuff all the time, but now it’s become a chore to get into your studio? Whether you’re struggling to get going with your art or have fallen into a creative slump, this workshop is for you!
Join creativity coach and veteran instructor Robyn Crawford as she takes you on an exciting, 4-week artistic adventure that’s sure to get your creative juices flowing! In this 12-hour, highly interactive course, you’ll kickstart your creativity by watching interesting artistic techniques, solving challenging creativity-building puzzles, participating in stimulating cross-media art experiments, working through selected The Artist’s Way best practices, and doing fun, optional homePLAY assignments.
We’re excited to finally get to offer this popular course. Don’t put your art (and YOU!) on the back burner again. Register today and make 2023 your most inspired year yet!
January is the perfect time to start keeping a “junk journal”: a hand-made book used to collect and store daily memories, mementos, photos, collages, inspiring quotes, or anything you want to remember. You can also use junk journals as art journals, a place for collage or daily gratitude lists, or to inspire a daily art practice in general. In this highly imaginative workshop, paper artist Kristen Grady will show you how to design a junk journal to fit your needs.
You’ll start by cutting and sizing an empty cereal box to create the cover for your journal. After strengthening and decorating your cover, you’ll learn how to turn your precious papers—including any gelli prints that you may have made in Kristen’s Introduction to Gelli Printing workshop—and actual “junk” mail into various types of pages (decorative, envelope, writing, etc.) until you fill your book. Next, Kristen will show you how to stitch your pages into the cover and then go over ways to fill in your journal as you go. You’ll be surprised at how full your book can become in just an afternoon! Finally, you’ll add decor, embellishments, and ephemera to finish your project.
You’ll leave the workshop with a beautiful, personalized keepsake that’s anything but junk! You’ll also have a newfound appreciation for the useful and beautiful creations you can make out of things that you used to throw away!
Performers: Get out of your head and inhabit your character!
In this workshop, acting coach, director and performer Jamie Knox will lead you through a series of exercises to:
– Make your work more physically dynamic
– Prepare for giving a memorable audition
– Approach a character from the outside in, to work quickly with new direction
– Talk yourself up…to yourself! Learn the art of getting into a good headspace and focusing on being a character, not acting
– Work on a specific monologue OR learn to work with any piece given to you
Sunday, January 15th, 2:30pm – 5:30pm
at The Magnetic Theatre
375 Depot St, Asheville NC 28801
About the instructor:
Jamie Knox juggles writing, directing, and acting in plays with running a yoga business and wrangling a four-year-old. She has been coaching characterization since 2008 and is a strong believer in being the character, not simply pretending to be the character. In this workshop expect to be challenged to get out of your head and into your body, finding more authenticity in your work.
Take your business to the next level!A comprehensive business innovation program designed to assist for-profit, not-for-profit, and family-owned businesses to the next level of success.
This program begins January 18, 2023, and meets 8:30 am – 1 pm every other Wednesday for five months.
Mission Acceleration Business Accelerator is designed by entrepreneurs to help for-profit, family owned, and nonprofit businesses innovate and increase profitability. If you approach the business the same way as you did in the past, it will limit future profit growth.Now is the time to innovate with cutting edge best practices in business management, leadership, planning, branding, marketing, sales, accounting, purchasing, raising capital, information technology, human resources, time management, new business development, operations and distribution. The Program will help you identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in each department of your company to track, monitor and accelerate the success of your business. Peter Drucker said, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
This virtual event is free but registration is required.
Jameka Williams holds an MFA in poetry from Northwestern University. Her poetry has been published in Prelude Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, and Gulf Coast, among others. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she resides in Chicago, Illinois.
Diamond Forde’s debut collection, Mother Body, is the winner of the 2019 Saturnalia Poetry Prize. Forde has received numerous awards and prizes, including a Pink Poetry Prize, a Furious Flower Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. You can find more at her website, www.diamondforde.com.
Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Kendra Allen is the author of The Collection Plate and When You Learn the Alphabet, an essay collection that won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. She writes the music column Make Love in My Car for Southwest Review, and her memoir, Fruit Punch, is out now. You can keep up with her work at KendraCanYou.com.


