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.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.
Thomas Wolfe Short Story Discussions are a partnership between the Wilma Dykeman Legacy and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial State Historic Site. Our text is The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, edited by Francis E. Skipp with a Foreword by James Dickey (New York: Scribner’s, 1987).
David Sedaris is one of America’s preeminent humor writers. He is a master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers.
Beloved for his personal essays and short stories, David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls and Calypso, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. His pieces regularly appear in The New Yorker and have twice been included in “The Best American Essays.”
Sedaris and his sister Amy Sedaris have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written half-a-dozen plays, which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. He has been nominated for five Grammy® Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. In 2019, the New York Times best-selling author became a regular contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, and his Masterclass, David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor, was released.
There are over 16 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages. He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time 2001 Humorist of the Year Award, as well as the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
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Land of the Sky 101 is a community learning circle for those who are interested in an introduction to the history of Asheville, Buncombe County and Western North Carolina. A nine -part series of readings and discussions is modeled after the themes of the exhibit “An Incomplete History of Buncombe County” mounted in the BCSC reading room. From October 2022 through July 2023 (with a break in December) participants will explore the history of our region focusing on themes ranging from ancient history to the late 20th century revitalization of the Downtown area. Read Learn Discuss Registration is limited and required. Sessions for the 2022-2023 cohort will be held at 10:30 am on the third Saturday of each month at Pack Memorial Library. Sessions run from October 2022 until July 2023. Your registration will reserve your place for all nine sessions, and we hope participants will plan to attend each meeting. If you cannot attend a session, please let us know in advance so we may allow those on the waiting list to participate.
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Kids’ Comedy Tour: Wildly funny, this educational and entertaining tour features the perfect blend of Asheville’s history and kid-centric comedy. Geared specifically toward the 5–12 year old crowd, you’ll explore the town with our famously outlandish tour guides leading the way.
- Perfect for birthday parties
- Makes for memorable school field trips
- Tickets are $27 per person
- Beverages available for purchase at the LaZoom Room
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
Writers at Home is a monthly series featuring work from UNCA’s Great Smokies Writing Program and The Great Smokies Review. April’s event will feature Mildred Barya launching her newest poetry collection The Animals of My Earth School in conversation with Tina Barr.
This event is in-person only. Registration is required, and there is a limited number of seats available to attend the event. There is no virtual attendance option.
Please click here to register for the IN-PERSON event. Note the important event details on the RSVP form.
If you’re unable to attend this event, you can still get a signed copy of The Animals of My Earth School by pre-ordering from Malaprop’s below. For personalization, use the order comments field to tell us to whom the books should be signed, e.g. “To Martha.”
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!
Mildred Kiconco Barya is a writer from Uganda and the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently The Animals of My Earth School released by Terrapin Books, 2023. Her prose, hybrids, and poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Joyland, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She’s now working on a collection of creative nonfiction, and her essay, “Being Here in This Body”, won the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award and was published in the North Carolina Literary Review. Barya teaches creative writing and literature at UNC-Asheville, serves on the boards of African Writers Trust and Story Parlor, and coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café. She blogs here www.mildredbarya.com.
Tina Barr’s most recent book, Green Target, won the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Brockman-Campbell Award. Previous books include The Gathering Eye, winner of the Tupelo Press Editor’s Award, and Kaleidoscope. She’s received fellowships from the NEA, The Tennessee Arts Commission, & the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her poems have been published in The Harvard Review, The Gettysburg Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Journal of Poetry, Crosswinds, Brilliant Corners, Barrow Street, North American Review, Mudfish, Tar River Poetry, Poetry South, and elsewhere. She blogs here https://tinabarr.com.
Praise for the book
In The Animals of My Earth School, Mildred Kiconco Barya gives us magnificent hungers and provocative feasts. Her poems tutor us via insects, mammals, birds, and reptiles in the slippages of time and place and the swerves between “dreaming and becoming” that inform our interwoven habits and habitats. With language and structures that are “sinewed with complexity,” her poems swing between singing and saying, between “praying and preying.” Barya’s spirited, multi- species collection asks questions no answers can satiate. But we are assured that “when we arrive at our door, teeth on edge,/ we taste beyond question what we have become.”
—Laura-Gray Street, poet & The Ecopoetry Anthology (co-editor)
Every Sunday evening Modelface Comedy brings you the best comedians from all over the country
Katie K is an Arkansas transplant based in Los Angeles. She tours the country performing for clubs, universities, and festivals. Recently she’s appeared on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, America’s Got Talent Extreme, and Squished on Amazon Prime. You can hear her weekly on her popular podcast Mostly True Opinions and nightly on a stage in LA.
Featuring TBA
ages 21+ (must have ID with you)
doors at 6pm, show at 6:30pm
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
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 would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, use the order comments field when you order below to request a signed copy and tell us to whom the book should be personalized.
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!
From the New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and “master of suspense, Megan Miranda” (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl), a thrilling mystery about a group of former classmates who reunite to mark the tenth anniversary of a tragic accident—only to have one of the survivors disappear, casting fear and suspicion on the original tragedy.
Megan Miranda is the New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls; The Perfect Stranger; The Last House Guest, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick; The Girl from Widow Hills; and Such a Quiet Place. She has also written several books for young adults. She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from MIT, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children. Follow @MeganLMiranda on Instagram or visit MeganMiranda.com.
New York Times bestseller and Carnegie Medal-nominated author Megan Shepherd grew up in her family’s independent bookstore in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She is the author of many acclaimed middle grade and young adult novels including The Madman’s Daughter series, The Cage series, The Secret Horses of Briar Hill, and the Grim Lovelies series. She now lives and writes on a haunted 125-year-old farm outside Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband and children, two cats, chickens, bees, and an especially scruffy dog.
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
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. Masks are required for in-person attendees.
This event includes a book signing. If you would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, you may order a signed copy below, prior to the event. If you would like to have your book personalized, please order online or call the store with your order at least two hours before the start of the event. When ordering online, use the comments field to tell us to whom the book should be personalized. Please do not email with orders or personalization requests.
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!
Appalachia on the Table argues, in part, that since the conception of Appalachia as a distinctly different region from the rest of the South and the United States, the foods associated with the region and its people have often been used to socially categorize and stigmatize mountain people. Rather than investigate the actual foods consumed in Appalachia, Locklear instead focuses on the representations of foods consumed, implied moral judgments about those foods, and how those judgments shape reader perceptions of those depicted. The question at the core of Locklear’s analysis asks, How did the dominant culinary narrative of the region come into existence and what consequences has that narrative had for people in the mountains?
Erica Abrams Locklear is a professor of English and the Thomas Howerton Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She is the author of Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People (forthcoming April, 2023 from University of Georgia Press) and Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment: Appalachian Women’s Literacies (Ohio University Press). She is a seventh-generation Western North Carolinian who loves good food, books, and conversation.
At the helm of vibrant downtown Asheville, North Carolina restaurant,Rhubarb, Owner and Chef John Fleer presents a dining experience focused on the refined tastes of fresh, uncomplicated food and the power of company shared around the table. His freestyle American cuisine highlights bounty procured from Asheville’s surrounding farmers and producers, and each plate on the ever-evolving menu reflects Chef Fleer’s ability to transform seasonal local ingredients into a world-class dish.A native of Winston-Salem, NC, John Fleer was named one of the “Rising Stars of the 21st Century” by the James Beard Foundation and is a five-time finalist for the James Beard “Best Chef: Southeast” award, as well as a 2020 semifinalist for the James Beard “Outstanding Chef” award.
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
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Puptart is a tail wagging robot dog who sits and stays, pants when listening, and responds to someone talking to and petting it. It will not jump up or run away, plus it’s fur free, so no sneezes and runny noses coming your way! Every Wednesday afternoon, Puptart will be available for reading practice in the children’s picture book room. Help establish a joy of reading and develop early literacy skills. Sign up at the front desk, pick a book and practice reading for up to 15 minutes. |
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 would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, use the order comments field when you order below to request a signed copy and tell us to whom the book should be personalized.
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!
About Indigo Field
In the rural South, a retired colonel in an upscale retirement community grieves the sudden death of his wife on the tennis court. On the other side of the highway, an elderly Black woman grieves the murder of her niece by a white man. Between them lies an abandoned field where three centuries of crimes are hidden, and only she knows the explosive secrets buried there. When the colonel runs into her car, causing a surprising amount of damage, it sparks a feud that sets loose the spirits in the Field, both benevolent and vengeful. In prose that been called “dazzling” and “mesmerizing,” in the animated voices of trees and birds and people, Southern-voiced storytelling as deeply layered as that of Pat Conroy, Marjorie Hudson lays out the boundaries of a field that contains the soul of the South, and leads us to a day of reckoning.
Originally from Washington, D.C., Marjorie Hudson has served as features editor of National Parks Magazine and written for Garden & Gun, American Land Forum, Wildlife in North Carolina, Our State Magazine, and North Carolina Literary Review. She worked as copyediting chief for Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill and received an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her short story collection, Accidental Birds of the Carolinas, first introduced Ambler County and some of the characters in Indigo Field. She lives with her husband, Sam, and feisty small terrier DJ, on a century farm in North Carolina, where she mentors writers and reads poetry to trees.
Andrew Lawler is author of three books, Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City, The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke, a national bestseller, and Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization. As a journalist, he has written more than a thousand newspaper and magazine articles from more than two dozen countries. His byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and many others. He is contributing writer for Science and contributing editor for Archaeology. Andrew’s work has appeared several times in The Best of Science and Nature Writing.
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.
Learn Asheville’s history, discover hidden gems, and laugh at LaZoom’s quirky sense of adventure.
- Guided comedy tour bus of historical Asheville
- 90-Minutes – tours run daily
- 15-minute break at Green Man Brewing
- $39 per person (ages 13+ only)
Please join us at The 2nd Act in Hendersonville, NC for our first monthly book club meeting that strives to read books that create a closer knit and more inclusive community! We will meet virtually and in person monthly to discuss a book, so read the book and then join in the discussion in person or online every third Thursday. All are welcome! At the end of each meeting we will vote on the next book! The virtual club meeting will be in Zoom format and will meet 2.5 hours after the in-person meeting (8:00pm EST). After the meeting there is live acoustic music so stay and enjoy the vibe with your new friends! Put us down on your calendar for every third Third Thursday!
The first book is going to be called Disability Visibility.
Synopsis from the back cover: One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people.
From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love. Preview:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51456746-disability-visibility
Message me for the Zoom link to the online meetup. Thanks!
This live streamed virtual event is free but registration is required.
Please click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Ed Madden is the author of A pooka in Arkansas (selected for the 2022 Hilary Tham Capital Collection) as well as four other books and four chapbooks of poetry, most recently Ark, a book about his father’s last months in hospice care, and So they can sing, which won the 2016 Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. He is a professor of English and the former director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches Irish literature, queer studies, and creative writing. Ed served as the poet laureate for the City of Columbia, SC, 2015-2022. He is recipient of
an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship and artist residencies at the Hambidge Center in Georgia and the Instituto Sacatar in Itaparica, Brazil.
Kevin McLellan is the author of: in other words you/ (selected by Timothy Liu for the 2022 Hilary Tham Capital Collection), Hemispheres (in the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona and other special collections), Ornitheology (2019 Massachusetts Book Awards recipient), [box] (in the Blue Star Collection at Harvard University and other special collections), Tributary, and Round Trip. Kevin makes videos under the name, Duck Hunting with the Grammarian. His video Dick won Best Short Form Short Film at the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival. It also showed in the Flickers’ Rhode Island Film Festival, the Tag! Queer Film Festival, the Berlin Short Film Festival, and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. https://kevmclellan.com/
Brad Richard’s most recent full-length collection is Parasite Kingdom (The Word Works, 2018—
winner of the Tenth Gate Prize). His most recent chapbook is In Place, winner of the 2021 Robin Becker Series Prize from Seven Kitchens Press. He has taught creative writing at the New
Orleans Center for Creative Arts, The Willow School (whose creative writing program he
founded and directed), Louisiana State University, and Tulane University, and for New Orleans
Writers Workshop. Series editor of the Hilary Tham Capital Collection from The Word Works,
he lives, writes, and gardens in New Orleans. More at bradrichard.org.
This month’s short story, voted on during our last meeting, is from the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Elizabeth Strout. The story is ‘Snow Blind,’ which won the the 2015 O’Henry Prize for short fiction.
A copy of the story can be found here:
https://www.vqronline.org/fiction/snow-blind
Join New York Times Bestselling author and UNC Asheville alumnus, Wiley Cash ’00 in conversation with author Benjamin Gilmer on Thursday, April 20 at 7 p.m. at UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center in the Manheimer Room.
This event is part of the Common Word Community Read, curated by Cash. The program brings the UNC Asheville community together to engage in a collective educational experience. Each semester, one book will serve as the focus of numerous virtual and in-person lectures and discussions that will allow participants to delve deeper into the text. Over the course of the academic year, participants will read one book each semester, gaining insights and sharing ideas in a welcoming and respectful environment. Spring 2023’s selection is The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice.
GHOST COMEDY BUS TOUR
Grab a local beer, crucifix and a rubber chicken* —You might survive this hour long hilarious haunted ghost tour of Asheville.
- Guided comedy bus tour of Haunted Asheville
- 60 minutes; tours run nightly after dark
- $33 per person (Ages 17+ only)
- Departs from 76 Biltmore Avenue
*Legal Note: Crucifix not required to board the bus; we do not condone exorcisms, chickens, rubber, or any combination of the three.