A Summer Solstice Journey of Self-Discovery & Empowerment
Are you ready to embrace the vibrant energy of the Summer Solstice and illuminate the path of your true potential?

Join Adora Winquist, visionary founder of The Love Frequency™, for a captivating 90-minute online workshop designed to ignite your inner light, foster meaningful connections, and empower you to embrace a life of clarity, confidence, and purpose.

During this engaging workshop, you will embark on a soul-enriching journey of self-discovery in alignment with the Summer Solstice, our energetic apex for growth and abundance. In this immersive workshop, you’ll embark on a soul-enriching journey of self-discovery and empowerment, guided by Adora’s personal story and transformative wisdom.

Together with a community of like-hearted individuals, we’ll delve into the theme of ourselves as sacred gardens, exploring what areas of our lives need nurturing and what intentions we want to cultivate in the bright light of the Solstice.

In this Free Workshop:
Through a combination of guided meditations, journaling exercises, and sacred rituals, you’ll create a sacred space to honor your inner garden and set clear intentions for growth and abundance. Adora will provide practical tools and profound insights to help you weed out unwanted creations of the past, allowing the seeds of your sacred intentions to flourish and manifest in the coming season.You will receive a practical journaling template that serves as a powerful tool to support your self-discovery and empowerment in fun and invigorating ways. Adora will guide you to set intentions and document your insights within your journal to fulfill your inspirations. You will have a tangible roadmap to guide your ongoing journey of growth long after the workshop concludes.

As part of this energizing experience, you will also receive access to exclusive meditation recordings with Adora, helping you continue to nurture your inner light and maintain your deep sense of connection and vitality.

Please bring the following items to class:
A notebook and pen
Your favorite essential oil. I recommend lemon, orange, cinnamon, jasmine and rose.
A glass of water.
An item that represents the sun to you.
Connect with Like-Minded Individuals:

This workshop is not just about individual transformation; it is also an opportunity to connect with a community of like-minded and like-hearted individuals. You will have the chance to share your experiences, ask questions, and forge meaningful connections with fellow participants. Together, we will celebrate the light within us and around us, amplifying our collective energy and setting the stage for personal and collective growth.

Join us to celebrate the radiant light within you and all around us. Together, let’s embrace the Summer Solstice and awaken the limitless possibilities that await within.

Key Takeaways:
– Self-Discovery and Empowerment Journal: Receive a specially crafted journal template to support your ongoing journey of self-discovery and empowerment beyond the workshop. This tool will help you stay connected to your intentions, track your progress, and continue nurturing your inner garden.

– Access to Meditation Recordings with Adora:Gain exclusive access to guided meditation recordings that you can revisit whenever you need to realign with your inner light and tap into the transformative energy of the Summer Solstice.

– Community Connection: Engage with like-hearted individuals, fostering meaningful connections and a sense of sacred community.

Meet Your Facilitator:

Adora Winquist: Alchemical Healing Expert; Founder of The Soul Institute; Author of Detox, Nourish, Activate.
Author and expert in the fields of aromatherapy and vibrational medicine, Adora is a visionary in the dawning arena of Quantum Alchemy, a transformative evolutionary path for self-mastery that facilitates healing at the DNA level. She intertwines the divine knowledge and ancient wisdom of essential oils, esoteric philosophy, psycho-spiritual dynamics, and energy medicine through her 25+ years as a facilitator, educator, formulator, and entrepreneur. Adora lives with her two daughters and her partner in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

Foodie Book Club

The Malaprop’s Book Club, hosted by Jay Jacoby, explores a diverse selection of fiction and nonfiction books determined by member suggestion. Click here to see a full schedule of what the club is reading. Club attendees get 10% off the book at Malaprop’s!

The club meets the first Wednesday of every month at 7:00 PM. The club will meet virtually until further notice. To join the club, please email [email protected]

Crime and Politics Book Club

The July installment of our monthly poetry reading series, coordinated by Mildred Barya, will feature readings by Philip Belcher, James Davis May, James Dickson, and Sara Moore Wagner.

This is a hybrid event with limited in-store seating and the option to attend online. 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.

All of the poets’ new books will be available to purchase in-store at the event. You may also call us at 828-254-6734 or order online below. 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!

Philip Belcher is the Vice President of Programs for The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina in Asheville and the author of The Flies and Their Lovely Names, which won the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook Prize. A graduate of Furman University, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and Duke University School of Law (JD), he also earned an MFA in poetry from Converse College, and is the recipient of both the Porter Fleming Prize in Poetry and Shenandoah’s Carter Prize for the Essay. Belcher’s poems and critical prose have appeared in numerous journals, including The Southeast Review, Shenandoah, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. He also served as an Advisory and Contributing Editor for Shenandoah. For more, visit https://philipbelcher.net

“Nothing dies as slowly as a scene,” Richard Hugo once said, and that line came to me often as I read these excellent, often elegiac, poems. Whether writing of youth or old age, of photographs or place, Philip Belcher creates images that endure: windblown, burning leaves become “little kites of fire”, words “bulging creels of speech”. Yet the artistry is always in service of conveying the depths of the human heart. Gentle Slaughter is a beautiful and memorable collection.” —Ron Rash

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James Davis May is the author of the poetry collection Unquiet Things, and a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Creative Writing. Originally from Pittsburgh, he now lives in Macon, Georgia, where he directs the creative writing program at Mercer University. His second poetry collection, Unusually Grand Ideas, was published this year by Louisiana State University Press. For more, visit https://jamesdavismay.com

“James Davis May’s second book begins quietly, chronicling a series of losses, then escalates into a harrowingly exact, artfully rendered portrait of depression: ‘I needed a darkness I’d probably survive / to escape the one I knew I wouldn’t.’ May nails the paralyzing character of his illness and somehow manages, through art and ardor, to negotiate with despair, climbing toward a position that acknowledges darkness but does not deny hope. ‘Forgive me, Love, my difficulties with joy,’ he writes to his young daughter, and to himself and his grateful readers, ‘sometimes the world doesn’t disappoint.’ Unusually Grand Ideas is wrenching, genuine, and superb.” —Mark Doty

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James Dickson teaches English and Creative Writing at Germantown High School in Mississippi. An MFA graduate from the Bennington Writing Seminars, he is the recipient of Mississippi Arts Commission fellowships, was named High School Literary Magazine Advisor of the Year by the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association, and was invited to speak at the National Educators Association 50th anniversary celebration. His poems, book reviews, and essays appear in The Common, Ruminate, Hospital Drive, The Louisiana Review, Spillway, Slant, Poetry Quarterly, McSweeney’s, Sylvia, and other publications.  Some Sweet Vandal, his first collection of poems, was published by Kelsay Books in May.  He lives in Jackson with his wife, their son, and a small menagerie of animals.

“If you’re weary of ironic poems that wink at the camera, welcome to the ardent-hearted world of James Dickson. In Some Sweet Vandal, Dickson finds delight and depth in the everyday, and always in fresh language. We meet a high school teacher who reflects on Sylvia Plath during a school shooter training, a lifeguard in a camp for mentally handicapped adults, a father imagining his toddler’s passage into a future where one day he’ll deliver his eulogy. These are poems that, with skill and insight, connect us with our humanity, and they are a tremendous gift.” ―Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs

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Sara Moore Wagner is the author of the poetry collection Hillbilly Madonna (2022 Driftwood Press prize winner), a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. Swan Wife also won the 2021 Cider Press Review Editors’ Prize. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Sixth Finch, Waxwing, Nimrod, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She lives in West Chester, Ohio with her husband Jon, and children Cohen, Daisy, and Vivienne. For more, visit www.saramoorewagner.com

“Say Dorothy Allison had a baby with Hans Christian Andersen. That ain’t right—I know it, I know—but just say. And say that girl child grows up to wander the tracks, all the while lining up pennies to be smashed on the rails, all the while picking up shed antlers and discarded needles along the berm. And say here comes a fast train, a Christ-haunted train, a train heavy with the freight of West Virginia, a cargo of such great violence and great tenderness that you know the girl is standing far, far too close to all that’s barreling past. She stands so close the force of it blows back her hair; she stands so close you’re sure she’ll get hit and won’t survive. But she doesn’t step back. No, she stands her ground. This, dear reader, is Sara Wagner, writing this book. These poems ache and ache and ache, but not once do they flinch. Read them and prepare yourself to be wrung out, to be redeemed, to be fit to be tied.” –Nickole Brown, author of To Those Who Were Our First God

This event is centered on community and connection while unleashing, empowering, and embracing our true selves on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment. Dr. Jenny Nuccio, founder of Imani Collective and author of “Let It Be Wild”, will share some of the stories behind her book. There will be time for engaging discussions and personal discoveries to encourage attendees to share their “wild soul dream.” The heartbeat of this evening is fellowship and true community that fosters space to dream within the space we cultivate together.

On July 14 and 15, the Friends of Pack Library will be having their annual Super Summer Antique, Collectible, & Coffee Table Books Sale at Pack Library. There will also be a sale in Bookends Used Book Store in the Library during the sale hours.

On Friday, July 14 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. all books in the sale downstairs at Pack Library will be priced as marked. Children’s books will be priced as marked and available downstairs on Friday only. All items in Bookends Used Book Store will be half off the marked price with books in the children’s area of the bookstore specially priced at just twenty-five cents each.

On Saturday, July 15 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., books in the book sale downstairs will be half off the marked price. Items in Bookends will be the same prices as Friday, half off everything with children’s books for twenty-five cents.

All proceeds from the sale will benefit the library.

On July 14 and 15, the Friends of Pack Library will be having their annual Super Summer Antique, Collectible, & Coffee Table Books Sale at Pack Library. There will also be a sale in Bookends Used Book Store in the Library during the sale hours.

On Friday, July 14 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. all books in the sale downstairs at Pack Library will be priced as marked. Children’s books will be priced as marked and available downstairs on Friday only. All items in Bookends Used Book Store will be half off the marked price with books in the children’s area of the bookstore specially priced at just twenty-five cents each.

On Saturday, July 15 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., books in the book sale downstairs will be half off the marked price. Items in Bookends will be the same prices as Friday, half off everything with children’s books for twenty-five cents.

All proceeds from the sale will benefit the library.

Lets discuss The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55711311-the-queen-of-the-cicadas

2018: Belinda Alvarez has returned to Texas for the wedding of her best friend Veronica. The farm is the site of the urban legend, La Reina de Las Chicharras – The Queen of The Cicadas.

In 1950s south Texas a farmworker—Milagros from San Luis Potosi, Mexico—is murdered. Her death is ignored by the town, but not the Aztec goddess of death, Mictecacíhuatl. The goddess hears the dying cries of Milagros and creates a plan for both to be physically reborn by feeding on vengeance and worship.

Belinda and the new owner of the farmhouse, Hector, find themselves immersed in the legend and realize it is part of their fate as well.

“The Queen of the Cicadas” Is More than a Ghost Story

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!

Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters: A stirring defense of Sinéad O’Connor’s music and activism, and an indictment of the culture that cancelled her.
In 1990, Sinéad O’Connor’s video for “Nothing Compares 2 U” turned her into a superstar. Two years later, an appearance on Saturday Night Live turned her into a scandal. For many people—including, for years, the author—what they knew of O’Connor stopped there. Allyson McCabe believes it’s time to reassess our old judgments about Sinéad O’Connor and to expose the machinery that built her up and knocked her down. Addressing triumph and struggle, sound and story, Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters argues that its subject has been repeatedly manipulated and misunderstood by a culture that is often hostile to women who speak their minds (in O’Connor’s case, by shaving her head, championing rappers, and tearing up a picture of the pope on live television). A journalist herself, McCabe exposes how the media distorts not only how we see O’Connor but how we see ourselves, and she weighs the risks of telling a story that hits close to home. In an era when popular understanding of mental health has improved and the public eagerly celebrates feminist struggles of the past, it can be easy to forget how O’Connor suffered for being herself. This is the book her admirers and defenders have been waiting for.

Allyson McCabe is a writer, reporter, and producer whose work is often broadcast on NPR, and her byline appears in the New York Times, BBC Culture, Wired, and other publications. More at https://www.allysonmccabe.com

Living Colour’s Time’s Up: The iconic Black rock band Living Colour’s Time’s Up, released in 1990, was recorded in the aftermath of the spectacular critical and commercial success of their debut record Vivid. Time’s Up is a musical and lyrical triumph, incorporating distinct forms and styles of music and featuring inspired collaborations with artists as varied as Little Richard, Queen Latifah, Maceo Parker, and Mick Jagger. The clash of sounds and styles don’t immediately fit. The confrontational hardcore-thrash metal – complete with Glover’s apocalyptic wail – in the title track is not a natural companion with Doug E. Fresh’s human beat box on “Tag Team Partners,” but it’s precisely this bold and brilliant collision that creates the barely-controlled chaos. And isn’t rock & roll about chaos?

Living Colour’s sophomore effort holds great relevance in light of its forward-thinking politics and lyrical engagement with racism, classism, police brutality, and other social and political issues of great importance. Through interviews with members of Living Colour, and others involved in the making of Time’s Up, Kimberly Mack explores the creation and reception of this artistically challenging album, while examining the legacy of this culturally important and groundbreaking American rock band.

Kimberly Mack is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a music critic, and a memoirist. She is the author of Living Colour’s Time’s Up (33 1/3) (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White (2020), which won the 2021 College English Association of Ohio’s Nancy Dasher Award.

Rachel Angel is an alt-country & indie artist and Malaprop’s Bookseller. Listen to Rachel’s music at https://rachelangel.bandcamp.com/album/midnite-heart-attack and https://www.instagram.com/rachelangelmusic

Join us for a book discussion hosted by the Friends of the Skyland/South Buncombe Library!

This month we will be reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.  The book is available in both physical and digital editions through Buncombe County Public Libraries, and we will also have a few extra.

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!

Please join us at The 2nd Act in Hendersonville, NC for our monthly book club meeting that strives to read books that create a closer knit and more inclusive community! We will meet in person monthly to discuss a book, so read the book (Our goal is to build community first so join us even if you have not read the book) and then we’ll discuss it and enjoy live music after the meeting. All are welcome! At the end of each meeting we will vote on the next book! Put us down on your calendar for every third Third Thursday!

Thank you for your participation and patience while we get rolling!

In June we are reading a book called, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. Please come!! If you’d like to be added to a phone and email list, please message the info to me and I will add you to the list! It seems like an easier way to be in touch with people than through meetup, although I will still be updating this page. Review: https://booksofbrilliance.com/2023/03/13/stranger-in-a-strange-land-book-review/#:~:text=Robert%20A.%20Heinlein%E2%80%99s%20Stranger%20in%20a%20Strange%20Land,in%20unlike%20anything%20else%20I%20have%20ever%20read.