• Poet Diana Pinckney, author Green Daughters, takes part in Poetrio at Malaprop’s (55 Haywood St., Asheville) on Sunday, May 1. The event begins at 3 p.m.; Pinckney is joined by the Rooftop Poets’ Barbara Gravelle and Matthew Mulder.
• Michael Parker, author of The Watery Part of the World, comes to Malaprop’s on Friday, May 6. About the book: “Parker dares take the risk of combining two historical facts: first, that Theodosia Burr, daughter of vice president Aaron Burr, disappeared in 1813 while en route by schooner from South Carolina to New York. This is merged along with the true story of how in 1970, two elderly white sisters and their black caretaker were the last townspeople to inhabit a small barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. Spanning many generations, Parker brings these two moments together to create a wholly original and chilling tale of love and the limits it reaches.”
• Warren Willson MFA program grad Robin Black will read from her book, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, at Malaprop’s on Monday, May 9. About Black’s collection of stories: “A philandering father learns the limits of his ability to fool his blind daughter about who he is. An artist paints the portrait of a man suffering from dementia while she mourns the end of a long love affair. A fifth grade show-and-tell session reveals the world to be stranger and more dangerous than one girl ever imagined. …These stories are populated with men and women who face losses both real and unexpected and who emerge from the experience sometimes stronger, sometimes newly uncertain, but never the same.”
• Waynesville-native author Donald Davis recently published Tales from a Free-Range Childhood. He has a number of booksigning events coming up, including
– Tuesday, May 10, 4:30 p.m. at Fountainhead Bookstore (408 Main St., Hendersonville)
– Wednesday, May 11, 3 p.m. at City Lights Bookstore (3 E. Jackson St., Sylva)
– Wednesday, May 11, 7 p.m. at Malaprop’s
– Thursday, May 12, 6:30 p.m. at Blue Ridge Books (152 South Main St., Waynesville)
About the book: “Readers will follow Davis and his younger brother Joe as they grow from toddlers to young adults, playing in cow pies and playing jokes on the babysitter. The book shares why 28 second-graders petitioned the school board to reestablish paddling as their preferred method of punishment, instead of the new policy of ‘suspension,’ which they believed to be hanging. It also tells of how the two boys deal with typical childhood events: broken bones and braces.”
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