Kyle James wrote on boats, planes and trains, and on the back seats of the hitchhiked rides (obtained through a mobile app) that they used to keep within their $150-a-day budget. Writing became a means of letting go.
Author: Doug Gibson
Showing 1-21 of 36 results
Evidence of pre-Colonial Spanish soldiers reshapes WNC history
Discoveries at an archaeological site in Morganton support an astonishing conclusion: Long-lost Fort San Juan, which may have been the earliest permanent European settlement in the interior of North American, may have stood on the site, which was also the location of the large Native American settlement of Joara.
Comic artist Hope Larson returns to Asheville
Today’s author event, at Spellbound Children’s Bookshop, will be Hope Larson’s first book launch since moving back from Los Angeles earlier this year.
Local YA author launches a ‘Star Wars’ novel
Revis says she doesn’t know how Lucasfilm selected her to write Star Wars: Rebel Rising, a novel depicting the early life of Rogue One protagonist Jyn Erso. But for many familiar with YA science fiction, the local author seems a natural fit.
Joanne O’Sullivan’s debut YA novel arose from a lifelong love of the Gulf
O’Sullivan celebrates the launch of the book at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe on Saturday, April 26. The event will include a conversation between O’Sullivan and fellow local author Allan Wolf, and will also feature the music of New Orleans and the Louisiana coast.
Allan Wolf’s latest YA novel draws on the death of a childhood friend
Decades after the death of Allan Wolf’s boyhood friend Ed Disney, Wolf and his brother set out along a back road near their hometown of Blacksburg, Va., to find the exact spot where two young assailants shot Disney and left him to die.
The Last Dragon Charmer series brings sorcery to Asheville
What makes this particular book launch — held Friday, March 10, at Spellbound Children’s Bookshop — unique is that McKay will be doing it in the city where most of her book’s action takes place.
Sylva native Natalie Anderson adapts the lives of African refugees into a YA novel
A break from the field, followed by a return to Africa, set Anderson to work on the story that eventually became City of Saints and Thieves. Working out of Kenya, she thought about writing a novel set in Nairobi that dramatized the experiences that drove refugees there from the Congo.
Refugees, hurricanes and murders: 2017 in WNC kidlit
Last year, two Asheville writers — Megan Shepherd and Robert Beatty — found themselves on the New York Times Children’s Chapter Books bestseller lists. This year’s crop of YA and middle-grade books of local interest promises to be just as exciting.
Asheville kids film festival seeks entries
The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, a multisite national event showcasing short films based on children’s books, will be accepting films submitted from Asheville until Wednesday, Feb. 8.
Jaye Robin Brown launches an LGBTQ novel for young adults on Aug. 30
The result was a fish-out-of-water story in which Joanne Gordon, the daughter of a successful radio minister, moves from gay-friendly Atlanta to a small-town Rome, Ga., with her father and new stepmother.
Robert Beatty launches the second Serafina novel
According to Cindy Norris, the event coordinator at Malaprop’s, anyone interested in the author appearance should buy their tickets ahead of time, because it’s likely to sell out — a mark of the best-seller status of Serafina and the Black Cloak, the first book in the series.
In her first contemporary YA novel, Beth Revis reaches into her own past
Beth Revis will launch A World Without You at Malaprop’s on Tuesday, July 19. The event includes a Q&A with local writer Alexa Duncan.
YA author Amy Reed talks about her latest book, Waking Life and HB2
Reed is a highly successful author of young adult novels. On Wednesday, May 11, she’ll celebrate the release of Unforgivable — her seventh novel in as many years — with an event at Malaprop’s.
Sara Gruen headlines this year’s Blue Ridge Bookfest
The event, now in its eighth year, is held at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock on Friday, April 22, and Saturday, April 23. Readers, writers and fans of local literature will be able to attend workshops and presentations by authors, and wander an exhibit hall where dozens of local writers will sign books and discuss their work with readers one-on-one.
C.M. Surrisi celebrates the release of her middle-grade novel The Maypop Kidnapping
After a full career in law, Surrisi found that she had completed her middle grade mystery at precisely the right moment.
Local YA and MG books to be released in 2016
Western North Carolina has a thriving community of authors who write for the middle grade and young adult market. In 2015, several of these authors had their work released by the country’s major publishers, and 2016 is shaping up to produce another bumper crop.
Top 5 local young adult and middle grade books of 2015
Standouts include Sound, by Alexandra Duncan; The Dragon Lantern, by Alan Gratz; and Mr. Puffball: Stunt Cat to the Stars, by Constance Lombardo.
Southern Appalachia’s first craftspeople
Discoveries at Garden Creek, an archeological site near Canton, suggest it served as a home for native craftspeople who produced artifacts for a religious and cultural movement that swept ancient North America nearly 2,000 years ago.
Constance Lombardo’s film-loving feline finds his way into a middle-grade novel
By the time the protagonist of Mr. Puffball: Stunt Cat to the Stars made it into print, he had already gone through at least two of his nine lives. Author and illustrator Constance Lombardo will mark the book’s release with a launch party at Malaprop’s Wednesday, Sept. 30.
YA novelist Alan Gratz combines intrigue, suspense and folklore
The newest effort by Burnsville-based novelist Alan Gratz deals with Persian-American teen Kamran’s whose brother, a suspected terrorist, communicates by means of a code drawn from stories he and Kamran told each other as boys.