As it happens, the author has some things in common with the historic figures whose story she tells. Like Vanderbilt, Kiernan was born in New York City, and like the scion and his wife, Edith, Kiernan traveled widely (including a stint in Italy reporting on soccer for ESPN) before settling in Asheville.
Her book event on Tuesday, Aug. 1, will take place at Spellbound Children’s Bookshop in Asheville, where she first discovered one of her callings.
On their honeymoon, New York Times bestselling novelist Amy Greene and her now-husband, Trent Thompson, rambled off the Appalachian Trail and onto the grounds of the Laughing Heart Lodge in Hot Springs. That serendipitous discovery led to the Laughing Heart Literary Project, which will hold its inaugural festival Tuesday, Aug. 1-Friday, Aug. 4.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
After a full career in law, Surrisi found that she had completed her middle grade mystery at precisely the right moment.
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.
Standouts include Sound, by Alexandra Duncan; The Dragon Lantern, by Alan Gratz; and Mr. Puffball: Stunt Cat to the Stars, by Constance Lombardo.