Events take place Thursday-Sunday, April 12-15, at UNC Asheville, Malaprop’s and the Lenoir-Rhyne University’s Asheville campus.
Author: Doug Gibson
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New book explores how Pink Floyd recovered from the loss of Syd Barrett
After coming so close to the brink of failure, how did Pink Floyd recover? That’s a question Kopp tries to answer in his book Reinventing Pink Floyd, which he’ll launch Thursday, March 8, at Malaprop’s.
Amy Reed’s latest novel battles rape culture with self-discovery
Amy Reed hopes readers will be inspired by the Nowhere Girls’ self-discovery, by their creation of community, and by the way the two processes work together. “The girls of the school realize that they aren’t enemies, and once they start looking at things that way, things start changing for them internally,” she says.
In ‘The Last Castle,’ Denise Kiernan tells the story of the Biltmore Estate
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.
Local author Alexandra Duncan launches her next YA sci-fi novel
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.
Festival aims to boost Appalachian literature and literacy
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.
Asheville writer Kyle James launches his travel memoir
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.
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.