Pressing Matters

The Product of the ’60s Fashion Show features local stylists and clothing purveyors, including designers Charles Josef, Kristina Benshoff, Simone Berhardt, Aurora Moulin, Rhetorical Factory and Danielle Miller of Royal…

Vampires in the Lemon Grove is not your average collection of short stories. From the title tale, about a pair of immortal beings who quench their thirsts with fresh fruit,…

The Squirm Burpee Circus is a cartoony, over-the-top “vaudevillian melodrama” complete with slapstick comedy, daredevil juggling and a host by the name of Baron Vegan von Hamburger. According to a…

“What’s with the flower?” is a question John Brute has become accustomed to answering on March 1 each year.  Since his youth in the small Welsh town of Mochdre, which…

It's not every rapper who's honored with a bobblehead likeness. Then again, Blowfly (aka Clarence Reid) is not just any rapper. Performing in a cape, mask and yards of gold…

Arooj Aftab is one of Pakistan’s few female guitarists. She’s also one of NPR’s top 100 composers under 40, founder of Rebuild Pakistan — an initiative that began in response…

For longtime Asheville music fans, it might still feel that Future Islands is a local band. The group got its start in Greenville, N.C., as members of the lo-fi new…

Art and craft. They share similar audiences, but split crowds when it comes to applying those definitions to the work itself. It’s a dialogue that’s most often played out in…

OpenDoors of Asheville hosts its “Art Affair 2014: One Night in New Orleans” art auction and gala Saturday, March 1. More than a dozen restaurants, bars and social lounges will…

DOUGH’s classroom kitchen was designed to look and feel like a typical home kitchen, says the chef and owner Brian Ross. And it’s probably true that many of us would…

Fika is the Swedish tradition of taking time each day to share and savor coffee with family and friends. In the middle of downtown Asheville, I found the perfect little…

Short Street Cakes will celebrate its fifth year in business on Tuesday, March 4, by partnering with its Haywood Road neighbor, Urban Orchard Cider Co., and turning the bakery's annual…

When you walk into the Twin Leaf space, it’s clear that the brewing system is the pride and joy. The 10-barrel setup is the first thing you notice. While the…

“I'm scared sometimes,” says local activist Basil Soper, an A-B Tech student who, more than a year ago, began challenging the school’s requirement that students use their legal name in…

Powerlifter Jennifer Payne pushes her limits in life and sport. Photos by Josh Vaughn

Launched by Caty Carlin and Connie Schrader of the Asheville Center for Arts and Medicine, the Asheville Arts in Medicine Summit is open to artists, healthcare providers and anyone interested…

An extensive joint study by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force highlights the hazards transgender people face. Among the findings of the…

Early March is a key season to study up on new techniques and approaches for growing in the Southeast. For the past 21 years, professional farmers and amateur gardeners alike…

About 50 people squeezed into Firestorm Café and Books on Feb. 19 to talk about the café’s upcoming relocation and restructuring. Firestorm’s worker-owners were expecting a fraction of that turnout,…

Their argument wasn’t quite toxic, but Buncombe County Commissioners fiercely debated a resolution extolling the virtues of green cleaning Feb. 18. Pushed by Vice Chair Ellen Frost, the “Resolution Regarding…

On Feb. 15, roughly 5,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled in West Asheville, much of it flowing into Hominy Creek and the French Broad River. The source was an above-ground…

I hope that I am not alone in my supreme discomfort at the casual discussions our City Council is having regarding placing a larger surveillance network of cameras in downtown.…

Thanks for your reply to my EV letter, Melissa [Oglesbee] [“Are Electric Vehicles the Answer?” Feb. 12, Xpress]. My complaint was about the tax on innovation by the state, seemingly…

Mark Bennett’s sales pitch for bison consumption [“Reviving the Herd,” Feb. 5, Xpress] contained several erroneous statements. First, he claimed that unlike beef cattle, bison don’t need hormones or antibiotics.…

My family and I have owned property adjacent to the Coggins’ property on Old Farm School Road referenced in the article, [“Colliding Visions,” Jan. 22, Xpress] for 70 years. The…

Acquisition of white trolley company by red trolley company has many worried about homogenization of local trolley services