Rock drummer Freda Love Smith pens a memoir with recipes

When Smith’s eldest son, Jonah, was in his last year of high school, she decided to give him a series of cooking lessons so he’d be self-sufficient when he left home. Those tutorials sparked the idea for a memoir that deftly stitches together family life, stories from her stints as the drummer in The Blake Babies, Antenna and The Mysteries of Life, and personal food-related memories.

North Carolina Writers’ Network celebrates 30th anniversar­y at fall conference in Asheville

“We try to honor the local literary of whatever locale we happen to be in that year,” says Nort Carolin Writers’ Network Executive Director Ed Southern. The three-day fall conference rotates locations throughout the state and this year it returns to Asheville, taking place at the DoubleTree by Hilton Asheville-Biltmore Friday to Sunday, Nov. 20-22.

Author David Gilbert challenges racial assumption­s in modern music

“The idea that black people and white people have distinct music and culture has its roots in racist thinking.”,” says author David Gilbert. It’s a concept he delves into in The Product of Our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace. Gilbert holds a book launch and discussion at Malaprop’s Saturday, Nov. 14.

Ron Rash’s new novel offers poetry, optimism

This sentence appears in the preface to Above the Waterfall, the newest novel by Ron Rash: “I watch last light lift off level land.” It’s just one of thousands of slight, deftly crafted lines. But there, before the story even begins, Rash slows the pace and announces himself, not just as a craftsman of rich, dark Southern fiction but also as a poet. He’ll present the novel at Malaprop’s on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Exploring the modern Western with bestsellin­g crime novelist Ace Atkins

New York Times bestselling author Ace Atkins is set to release the fifth book in his Quinn Colson series, The Redeemers, this month. Atkins has written 17 novels to date, and has been deemed by bestselling author Michael Connelly as “one of the best crime writers at work today.” Atkins reads and signs The Redeemers at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe on Monday, Aug. 3.

Author Megan Shepherd launches one series and sells another

Brevard native and best-selling YA novelist Megan Shepherd, the author of the Victorian Gothic Madman’s Daughter series, recently announced that she had sold The Secret Horses of Briar Hill, a middle-grade fantasy in the vein of The Secret Garden. The book had sold at auction, meaning that editors at several publishing houses bid for the chance to take it on.