“Anyway, Asheville was a lifetime base camp, but I just realized it will absolutely never be the same or even close to what it was to me ever again in my lifetime.”
Tag: Thomas Wolfe
Showing 1-21 of 46 results
Let’s make the city’s pop-up parks permanent
“With the city bond proposal and some rigorous assertion of eminent domain, we could fight back against this myopic system and turn all these properties into permanent, beautiful parks — or some other development with big green spaces and little crowding.”
Look Homeward: The influence of Thomas Wolfe on River Whyless drummer Alex McWalters
We return with the latest iteration of “Look Homeward,” a recurring feature exploring the life, work and impact of Asheville author Thomas Wolfe on our area’s local writers, educators, historians and creatives.
Asheville Archives: The literal and fictional death of a milliner, 1884
Despite her failing health, Cynthia Hill Wolfe owned and operated the Millinery and Notion Store during the final years of her life in Asheville. Though her death in 1884 did not inspire an outpouring of grief by members of her community, aspects of her life and personality were revived by Thomas Wolfe in his 1929 novel, Look Homeward, Angel.
Local author reexamines his youth in Asheville, 1960-80
Dan Lewis, an accomplished local musician, recently put down his guitar in order to pen his memoir, Growing Up In Asheville, North Carolina: How Music and Art Spurred a Renaissance In a Sleepy Southern Town.
Asheville Archives: Mabel Wolfe Wheaton’s contributions to American literature
Though known primarily as the sister of Asheville author Thomas Wolfe, Mabel Wolfe Wheaton had a story of her own that was published posthumously in 1961.
Around Town: Asheville Arts Council preserves George Floyd protest art with exhibition, auction
Asheville Area Arts Council preserves George Floyd protest art through gallery, auction. Plus, Zoom discussion focuses on Thomas Wolfe short story, local author looks back at 1960s, and HART Theatre presents one-man show.
WNC Scary Stories: Do spirits still roam the Old Kentucky Home?
Was it a house of death and tumult or a peaceful place? Tom Muir, historic site manager at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, considers the Old Kentucky Home during its heyday and the spirits that may still linger there.
Asheville Archives: Literary expectations hound Thomas Wolfe, 1931
Despite public outcries over his 1929 debut novel, Look Homeward, Angel, local residents were still eager to know what Thomas Wolfe had planned next. As pressure mounted to deliver his next book, Wolfe begged his mother to not leak any information to the Asheville press.
Q&A with Joshua Darty, director of Riverside Cemetery
When Joshua Darty moved to Asheville in 2006 with a freshly minted forest management degree from N.C. State University, an open position at the city’s Parks and Recreation Department seemed like a potential fit. But when he showed up for his interview at 53 Birch St., he was in for a surprise. “I’m like, ‘This […]
Asheville Archives: The life, work and impeccable fashion of W.O. Wolfe
Where the Jackson Building stands today, on the southeast corner of Pack Square, a monuments and tombstones business once stood. The business owner, W.O. Wolfe, died in 1922, but his life and personality were immortalized in his son Thomas’ 1929 novel, Look Homeward, Angel.
Letter: Renaming Asheville?
“We could call it Wolfeville — he was a Southern icon who didn’t own slaves.”
Asheville Archives: Death during the 1918 influenza and its lasting toll
“I think the Asheville I knew died for me when Ben died,” author Thomas Wolfe wrote in a 1929 letter. Wolfe’s older brother Ben perished on Oct. 19, 1918, from complications resulting from influenza.
The Whining
Letter: Asheville should address redlining’s tragedies
“We cannot in good faith be praised for tourism, gentrification or other tributes to the mostly white recipients of American hospitality and opportunity without showing up in other ways to expunge, however minimally it is possible for a small city to do so, the mistakes — the tragedies — that our deliberate or ignorant behavior as a society keeps compounding year after year after year.”
Asheville Archives: City residents dream big in 1920
“Western North Carolina is confident, optimistic in the highest degree, and eager to be busy with the tasks that will come to our hands in 1920,” declared local banker W.B. Davis, in a Jan. 1, 1920, interview with The Asheville Citizen.
Locally owned bookstores flourish in the region’s fertile literary landscape
In WNC, say bookstore owners, size doesn’t matter so much as a deep well of literary history and residents and visitors who simply love to read.
Letter: Echoes of ‘Boom Town’
“Shouldn’t Asheville catalog and zone protections for all our beautiful views now that we know City Council could care less about them? Otherwise developers will stomp out as much beauty as they can.”
On the trail of Thomas Wolfe and the Fitzgeralds
Part biography, part travel guide, Bruce Johnson’s latest book highlights key landmarks and locations the three literary icons visited or frequented during their respective stays in Asheville in the 1930s.
Asheville Archives: Thomas Wolfe befriends F. Scott Fitzgerald
Shortly after the 1929 publication of Look Homeward, Angel, author Thomas Wolfe met fellow writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The two did not always see eye-to-eye.
Asheville Archives: Thomas Wolfe returns for a summer in the woods
After eight years in self-exile, writer Thomas Wolfe returned to his hometown of Asheville.