Monthly Archives: November 2021

Theatre Charlotte’s 15th Annual Production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol

November 29, 2021 by Mark West

The holiday season is all about reconnecting with the stories that we associate with the holidays. For Theatre Charlotte, this involves staging a production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Since 2006, Theatre Charlotte has brought Dickens’s 1843 Christmas classic to the Queen City, and Theatre Charlotte is keeping this tradition alive. Directed by Jill Bloede, this year’s production stars Hank West as Ebenezer Scrooge.

There were some difficult logistical issues that needed to be addressed in order to make this production a reality. Theatre Charlotte’s home auditorium was damaged by a fire on December 28, 2020, and the building is still in the process of being repaired. For this reason, Theatre Charlotte is staging all of the productions for its 94^th season at various locations throughout the Charlotte area, which is why they are billing it as the Road Trip Season Tour. The production of A Christmas Carol will take place at The Halton Theatre at CPCC from December 16 through December 19. Of course, the pandemic also presents logistical problems, and Theatre Charlotte is responding to this concern by requiring proof of vaccination or a recent COVID-19 test in order to attend this production. For more information about Theatre Charlotte’s production of A Christmas Carol, please click on the following link: https://www.simpletix.com/e/a-christmas-carol-tickets-75178

Theatre Charlotte’s annual production of A Christmas Carol has a special meaning for me, for it evokes one of my favorite childhood memories. Throughout my childhood, my father read aloud to my brother, sister, and me every night after we finished our homework. We had no television, so listening to Dad read was our main form of evening entertainment. One of my father’s favorite authors was Charles Dickens, and he read to us a number of Dickens’s novels. One Christmas Eve, he took Dickens’s A Christmas Carol off the shelf and read it to us. Mom didn’t usually listen to Dad read aloud, but that night she joined us in the living room. The reading of A Christmas Carol became an annual ritual. I still cherish the memory of our entire family sitting in the living room, gazing at our Christmas tree, and listening to Dad once again relate the story of Scrooge’s reformation.

The sharing of stories is one of the reasons the holiday season resonates with meaning for so many people, and one such story of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. By staging a production of this classic tale every December, Theatre Charlotte has added something special to Storied Charlotte’s holiday traditions.

Martin Settle’s Creations

November 22, 2021 by Mark West

The other day, I was looking at the home page for Charlotte Readers Podcast, and I saw an announcement about an episode featuring Martin Settle and his new memoir titled Teaching During the Jurassic: Wit and Wisdom from an Old Hippie Teacher. I listened to the podcast, and I enjoyed hearing Marty talk about his experiences as a teacher. What I liked the most, however, was just hearing Marty’s voice again. To hear this podcast, please click on the following link: https://charlottereaderspodcast.com/martin-settles-teaching-during-the-jurassic-is-wit-wisdom-and-humor-in-the-classroom/

I first met Marty when he and his wife, Deborah Bosley, moved to Charlotte in the early 1990s. Marty enrolled in UNC Charlotte’s English MA program during the time period that I was directing the program, so I got to know him first as a graduate student. After he earned his MA, he became a lecturer in the English Department and continued to teach in the department until 2010 when he retired. Marty and I often talked during his years at UNC Charlotte, and I miss those impromptu conversations.

In the years since his retirement, Marty has hardly slowed down. He has published four books of poetry: The Theology of Dunes (Main Street Rag, 2015); Coming to Attention: Developing the Habit of Haiku (Main Street Rag, 2016); The Backbone Alphabet (Xlibris, 2017); and Maple Samaras (Wild Leek Press, 2018). He has also made a name for himself as an assemblage artist. He creates sculptures out of found objects and items acquired at garage sales. His most recent creative project is his memoir, which came out in August of this year. For more information about Marty’s various creations, please click on the following link: https://www.martinsettleartist.com/

I contacted Marty after listening to his Charlotte Readers Podcast, and I asked him how his experiences in Charlotte influenced his writing career. Here is what he sent to me:

Coming to Charlotte and working at the university provided me with the fertile ground for my writing to blossom. There were three people in Charlotte crucial to my development as a writer: Robin Hemley, Irene Blair Honeycutt, and Scott Douglas.

When I first began to teach at UNC Charlotte, Robin Hemley was the head of our creative writing program at UNC Charlotte. Not only was Robin an excellent novelist, but he took his role seriously in providing workshops and readings for the Charlotte community. These workshops and readings primed the pump of my desire to write myself. Further, because of Robin Hemley, I was introduced to a poet, who greatly influenced me – Charles Simic. Simic, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was the poet that I modeled myself after in the beginning years of my writing

Irene Blair Honeycutt has become an institution at Central Piedmont Community College as the founder of one of the most prestigious art events of the year Sensoria. When I first came to Charlotte, Irene had just begun her Spring Literary Festival (eventually these developed into Sensoria), which included respected writers, readings, and workshops. Attending these events, I was able to get inspiration and writing advice from the likes of Miroslav Holub and Mark Doty. Ms. Honeycutt’s own poetry and instruction were valuable as well.

Finally, I am one of the many writers that Scott Douglas has taken under the wing with his press Main Street Rag. For years, Scott provided a monthly reading series at Vin Masters, a wine shop. During this time, I was able to gather the courage to read my works during the open mic sessions. Eventually, Scott offered to publish my first book of poetry, The Teleology of Dunes, and my second book, Coming to Attention: Developing the Habit of Haiku. There is nothing so encouraging as to see your book in print for the first time.

Without the aid of the above Charlotteans, I know my writing efforts would have withered on the vine. Each has contributed key pieces to my serendipitous journey to become a writer.

In the years since Marty retired from his teaching career, he has blossomed as a poet and artist. His creative work takes various forms, but it’s unified by his deep interest in philosophical questions. Whether he is writing poems, creating sculptures, or reflecting on his teaching career, he is always playing with ideas. His philosophical approach is reflected in the titles of some of his works. The title of his first book refers to the philosophical concept of teleology. The title of his best-known sculpture is Descartes’ Dream, which is a reference to the French philosopher René Descartes. In my opinion, Marty’s varied talents and wide-ranging philosophical interests qualify him as Storied Charlotte’s very own Renaissance man.

Of Earth and Sky and Charlotte Poets

November 15, 2021 by Mark West

During the month of October, lines of poetry suddenly popped up in many locations in uptown Charlotte. These poetic snippets were part of a larger multi-media project called Of Earth and Sky. The brainchild of British installation artist Luke Jerram, this project originated in the city of Gloucester in the UK in 2020, and it is now touring the world. Jerram envisioned Earth and Sky as a large-scale poetry installation in which he used lines from poems to form a temporary sculpture trail. For more information about Jerram’s vision for this project, please click on the following link: https://www.ofearthandsky.co.uk/

Of Earth and Sky made its American debut in Charlotte thanks to Blumenthal Performing Arts. In preparing for the Charlotte version of this project, the project leaders and poetry curators associated with Blumenthal solicited original poems by Charlotte writers and then used lines from these poems for the installation in uptown. Although the installation came down on October 31, 2021, the project lives on in the form of a newly published book titled Of Earth and Sky: Poetry Anthology 2021. This anthology includes one poem from each of the 200 Charlotte writers who submitted their poetry to the Of Earth and Sky installation project. For more information about the anthology, please click on the following link: https://ofearthandskyclt.com/poetry-book/

The anthology begins with commentary by two of the project leaders. Bree Stallings, the Director of Artistic Experiences at Blumenthal Performing Arts, describes that project as “a small moment of escape, a way of looking at our city, and ourselves, differently, and to remember we were all put on this world to draw metaphor where there is fact, and to make special the mundane.” Boris “Buzz” Rogers, the Director of Creative Engagement at Blumenthal Performing Arts, explains that the leaders of this project “reached out to the entire city of Charlotte and asked its residents … to share their stories—stories of hope, happiness, sadness, love, loss and all the in-between.”

The poems in this anthology are rooted in Charlotte. The poets touch on the experience of living in Charlotte during this current stressful time in our city’s history. Some of the poems are deeply personal. Some capture a special moment in time. Some are spiritual in tone. And some are specifically about Charlotte or places in Charlotte. For example, Jamaal Cowan’s poem, “Heart of the City” is about the experience of sitting “at the corner of Trade and Tryon.”

I think that all of the poets in this anthology rose to the challenge of sharing their stories. The anthology comes in the form of one 145-page book, but in a sense, it provides 200 glimpses of contemporary life in Storied Charlotte.

Tags: anthology Charlotte poets poetry

Southern Children’s Literature in the Classroom

November 08, 2021 by Mark West

Since last April, I have had the privilege of leading a seminar for Charlotte teachers on using Southern children’s literature in the classroom. The seminar is offered through the Charlotte Teachers Institute (CTI), a collaborative program involving the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), UNC Charlotte, and Johnson C. Smith University. Our last seminar meeting will take place this week. For more information about CTI, please click on the following link: https://charlotteteachers.org/

Over the course of our CTI seminar, we read and discussed several books for children and young adults in which the American South plays an integral role in the stories. We started with Dori Sanders’s Clover, a novel that is set just south of Charlotte. In this novel, Clover, a ten-year-old African American girl, struggles to form a relationship with her new stepmother, who is white. Southern food figures prominently in their efforts to communicate with each other. We then read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred Taylor’s Newbery-winning novel that takes place in rural Mississippi during the 1930s. During our discussion of this novel, we explored the impact of sharecropping on the lives of African Americans in the Jim Crow era. The next novel we read was Bette Greene’s Summer of My German Soldier, a novel that takes place in a small Arkansas town during World War Two. Patty, the central character, is a young Jewish girl growing up in a town there are very few Jews. In our seminar, we talked about the role that religion plays in the story. We then read Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again, a verse novel in which a Vietnamese family moves to Alabama at the end of the Vietnam War. The last book on our reading list was Tangerine, Edward Bloor’s young adult novel that takes place in contemporary Florida. We also talked about Southern folklore and picture books set in the South. After discussing these works, the teachers then developed their own curricular plans involving the use of Southern children’s and young adult literature in their own classroom situations.

What I enjoyed the most about our seminar discussions was how these teachers related the readings to students in their classes. I was pleased that these teachers wanted to provide their students with books about characters with whom their students could relate in a personal way. I liked how these teachers drew connections between the characters’ complex family situations and their students’ families. Many of these teachers have students in their classes who just recently moved to Charlotte from other countries, and they related their students’ experiences to some of the characters’ experiences as recent immigrants. Our discussions were wide-ranging. Of course, we talked about literature, but we also talked about history, folklore, foodways, art, family dynamics, and race relations. As I see it, literature can serve as a gateway to many topics, and that is one of the reasons why literature belongs in the classroom.

I will miss meeting with these teachers on a weekly basis, but I feel reassured that CMS has such caring and talented teachers. In my book, teachers are among the heroes in Storied Charlotte’s grand saga.

Tags: Southern Children's Literature teachers

Celebrating Gail E. Haley, Charlotte’s Winner of the Caldecott Medal

November 01, 2021 by Mark West

Fifty years ago, Gail E. Haley, Charlotte’s most famous picture book author, received the Caldecott Medal for her picture book A Story A Story. The Caldecott Medal is the most prestigious picture book award given in the United States, and Haley was catapulted to the top of the picture book world when she received this award. In celebration of this anniversary, the J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte is sponsoring two upcoming events and an exhibit related to Haley’s “life and artistry.” Adreonna Bennett, the Community Engagement Archivist at Akins Library, working collaboratively with a team of librarians and other staff members associated with Atkins Library, organized this celebration. I contacted Adreonna and asked her for more information. Here is what she sent to me:

Gail Haley is a native Charlottean born in 1939 and raised in the township of Shuffletown, which is a stone’s throw away from the city’s northern edge. From a young age, Haley showed an interest in the arts and literature. Her father, who was an art director for The Charlotte Observer, would bring her with him and through this she learned more about the newspaper. She went on to study art and illustration at the Richmond Professional Institute and the University of Virginia.

Haley self-published her first book, My Kingdom for a Dragon, in 1962. The theme of her initial storybook was an allegory for having dreams that no one else believes in, reflecting her feelings at the time. This book, like many of her works, utilizes wood blocks and ink to create beautiful landscapes and distinct characters. Haley would go on to publish over 40 children’s books to date. In 1971, Haley won the Caldecott Medal, awarded by the American Library Association, for her children’s book A Story A Story. The book retells the West African folktale of Ananse the spiderman and trickster who stole stories from the Sky God to give them to humans. Haley first heard the stories of Ananse during her time living in St. Thomas, and this experience inspired her to create A Story A Story. Still beloved by children and valued by educators 50 years later, A Story A Story continues to touch the lives of young children and adults alike.

In 1976, Haley was awarded Britain’s Kate Greenaway Medal for her book The Post Office Cat, making her the only illustrator to have the distinction of winning both of these prestigious awards. She was also awarded Japan’s Kodai Tosho and the Kerlan Award given by the University of Minnesota Libraries. In addition to her many awards, she also served as Writer in Residence for Appalachian State University. Haley continues to be renowned for not only her mastery of illustration using traditional wood block and linoleum cuts as well as paint and ink but also for her storytelling and her use of lyrical sentences and higher vocabulary in her books.

The J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives is home to the Gail E. Haley Collection, which includes original manuscripts from Haley’s books, woodcut blocks used to create illustrations, and a plethora of other materials. Gail Haley’s oral history interviews can also be found in our online repository https://goldmine.charlotte.edu/

To honor Gail Haley’s achievements in the field of children’s literature and illustration, J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte will be hosting a slate of events:

An exhibit on the ground floor of Atkins Library will display materials from the library’s Gail Haley collection, featuring artwork from of A Story A Story: October 15th-November 29th, 2021
A linoleum-cutting workshop in the Makerspace of the library’s Area 49: November 3, 1-3 pm. Participation is limited, so please register.
A virtual discussion with Gail Haley and Professor of English Mark West: November 8, 4-5:30 pm. Register.

In the fifty years since Haley received the Caldecott Medal for A Story A Story, the children’s literature scene in Charlotte has changed a lot. Charlotte is now the home of many picture-book authors and illustrators, including Vanessa Brantley-Newton, Gordon C. James, Matt Myers, Brandon Reese, and Alicia D. Williams. Still, there is still only one person from Storied Charlotte who has won the Caldecott Medal, and that person is Gail E. Haley.

Tags: picture book authors picture books wood blocks

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