Monthly Archives: August 2022

I am a regular reader of the comic strip Zits, which made its debut exactly twenty-five years ago this summer.  Written by Jerry Scott and illustrated by Jim Borgman, Zits focuses on the experiences of Jeremy Duncan, a seventeen-year-old high school student.   One of the aspects of this comic strip that intrigues me is how Jeremy relives his junior year in high school over and over again.  Right around this time of the year, Jeremy finishes his summer job and then finds himself right back at the beginning of his junior year.  Part of me wants to tell Jeremy to drop all of his AP courses since he is never going to make it to college.  However, another part of me wants to tell him to make the most of this latest version of his junior year, for with each new school year comes a new set of stories.  A new collection of Zits comic strips is scheduled to be released in September under the title of Binge-Worthy Zits For readers who want to know more about Zits, please click on the following link:  https://comicskingdom.com/zits/about

As an English professor at the start of my thirty-ninth year at UNC Charlotte, I can relate to Jeremy’s situation.  In the beginning of every fall semester, I have a sense that the grand tempo of my life is about to start all over again.  For me at least, there is something reassuring about having the opportunity to come up with new variations on a familiar theme.  Although the story of each school year has a similar overarching plot, the characters change, the details of the setting change, and in some ways my viewpoint changes.  Such variations are what keep me reading Zits, and such variations are what cause me to look forward to the start of each new school year.

I recently had a conversation with Scott Gartlan, the Executive Director of the Charlotte Teachers Institute (CTI), about how the start of the new school year shapes the lives of teachers here in Charlotte.  I enjoyed hearing Scott’s thoughts on this topic, so I asked him if he would share his insights with the readers of my Storied Charlotte blog.  Here is what he sent to me:

A song that really resonates with me this time of year is called “September Again” by Brooklyn-based, synth-pop band Nation of Language.   The lyrics set the stage for a remembrance of things passed – “So you go back to church to reclaim the feeling, you say you don’t understand why” – and then leads to a somewhat underwhelming take on the passing of time – “And it’s September again, flipping through the same old books.”  These rockers are questioning what it means that time passes and yet we return to places and experiences we’ve known for many years, maybe forever.  These thoughts bounce around my head as I listen to this song sitting at my desk in August.  I wonder how I can find that thing we once had but can’t always locate in our daily lives.  When I listen to this song, I think of teachers and their students as they prepare for another year of hugs and tears, and hard work and triumph, all within the walls of their classrooms in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS).  I think the thing we all want to reclaim is that feeling of hope.  Teachers give me hope.  They give us that hope. 

I direct the Charlotte Teachers Institute, something I’ve done for going on twelve years now.  In my role, I get to interact and support professors at UNC Charlotte and Johnson C. Smith University as they develop and lead seminars for P-12 CMS teachers.  These seminars tap into the content expertise and research of these professors while creating a safe space to discover connections in all kinds of classrooms, from those that teach the littlest four-year-old children in Pre-Kindergarten to the collegebound eighteen-year-olds.  Over the years I’ve had the privilege to support 100 seminars led by more than 75 professors at UNC Charlotte, Davidson College, and Johnson C. Smith University. 

Looking back, I ask myself:  What keeps me coming back each year?  My answer is the hope and love I see in the teachers each year as they begin a new school year.  As one teacher said to me the other day about getting ready for school, “It’s a reset.”  I thought of how much hope and optimism there is in that idea of resetting, starting anew.  For this teacher, and many I know, this time of year is not about the “same old books” as a dry and boring thing, but rather a fresh start, a way to make a new path by growing and learning.  Teachers are doing the same old things like setting up their classrooms, putting the finishing touches on their syllabi, and making sure everything is ready to go when school starts.  But the same old thing is not the same old thing for teachers.  I see them reclaim a hope for something simple and new – a student writing their name at the top of their paper, or successfully solving that tricky math problem.  To me that represents seeing the best in people and with that brings an energizing and dynamic view of the world. 

It’s a common thing to be overwhelmed and anxious when September rolls around.  But I say:  Look to the teacher for hope.  Rather than bemoan the return of school when I listen to “September Again,” I am filled with the hope of a new beginning and the love that teachers give their students each day.   So that is the challenge:  see the world through the eyes of a teacher to find hope, love, and optimism. 

For readers who want to know more about the Charlotte Teachers Institute, please click on the following link:  https://charlotteteachers.org/  I know that the calendar says that January 1 rings in the New Year, but to me, it doesn’t ring true.  To quote a line from a famous U2 song, “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.”  I think for all of us whose lives are touched by educational institutions, the real new year starts at the end of the summer when the schools reopen.  I wish everyone in Storied Charlotte (including Jeremy who appears daily in the Charlotte Observer) a happy new school year full of new stories.  

I have a long-standing interest in Charlotte-born artist Romare Bearden, so I keep a lookout for new books about Bearden.   I am pleased to report the publication of a new and lavishly illustrated biography of Bearden by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore.  Titled Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination:  An Artist’s Reckoning with the South, this biography was published by the University of North Carolina Press in May 2022.  For more information about this biography, please click on the following link:  https://uncpress.org/book/9781469667867/romare-bearden-in-the-homeland-of-his-imagination/

I recently discovered that Kathie Collins, the co-founder and creative director of the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts (more commonly known as Charlotte Lit), shares my interest in Bearden.  She and the rest of the good folks at Charlotte Lit are organizing a series of events this fall to celebrate Bearden’s art and his Charlotte roots.  I contacted Kathie and asked her for more information about this celebration.  Here is what she sent to me:

In October, Charlotte Lit will celebrate the art and legacy of acclaimed artist Romare Bearden, who was born and spent his early years in Charlotte. Though Bearden’s working years were spent primarily in New York, he understood himself as a Southerner and gradually reconstructed his memory of life in Charlotte’s historical Brooklyn neighborhood, eventually claiming, “I never left Charlotte, except physically.”

In iconic collages created in the last 15 years of his life, Bearden reckoned with his homeland in a fusion of memory and mythic imagination that depicts the rich and complex daily lives of African Americans in an early 1900s Charlotte. We’re calling Charlotte Lit’s celebration “Artists Reckoning with Home.” We invite creators and community members of all backgrounds to engage in a similar reckoning through a series of events that provide opportunities to learn about Charlotte’s past and re-imagine its future.

The foundation of the celebration is a new book, Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist’s Reckoning with the South (UNC Press), by Glenda Gilmore, professor emerita at Yale University and herself a former Charlottean. The book is gorgeous, not just scholarly but captivating and readable, with many full color plates of Bearden’s work.

In the introduction to her book, Dr. Gilmore quotes an interview with Bearden in which he says, “Time is a pattern…. You can come back to where you started from with added experience and you hope for more understanding.” Gilmore goes on to write, “His concern was always with the universal human experience, not with his individual human life as exceptional.” I believe this striving for understanding and the seeking of a universality of experience live at the heart of all the Humanities, no more so anywhere than in the literary arts, so this was a natural fit for us. At Charlotte Lit, we love to extend the conversations between the artistic disciplines.

Charlotte Lit is grateful for our partners on this event: NC Humanities, Albemarle Foundation, the Mint Museum, and UNC Press. With their help, we’ve created four free public events, to which all are invited.

• October 12: A Night in Brooklyn: Kevin Jones Experience and other artists perform and converse about generative intersections between visual art, music, and poetry. Studio 229 on Brevard. Doors open 6:30 pm.

• October 16: Writing with Bearden: An Ekphrastic Workshop. Mint Museum Uptown, 2:00 pm.

• October 19: Reading and talk by Dr. Glenda Gilmore on her book Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination. Mint Museum Uptown, 6:00 pm.

• Brooklyn Neighborhood Walking Tour, dates TBA.

Links for more information and registration: https://www.charlottelit.org/bearden.

I commend Kathie and Charlotte Lit for organizing this series of public events related to Bearden and his legacy.  I think it is appropriate that these events will take place in Charlotte. Although Bearden created most of his art while living in New York, much of his art speaks to roots in Storied Charlotte.   

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has a long tradition of supporting Charlotte-area book clubs, but this fall the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation is taking this tradition to a whole new level.  For the first time, the Foundation is sponsoring a competition called Book Club Madness.  The competition officially starts on September 14, 2022, but anyone who belongs to an area book club can register now to participate in the madness.  Here is the link with registration information:  https://foundation.cmlibrary.org/book-club-madness/

I first heard about Book Club Madness two weeks ago when I received an email message from Maggie Bean, the Marketing and Communication Specialist with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation.  She asked if would be willing to feature this new competition on my Storied Charlotte blog, and of course I said yes.  I asked her for more information about Book Club Madness, and here is what she sent to me:

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation has created a new competition just for book clubs — Book Club Madness. Instead of the basketballs and sweaty gyms of March Madness, our games feature cozy homes with friends gathered to drink wine and talk about books along with expeditions to the Library to discover fun and wonder. But much like the March Madness we know and love, book club teammates can score two pointers, three pointers and free throws for their club, along with fun weekly prizes and bragging rights.

Plus, book clubs that score at least 100 points will be entered into a drawing for a FREE table for 10 at the 2022 Verse & Vino event on November 10 with an exclusive private audience with a featured author of their choice — a value of over $2,000 (although we think it’s priceless.) 

It’s easy to join. Just register on the Foundation website and encourage your book club friends to do the same before Tuesday, September 13. On September 14, the games begin!

Each game will feature new challenges every week—for five weeks—like visit a branch, share your favorite book club book, check out a book or e-book, or post a comment on our social media. Once you complete a challenge (or numerous challenges) you’ll enter your points on the Challenges page. Your points will be added to your book club’s total. The point totals for all participating book clubs will be updated every Friday starting on September 23 on the Leaderboard.

It’s free to all and a great way to put your club to the test. Everybody thinks their book club is the best book club. Now it’s your chance to prove it.

Book Club Madness sounds like fun to me in part because it taps into one of the pleasures associated with participating in a book club.  Book clubs come in all shapes and sizes, but they all involve reading and discussing common texts.  For the participants in book clubs, there is a sense of community that comes from having shared reading experiences with the other club members.  These common reading experiences provide opportunities to talk about one’s personal responses to a book, to raise questions in a nonjudgmental environment, and to share favorite moments and scenes from a story.  Sometimes we think of reading as a solitary activity, but participating in book clubs can help transform reading into a community-building activity.  I always say that my Storied Charlotte blog is all about celebrating Charlotte’s community of readers and writers, and as far as I’m concerned, Book Club Madness adds to the fun of belonging to this community.  

My friends at the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts (more commonly known as Charlotte Lit) regularly send out a newsletter.  While reading a recent issue of this newsletter, I noticed an announcement about the publication of the inaugural issue of Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit. I remember when Charlotte Lit announced the plans for this journal about a year ago.  In fact, I wrote a Storied Charlotte blog post about it.  I was pleased then, and I am even more pleased now that this new literary journal is an actual reality. I contacted Charlotte Lit co-founders Kathie Collins and Paul Reali and asked them for more information about the inaugural issue.  They kindly provided me with a write-up, which they titled “Leaping into the Litmosphere.” Here is what they sent to me: 

We spent much of last summer making sure all systems were go for our brand new Lit/South writing contest and the inaugural issue of Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit. This month, just as our graphic designer Mabry Busby and intern Conner Lindsay are putting the finishing touches on the web version of that first issue, the entire Charlotte Lit team is getting ready to do it again.

Submissions for this year’s contest open September 1, which means the team is spending August reflecting on last year’s contest and journal experience as we prepare to announce a new slate of judges for 2023.

The 2022 contest received more than 450 submissions across four categories. The team, including editor Michael Dowdy, spent winter break whittling down that pile of excellent entries into finalists, then sent them on to a stellar group of judges who selected the first, second, and third place winners and honorable mentions whose work would grace the first issue—48 pieces from 40 writers. We think the entire issue is worth reading, but we’d call to your readers’ attention to these:

• Dustin M. Hoffman, who has now joined the Charlotte Lit faculty, topped the fiction category with “This Picture of Your House.”
• Aime Whittemore’s “The Peony” won the poetry category. She also earned an honorable mention for “If No One Opens Us, We’ll Thirst.”
• Karen Salyer McElmurray’s “In Varanasi” took the nonfiction category.
• Amber Wheeler Bacon’s “The Damage” won the flash category, and her “General Sorrows” received an honorable mention.
• Junious “Jay” Ward’s “Imagine Me” placed second in poetry—just a couple of months before he was named Charlotte’s inaugural poet laureate.

Each of our judges contributed a piece of their own, so Litmosphere also features fantastic work from Ron Rash, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, and Tara Campbell.

We’re not sure we fully understood what we were embarking on when we started, and what twists and turns it would take. We were just reading back on Storied Charlotte’s coverage of the Lit/South Awards last August and were reminded of one of those twists. We had spent hours brainstorming and Googling to decide on a name for the contest and journal. After we’d opened entries and were actively promoting that name, we discovered it was not available after all: someone was using that name for a few self-published books. But it turned out to be a gift: Lit/South and Litmosphere are far better names than what we’d first chosen.

So, seemingly just after we’ve shipped out 450 Litmosphere copies across the country, we’re just a month away from opening up entries for the 2023 awards. There’s not much time to rest on any laurels, but we hope the work endures, and are happy to help the winning writers to find readers.

I congratulate Kathie, Paul, and everyone associated with the launching of Charlotte Lit’s new literary journal. This impressive debut issue is a valuable addition to Storied Charlotte’s literary atmosphere, which is also known as Litmosphere.