Monthly Archives: September 2024

Issue Four of Litmosphere 

September 29, 2024 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

When I saw the news about the publication of Charlotte Lit’s latest issue of Litmosphere, I remembered hearing that Charlotte Lit was planning to make some changes to their literary journal beginning with this issue.  Curious about these changes, I contacted Kathie Collins, the Editor-in-Chief of Litmosphere, and asked her for more information about the latest issue.  Here is what she sent to me:

Hi, Mark. The Fall 2024 issue of Litmosphere is live online, and we couldn’t be more pleased to share with readers these outstanding stories and poems by thirty writers from Charlotte and around the world. The issue also features beautifully evocative hand-cut collages by artist Wendy Balconi. We hope readers will agree that by combining fantastic writing with thought-provoking visual imagery the new Litmosphere is something the entire Charlotte Lit community can be proud of!

North Carolina is well-represented in the issue. We’re pleased to publish works by Sarah Archer, Joseph Bathanti, Steve Cushman, Christopher Davis, Michael Dechane, Mary Alice Dixon, Paul Jones, Eric Nelson, David Radavich, Lucinda Trew, and George T. Wilkerson.

This is the fourth issue of Litmosphere and the first since revisioning our journal last spring. As you’ve written about, Mark, for three years Litmosphere was home for Charlotte Lit’s Lit/South Awards winners and finalists. We gained essential experience running a contest-based journal and we leave Lit/South behind with mixed feelings. We were able to engage writers with huge national prominence as contest judges, and we had the good fortune to select winners and finalists among some excellent stories and poems that came in from throughout our region. But we started to question the contest model and the less-than-friendly landscape for writers seeking to find homes for their work. We’ve re-envisioned Litmosphere as an oasis in the desert of long response times and impersonal rejection notes. As writers ourselves, we know submitters are putting real skin (thick or thin) into the game and deserve our full attention and respect. 

Here’s some essential info for anyone interested in reading Litmosphere and submitting their work.

You can read Litmosphere online at https://litmosphere.charlottelit.org. We now publish two issues per year, in March and September, with submissions accepted in the first weeks of January and July. We pledge to respond quickly—no more than four weeks—and most often with a personal note. We curate writing selections with thematic resonances, pay every contributor a meaningful honorarium, and elevate the reading experience with visual art and a user-friendly web platform. 

We’d love to hear what people think of our re-visioned journal—what’s working and what tweaks might take our journal even higher into the Litmosphere!

I congratulate Kathie and all of the good folks at Charlotte Lit on the publication of the fourth issue of Litmosphere. I also congratulate them on their willingness to embrace change.  One of the reasons Charlotte Lit is such a vital part of Storied Charlotte is that is never rests on its laurels.   

Tags: Charlotte Lit

The 11th Annual Celebration of Verse & Vino

September 15, 2024 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

The eleventh annual celebration of Verse & Vino, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation’s grand literary gala and fundraiser, will take place in the Charlotte Convention Center on November 7, 2024.  This event will feature New York Times best-selling authors, wine, and food.  I contacted Maggie Bean, the Director of Communications for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation, and asked her for more information about this year’s Verse & Vino event.  Here is what she sent to me:

On Nov. 7, 2024, guests will have a one-of-a-kind opportunity to hear from New York Times bestselling authors Emiko Jean, Edward Lee and Jessica Shattuck, as well as Oscar-shortlisted producer and debut author Essie Chambers.

Presented by PNC Bank and emceed by radio legend Sheri Lynch, the signature evening program will showcase the shared joy that stems from reading and writing – and the importance of libraries and literacy in our community.  The more than 1,300 expected attendees will experience a true sense of fellowship and spirit during the celebratory fundraising event at the Charlotte Convention Center.

This year’s Verse & Vino welcomes the following authors and their latest books, including: 

  • Emiko Jean with The Return of Ellie Black: A suspenseful page-turner that made horror legend Stephen King call it “a page-turning suspense novel, a shrewd character study, and a captivating mystery, all at the same time. The last fifty pages are magnetic. I couldn’t put it down until I’d experienced every last twist and turn.”
  • Edward Lee with Bourbon Land: An ode to his old Kentucky whiskey; celebrated chef  and PBS personality Vivian Howard said “If you think Kentucky whiskey only makes sense in a glass, let Chef Edward Lee’s unmatched prose show you how bourbon eats as good as it drinks.”
  • Essie Chambers with Swift River: The debut novel is a Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club pick and was recently longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2024 First Novel Prize.
  • Jessica Shattuck with Last House: New York Times called it “a richly detailed, slow-burning family saga distinguished by incisive psychological insight and masterful research.”

New this year, guests will have access to more than authors (Verse) and wine (Vino). Kentucky distillery Heaven Hill has graciously offered to sponsor a limited-edition bourbon cocktail, which will be showcased in Edward Lee’s author vignette and served at his book-signing table.

Verse & Vino is an annual fundraiser for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation, which supports the CommonSpark campaign, including building a new Main Library; programs, services, digital and print collections; and a growing endowment for the future needs of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. 

This year, the Library Foundation hopes to raise $600,000 to support the Library’s mission to create a community of readers and empower individuals with free access to information and the universe of ideas.

More information about Verse & Vino and this year’s featured authors is available at foundation.cmlibrary.org/events/verse-vino, and tickets can be purchased online or by calling Teleia White (704) 416-0803.

I attended the very first Verse & Vino event in 2013, and I remember how much I enjoyed the evening.  Since then, I have been impressed with how Verse & Vino has established itself over the past eleven years as one of our community’s premier cultural events.  While Verse & Vino is an important fundraiser for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, it is also a celebration of libraries, literacy, and books.  As a long-time supporter of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, I believe that participating in Verse & Vino is wonderful way to engage in our Storied Charlotte community and support our storied public library.

Darin Kennedy’s New Fantasy Series 

September 08, 2024 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Charlotte author Darin Kennedy is both a physician and a novelist, and as such, he has excellent company.   Other physicians who have published novels include Kimmery Martin (another Charlotte author who has written The Queen of Hearts and several other medical novels), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories), Michael Crichton (the author of Jurassic Park), and Khaled Hosseini (the author of The Kite Runner).  

Some physicians-turned-novelists draw extensively on their medical background in their fiction, but Darin tends to draw more on his avocations than his vocation in his novels.  Darin’s interests include chess, classical music, and popular culture, and these interests all figure in his novels.  For example, his latest series, collectively titled Songs of the Ascendant, is steeped in the pop music of the 1980s.  I recently contacted Darin and asked him for more information about his latest series.  Here is what he sent to me:

Thank you to Mark West for including me and my new series of books in his Storied Charlotte blog this week!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Darin Kennedy. By day, I work as a family physician with Atrium Health, taking care of patients and training the next generation of young physicians, while at night, I keep myself busy writing fantasy novels based in various interests of mine. Thus far, my works include the following: The Pawn Stratagem trilogy, where ordinary people become pieces in a magical chess game to decide the fate of the world; my Fugue & Fable trilogy, a paranormal thriller set right here in Charlotte based on the works of various Russian composers; and Carol, a modern-day gender-flipped young adult reworking of A Christmas Carol I bill as Scrooge meets Mean Girls.

My new series, Songs of the Ascendant, again has a musical slant, but this time I channeled my love of 80s pop music from my formative years into an ongoing contemporary fantasy epic. I built the mythology of this new fantasy world from the titles, themes, lyrics, and performers of my favorite decade of music. In this story, you might actually meet the Angel of the Morning; Earth, Wind, and Fire; or Pat Benatar’s literal Shadows of the Night. As for the story itself, my world falls firmly at the intersection of X-Men and Highlander with a significant nod to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The story begins when a quartet of shadow-dealing mystical mercenaries attempt to kidnap the number one pop star in the world, Persephone Snow. Danielle Delacroix, the latest in a line of warrior women who defend the world from darkness, along with her daughter, Rosemary, arrive to rescue Persephone along with Ethan Harkreader, a stage tech who doesn’t have the first clue as to what is happening. Together, our heroes fight off the shadowy assassins, but the leader of the mercenary Ravens rallies and strikes down Danielle with a surprise attack. At the moment of her death, two millennia of passed down mystical power is supposed to flow from mother to daughter and bring Rosemary her destiny. However, as Danielle breathes her last, Ethan is performing CPR. When he lowers his mouth over hers to attempt to save her, the mystical power flows into him instead. Now, an untrained and unprepared Ethan and a grieving Rosemary must team up to defend Persephone as the forces gathering to take her away are only getting started.

If you’d like to hear more, I will be at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC, from 2-4 pm on 21 Sep 2024 in conversation with my friend, publisher, and fellow author, John G. Hartness from Falstaff Books. I will have copies of all my books available and will be happy to sign and answer any questions you might have! Come on out! I’d love to see you there!

I thank Darin not only for sharing this information about his latest fantasy series but also for establishing a link between Charlotte’s medical community and our Storied Charlotte community of readers and writers. 

Tags: Fantasy Novels

The Charlotte Center Is Bringing Wiley Cash to the McColl Center 

September 01, 2024 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

About a week ago, I received an email message from Rebecca Tanner, the Managing Director of the Charlotte Center for the Humanities & Civic Imagination (more commonly known at the Charlotte Center).  She asked me if I could help promote an upcoming event.   She explained that are hosting Wiley Cash in conversation with Judy Goldman on the topic “Does modern literature have anything to say?”  Of course I said yes.  

Here is the specific information about the event.  It will take place on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, from 6:30-8:00 at the McColl Center, 721 N. Tryon Street.  A book signing will follow the program.  Tickets cost $25 and are available here.

I asked Rebecca for more details about the event and its speakers, and she sent me the following information:

Does modern literature have anything to say? What are the compelling stories speaking to our times? One of literature’s great Southern authors addresses the question. Wiley is a thoughtful, engaging, humorous speaker that you do not want to miss!

Wiley Cash is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author of four novels, the founder of This Is Working, an online creative community, and host of the Our State Book Club podcast. He’s the recipient of many literary awards, including the Thomas Wolfe Book Prize, Southern Book Prize, and the American Library Association Book of the Year.

Published in 2021, Cash’s novel When Ghosts Come Home was a national bestseller and one of Amazon’s top 20 books of the year. The Last Ballad, published in 2017, received numerous awards as best book of the year. 

He currently teaches creative writing and literature at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. He holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from UL-Lafayette, an M.A. in English from the University of  North Carolina-Greensboro, and a B.A. in Literature from UNC-Asheville.

Moderated by Judy Goldman

Judy Goldman is the author of seven books – three memoirs, two novels, and two collections of poetry. Her latest memoir, Child: A Memoir, was named a must-read by Katie Couric Media. Goldman has been published in The Southern Review and Kenyon Review. She has many literary awards, including the Hobson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Letters.   

My thanks go to Rebecca for reaching out to me. My thanks also go to The Charlotte Center for the Humanities & Civic Imagination for organizing this event.  Founded by Mark Peres in 2020, the Charlotte Center has quickly become an important voice for the humanities on our Storied Charlotte community. 

Tags: Judy GoldmanWiley Cash