Bonnie E. Cone Professor in Civic Engagement Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

AUTHOR

Mark West

The 12th Annual Celebration of Verse & Vino

October 12, 2025 by Mark West

The twelfth 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 6, 2025. In the span of just twelve years, Verse & Vino has come to be recognized as one of our community’s premier cultural events as is reflected in the fact that this year’s event is already sold out. I contacted Maggie Bean, the Director of Communications for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation, and I asked her to comment on the success of Verse & Vino. Here is what she sent to me:

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation’s literary gala Verse & Vino returns this fall — and though the event is already sold out (with a long waitlist of hopefuls), there’s still plenty to celebrate about its storied history.

First held in 2014 at the Westin, the inaugural Verse & Vino sold out all 850 seats. The lobby was so packed that guests coming off the escalator practically ran into each other on their way to toast the evening’s authors. That first lineup included five writers, among them New York Times bestselling romance novelist Debbie Macomber, who delighted the crowd with the story of her most loyal fan club: male inmates who write her heartfelt letters from across the country. (She writes them back.)

In the eleven years since, Verse & Vino has grown into one of Charlotte’s most anticipated events, raising more than $5.4 million to support Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. PNC Bank has proudly served as the Presenting Sponsor since day one, and beloved radio personality Sheri Lynch has emceed every year, reading each featured author’s work in full before stepping up to the microphone to deliver personal and eye-opening remarks.

Park Road Books has been the exclusive bookseller since the beginning as well, selling an impressive 12,750 books through the years, but none has been more popular than Chef Edward Lee’s Bourbon Land, which sold 417 copies last year. Longtime event planner Todd Murphy and his team have orchestrated each year’s celebration including immersive and elaborate vignettes based on the novels. Just don’t lay on the beds; they’re cardboard.

And there will be wine. More than 7,000 bottles of wine have been poured over our eleven years.

This year’s gathering is the largest yet, welcoming 1,380 guests to hear from an exceptional roster of 2025 authors: Nathan Harris (Amity), Rachel Hawkins (The Heiress), Diane Kochilas (Athens), and Jason Mott (People Like Us).

Verse & Vino may be one night only, but its good vibes last all year long.

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 our community has embraced this event and in the process has embraced the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. As I see it, Verse & Vino is more than a fundraiser for our public library; it is also a celebration of libraries, literacy, books, and our Storied Charlotte community of readers and writers.

Tags: Verse & Vino

Remembering Karon Luddy, a Lover of Words

October 04, 2025 by Mark West

Karon Luddy, the author of Spelldown and Bewilderment of Boys, died on September 21, 2025, at the age of seventy-one. A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, November 7, at Myers Park Baptist Church, with a reception to follow. Her full obituary is available here.

Karon grew up in the small town of Lancaster, South Carolina, and she drew on her childhood memories in her creative writing. While still a child, Karon had dreams of becoming a writer, but she did not seriously pursue these dreams for many years. After graduating for UNC Charlotte in 1982, she led a successful career in sales and marketing, working for various technology companies in Charlotte, but her desire to be a writer never left her. She enrolled in the creative writing program at Queens University, where she received her MFA in 2005. She then started teaching writing courses at UNC Charlotte in both the English Department and the American Studies Program. She taught at UNC Charlotte for over ten years.

I knew Karon from her days at UNC Charlotte. During this time, she completed her debut novel, Spelldown: The Big-Time Dreams of a Small-Town Word Whiz, which Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers published in 2007. The novel deals with a thirteen-year-old girl from a small town in South Carolina who competes in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

I remember talking with Karon about her novel, and she told me that the central character, Karlene Kay Bridges, is largely based on herself. Like Karlene, Karon loved participating in spelling bees during her childhood. I mentioned to Karon that I hated spelling bees as a boy because I was so bad at spelling. She then explained that what she really liked about spelling bees wasn’t the process of spelling words per se but rather the learning of new words. She said that she traced her lifelong love of words back to her sixth-grade teacher who helped her prepare for spelling bees by providing her with lists of new words to study. Karon does the same thing in her novel. At the end of Spelldown, Karon provides a glossary of words (along with their definitions) that Karlene encounters at spelling bees.

Spelldown was a great success. The book received strong reviews from numerous journals, including Publishers Weekly, The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews. The reviewer for Kirkus wrote, “Karlene’s engaging personal journey from word whiz-kid to winning young woman is artfully glossed with the emerging feminism of the late 1960s. This first-rate spelldown will have readers spellbound.”

I was so impressed with Karon’s novel that I invited her to appear as a featured author at the Children’s Literature Association Conference, which I co-chaired with my friend and colleague Paula Connolly. This conference took place in Charlotte in 2009, and Karon made us all proud as a hometown star who achieved national success, just as her character does in Spelldown.

Karon followed up the success of Spelldown with a sequel titled Bewilderment of Boys, which came out in 2014. In this novel, Karlene is seventeen years old and is trying her hand at songwriting. Like Spelldown, the sequel is steeped in small-town life, but outside events also come into play. Karlene and several of the other characters are affected by the Vietnam War. Shortly after the book came out, Karon came by my office and gave me a copy of the book. We talked for a little while about the book and about growing up during the Vietnam War. We agreed that the war had shaped our teenaged years.

In more recent years, Karon served as a faculty member for Charlotte Lit. Just as she had done with the students in her UNC Charlotte classes, she encouraged the writers whom she worked with at Charlotte Lit to take full advantage of the magic power of words in their writing. Throughout her life, Karon was a word lover, and Storied Charlotte is a better place because of her love of words.

Tags: Karon Luddy

The Making of Carla Harrison’s Debut Novel

September 27, 2025 by Mark West

Carla Harrison describes herself as a “Southern writer” and for good reason. She is a native of North Carolina, and her family has deep roots in the world of tobacco farming, which played such a big role in the history of the eastern part of the state. Carla has been living in Charlotte for twenty years, but she has never forgotten the stories that her relatives told about life on the family’s tobacco farm. When Carla decided to try her hand at writing a coming-of-age novel, she turned to these family stories for inspiration. The result is a work of historical fiction set on a North Carolina tobacco farm in the mid-1960s. Titled Heart of the Green Leaf, this novel was officially released on September 23, 2025.

I contacted Carla and asked her for more information about how she came to write Heart of the Green Leaf. Here is what she sent to me:

When both of my children left home in the same fall—one for college and the other for an arts boarding school, I suddenly found myself with an empty house and an unfamiliar stretch of quiet. After nearly two decades as a stay-at-home mom, it was an unexpected turning point. For the first time in years, I had space to ask: who was I beyond being a mother?

I’d always loved writing, mostly poetry, but it had been years since I’d nurtured that creative spirit. As I settled into a rhythm, I began writing again—this time about a girl who lived on a farm much like my grandmother’s in North Carolina. I imagined the land in earlier days, when it was full of life, in the days of a working tobacco farm, as my father often recalled. That’s when Maralee appeared…first in a poem, but she kept demanding more. Soon she had a family, and their voices carried me from poetry into prose.

As the story grew, I realized I needed community and guidance. My husband pointed me to Charlotte Lit, where I first took a few classes and then joined their Authors Lab program. Working with that community made me realize that this small story I was writing could truly grow into a novel. With their mentorship and encouragement, I was able to shape Heart of the Green Leaf into the book it is today.

Charlotte has been home to my family for over twenty years. We’ve always been drawn to the city’s vibrant arts community, from the ballet and symphony to local theaters and dance studios. Watching our children grow as young artists within this community deepened our own ties to Charlotte and gave us an even greater appreciation for the creativity that thrives here.

In many ways, writing Heart of the Green Leaf grew out of my own search for identity and belonging, and I’m honored to share it now with the very community that helped me find my voice.

Heart of the Green Leaf is a coming-of-age novel set in the summer of 1964 on a North Carolina tobacco farm. At fourteen, Maralee Truett is caught between the struggles of her family, the weight of mental health challenges, and a world on the brink of change. As she learns to trust her own voice and talents, she begins to uncover who she is and who she hopes to become. At its core, the novel is about resilience, love, and the timeless search for identity—a story I hope will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to find their place in the world.

I also wanted to share my website www.CarlaHarrison.com where readers can find more information about the book, my background, and how to order the book or get in touch with me. In addition, I’ll be participating in a virtual book launch on Sunday, October 5th, and would love for your readers to know about it.

I congratulate Carla on the publication of Heart of the Green Leaf. As Carla points out in the writeup that she sent to me, this is a story about a character who is trying to find her place in the world. In a sense, Carla has also been trying to find her place as a Southern writer, and she has succeeded. For Carla, that place is the supportive writing community that I call Storied Charlotte.

Tags: Carla Harrison Coming-of-Age Novel

Philip L. Dubois on His Years as the Chancellor of UNC Charlotte

September 21, 2025 by Mark West

September 23, 1946, marked the official launch of the Charlotte Center of the University of North Carolina, which eventually became the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In commemoration of this important date in its history, UNC Charlotte has designated September 23^rd as Founders Day.

With Founders Day upon us, now is a fitting time to reflect on the latest book about the history of UNC Charlotte. Titled Details Matter: UNC Charlotte, 2005-2020, this book was co-written by Philip L. Dubois, who served as the chancellor of UNC Charlotte from 2005 to 2020, and William Thomas Jeffers, who was hired in 2016 as UNC Charlotte’s first public historian.

Details Matter UNC Charlotte 2005-2020 by Philip L. Dubois Local History College - Picture 1 of 8

Details Matter joins four other books that deal with the history of UNC Charlotte. The first book on this topic was Ken Sanford’s Growing Up Together: Charlotte and UNC Charlotte, which was published in 1996. Next came Marian Ellis’ Dean W. Colvard: Quiet Leader (2004). The next two were both by Jeffers—The Making of a Research University: James H. Woodward and UNC Charlotte, 1989-2005 (2016) and Jewel in the Crown: Bonnie Cone and the Founding of UNC Charlotte (2021).

One of the ways in which Details Matter differs from the other books about the history of UNC Charlotte is that it reflects the direct experiences and insights of a former chancellor. The years that are covered in the book are the very years that Dubois served as the leader of the university, and Dubois draws extensively on this unique background when writing about the history of the university.

As the title of the book suggests, Dubois is a stickler for details. In fact, the phrase “details matter” is emblazoned on his favorite coffee cup. Given his interest in details, it is not surprising that the book is brimming with detailed information about the major decisions that shaped the university during a critical time in its history.

I recently contacted Dubois and asked him for more information about this book. Here is what he sent to me:

I had always valued Ken Sanford’s book about the early history of what became UNC Charlotte and its maturation through the early years of the administration of Jim Woodward. Once I became Chancellor (in 2005), I commissioned a book about the entirety of the Woodward years from 1989 to 2005 and our development as a research institution. That volume was written by a former graduate of our public history master’s program, Bill Jeffers.

Once that book was completed, I asked Jeffers to begin to assemble materials on my chancellorship that could possibly be used for a book if someone should wish to write it and thereby ensure a continuous account of the development of UNC Charlotte from the beginning. Although I anticipated that Jeffers would probably author that book, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic gave me the perfect excuse to take the lead. Not only did I have the time, but I also had access to documents that would not ordinarily work their way into an institutional history, including the 175,000 emails that I had sent during my administration from 2005 to 2020.

Although the book is quite lengthy and could serve double duty as a doorstop, I hope the details provided can give readers some insight into how difficult and complicated decisions that have shaped the institution to this day came to pass. There are a few chapters in there that may be the only definitive accounts that exist on things like the founding of football, light rail, and the April 30, 2019 shootings.

While reading Details Matter, I was reminded of my favorite song from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton. The song is titled “The Room Where It Happens.” The character based on Aaron Burr voices the song, and it reflects Burr’s desire to be present when and where important decisions are being made. I think that we can all relate to Burr’s desire to be in the room where it happens. In Details Matter, Dubois provides readers with a sense of being in that room when it comes to the decision-making related to the development of UNC Charlotte.

Details Matter: UNC Charlotte, 2005-2020 speaks to everyone in Storied Charlotte who has connections to UNC Charlotte or who has an interest in the recent history of the university.

Tags: Philip Dubois William Thomas Jeffers

Former Charlotte Writer Robin Hemley on How to Change History

September 13, 2025 by Mark West

My friend Robin Hemley has a long association with Charlotte. Robin served as a creative writing professor at UNC Charlotte from 1987 to 1994. In the years since he left Charlotte, Robin has taught at universities all over the world, including a six-year stint as the director of the Writing Program at Yale-NUS in Singapore. However, he occasionally returns to Charlotte to give readings and to teach writing classes.

Charlotte Lit is bringing Robin back to Charlotte on September 26, 2025, to lead a master class titled “The Imagined Object: Memory and Imagination” and to give a faculty talk with Judy Goldman on “Stitching Together Your Memoir.” Robin’s master class will meet from 3:00 to 5:00. For more information about this class, please click on the following link: https://charlottelit.org/ Robin and Judy’s faculty talk starts at 5:30. The talk is free, but registration is required. Here is the link: https://charlottelit.org/events/

Both Robin’s class and his talk relate to his new memoir titled How to Change History: A Salvage Project, which the University of Nebraska Press published a few months ago. In commenting on this memoir, author Brenda Miller, wrote, “Reading How to Change History is akin to sitting with an intimate friend, going through old photos and scrapbooks, conversing deep into the night about what connects us to the past and what might endure into the future.”

I contacted Robin and asked him for more information about his new memoir. Here is what he sent to me:

My latest book, How to Change History: A Salvage Project, can be described variously as a collection of linked essays or a memoir-in-essays, a tricky form no matter what you call it. I say it’s tricky because it implies (though doesn’t quite admit) that the essays were written separately as stand-alones rather than written with the intentionality of a book. That’s not to say that the essays were slapped together randomly, but that the intentionality of the book proceeded the writing of the contents. That’s certainly true in my case and I’d wager, in the cases of most such books. Still, it’s important for such a book to have the cohesion of a book that was intended from the start as something large and of a piece.

Why is that important? I’m not saying such cohesion is important to me when I read some random collection of essays or random collection of stories. In fact, I love hodge-podge collections that show an author’s stylistic and thematic range and roving interests. But editors and perhaps most other readers want something that builds, that leads somewhere.

If I tell you the range of subjects in the book, you’ll be forgiven (well, maybe not. I’m sensitive) for clapping back, “Well, that’s just a hodge podge after all, with a fancy title slapped on it.” My subject matter includes photography, travelogues, TV shows, real estate come-ons, washed up rock stars, incontinent dachshunds, stalkers, war memorials, skeletons in the closet, scrapbooks, pre-cancerous moles, murder, the Philippine-American War, Sherwood Anderson, James Agee, curses, divorce and skinny dipping.

I’d argue that all these subjects are as one, first because they all sprang from my mind, but also because they reflect my obsession with memory and erasure. I am at once attracted and repelled by gestures of memorializing. I want not only to be remembered but to remember others, and I know that this is a losing battle.

And so, I write about a memorial plaque to a former colleague who died of a heart attack during my time at UNC Charlotte. The English Department made a little memorial plaque for him and hung it on the spot where he used to hang out in the hallway, smoking (in the days when people smoked indoors) and chatting with anyone he could collar. Jim’s Corner, it was called. But not long after, the department moved to a new building and Jim’s Corner was no more, the plaque likely thrown away or lost in the move. I had since moved across the country, so I did not know of its removal until a couple of years later.

Another essay features a scrapbook I bought at an estate sale in Virginia, of a woman who had meticulously collected the ephemera of her life over a four-year period during WWII. The scrapbook was amazing to me, and I bought it despite a hefty $75 price tag. Among its treasures were the pair of nylon stockings she wore throughout the war, theater tickets, a performance review (rather mixed) of her job as a volunteer on the psych ward of Walter Reid Memorial Hospital, a menu from Antoine’s in New Orleans, her birth certificate (we share the same birthday, though many years apart), dental x-rays, you name it. This was her own memorial to herself, but a memorial with little context. How to piece it together into a life, a remembrance from scraps?

If you read the book, and I hope you will, far from a hodgepodge, I’m confident that you will see that these are indeed linked essays. This is a memoir-in-essays. But it took me years – 25 years to be exact – to see what now seems obvious. For years, I wanted to collect my essays into a book, and I tried various configurations and titles. It took me so many years because it took me that long to finally see what held these essays together. I don’t remember all the titles I tried out, thankfully, but one that stays with me is A Handbook for Haunting. Not a bad title, actually. But not the right title for my book. Once I understood that the best title for my book was How to Change History, I understood everything about my book that previously had been obscured. That’s the only way I can frame it – it was like all my essays were poured into a funnel and out the other end came that title. Suddenly, I knew which essay would anchor the book and which one would end it, and that has never changed.

Readers who want to know more about Robin should check out his Substack Turning Life into Fiction https://robinhemley.substack.com/ as well as his writing retreat and editing venture, https://authorsatlarge.com/

I plan to attend Robin and Judy’s joint talk on September 26, and I am looking forward to reconnecting with Robin and hearing about his latest book. Robin truly is a world traveler, but he will always have a place in Storied Charlotte, and he will always be my friend wherever he goes.

Tags: memoir Robin Hemley

Honoring Ken Sanford and His Book about the History of UNC Charlotte

September 06, 2025 by Mark West

James Kenneth (Ken) Sanford, the author of Charlotte and UNC Charlotte: Growing Up Together, died on August 25, 2025, at the age of ninety-three. Bonnie Cone, the founder of UNC Charlotte, hired Ken in 1964, the year before Charlotte College became the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Ken’s official title was Director of Public Information and Publications, a position he held until his retirement in 1994. Drawing on his inside knowledge of the early history of the university, he set to work on writing a history of UNC Charlotte around the time that he retired. The book came out in 1996 under the title of Charlotte and UNC Charlotte: Growing Up Together, and it established Ken as an important Charlotte historian.

Remembering Ken Sanford, Charlotte's first public relations ...

I first met Ken a few years after I arrived at UNC Charlotte in 1984. He and Sam Nixon, one of the people who worked in his office, arranged for a reporter from The Charlotte Observer to interview me about my research. At the time, I was impressed with how much Ken knew about the publications by UNC Charlotte’s faculty members.

When Ken’s book came out, I attended an event related to the launching of the book. I still have the copy of the book that he signed. I remember him saying, “You’re in the book.” Well, my curiosity got the best of me, so I checked, and sure enough, he mentioned my research in a couple passages in the book. What impressed me the most about the book, however, are the chapters in which he explains how Bonnie Cone succeeded in founding the university. In these chapters, he relates Bonnie Cone’s campaign to establish the university to the larger history of Charlotte during the post-World War Two years. Ken’s account of how Charlotte’s leaders from this period got behind Bonnie Cone’s campaign stands out as an indispensable source for anyone who is interested in the history of Charlotte during these years.

In a sense, Ken’s book is much more than a history of a university. While it certainly provides readers with a detailed telling of the university’s first fifty years, the book also speaks to larger concerns. In the preface to the book, Doug Orr, a former UNC Charlotte administrator who went on to serve as the president of Warren Wilson College, comments on how Ken’s book transcends the history of UNC Charlotte:

9780945344025: Charlotte and Unc Charlotte: Growing Up Together

Ken Sanford’s account of this special university is worth reading on one level as an engaging account of one university’s formative years during the second half of the twentieth century, and of the cast of individuals, decisions, an events that marked its progress and union with a city also experiencing its coming of age. But in a more universal sense, it chronicles the manner in which an American university created out of a cow pasture can address its urban dynamic and, in fact, reach out and envelop itself with that urban presence, and therefore be a model for building a contemporary university.

In 2020, Ken moved to the Aldersgate Retirement Community in Charlotte, and it was there that I saw him for the last time. I occasionally give presentations at retirement communities, including Aldersgate. After one of my talks at Aldersgate, Ken came up to me, and we talked for a few minutes. He said that he liked my presentation, and he told me that he was glad to see UNC Charlotte professors sharing their expertise with members of the community. In reflecting on that final conversation with Ken, I realized that my presentation was related to Ken’s longstanding conviction that UNC Charlotte should be an active player in the larger Charlotte community. Throughout his career, he acted on this conviction, and Storied Charlotte is a better place because he did.

Tags: Ken Sanford

Taylor Hartley’s Debut Romantasy Novel

August 30, 2025 by Mark West

I first learned the meaning of the word “portmanteau” during my days as a graduate teaching assistant. I was covering Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky” in an introductory fantasy literature course, and I was trying to explain to my students how Carroll went about creating the made-up words in the poem, such as “chortled” and “galumphing.” For example, I talked about how he combined the words “gallop” and “triumph” to come up with the word “galumphing.” I thought there must be a term for such word combinations, so I looked it up. I found out that there is such a word, and the word is “portmanteau.” I flashed back on this memory when I read about Taylor Hartley’s debut novel, Song of the Hell Witch. Alcove Press will officially release the book on September 9, 2025. The publisher is marketing the book as a “romantasy.” Well, the term “romantasy” is a portmanteau. It is a combination of the words “romance” and “fantasy,” and it’s the perfect descriptor for Taylor’s new novel.

By day, Taylor is an English teacher at David W. Butler High School here in Charlotte, but Taylor is also a creative writer. Initially, Taylor wrote short stories, including a story titled “The Vampire.” However, a recent political/legal development prompted Taylor to try writing a novel, and this decision resulted in Song of the Hell Witch. I recently contacted Taylor and asked for more information about the book. Here is what Taylor sent to me:

Song of the Hell Witch is a book born out of rage. When Roe vs. Wade was overturned, my male boss decided to host a meeting to allow the women to “air their feelings,” as he could see that many of us were upset. He then proceeded to talk for the entirety of that meeting, sucking up all the air in the room. Afterwards, I had a sincere desire to grow a pair of talons and rip into him. And then I thought, “What if we lived in a world where women who experienced trauma transformed into mythological creatures capable of fighting against the men who consistently make decisions that negatively impact their own mothers, daughters, and sisters?”

I started to write that evening. About a woman trapped inside a patriarchal society. About the ways she silenced the loudest parts of herself—the roughest parts of herself—in order to thrive in that society. About the good man she had to leave behind to obtain the life she thought she wanted.

Song is a second-chance romance that explores feminism, classism, and what our world could look like if women stopped playing by the patriarchy’s rules and banded together rather than viewing each other as enemies.

I wrote the following summary of the book for marketing purposes.

Rekindled romance spreads new wings in this atmospheric romantasy, where magic empowers women trapped inside an oppressive patriarchy.

This striking novel is perfect for fans of the feminist ideals in When Women Were Dragons and the unique magic system in One Dark Window.

Once a vicious street rat, Prudence Merriweather has clawed her way to the top of society and now enjoys newfound power as the Duchess of Talonsbury. All she has to do to protect her fragile position is maintain the act of gentility, make her husband happy—and keep her monstrous magic a secret.

Puck Reed, the Thief Lord of Talonsbury, once delighted in taking risks and humiliating the social elite at any cost, but now lives a quieter criminal lifestyle. With a daughter of his own to protect, Puck tries to lay low and stay safe for her benefit. His daughter, Bea, suffers from a mysterious illness bent on killing her, and Puck will stop at nothing to find a cure.

When Prudence’s magic betrays her, she has no choice but to flee—and who better to smuggle her out of the city than her childhood best friend and former sweetheart, Puck Reed? With the help of old friends and new allies, they learn about Stormlash, a safe haven miles beyond the city walls where women and their magic can flourish beyond the oppressive eye of Leora’s religious fanatics. Stormlash may also hold the key to curing Bea’s illness. The challenge? Keep her alive long enough to get there.

With Bea’s illness claiming more of her strength, Puck and Pru must work together to reach Stormlash and, in the process, confront a growing evil threatening to devour the country they call home.

Perfect for fans of Carissa Broadbent and Hannah Whitten, this second-chance romantic fantasy features monstrous women stepping into their full power, a father who will do anything to save his daughter, and the rekindled flame of an old, enduring love.

The official launch for Song of the Hell Witch will take place at Park Road Books on Saturday, September 13, 2025, from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm. For more information about this event, please click on the following link: https://parkroadbooks.com/event/2025-09-13/taylor-hartley-discusses-her-book-song-hell-witch

I congratulate Taylor of the upcoming publication of Song of the Hell Witch. Storied Charlotte is home to numerous fantasy writers, including Paul Barrett, A.J. Hartley (no relation to Taylor), John G. Hartness, Darin Kennedy, Gail Z. Martin, Larry Martin, and Nancy Northcott, and now that list includes Taylor Hartley.

Tags: Romantasy Taylor Hartley

The Charlotte Writers Club Has Big Plans for Its 2025-2026 Season

August 23, 2025 by Mark West

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word club as “an organization of people with a common purpose or interest, who meet regularly and take part in shared activities.” This definition applies perfectly to the Charlotte Writers Club (CWC). Since Adelia Kimball founded the club in 1922, the CWC has provided Charlotte-area writers with opportunities to meet regularly with other writers and to engage in writing-related activities. Like many cultural organizations, the CWC kicks off its season of programming in September. Curious about CWC’s upcoming programs, I contacted Barbara (Bay) Yager, CWC’s current president, and asked her about the club’s plans for its 2025-2026 season. Here is what she sent to me:

For over a century, the Charlotte Writers Club has welcomed storytellers at every stage of their writing journey—beginners to experts—and in every form—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and beyond. We are a community where writers share their expertise with the curious, where beginners and published authors learn side by side. This season, September through May, our programming reflects two central themes: honing your writing craft and navigating the path to publishing.

Our monthly meetings, held the third Tuesday of each month at Providence United Methodist Church, feature distinguished authors, editors, and literary professionals. Nationally recognized memoirist Judy Goldman opens the season in September with What’s the Big Idea?, followed by booksellers Sally Brewster of Park Road Books and Katie Mitchell of Trope Book Shop, who will share what authors should know from booksellers. Other months include novelist Kim Wright Wiley on story structure, Andrea Hurst and Lydia Caudill on what agents want, and poet David Radovich on shaping poems for publication.

Complementing the meetings are our Saturday workshops, where participants can roll up their sleeves and apply new tools directly to their work. Offerings include Melinda Ferguson on memoir, Misha Lazzara on the importance of setting, Sarah Archer on plotting versus pantsing, Barbara Presnell on the narrative arc, and Irene Honeycutt on writing with grief. Workshops conclude in May with a candid discussion of the publishing gamut featuring three accomplished authors, Lisa Williams Kline, Gilda Morina Syverson, and Ann Campanella.

Beyond meetings and workshops, CWC provides year-round connections. Writers can join critique groups by genre, participate in monthly virtual writing salons hosted by Tiffany Grantham, or test new work at our popular open mic nights at Mugs Coffee. In the Student Enrichment Program for middle and high school students, we offer monthly virtual writing salons, creative writing workshops, and student contests. Our annual contest series, including the Ruth Moose Flash Fiction opening on September 1st, Poetry, and Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Story competitions, helps writers aim high.

Our new season begins on September 1. Let CWC be part of your journey. Visit the website for all our event details, whether you’re learning, publishing. or connecting, we look forward to meeting you and hearing your story. More information on these events can be found at https://charlottewritersclub.org/events/

I thank Bay for providing me with this information about CWC’s plans for its new season. I also commend the Charlotte Writers Club for playing such an important role in the history of Storied Charlotte over the past 103 years.

Tags: Charlotte Writers Club

An Evening with Charlotte Author Joy Callaway

August 16, 2025 by Mark West

Last week I received an email from Maggie Bean, the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation, in which she informed about an upcoming event featuring Charlotte author Joy Callaway. Intrigued, I asked Maggie for more information about this event. Here is what she sent to me:

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation invites you to an evening of history, romance, and Charlotte’s own literary talent. Join us on Monday, September 15 at 6 PM at Wray Ward for Final Draught with bestselling author Joy Callaway, as she discusses her newest novels Star of Camp Greene and Sing Me Home to Carolina. Guests will enjoy an intimate conversation with the author moderated by author Susie Orman Schnall, light bites, and complimentary beer and wine.

Set in Charlotte during World War I, Star of Camp Greene transports readers to the city’s Camp Greene military base, a bustling training site that transformed the Queen City and left a lasting impact on the region. Callaway’s meticulous historical research blends with her talent for weaving compelling love stories, offering a vivid portrait of Charlotte’s past and the people who shaped it. In Sing Me Home to Carolina, she wows with her signature blend of romance and rich storytelling, this time in rural South Carolina.

Whether you’re a history buff, a romance reader, or simply someone who loves a good story rooted in our community, this Final Draught event is an opportunity to experience two of Charlotte’s local literary talents. Tickets are $20 and include light bites and beer and wine. More details and tickets are available at foundation.cmlibrary.org/events/joy-callaway.

I commend the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation not only for organizing this event with Joy Callaway but also for sponsoring the Final Draught author series. Created in 2017, this series provides area book lovers with opportunities to engage in conversations local writers over a glass of good beer or wine. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation also sponsors the annual Verse & Vino event, but that is a very large event. The Final Draught series is smaller and more informal than Verse & Vino. I am a fan of both the Final Draught series and Verse & Vino, and I think that they both enrich Storied Charlotte’s cultural life.

Tags: Final Draught Joy Callaway

Charlotte Lit Serves Up a Smorgasbord of Classes and Events

August 10, 2025 by Mark West

I am half Swedish. My mother’s ancestors immigrated to America from Sweden in the early 20^th century, and they brought with them traditions that my mother honored throughout my childhood. On celebratory occasions, my mother would set up a traditional Swedish smorgasbord that included a wide variety cold and hot dishes. My love of pickled herring can be traced back to my mother’s elaborate smorgasbords.

The word smorgasbord popped into my head when Paula Martinac, Charlotte Lit’s Community Coordinator, sent me a writeup about Charlotte Lit’s programming for this fall. Like a traditional Swedish smorgasbord, Charlotte Lit’s fall lineup includes a variety of tempting offerings. Also like a smorgasbord, it has a celebratory quality to it, for this year’s programming marks Charlotte Lit’s tenth anniversary of providing the Charlotte community with writing courses and literary events. “But you don’t have to take my word for it,” as LeVar Burton said on Reading Rainbow. Here is what Paula sent to me:

Charlotte Lit is starting its tenth year of programming this fall—and in our brand-new studio space in Uptown! We have a great selection of classes and events designed to appeal to writers and readers with different interests in the literary arts.

Making its debut in our class lineup is the mini-lab, a condensed version of our signature writers’ intensives, Authors Lab and Poetry Chapbook Lab. Mini-labs incorporate expert instruction with discussion, prompts to get folks writing, a workshop component, and most important, community building. Students can choose a six-week class in personal essay writing with Rebecca McClanahan, or a five-week class in short-form prose with Luke Whisnant. We recently ran spotlights on both Rebecca and Luke on our blog. There will be mini-labs in playwriting and poetry in Winter–Spring 2026.

We’re also premiering a four-week literature class taught by UNC Charlotte Professor Emerita Jennifer Munroe. Watch out, because Jen will be highlighting the somewhat weirder elements of Shakespeare’s plays, including poisons and potions.

Our short classes highlight special topics in all genres, with favorite teachers like Tara Campbell, Angelo Geter, Patrice Gopo, David Hicks, and C.T. Salazar. 2025 GoodLit Poetry Fellow Olivia Dorsey Peacock, a self-described “tea maven,” will lead a tea meditation designed to awaken the senses and spark creativity. In fiction fundamentals, Paula Martinac will demystify point of view while Heather Newton from Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville will explore how to strengthen dialogue. For those ready to submit work for publication, Paul Reali’s class will take the angst out of the often-confusing process.

In addition to in-person classes that showcase our new space, we’ve got online sessions for those who live farther away. Most of our classes appeal to all levels of writers, from beginners on up, but we offer master classes for more advanced students. This semester, Robin Hemley will be in town to lead a master class on using objects in creative nonfiction, and Jan Beatty will teach about writing risk in poetry.

Exclusively for Charlotte Lit members, Rebecca McClanahan will offer a free multi-genre session musically titled “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered: Three Pathways to Our Deepest Work.” (Pro tip: You can join Charlotte Lit any time before September to get this benefit.)

The Fall 2025 class schedule is available now at charlottelit.org/classes. In November, we’ll announce the Winter–Spring classes, featuring new offerings by popular faculty like Bryn Chancellor, Kathie Collins, Judy Goldman, and Charlotte Poet Laureate Junious “Jay” Ward.

And, of course, we’ll have plenty of events! Our official studio launch is Friday, October 3, which will be a jam-packed day of special programming—watch our newsletter for the lineup. In addition, we’ll host a faculty talk on memoir writing, with Judy Goldman and Robin Hemley; a book launch for Lola Haskins’ new poetry collection; an evening edition of our popular Pen to Paper writing community, with Megan Rich; a reading by Poetry Chapbook mentor Nickole Brown; and a panel discussion called “Lessons from the Slush Pile: Advice on Journal Submissions from Editors and Readers.” There’s a lot going on, and folks will find full descriptions on our website: charlottelit.org/

I would like to offer Charlotte Lit a toast for providing Storied Charlotte with this veritable smorgasbord of classes and events, so in the tradition of my Swedish ancestors, let’s raise our virtual glasses and say skål!

Tags: Charlotte Lit

Contact Me

Links

Archives