Storied Charlotte

Patrice Gopo’s New Picture Book Is Now Ready to Be Enjoyed

April 26, 2025 by Mark West

Ripening Time, Patrice Gopo’s new picture book, is all about anticipation. The central character in the story is a little girl who loves eating the fried plantains that her mother prepares, but before the plantains can be fried, they need to ripen first. The story traces this entire process, from purchasing the unripe plantains at the grocery story, to putting the plantains in a hanging basket where they can ripen over the course of a week, to watching the plantains gradually turn from green to yellow, to finally slicing, frying and serving the plantains much to the girl’s delight.

For Patrice, the process of seeing this book through to publication also involved experiencing a series of stages, from recalling a childhood memory, to writing an initial draft, to rewriting the text multiple times, to waiting for the illustrator (Carlos Vélez Aguilera) to complete the pictures, to working with the publisher as the book went into production, to the launching of the book. Patrice and her many fans have waited a long time for the release of the book, but the waiting is over. The book is launched and ready to be enjoyed.

I contacted Patrice and asked her for more information about how she came to write Ripening Time. Here is what she sent to me:

In my experience, the stories I write—essays or picture books—often have layers of emergence. The beginnings may come from one time in my life, but the way they take shape and form happens at another time. My second picture book, Ripening Time, is no exception. In Ripening Time, I tell the story of a little girl who is waiting across a week for plantains to ripen. It’s a celebration of food and family and connecting across generations. Every bit of this book is rooted in experiences from my childhood. My parents are Jamaican immigrants, and I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, a place where—at the time—it wasn’t always easy to find plantains. My mother used to go to the grocery store across town in search of plantains, sometimes finding the food we longed to eat. Their presence in our home was always a special treat.

This memory forms the first layer of emergence for Ripening Time. It began during my childhood in Alaska. However, additional layers of emergence needed to happen to make this story a picture book in the world. And those additional layers happened right here in Charlotte. As I mentioned above, I write essays and picture books. In fact, aspects of my essays inspire most of my picture book manuscripts. Probably a decade ago now, I took a writing class with local Charlotte writing teacher Maureen Ryan Griffin. In that class, Maureen gave us a prompt to write a letter to someone. I ended up writing a letter to my sister. That letter blossomed into the essay “Plucked and Planted” in my first essay collection, All the Colors We Will See. At the surface, “Plucked and Planted” is about plantains, but beneath the surface, it is about my sister and me and our varied relationships with our Jamaican heritage. That essay includes a couple of paragraphs where I describe how my mother used to search for plantains, and then we would wait for the plantains to ripen. These paragraphs served as the springboard for the creation of Ripening Time.

For me, taking essays and reimagining them as a picture book takes time. While essays are often “thinking work” happening on the page, picture books are much more grounded in a particular story. With Ripening Time, I was struggling to bring this story to a satisfying conclusion. I ended up applying for and receiving a Charlotte Mecklenburg Arts & Science Council (ASC) Artist Support Grant to work with a picture book writing coach. That move was a game changer for my manuscript, and it moved from a great story with a flat ending to a submission-ready manuscript that soared!

I’m grateful for the rich literary community that exists here in Charlotte—great writing teachers and wonderful organizations that support creatives. I know both of these elements have had an impact on my broader writing life and the emergence of Ripening Time as a picture book in the world!

I would love to see you at my book signing at Park Road Books on May 10 at 10:30am. For more information about this free event, please click on the following link: https://www.parkroadbooks.com/event/book-signing-author-patrice-gopo

For more details and a complete list of book events, please visit my website: https://www.patricegopo.com/

I congratulate Patrice on the publication of Ripening Time. It’s a beautiful story that celebrates family traditions, favorite foods, and the pleasures associated with anticipating something special. Ripening Time is something special, and it’s a welcomed addition to the growing library of picture books by Storied Charlotte authors.

Tags: Patrice Gopo picture book

Judy Goldman Reflects on the Stages of Life in Her New Memoir

April 20, 2025 by Mark West

The Rest of Our Lives, Judy Goldman’s new memoir, grew out of Judy’s response to turning eighty, but it is not really an account of the trials and tribulations of being an older person in contemporary America. Instead, Judy focuses The Rest of Our Lives on the many connections between her past experiences and her current life. As she stated in a recent interview, “Life is simply a series of passages where you find yourself in new, uncharted territory. You can almost connect the dots, see how that final stage of life is similar to all the previous stages.” By focusing on the ways in which her past and her present experiences interrelate, Judy shows how key moments in her life have prepared her to face the challenges associated with old age.

In many ways, however, The Rest of Our Lives, is not limited to the particularities of Judy’s life. If it were, the book would not include the words “our lives” in the title. Judy’s new memoir provides all readers with insights on navigating the life passages that we all face as we age. Throughout her memoir, Judy invites readers to reflect on the meaning of their own experiences.

Given Judy’s interest in writing a book that relates to all of “our lives,” it is not surprising that the book is tied to her experiences as a writing teacher at Charlotte Lit and elsewhere. When commenting on how she came to write The Rest of Our Lives, she specifically mentions how working with her students inspired her to write this memoir:

At 80, I felt I’d written everything I had to write. What was left? I was sad to give up writing. Writing keeps me nice. If I’m not writing, you don’t want to be around me. But then it came to me: If I tell students in my memoir workshops, “Write about what keeps you up at night,” I need to take my own advice. I was thinking a lot about aging. I needed to write about it.

The official launch of Judy’s The Rest of Our Lives will take place at Park Road Books on May 6 at 7:00 pm. For more information about this free event, please click on this link: https://www.parkroadbooks.com/event/judy-goldman-discusses-her-new-book-rest-our-lives

For more information about Judy and her books, please click on the following link: http://judygoldman.com/

In thinking about Judy’s The Rest of Our Lives, I am reminded of Erik Erikson’s “Eight Ages of Man” chapter from his book Childhood and Society. In this chapter, Erikson writes about the “life cycle” and the road to becoming “a mature adult.” In Erikson’s model, mature adults who achieve “ego integrity” during their late adulthood find meaning and satisfaction in their lives, and often become known for their general “wisdom.” In pre-industrial societies, people would often turn to their village elders for wise advice on dealing with life’s challenges. Well, Storied Charlotte is a far cry of a pre-industrial village, but we still have our own wise village elder, and her name is Judy Goldman.

Tags: Judy Goldman

Keeping Up with Gail Z. Martin and Her Husband, Larry N. Martin

April 12, 2025 by Mark West

Gail Z. Martin is one of Charlotte’s best-known authors of fantasy books. She is a frequent featured speaker at fantasy conventions, and her work is often anthologized in both the US and the UK. Her first big success came in 2007 with the publication of the epic fantasy novel The Summoner, the first of the four novels in her Chronicles of the Necromancer series. She then, she has gone on to write many more fantasy novels, including dozens of books that she has co-authored with her husband, Larry N. Martin.

The other day my wife mentioned something about a new book by Gail, so I decided to investigate. I contacted Gail and asked her for more information about her new work and her connections to Charlotte. Here is what she sent to me:

Thank you so much for inviting me to be on the blog! Although our books take place in many different locations, my husband and I have lived in Charlotte for almost twenty-five years and love it here.

I’ve actually got two new books—Equalizer, written under my Morgan Brice romance pen name, and Dead of Winter, co-written with my husband, Larry N. Martin.

First, a bit of background. I love the research part of writing. In my case, that leads to some unusual tidbits since the books all incorporate paranormal elements—ghosts, legends, magic, monsters, and more. I’ve found that the best way to ground a book in its time and place is to draw on the folktales and lore of that location, even if those need a little tweak to fit the story.

I have loved spooky tales all my life (Dark Shadows was my favorite show when I was a kid), and now I’m having a lot of fun telling new ones.

One of my other favorite shows back then was Wild Wild West, which followed the adventures of two handsome Secret Service agents who traveled the country in a fancy Pullman car fighting villains. That show was a definite inspiration for Equalizer, with a few twists.

First of all, the bad guys in Equalizer (book two in my Sharps and Springfield series) are all paranormal. Second, it’s male-male romance, so the two Secret Service agents are “together.” Technically, it qualifies as steampunk romance, which means a version of 1800s history with magic, fantastical gadgets, and technology that didn’t exist but would have been amazing. Equalizer is set in Chicago, so I had lots of fun doing the research on local hauntings, unsolved murders, and other lore.

It’s full of found family, paranormal Pinkertons, intrepid reporters, body snatchers and resurrectionists, Mob witches, vengeful spirits, dark spells, unholy inventions, and a love that won’t be denied. (And yes, the series and the individual books are named for famous guns.)

Dead of Winter is part of our Spells, Salt, and Steel series and follows the adventures of Mark Wojcik, mechanic and monster hunter. While there’s plenty of action, there’s also a lot of humor, so that series qualifies as horror comedy.

The Mark Wojcik series is set in northwestern Pennsylvania, where my husband and I grew up. It’s a lot of fun drawing on the history of that area and its ghost stories, haunted places, and abandoned locations. We try to make sure that the stories couldn’t be told in the same way if they happened anywhere else. That includes foods, local expressions, references to history, and the quirky little details that are a wink and a nod to people who are also familiar with the area.

Found family and a circle of close friends are big factors for the heroes’ success in all our books. Dead of Winter has creepy cryptids, spooky magic, supernatural secrets, paranormal plots, and lots of explosions! (You can read more about Mark in Spells, Salt, and Steel Seasons 1 and 2.)

I haven’t used Charlotte as a location for a book…yet. I’m sure it will happen since favorite places find their way into the series, including Charleston, Myrtle Beach, the Adirondacks, and the North Carolina mountains. I’m just waiting for the right story to claim the city for its own!

For readers who want to know more about Gail and Larry and their various books, please click on the following link: https://ascendantkingdoms.com/

I congratulate Gail and Larry on their new publications, and I thank them for their many contributions to Storied Charlotte’s veritable library of fantasy novels.

Tags: Gail Z. Martin Larry N. Martin

Jonathan Heaslet and the Story of How a Whispered Secret Turned into a Novel

April 05, 2025 by Mark West

Hannah Larrew, one of the co-hosts of the now defunct but deeply missed Charlotte Readers Podcast, recently sent me an email with a tip for my Storied Charlotte blog. She wrote, “I wanted to touch base with you about a Charlotte author I’m working with, Jonathan Heaslet, whose debut novel, East of Apple Glen, may make for an interesting piece on Storied Charlotte. It deals with several relevant topics, including the role of the church in our culture, LGBTQ inclusion, and sexual assault. He has an interesting background in that he served as a minister for many years, which gave him a unique outlook on organized religion and some of the major issues that can be found within the system.”

Intrigued, I did a little research on Jonathan (Jon) Heaslet and his soon-to-be released novel. Jon has lived in Charlotte since his retirement from the ministry in 2014, but his novel is set in a small town in Ohio in the heart of Amish country. Jon served as a minister in this part of Ohio. One day a member of the congregation whispered a secret to him involving sexual exploitation in the local community. This secret haunted him for years, and he eventually decided to use it as the starting point for his novel.

In writing East of Apple Glen, Jon drew heavily on his experiences as a minister. I contacted Jon and asked him for more information about his background and how he came to write East of Apple Glen. Here is what he sent to me:

I grew up in what is now Silicon Valley. My grandfather once owned a farm that’s now headquarters for Google. My parents sold their house in the 1960s after I left for college. It’s now worth 10-figures. I should be writing you from a Caribbean island instead of a modest home in Charlotte.

My undergraduate degree is from the University of Iowa, mathematics. My wife and I left Iowa City the day we graduated and came to North Carolina, Linda to teach in the Durham City Schools the first year they desegregated and me to earn a master’s in economics at Chapel Hill.

After a stint in the Army, stationed in Kansas, Indiana, and Fort Bragg I (not Fort Bragg II), I began work with the North Carolina Medicaid Program. An offer from the organization that now goes by Premier Healthcare brought Linda, our son, and me to Charlotte in 1981.

After ten years at a computer terminal, I longed for a vocation that involved engaging with people. I went on a yearlong sojourn that ended with my answering a call to Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. After being ordained in the United Church of Christ, there followed a call to serve a small church in Amish country Ohio. It was a Swiss-German congregation where historically (as in 125 years), they had alternated between French speaking and German speaking pastors.

I did a lot of listening, eating a lot of sponge cake, drinking a lot of lemonade, learning that an Amish haystack was both a conical pile of hay and an open-faced sandwich topped with meat, mashed potatoes, all awashed in gravy. I learned to be alert to whispers. In a town of 279 residents, it’s nobody’s business means that it’s everybody’s business.

Amish bonnets do a good job of focusing whispers while hiding faces and lips. A mother approached me regarding an Amish bishop who had sanctioned incest in his district as a means of preventing teenage boys from “going English” (leaving the Amish sect). This mother, who had taken me aside, steadfastly refused any outside intervention by police or social services or any government entity. “We take care of our own” was her pronouncement. She was seeking a different — the proper, can I say? — Biblical exegesis to take to her bishop.

I never saw her again, but her whispers are etched in my mind.

Following retirement and return to Charlotte in 2014, I took up writing. Write what you know is the cliche. Write what you have heard is what I began to do. The whispers. The anguish. The losses. The regrets. They eclipsed the weddings and baptisms. For over twenty years, I had been like the Receiver of Memory in Lois Lowry’s The Giver.

But the whispers of that Amish mother never left me.

Maureen Ryan Griffin finally sat me down and focused my efforts in her class titled Under Construction. With her help and the perspicuity provided by women in the group, there emerged a novel of abuse, rape, and incest, all shrouded in secrecy: East of Apple Glen.

I wrote the story through the eyes of a young man, Nathan, fatherless and bullied as a child, who escaped his small hometown after college, but is forced to return when his mother and grandmother die unexpectedly. Added to the mix was a childhood friend, herself with a history of abuse, to accompany him on his journey through grief. I intentionally avoided the words “victim” and “survivor” to reinforce that recovery is not a noun, but a verb, as in “surviving.” A day-to-day effort to get beyond trauma.

As with the biblical Nathan, the question was would he have the courage to reveal the truth.

After discussions with Hannah Larrew, we intentionally decided to launch East of Apple Glen in April during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. We are hopeful that a novel, my novel, can be a positive supplement to the nonfiction resources for those “surviving” sexual assault.

I am excited to have Nancy Stancill interview me at my book launch at Park Road Books, Saturday, April 26, 2025, at 2 PM.

For readers who want to know more about Jon and his writing career, please click on the following link: https://www.jonathanheaslet.com/

I congratulate Jon on his new novel, and I commend him for shining a light on the often-hidden issue of sexual assault. East of Apple Glen is not a light-hearted story, but it is a novel that is likely to make a difference in Storied Charlotte and beyond.

Tags: Jonathan Heaslet

The Spring 2025 Issue of Litmosphere

March 31, 2025 by Mark West

The other day one of my students asked me if I knew of any literary journals published in Charlotte, so I happily told her about Litmosphere, the literary journal published by Charlotte Lit. As she wrote down the information that I shared with her about Litmosphere, she said, “That’s a cool-sounding name.” I agree.

Some of my favorite words start with lit, such as literature, literary, literacy, and literati. They all derive from the Latin word littera, which means letters. I also like the word sphere. This word has connections to the Latin word sphaera, which means, “globe, ball, or celestial sphere.” Thus, for me, the name Litmosphere conjures up a vision of a celestial sphere with letters zooming around, forming words, phrases, poems, and stories. Well, I am happy to report that the new spring 2025 issue of Litmosphere completely matches my vision of a literary, celestial sphere.

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:

Mark, thanks so much for asking about Charlotte Lit’s spring issue of Litmosphere. There are some thrilling (and a few chilling) voices in this issue, each of which is paired with a painting by A. J. Belmont, an outstanding contemporary artist from New Hampshire. Our issues are never themed, but Paul and I usually find a feeling tone emerges among the pieces we select for publication. While this issue’s subject matter is broad, the overall feeling is one of estrangement, and Belmont’s emotionally captivating deconstructions of his subjects—spaces, sleep, and key memories—perfectly capture its mood.

The opening lines of Richard Allen Taylor’s poem “Tour Guide” are a good example of this disorientation: “If you need a guide through the territories / of loneliness, take me. I know these lands, / speak the language…”. Likewise, Erin Slaughter’s “The Killing of Snakebird” presents us with the longing for a re-ordering of an inner landscape that’s become unrecognizable: “I tire of my own mythology. I wake up alive / past the end credits, unsure which story / I’m in.”

These rich explorations of strange worlds, inner and outer, are evident in the issue’s other categories, too. In her essay “Educación,” Justine Busto orients herself in Satillo, Mexico by learning to move more slowly; while Jeremy Schnee, in his outrageous “The Young Master Wannabe,” finds glory in moving fast. In her flash story “Twenty-three and None,” Deborah Davitt imagines what it might be like to come from nowhere. And, among this issue’s short fiction stories, we wander through multiple surreal landscapes, stories that attempt again and again to answer the question, “who will I be next?” In the final lines of her epistolary story “Tenure,” Amelia Dornbush explains to her imagined reader, “Most of all, I hope that you understand that until and past the End, we loved. That is how Maria and I chose to die. And it is now how I will choose to live.”

This issue is rich in its strangeness and full in its declaration of love. Mark, we hope your readers will explore some of these strange and fantastic landscapes by taking some time to read a few poems and a story or two. The entire issue is free to read. Let us know what you think!

To read the spring 2025 issue of Lithosphere, please click of the following link: https://litmosphere.charlottelit.org/issues/2025spring/

I congratulate Kathie and all the good folks at Charlotte Lit on the release of the latest issue of Litmosphere. With the publication of each issue of Litmosphere, Charlotte Lit makes an important contribution to the larger literary sphere that I call Storied Charlotte.

Tags: Charlotte Lit Litmosphere

Webb Hubbell’s New Legal Thriller

March 22, 2025 by Mark West

A few months before she died, Dannye Powell sent me an email message in which she provided me with a tip for my Storied Charlotte blog. Over the years, she often contacted me when she had information about a new book by a Charlotte author, and I always followed up on her suggestions. In this particular email, she wrote, “I want to bring your attention to a man in my neighborhood—Webb Hubbell—whose new thriller novel is out. He served as Associate Attorney General under Clinton and also served as mayor of Little Rock, but now he lives in Dilworth and writes thrillers. His new novel is titled Light of Day, and it’s part of a series.”

Taking Dannye’s advice, I did a little research on Webb. I found out that he moved to Charlotte in 2010 after serving in high-level positions in government and industry. Drawing on his background as a lawyer, he started a new career as an author of legal thrillers. He launched his Jack Patterson series in 2014 with the publication of When Men Betray. The central character in this series, Jack Patterson, is a successful lawyer in Washington, DC, who often finds himself in the middle of complicated and dangerous cases. In Light of Day, he agrees to represent a young computer genius who happens to be the grandson of the head of the Louisiana crime syndicate. Almost immediately, Jack gets caught up in a life-threatening situation involving technology companies, the FBI, and Louisiana’s crime syndicate.

While researching Webb’s colorful life, I became curious about how an electrical engineering student at the University of Arkansas, turned college football player, turned high-powered attorney, turned politician ended up becoming a novelist in Charlotte. I contacted him and asked him about his decision to become a writer. Here is what he sent to me:

I am a bit nervous writing to an English professor. My high school English teacher is probably rolling in her grave at the thought that I’ve published seven books. As you might imagine, I was not her favorite student. Ironically, I studied engineering in college, where I didn’t write a single sentence for five years — perfect training for a lawyer and author. However, being a Southerner, storytelling comes naturally to me, and when my wife and I moved to Charlotte, I decided to write novels to keep myself out of trouble.

My first book, When Men Betray, begins with Jack driving to Davidson for Parents Weekend, but he ends up in Arkansas when his best friend murders a U.S. Senator. Each time I start a new Jack Patterson thriller, I consider setting it in Charlotte. However, after living here for fifteen years, I still don’t feel confident enough to accurately portray this wonderful city. My current project, following Light of Day, was originally set in Bat Cave, NC, but Hurricane Helene has forced me to reconsider.

That’s not to say the Carolinas haven’t influenced my writing. Every novel has been written at my desk in Dilworth, with occasional writing retreats to Little Switzerland or the Carolina beaches. Light of Day is a perfect example. During and after Covid, I was stuck. Finally, Suzy and I went to Pawleys Island to walk the beach and write. The sunrises and sunsets over the ocean and marshes provided the inspiration I needed to finish the novel I’d struggled with for two years.

In each of my novels I come up with a theme and setting, but I don’t outline. (I know, that’s not the right way to write.) Instead I put Jack and the other characters in a pickle and hope they will subconsciously help me figure out how to escape. I try to incorporate themes based on my experiences as a lawyer or at the Justice Department. Light of Dayexplores our loss of privacy, the cooperation between major tech companies, and the manipulation of justice. My oldest daughter lives in New Orleans, so our visits have introduced us to the city’s restaurants, the influence of organized crime, and the mysterious swamps and bayous.

A good trial lawyer, like an author, simplifies complex facts for an audience. I let Jack use some of my old courtroom techniques.

For more information about Webb and his novels, please click on the following link: https://webbhubbell.com

I thank Webb for sharing his thoughts on his writing career. I also thank Dannye for introducing me to Webb. Although Dannye is no longer with us in person, her spirit and her good advice continue to resonate in our Storied Charlotte community.

Tags: Legal Thriller Webb Hubbell

The Power of Stories to Bridge Differences

March 15, 2025 by Mark West

I recently learned that the second day of April is National Reconciliation Day. The history of National Reconciliation Day can be traced back to the 1980s when the advice columnist Ann Landers came up with the idea of devoting this day to mending strained relationships. For Landers, reconciliation always involves fostering understanding through improved communication.

In keeping with Landers’ idea, the Levine Museum of the New South is sponsoring an author panel discussion on April 2, 2025. Titled “Reconciliation Through Story,” this event will take place at the South Boulevard Library (4429 South Blvd.) from 6:00 to 7:30. The event is free, but registration is required. Here is the official description of the event:

Join Levine Museum on National Reconciliation Day at South Boulevard Library, for a panel discussion, moderated by Natisha Lance, with four local authors on the power of stories. Those with different perspectives can read the same book to spark conversations promoting understanding and communication which are necessary steps in reconciliation. Our panelists will speak about how their books are a part of that bridge-building process.

The author panel will include Carol Baldwin, debut author of Charlotte-based young-adult novel, Half-Truths, based in Charlotte in the 1950s; Kathleen Burkinshaw, the author of The Last Cherry Blossom, which is based on her mother’s life as a 12-year-old during the last year of WWII in Hiroshima; children’s book author Dorothy H. Price, author of the Jalen’s Big City Life series; and Daddy-Daughter Day; and Meredith Ritchie, author of Poster Girls, a women’s historical fiction novel set in Charlotte in WWII.

For more information about registering for this event, please click on the following link: https://www.museumofthenewsouth.org/lmns-events/reconciliation-through-story/

I commend the Levine Museum of the New South for sponsoring this panel discussion. All the authors on this panel are active members of the Storied Charlotte community, and they all have valuable points to make about the power of stories to bridge differences.

Tags: Charlotte Authors Levine Museum

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s Community Read Program

March 09, 2025 by Mark West

During the month of March, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is once again sponsoring its Community Read program. The purpose of this month-long program is to encourage the members of the larger Charlotte community to read and discuss common texts that all deal with a central theme. For this year, the theme deals with our responses to art. The organizers are asking participants to complete the following statement: Art is …

For more information about the Community Read program, please click on the following link: https://www.cmlibrary.org/community-read

This year’s signature title is  Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li. This novel focuses on a group of Chinese American college students who set out steal five priceless Chinese sculptures from Western art museums. These sculptures were all looted from Beijing centuries ago. On one level, the novel is an exciting heist story, but on a deeper level, it is a thought-provoking introduction to the role that colonization has played in the history of art.

In organizing this year’s Community Read program, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has reached out to many community partners, including Charlotte Lit. The folks at Charlotte Lit are providing participants with opportunities to write about this year’s theme. Intrigued, I contacted Paul Reali, the co-founder and Executive Director of Charlotte Lit, and I asked him for more information about their role in this year’s Community Read program. Here is what he sent to me:

Charlotte Lit has been a Community Read partner for several years. Beginning last year, we decided it would be fun to integrate the year’s theme into our most popular program, Pen to Paper.

P2P, as it’s commonly known, is Charlotte Lit’s free weekly writing session, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Tuesdays, via Zoom. Each P2P includes a mini-lesson, a writing prompt, quiet writing time, and optional sharing—led by Kathie Collins, Paula Martinac, Meg Rich, or me. For March, each P2P session (4, 11, 18, and 25) will include a prompt that’s based on the Community Read’s “Art is…” theme or is inspired by the adult title.

We see about 20 people for P2P each week, mostly from this area but also from across the country. They’re fun, and not quite like any other prompt-based writing sessions we’ve encountered. It’s easy to sign up for our March sessions, or any P2P, here: https://charlottelit.configio.com/p2p. We’ll look forward to seeing some new faces!

I commend Charlotte Lit and all of the other community partners who are contributing to this year’s Community Read program. I always describe my Storied Charlotte blog as a celebration of Charlotte’s community of readers and writers, and the Community Read program is a perfect example of what I mean when I use this phrase.

Read Aloud Rodeo Returns to Park Road Books

March 01, 2025 by Mark West

Park Road Books and I are pleased to announce our second Read Aloud Rodeo, a read-aloud story-time event that will take place at Park Road Books (4139 Park Road) from 10:30 to 12:30 on Saturday, March 8, 2025. At the Read Aloud Rodeo, children’s authors, local educators and literacy advocates will participate in a two-hour marathon reading of picture books aloud to children. For more information about this event, please click on the following link: https://www.parkroadbooks.com/event/read-aloud-rodeo-celebrating-read-across-america-day

The Read Aloud Rodeo is tied to the National Education Association’s Read Across America Week, which traditionally kicks off on the second day of March in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday.

Park Road Books and I previously collaborated on an annual event called the Seuss-a-Thon, which involved a marathon reading of picture books by Dr. Seuss. Like the previous Seuss-a-Thons, the Read Aloud Rodeo will include a marathon reading of picture books, but at this year’s event, not all the featured picture books are by Dr. Seuss.

My interest in organizing the Read Aloud Rodeo has a personal connection For me, the act of reading aloud to children relates to my own childhood. I went to a very small, rural school that did not have the resources that were generally available in larger schools at the time. As a result, my dyslexia went undiagnosed. My third-grade teacher told my parents that she thought I was “mildly retarded,” but the school did nothing to help me overcome my learning disability. Luckily for me, my father did. He read aloud to me practically every night, and this experience helped me develop my love of literature even though I initially found it difficult to read on my own. By cultivating my interest in books and stories, my father provided me with the incentive to persist in my efforts to become a proficient reader despite my dyslexia. I am sure that I would not be an English professor today if my father had not read to me during my childhood.

In recent years, researchers have studied the impact of reading aloud to children, and their research findings are consistent with my own experiences. Ralf Thiede, a colleague of mine at UNC Charlotte, summarizes these findings in his book Children’s Books, Brain Development, and Language Acquisition. As Ralf points out, the act of reading aloud to children plays a major role in helping children build their vocabularies and learn how language works.

While I believe there is a pedagogical value associated with reading aloud to children, the purpose of the Read Aloud Rodeo is just to have fun. I invite everyone in Storied Charlotte to bring their kids to Park Road Books next Saturday for a fun story-time event.

Tags: Reading Aloud

Bidding Farewell to the Main Street Rag Publishing Company

February 22, 2025 by Mark West

Back in March 2020 I wrote a Storied Charlotte blog post about Charlotte-area publishers, and I focused much of this post on the Main Street Rag Publishing Company. This business got its start as the publisher of The Main Street Rag, a quarterly literary magazine that began in 1996 under the editorship of M. Scott Douglass. Since then, the Main Street Rag Publishing Company has evolved into a well-regarded independent press known especially for poetry.

I recently visited the Main Street Rag’s website, and I was surprised to see the announcement that the business’s long-standing Mint Hill address would “change no later than January 1, 2025.” I did a bit more research, and I discovered that Scott and his business had just moved to Pennsylvania. Curious, I contacted Scott and asked him about this move. Here is what he sent to me:

For years my wife and I were looking for a second home in Western Pennsylvania to use as a place to stay while visiting family. She’s from Albion, I’m from Pittsburgh, but we both have strong ties to Erie. Her nephews live there. My son and granddaughter live there. My grandson lives not far away in Meadville. Edinboro is a small college town that put us closer to where we could play a bigger part with our families. We had lost both parents while living 500+ miles away. There is still a bitter scar among some members of my family because I hadn’t been there enough for my parents.

The problem with second home shopping was: We couldn’t find anything acceptable in our price range. So, we stopped shopping for a second home.

As owner of Main Street Rag, I can never fully retire, but Jill was nearing her time. We vacationed in Oregon in the spring of 2024. On the morning of June 25, we left Boise on our way to Salt Lake City. It was her birthday and she had finally conceded that she was ready to retire. I asked her what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go—thinking mostly of travel. She said she wanted to “move back home.”

It was a bit of a surprise, but not too much. I had other places in mind if we moved, but she’d always said she didn’t want to live where it was cold. Home was in the Pennsylvania snow belt, where it definitely gets cold. With that, the decision had been made. The following week we started house shopping. Three weeks later we bid on a house. September 6^th we closed on it.

It was time to prep our house and empty 25 years of nesting. This was right around the time Helene came through. An 80-year-old oak fell and crushed my barn and almost everything in it, The storm caused roof and internal damage which delayed getting our house on the market.

When the FOR SALE sign went up in our yard, our friends and neighbors did not take it well. One next door neighbor said he was mad at me for leaving, said I lied to him when I said this was our “forever home.” The neighbor on the other side put his house up for sale and moved before we managed to close on ours. Our closest friends acted as if we had abandoned them.

Some folks took it personally, but that’s not what it was about. It was about getting back, closer to our families.

From the business standpoint, Main Street Rag had cut a place in North Carolina history. We likely published more North Carolina poets and writers than any publisher previously. But the winds had shifted and, frankly, it was portable. I could put it on my back and take it with me.

When we started, it was because there was a limited number of publishing options for regional authors. For a while, we were at the top of many peoples’ list for book publication and for appearance in our literary journal. At one point, the subscription base for my magazine was about 30% North Carolina authors, but with the most recent issues, even those prior to announcing our move, the strength of my subscription base had shifted from the Carolinas to the northeast, specifically Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Moving back to Pennsylvania put Main Street Rag closer to what has become the center of our financial support.

We still have strong ties to the Charlotte area. Our books and magazine are still produced there, and most of our editors live in North Carolina. But our new location has several benefits that weren’t available there.

Since I work out of my house, our new house is benefit number one. Our money went further in Edinboro than it could have in the Charlotte market. Our new house has room to host as many as six overnight guests comfortably. It also has an addition I call my shop that has more than a thousand square feet. It’s large enough to fit my small office space, all of my “hobbies” and when I’m done unpacking and building it out, it’s large enough to fit a lending library of about 5000 small press books that are hard to find anywhere else along with seating space for about 50 people when it’s ready to host reading events.

We will always cherish our time in Charlotte and will return frequently. But family is our first obligation and in reconnecting to that, we’ve also discovered a whole new world of possibilities for Main Street Rag.

I thank Scott for sharing his reasons for moving to Pennsylvania. I bid him farewell, and I wish him all the best as he and his wife settle into their new home. Scott has played a major role in Storied Charlotte’s literary scene for many years, and he will be missed.

Tags: Main Street Rag

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