Storied Charlotte

ImaginOn: A Story Place for Storied Charlotte

July 18, 2022 by Mark West

ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center is a special place where stories come alive and imagination rules the day. There literally is no place else quite like it in the world. Part of what makes ImaginOn so special is its innovative and welcoming architecture, but I think the main reason that ImaginOn is such a unique place is the way it combines the resources and programming associated with a children’s library with the offerings of a vibrant children’s theatre company. In a sense, ImaginOn is not only a place; it’s also a catalyst that brings books and plays together, often resulting in a form of alchemy or, to use a more modern term, synergy.

About a week ago, I took a group of UNC Charlotte students to ImaginOn to work on a research project related to the Caldecott Medal. These students are in my advanced summer seminar on award-winning children’s literature, and one of the awards I am covering is the Caldecott Medal, which is awarded annually to an excellent picture book. ImaginOn has a complete, non-circulating collection of the past winners of this award, and I assigned my students to examine this collection. Before the students set to work on their research project, however, they were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of ImaginOn by Becca Worthington, the head Children’s Librarian at ImaginOn.

My students loved their tour of ImaginOn. For many of them, it was their first time visiting ImaginOn, and they appreciated Becca’s informative and enthusiastic introduction to this unique place. Afterward, I thought that the readers of my Storied Charlotte blog might also appreciate hearing from Becca, so I asked her if she would send me a few paragraphs about ImaginOn and her association with this place. Here is what she sent to me:

It would be almost impossible to discuss story spaces in Charlotte without mentioning ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center. ImaginOn is the only existing hybrid children’s theatre/children’s library in the United States. It’s a sparkling, magical building full of life and energy, and it is the 16-year-old partnership between Children’s Theatre of Charlotte (one of the top professional children’s theatre companies in the country) and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (one of America’s leading urban public library systems), which have the shared mission of bringing stories to life.

It holds a particularly special place in my heart because I wrote my thesis on it. My undergraduate degree is in playwriting, and I’ve always been a drama nerd. Before I moved to Charlotte, I was working in book publishing during the day and moonlighting as Literary Manager for an off-Broadway theatre company. When I was getting my Masters in Library Science (MLS), I was startled by how many performance-averse students were in my classes–especially since children’s librarianship is essentially musical theatre and weird voices and puppetry arts in front of a live audience–so for my capstone project I decided to track and document the lack of performative and theatrical training for children’s librarians at all 48 MLS programs in the country. In my research, I stumbled across ImaginOn and realized it was the only library in the U.S. doing what I was arguing all libraries should aspire to do. By pure luck, they were hiring a head Children’s Librarian, and my skillset made me a unique fit for this absolute dream of a job.

One of the first things anyone notices when you walk into ImaginOn (if it’s not the huge dragon lurking overtop of the entrance) is the spiral sculpture in the center of the building, called our Story Jar, which is covered with dangling objects from picture books and past shows. The base of the StoryJar is full of marbles, and–a fun, lesser-known fact–when the building was created, children were invited to sit at self-guided touchscreen stations where they were prompted to create original stories and “submit” them to the StoryJar. For each story submitted, a marble dropped down. Now there are thousands of marbles in the StoryJar, and each one represents a story created within our building.

The people hired to work at ImaginOn are entertainers by nature, whether that be library staff doing storytimes, drama programs, or traditional storytelling or the actors, costumers, set designers, and technical crew that are creating the full stage productions at the two indoor theatres in the building. And children are natural storytellers as well, which is why many of the activities to do in our building are designed to be self-guided, from little ones putting on a puppet show up to adolescents creating content with the Teen Loft’s bluescreen film technology.

Because we are a story space that was so specifically created for crowds, the pandemic has been an interesting thing to navigate. After all, a story needs an audience more than anything else. But as things normalize, as the crowds begin to come back, and as we offer things like EpicFest (Charlotte’s annual author and literacy festival, based out of ImaginOn, photo attached) and Children’s Theatre’s season-opener of Annie, I am confident that ImaginOn will be a space that brings stories to life once again, better than ever.

I thank Becca for giving my students a tour of ImaginOn and for sharing her insights into this special place. One of the reasons that Storied Charlotte is such fertile ground for stories to take root is that it is home to a veritable greenhouse for stories, and that greenhouse is called ImaginOn.

New Genre Fiction by Charlotte Authors

June 27, 2022 by Mark West

Charlotte is home to a number of successful authors who specialize in writing genre fiction, and three of them have new releases. These include Kathy Reichs’s latest thriller/mystery titled Cold, Cold Bones, Cheris Hodges’s new romance novel titled Can’t Hide Love, and Nancy Northcott’s historical fantasy titled The Merlin Club. All three of these releases are out in time for readers to enjoy during their summer vacations.

Scheduled for release on July 5, Cold, Cold Bones is part of Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan Series. The author’s website leads off with the following announcement of the book’s publication: “Kathy Reichs returns with her twenty-first novel of suspense featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who, after receiving a box containing a human eyeball, uncovers a series of gruesome killings eerily reenacting the most shocking of her prior cases.” For more information about Cold, Cold Bones, please click on the following link: https://kathyreichs.com/cold-cold-bones/

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation is sponsoring a kick-off event to celebrate the release of Cold, Cold Bones. Titled “A Conversation with Kathy Reichs,” this event will take place on Thursday, July 7, 2022, from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Wells Fargo Playhouse at ImaginOn. To purchase tickets for this event, please click on the following link: https://foundation.cmlibrary.org/event/a-conversation-with-kathy-reichs/

Cheris Hodges’s Can’t Hide Love is book four of her Richardson Sisters series. All of the books in this series deal with the Richardson family’s historic bed-and-breakfast in Charleston, South Carolina. Each book in the series features one of the Richardson sisters, and this latest volume focuses on Alexandria Richardson. The author’s website includes the following description of Can’t Hide Love: “She’s the responsible sister, making sacrifices to run the family’s treasured B&B. But for once, Alexandria Richardson decides to take a vacation—a singles’ cruise, where she throws caution to the wind. And the handsome stranger she meets is just what she needs to make every moment sizzle—for all seven wildly sexy days. Energized and refreshed, Alex returns home—only to discover her holiday hottie is also the renowned architect tapped for the B&B’s major renovation project. How is she supposed to manage a business—and an all-consuming desire?” For more information about Can’t Hide Love, please click on the following link: https://thecherishodges.com

Nancy Northcott’s The Merlin Club is the first book in a new historical fantasy/mystery series about a secret organization of wizards. In introducing the series, the author writes, “An ancient compact among Europe’s wizards, or Gifted, bars them from using magic against each other for national gain. Sometimes, though, you have to break the rules to avert disaster. Thus the Merlin Club was born. A group of English Gifted, they operate in secret lest they draw the ire of their governing council. When magic threatens the peace and security of the realm, they rise to the challenge. No matter what that requires them to do.” For information about The Merlin Club and the author’s other books, please click here: https://www.amazon.com/Merlin-Club-Nancy-Northcott-ebook/dp/B09WKSW2LD

These three novels differ by genre, but they all offer readers opportunities to escape their day-to-day concerns and enjoy the pleasures that come with reading well-written genre fiction. Storied Charlotte is indeed fortunate to be home to such talented genre authors.

Keeping Up with Landis Wade

June 20, 2022 by Mark West

Landis Wade has a way of making things happen, and Charlotte’s community of readers and writers is the better for it. In 2018 Wade founded his Charlotte Readers Podcast, and since then his podcast has become a cultural fixture in Charlotte. With the release of his 300th episode this week, Landis has decided to revamp his podcast. He is bringing aboard two new co-hosts and making some format changes. But that is not all that Landis has been up to lately. He has recently published his novel titled Deadly Declarations: An Indie Retirement Mystery. Also, he and I have recently launched the Charlotte Readers Book Club. Our next book club meeting will take place on June 29, 2022. Keeping up with Landis is a challenge, but fortunately he has a website that covers much of his news: https://landiswade.com

There is a lot going on with Landis this month, but I’ll start with the latest news about the Charlotte Readers Podcast (http://www.charlottereaderspodcast.com). I contacted Landis and asked him for more information about the 300^th episode of the Charlotte Readers Podcast and his plans for the future of the podcast. Here is what he sent to me:

It’s been a technology learning curve and a lot of work over the past three and a half years but a definite honor and privilege to reach the 300 podcast episode milestone. The experience gave me the opportunity to meet and interview authors in 30 states and four countries about their books, stories and poems, and it energized my own writing to learn about their writing and marketing practices and discover that even bestselling authors have been rejected and have feelings too.

Reaching 300 episodes seemed like a good time to stop, or pivot. After much thought, I chose to pivot and I am very pleased I did because I have two wonderful co-hosts who are joining me in this venture. Hannah Larrew has been the podcast publicist, a book lover, and a bundle of energy. She represents traditionally and independently published authors and other artists across the creative spectrum and is going to bring that book whisperer knowledge to the show. Sarah Archer is a very talented novelist and screenwriter who has traveled widely and knows her stuff. She’s taught about writing and is very engaged in the writing community. With her knowledge about traditional publishing and my experience with independent publishing, we hope to provide helpful tips to our audience of writers, and Hannah will weigh in on the marketing front and her own writing.

So what’s going to be different about Beyond 300? No longer will this podcast be a one author interview show. No longer will it release weekly. We plan to do more in each show and because the show will be much longer, we are going to offer the audience two episodes a month that are more in depth and can be consumed in bites. Each episode will feature more authors in a variety of formats. There will be short interviews. We will use something called SpeakPipe to have authors provide us with audio content. And we will feature authors who write for our community blog on writing and book marketing topics. The three hosts will talk about what they are reading and we will have community experts weigh in with their suggestions, including a contribution in each episode by Storied Charlotte Blog. The three hosts will tackle a writing and marketing topic in each episode and we are going to open up SpeakPipe to listeners who can leave us messages to be played on the show, whether it be comments about a past show, questions for the hosts, or their own book recommendations or writing and marketing tips. Plus, it will be fun for the hosts, and hopefully, engaging for the guests to hear from more just me and one guest at a time.

Here is a link to a short YouTube video we just uploaded talking about reaching 300 episodes, introducing the new co-hosts for Beyond 300 and talking about the new format. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7VlURWdIag

We hope Charlotte Readers Podcast – Beyond 300, will be a place where readers and writers can be entertained, learn about good books, and engage with us about writing and book marketing practices. Thanks for helping us spread the word as we continue to help authors give voice to their own written words.

Landis also has great news about Deadly Declarations. In his “Author’s Newsletter” that he sent out on June 7, Landis wrote, “I was very honored to learn over the weekend that Deadly Declarations was selected as one of the Finalists in the 2022 International Book Awards in the Thriller/Adventure category.” I congratulate Landis on this recognition.

Readers who would like to talk with Landis about Deadly Declarations are in luck, for Landis is one of the featured authors at our next Charlotte Readers Book Club event. For our second Charlotte Readers Book Club, Charlotte Readers Podcast and Storied Charlotte are partnering with That’s Novel Books at Hygge at Camp North End. This event will take place at Lokal/That’s Novel Books, 330 Camp Road, on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. We will feature Deadly Declarations and Avery Caswell’s recently published Salvation, a novel based on Earthell Latta’s personal story of her abduction by a traveling preacher in 1971. Earthell Latta will also be joining our book club discussion. You are not required to have read the books to participate in our book club. This will be an open discussion with authors, and I will be moderating the discussion. You’ll have the opportunity to ask the authors questions, purchase their books and meet other Charlotte book lovers. Here is the Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/charlotte-readers-book-club-tickets-367897008857

I enjoy collaborating with Landis on our Charlotte Readers Book Club, and I appreciate his many and varied contributions to Storied Charlotte.

Patrice Gopo’s Debut Picture Book

June 13, 2022 by Mark West

With the June 14^th release of All the Places We Call Home, Patrice Gopo claims her place on the list of picture books authors who currently call Charlotte home. Patrice did not always call Charlotte home. The child of Jamaican immigrants, Patrice grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. During her early adult years, she spent time living in multiple states and countries, including South Africa, before eventually moving to Charlotte about eleven years ago. Patrice draws on her unique background in her debut picture book. For more information about Patrice and All the Places We Call Home, please click on the following link: https://www.patricegopo.com/home

In the beginning of All the Places We Call Home, a young girl spins a globe on her bedside table and wonders about the various places that figure in her family history. Like Patrice, the girl lives in America but has family roots in multiple parts of the world. The girl’s mother then shares bedtime stories about these special places. Jenin Mohammed, the book’s illustrator, provides colorful pictures that perfectly match Patrice’s lyrical descriptions of the various places that the girl calls home.

All the Places We Call Home has direct connections to Patrice’s first book, a collection of personal essays titled All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way, which came out in 2018. I recently contacted Patrice and asked her about the connections between these two books. Here is what she sent to me:

First, a fun fact about All the Places We Call Home: an essay in my collection All the Colors We Will See inspired the story. Years ago, in rural Zimbabwe, my oldest daughter took a nap on her great-grandmother’s bed. That day I remembered a childhood nap I had once taken on my grandmother’s bed in rural Jamaica. I recognized how my daughter’s story would, in many ways, mirror my story: a child who lives in one place but has cultural ties to other parts of the world. That experience became an essay titled “Before.” I started writing personal essays around 2010. However, I only branched out into picture books in 2019 when an idea whispered to me that maybe I could reimagine “Before” in a new form.

When I initially started writing All the Places We Call Home, I attempted to take “Before” and pare it down, still clinging to the complex language and structural movement. That draft failed miserably. The failure, however, was still a great learning experience. I discovered I needed a different approach for a picture book versus the meandering approach I often take when writing essays. With essays, the images and lyrical language usually come first and lead me toward the story. With picture books, I discovered that the story usually comes first and leads me toward the rich imagery and lyrical language.

As a 2011 transplant to Charlotte, I think All the Places We Call Home is the perfect title for this book. Over the years, Charlotte has truly become a place I think of as another home. I know some of that metamorphosis happened because of the significant impact Charlotte and North Carolina has had on my growth as a writer. I often tell people that living in this city and this state helped me become the writer I am today. It’s here that I refined my craft as an essayist, and it’s here that I stepped into this new area of picture books. Along the way, I’ve found incredible support through organizations such as the North Carolina Arts Council, the Arts & Science Council, Charlotte Lit, and the Carolinas chapter of SCBWI.

I’m so excited for All the Places We Call Home to find its place in the world, and I’m absolutely thrilled with the Jenin Mohammed’s rich and textured illustrations. She brought life to this story in ways I could have never dreamed. Ultimately, I hope All the Places We Call Home will encourage children and their families and caregivers to embrace this beautiful truth: the places we come from can be part of us, even if we can’t always be near them. Places we’ve never lived—or we no longer live—can deepen our understanding of ourselves. Our children can connect to more than just the place where they fall asleep at night. For some, their ties stretch across the world. For others, they stretch across their town. Ultimately, may this story inspire others to celebrate the various places they call home.

Patrice is participating in several upcoming events tied to the launch of All the Places We Call Home. Detailed information about these events can be found on her website, but the key information is listed below:

Saturday, June 18^th @ 11am @ Park Road Books

Wednesday, June 29^th @ 1 pm @ Pig City Books

Friday, July 1^st @ 10 am @ Main Street Books

Saturday, July 9^th @ 11 am hosted by Shelves Bookstore

While reading All the Places We Call Home, I was reminded of the family stories that my mother told me about Sweden when I was a boy. Everyone in my mother’s family came from Sweden, and her Swedish heritage was very important to her. I enjoyed hearing my mother’s stories about our family history. I was in my 60s before I visited Sweden, but I felt at home when I finally did.

Like Patrice, I now call Charlotte home, but also like Patrice, I feel strong ties to other places in the world—places where I once lived or places where members of my family once lived. In this regard, I am not unique. Charlotte has a long and rich history of attracting people from all over the world. For this reason, Patrice’s All the Places We Call Home is a perfect book for Storied Charlotte.

Tags: family stories picture book

Chris Arvidson Finds Her Voice as a Poet

June 06, 2022 by Mark West

A few years ago, I wrote a Storied Charlotte blog post about Chris Arvidson’s anthology titled The Love of Baseball: Essays by Lifelong Fans. At the time that I wrote about her baseball anthology, I would have described Chris as a writer of creative nonfiction. I knew that she covered poetry in the creative writing classes that she regularly teaches at UNC Charlotte, but I wasn’t then aware that she had taken an interest in writing poetry. Over the years, however, I have learned that some writers are hard to pin down, and Chris is such a writer. I first became aware of Chris’s interest in writing poetry when I noticed that she was one of the Charlotte poets featured in the Of Earth and Sky: Poetry Anthology 2021. Her career as a poet has taken a big step forward this month with the publication of The House Inside My Head, her first poetry collection. For more information about this collection, please click the following link: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-house-inside-my-head-by-chris-arvidson/

I contacted Chris and asked her about how she came to write The House Inside My Head. Here is what she sent to me:

Poetry has come to me late in my writing life. My MFA and subsequent nonfiction work has been about people, places, baseball…. But when my husband Henry and I moved back to Charlotte, after being gone to such far-flung places as Traverse City, MI, and Pittsburgh, it just started pouring out of me. I blame it on the Charlotte Mecklenburg library uptown, and Charlotte Lit’s Pen to Paper writing sessions.

The first week we were back, I started going to the Thursday morning Write Like You Mean It sessions at the library. And then I added in Pen to Paper at Charlotte Lit once a week. Soon the library started a bi-weekly Poetry in Pajamas, and I thought, well, hell, why not? All the prompts all seemed to “prompt” me to poetry.

Then the pandemic hit and that just egged me on even more. We started Zooming and still there was poetry. Before I knew it, I had a pretty big collection of stuff people seemed to like, so on the advice of poetry friends I sent it in to Finishing Line Press’ annual chapbook contest. I didn’t win, but they asked to publish the chapbook.

In my Introduction to Creative Writing class at UNC Charlotte, the final exam is to submit what you think is your best work for publication. Students decide which pieces of their work over the semester is their best, revise and polish, then research the right place for submission. I could hardly do less.

By the way, every semester, at least one student gets their work published. I like to think about how that final exam could prompt a lifelong habit. One of my students, Luther “Cole” Kissam V, just published a full-length poetry collection titled Have I Told You about My Superpowers. Some of the poems in the collection he wrote in my class. He will be reading from his new book at Park Road Books on Sunday, June 12, 2022, at 3 pm.Is that great or what?

I agree—it is great. I think it’s great that both Chris and Cole have poetry books that have come out this month. I think it’s great Storied Charlotte is a place where writers such as Chris and Cole can find the support they need to grow as writers.

Tags: poetry collection

The Return of Robin Hemley

May 30, 2022 by Mark West

In the lobby of UNC Charlotte’s English Department stands a handsome display case full of books written by members of the department. Most of the books on display are by current faculty, but the display case also includes a selection of books by former faculty members, including Robin Hemley’s first novel, The Last Studebaker, which came out in 1992. 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. He is now the director of the George Polk School of Communications at Long Island University (LIU) as well as the co-director of LIU’s MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing. For more information about Robin’s career, please click on the following link: https://robinhemley.com/

I am pleased to report that Robin is returning to Charlotte this week to talk about his latest book. Robin will join Judy Goldman in an in-person event at Park Road Books (4139 Park Road) on Sunday, June 5, from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. During this event, Robin will discuss his novel Oblivion: An After Autobiography, and Judy will talk about her new memoir titled Child (which I wrote about in my Storied Charlotte blog a few weeks ago).

Oblivion is Robin’s first paranormal novel. It’s a ghost story of sorts, but at its core, it is a story about the interior life of a writer. In discussing the book, Junot Diaz (a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) writes, “A mesmerizing meditation on immortality, both the literary and fleshly kinds, and its ultimate unattainability… like language, like summer, like love, Oblivion is irresistible.” I contacted Robin and asked him for more information about Oblivion, and here is what he sent to me:

Where do writers go when they die? The forgotten ones, at least, go to The Cafe of Minor Authors where they drink endless cups of cappuccino, self-obsess, and nurse their shattered dreams. Some authors, it’s rumored, can escape Oblivion if they try hard enough to write something the universe can’t ignore, even after death. This is the story of one ambitious writer stuck in oblivion who not only risks upturning his own fate but also the fate of his literary hero, and that of his great grandmother, Hanna, an aspiring actor in the Yiddish theater in the Prague of 1911. This book is for anyone who has ever wanted to be an author, anyone who knows an author, anyone who is an author, recognized or not, and anyone who loves books enough to want to spend their afterlife reading forgotten classics in the great library of Oblivion.

Oblivion is a story that sprang from a combination of my family history, the ups and downs of being a writer, and my love for the writer Franz Kafka, who had his own struggles with family and writing. I consider it perhaps my best book, and my writer friends seem to agree. I also was able to give full play to my sense of humor as well as my more philosophical side about “immortality” and the common drive to make our marks.

I have remained in touch with Robin since he left Charlotte, and I know that he has fond memories of his Charlotte years. I asked him for his thoughts about returning to Charlotte for the event at Park Road Books, and he sent me the following reflection:

Charlotte is near and dear to my heart. I taught at UNC Charlotte for seven years from the late 1980s to the mid-90s, my first full-time academic job. One thing I have long loved about Charlotte and North Carolina as a whole is that it’s one of the few places in the country where writers are really respected. Literature is such an integral part of Charlotte, and that’s something that can’t be said universally. I believe I was an integral part of the literary scene there and made many friends in the literary community in Charlotte and across North Carolina. Some of my friends still reside in Charlotte and I’m excited to see them – Mark West and Judy Goldman (who is joining me for our joint book event) among the people I’m so looking forward to see again. But there are many others, too many to mention, here, whom I hope will show up. I might not recognize them at first and vice-versa. But it would be great to reconnect.

I plan to attend Robin and Judy’s joint book event on June 5, 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.

Book Buyers Begins Anew

May 23, 2022 by Mark West

When people enter my book-lined office for the first time, they often comment on how many old children’s books I have, and it’s true. I have hundreds and hundreds of old children’s books, the oldest of which dates back to 1830. I am occasionally asked, “Where did you find all of these books?” I answer by explaining that most of them came from used bookstores. I have been haunting used bookstores since I was in my 20s, and that was a long time ago.

I found a number of the books in my collection at Book Buyers, one of Charlotte’s best-known used bookstores. For years, Book Buyers was a fixture in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood. I often took the drive to Plaza Midwood, where I roamed the shelves at Book Buyers and said hello to Deena, the store cat. Lee Rathers and her father, Richard Rathers, did not want to leave their original location in the Midwood Corners shopping center, but when their rent doubled, they were forced to find a new location. In December 2021, they held a moving sale and began the laborious process of relocating their store to the Eastway Crossing shopping center.

Last week I received an email from Lee Rathers informing me of “Book Buyers Grand Reopening.” She mentioned that they had a “soft opening” earlier in the spring, but she said that they were now ready to celebrate their big move with a big event. I quickly responded to her email and asked her for more information about their move and their grand reopening. Here is what she sent to me:

Book Buyers has relocated from its original location in Plaza Midwood to Eastway Crossing, a shopping center on the corner of Eastway Drive and Central Avenue. The move came about because we were priced out of our Plaza Midwood location along with numerous other businesses. Book Buyers originally opened in 1999 and is one of Charlotte’s longest-running independent used bookstores. Our new location is an exciting new phase for our business in a quickly growing area of Charlotte’s East Side.

Our new Eastway Crossing space is 4,200 sq-ft and holds our complete inventory of approximately 30,000 titles. Customers will recognize the layout of the space and the same, original pine bookcases built by owner Richard Rathers. Our resident bookstore cat, Deena, has recently moved back in and is making herself at home and greeting customers.

Book Buyers is grateful to be among many other independently owned businesses in Eastway Crossing, many of whom are Plaza Midwood transplants. Bart’s Mart, immediately next door to us, is a beer and wine seller with a great selection and fun atmosphere. On the other side of our space, Gear Goat Xchg sells new and used outdoor equipment and brings a great energy to the area. Armada Skate Shop, Tommy’s Pub, VisArt Video, Eastside Local Eatery, The Dog Salon, Open Door Studios, and other neighbors make Eastway Crossing a great destination and hub for local businesses.

Here’s some information about our Grand Reopening:

When: June 6th to June 12th (all week)

What: Grand Reopening featuring:

25% off all used books
Children’s storytime
Writing workshop led by Charlotte Center for Literary Arts (Charlotte Lit)
2 nights of poetry and fiction reading by local writers followed by an open mic
Sunday Brunch

Where: 3040 Eastway Drive, Suite B

Who: All customers, new and old, are welcome

Why: We want to celebrate our new location and the start of our next 20 years in business as East Charlotte’s used bookstore. We’re grateful for our loyal customers and are excited to offer events and activities to bring our community together. This reopening marks the beginning of future readings and other Book Buyers offerings to the public.

I wish Lee and Richard (and Deena) all the best as they celebrate the grand reopening of Book Buyers. I look forward to visiting their new location in my never-ending quest to acquire new additions to my collection of old children’s books. Needless to say, I am pleased that Book Buyers is still in business right here in Storied Charlotte.

Tags: grand reopening independent used bookstore used books

Perusing President Theodore Roosevelt’s Personal Library

May 13, 2022 by Mark West

I have a sense that I know President Theodore Roosevelt even though he died a little more than a century ago. The reason I feel so connected to Roosevelt is that I have carefully perused his personal library while I was researching and writing Theodore Roosevelt and His Library at Sagamore Hill, which Rowman & Littlefield published a few weeks ago.

Throughout his adult life, Roosevelt read between 300 and 500 books each year. Wherever he went, he brought books with him. Whether he was rounding up cattle on a ranch in North Dakota, giving campaign speeches from the back of a train, governing the nation from the White House, or exploring an uncharted tributary of the Amazon River, he always made time to read books. Most of these books came to rest in Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s home located near Oyster Bay in Long Island, New York. In most cases, these books are on the same bookshelves where Roosevelt put them so many years ago.

The books in Roosevelt’s personal library reflect his love of classic works of literature, his interest in history, and his fascination with the natural sciences. His reading shaped his values, his point of view, and his thinking on the many topics that interested him. For Roosevelt, reading was not a passive pastime. He regularly applied what he learned from his reading to his daily life and to his work in politics. When he finished reading a book, he often contacted the author to discuss the implications of the author’s main points. In a sense, Roosevelt’s books provide a window into the workings of his mind.

The time I spent perusing Roosevelt’s personal library was one of the highlights of my career. I felt as if I were in his presence, as if I had a glimpse of the inner person behind his public persona as the Rough Rider.

My fascination with Roosevelt’s reading relates to my larger preoccupation with personal libraries. I always take an interest in the books that people read. When I am visiting friends and family members, I am drawn to their bookcases like some insects are drawn to lamps. When I am watching a person being interviewed on television and that person is seated in front of a bookshelf, I often ignore what the person is saying and try to read the titles of the books on the bookshelf instead.

Perhaps because I am a book collector myself, I feel a sense of kinship with other book collectors. In many ways, my Storied Charlotte blog is an extension of my book collection. I actually own many of the books that I write about in my Storied Charlotte blog posts, and many of them are shelved together—I am sure that Roosevelt would approve.

Judy Goldman and Her Memoirs

May 09, 2022 by Mark West

Charlotte author Judy Goldman has published two books of poetry and two novels, but she is best known for her memoirs. Her first memoir, Losing My Sister, came out in 2012, and her second memoir, Together: A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap, came out in 2019. These two earlier memoirs are now joined by Child: A Memoir, which the University of South Carolina Press released on May 5, 2022. For more information about Judy and her books, please click on the following link: http://judygoldman.com/

In all three of her memoirs, Judy delves into the complexities of her relationships with important people in her life, such as her sister and her husband. In Child, Judy writes about her relationship with Mattie Culp, the Black woman who cared for Judy as a white Jewish girl growing up in Rock Hill, South Carolina, during the 1940s and ‘50s.

When writing her memoirs, Judy does not shy away from difficult or controversial topics. One of the reasons her memoirs are so memorable is that they are not simple retellings of the surface details of her life. In the case of Child, Judy writes about how the racism of the Jim Crow South affected her relationship with Mattie. Judy brings up this topic in the very beginning of her book. In her prologue, she writes, “Like thousands of white southerners in my generation, I was raised by a Black woman who had to leave her own child behind to work for a white family. … Our love was unwavering. But it was, by definition, uneven.”

Child, as the title suggests, focuses on Judy’s childhood and the role that Mattie Culp played in it during this period in Judy’s life. However, Judy does not limit the book to her own childhood. She also writes about Mattie’s life. In preparation for writing this memoir, Judy researched Mattie’s childhood, her education at a Rosenwald School built for Black children, Mattie’s relationship with Judy’s mother, and Mattie’s life after Judy grew up. In Child, Judy covers many of the details of Mattie’s life, but she avoids speaking for Mattie. As Judy told Dannie Romine Powell in a recent interview published in The Charlotte Observer, “In my memoir, I tried to be careful never to presume to know what Mattie might be thinking and only convey what she actually said to me. Any reflection I included was my own.”

Judy’s three memoirs are all deeply personal stories. While they are certainly autobiographical, I don’t think of them as autobiographies per se. I see them more as candid meditations about some of the relationships that have shaped Judy’s life. Within the context of her life, these relationships transcend the particularities of dates. Thus, even though Judy is now eighty years old, she infuses Child with a sense of immediacy. Her descriptions of the small moments that she and Mattie shared in the late 1940s are written as if they happened yesterday. In a sense, Judy’s readers feel as if they are participants in these moments, too. Judy invites the readers of Child and her other memoirs to form their own relationships with the people who figure in her narratives. Judy has a gift for writing memoirs that are unique to her life, but at the same time, speak to readers whose lives are far different from her own. In my opinion, with the publication of Child, Judy has established herself as Storied Charlotte’s leading writer of memoirs.

Tags: memoirs

Larry Mellichamp’s Legacy of Growing Plants and Telling Their Stories

May 02, 2022 by Mark West

A few weeks ago, I went shopping for plants at the spring plant sale sponsored by UNC Charlotte’s Botanical Gardens. I had the good fortune of running into Dr. Jeff Gillman, the Director of the gardens, and he helped me find plants that would grow in my garden’s shady section.

As is usually the case when I see Jeff, we ended up talking about our friend Dr. Larry Mellichamp, the previous Director of UNC Charlotte’s Botanical Gardens. Larry retired in 2014, but Larry and Jeff often visit each other and collaborate on garden projects. Our conversation turned to Larry’s delightful and insightful books, and we agreed that Larry has a special talent for telling stories about plants. I asked Jeff if he would write about Larry’s books for my Storied Charlotte blog, and he readily agreed. Here is what he sent to me:

Academics, especially those in the sciences, tend to write for other academics. Their writing is usually dry, full of scientific jargon, and just not very pleasant to read on a beautiful Saturday morning. This is a real shame because, let’s face it, academics tend to know more about the subject which they study than almost anyone else. Every once in a while, however, one of these dry as bones scientific authors will decide that regular people are actually worthy of their time and attention and they will create something amazing. Such is the case with Dr. Larry Mellichamp, Professor and Director Emeritus of the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens.

As the Director of the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens for over thirty-nine years, Larry has hands-on experience and knowledge of an incredible array of plants. At various times in his career, he could claim elite expertise in orchids, carnivorous plants, ferns, and others, but he is perhaps best known for his work with native plants.

Over the years Larry wrote six books, all of which targeted the average person on the street and helped to make plants more interesting and accessible. His book Bizarre Botanicals, written with Paula Gross, is a great example of Larry collecting information on a plethora of fascinating plants and, instead of keeping it to himself, letting people know about all of the cool specimens that are out there. The book even includes information about the difficulty of growing these odd and intriguing plants, letting us know whether a beginner should give them a shot or if it’s only for the advanced gardener.

Larry’s best-known book is, without a doubt, Native Plants of the Southeast. It’s an incredible journey through the plethora of plants native to the Southeast with wonderful notes and specifications. Perhaps most interesting to the lay reader is the star system that it utilizes, rating various native plants according to how well they fit into a home landscape. It’s a wonderful tool that gets the reader thinking about how well a native landscape might fit into and around their home. After writing Native Plants of the Southeast, Larry followed up with the Native Plant Primer (written with Paula Gross), an easy-to-use book for the beginner in the world of native plants. Along with his previous books including The Winter Garden, Practical Botany (with P. B. Kaufman, J. Glimn-Lacy, & D. LaCroix), and Wildflowers of the Western Great Lakes Region (with James Wells and Fred Case) Larry has done a great service for both the casual and advanced Gardeners of the Southeast with his writing.

On April 23, Larry received the Flora Caroliniana award from the North Carolina Botanical Gardens for his work in the field of botany and especially for introducing people, through his writing, to the fascinating world of plants. It is a fitting award for a uniquely talented educator and writer.

Larry’s interest in sharing his passion for plants is not limited to the adult readers of his books. Some years ago, I ran a week-long Harry Potter summer camp at UNC Charlotte, and I devoted a day to herbology. I contacted Larry and asked him if he would talk to my campers about unusual plants. Larry is a world-famous expert on the Venus flytrap and other carnivorous plants, and I knew that the campers would be interested in these odd plants. Larry not only agreed to talk with the campers, but he threw himself into the spirit of the Harry Potter camp, playing the role of our camp’s very own Professor of Herbology. We met at the university’s McMillan Greenhouse where Larry introduced the campers to many bizarre plants. Then Larry gave the kids a tour of the greenhouse, paying particular attention to the carnivorous plants that grow there. Larry’s zeal for these plants and his willingness to engage with the kids in a playful way won over the campers. That afternoon, they all enthusiastically drew pictures and wrote stories based on the plants they had observed in the greenhouse.

Many gardeners have green thumbs, but Larry has more than special thumbs. He has the magical power to spark a curiosity about plants in the minds of all who come into contact with him. Jeff and I agree that Storied Charlotte and indeed the wider world is a greener place because of Dr. Larry Mellichamp.

Tags: botanical gardens herbology

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