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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Brooklyn Neighborhood Walking Tour, dates TBA.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. 

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. 

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.       

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.