Storied Charlotte

Genre Fiction Set in Charlotte

June 29, 2020 by Mark West

Charlotte is not only the home of bestselling author Kathy Reichs, but it is also the setting for many of her popular Temperance Brennan mystery novels. Reichs is one of many genre fiction writers who use Charlotte as a setting for their stories. These authors show different sides of Charlotte, but they all draw attention to the Queen City. For the purposes of this Storied Charlotte blog post, I am focusing on ten such authors. Often these authors write books that are published as part of a series, such as the Temperance Brannan Series. In such cases, I highlight one book in the series. Since all ten books on this list are examples of genre fiction, I mention the appropriate genre for each book on the list.

A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs is the latest book in the Temperance Brennan Series. Published in March 2020, this book is 19^th volume in the series. Many of the books in this series are set in Montreal, but A Conspiracy of Bones takes place in Charlotte. In the beginning of this book, Temperance (Tempe) Brennan is recovering from neurosurgery in her Charlotte home when she receives a series of disturbing text messages from an unknown sender. These texts all include images of a faceless and handless corpse. Responding to these texts, Tempe sets out to discover the identity of the corpse as well as determine why the images are being sent to her. As is the case with all of the books in this series, Tempe draws on her expertise as a forensic anthropologist to solve this latest mystery. In this book, however, Tempe has to deal with a new Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner who refuses to help Tempe with her investigation. For more information about Reichs and her Temperance Brennan Series, please click on the following link: https://kathyreichs.com/

Hard Day’s Knight by John G. Hartness is the first volume in Hartness’s urban fantasy series titled The Black Knight Chronicles. Published by Falstaff Books in December 2010, Hard Day’s Knight is about the adventures of two young vampires, James Black and Gregory Knightwood, who work as private investigators in Charlotte. In this book, they are hired to save a boy from a witch’s curse, and in the process, they battle zombies, demons and various other paranormal characters, all set against the backdrop of Charlotte. When asked about the setting for this series, Hartness said, “My characters live in my world, in Charlotte, NC, which happens to be where I live. …I set my series in the real Charlotte so that I could use real landmarks in the books. … I find as a reader that I really enjoy local color in a book, and the best way I could put that color into my books was to set them in places I could easily drive to if need be. So in the end I decided not to build a world at all; I had a perfectly good one outside my front door.” For more information about Hartness and his Black Knight Chronicles series, please click on the following link: http://johnhartness.com/hard-days-knight/

Hornet’s Nest by Patricia Cornwell is a mystery novel that takes place in Charlotte. This novel, which came out in 1997, has connections to Cornwall’s days as a crime reporter for The Charlotte Observer, where she worked from 1979 (the same year she graduated from Davidson College) to 1981. Andy Brazil, one of the central characters in Hornet’s Nest, also works as a reporter for The Charlotte Observer. He is on assignment to write about the day-to-day work of the Charlotte police, and as a result he ends up helping the Chief of Police (Judy Hammer) and the Deputy Chief (Virginia West) solve a mystery surrounding the serial killings of a number of out-of-town businessmen. Hornet’s Nest launched Cornwell’s Andy Brazil Series. For more information about Cornwell and her books, please click on the following link: http://www.patriciacornwell.com/

Horse of a Different Killer is the first book in Jody Jaffe’s Natalie Gold Mystery Series. When this mystery novel came out in 1995, it was named a finalist for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery. In writing this novel, Jaffe drew heavily on her experience as a feature writer for The Charlotte Observer and her longstanding interest in horse shows. Natalie Gold, the central character in this story, is a fashion reporter for a newspaper called the Charlotte Commercial Appeal, but she is also a show rider with her own horse named Brenda Starr. She boards her horse on a farm outside of Charlotte, and one day a top trainer is found beaten to death at this farm. Natalie works with the paper’s top investigative reporter to solve this crime, and her knowledge of the horse show circuit proves to be invaluable. For more information about Jaffe and her books, please click on the following link: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/j/jody-jaffe/

In the Midst of Passion by AlTonya Washington is a stand-alone romance novel published in 2006 by Dafina Books, a leading publisher of commercial fiction by African American authors. In the beginning of the novel, Topaz Emerson (the owner of an auto-repair garage) meets Alexander (Alex) Rice (the owner of a newspaper called Queen City Happenings) on a deserted street on the outskirts of Charlotte. He mistakenly thinks that she needs help with her car, but she has everything under control. Still, as they talk, Topaz finds herself attracted to Alex. She eventually learns, however, that Alex has a mysterious past that could jeopardize their budding relationship. In explaining why she set this novel in Charlotte, Washington said, “I was living in Charlotte at the time and was inspired by the area and culture.” In addition to writing romance novels, Washington is a college reference librarian. She worked for the Davidson College Library for many years, and she is currently the Education Librarian for Winston-Salem State University. For more information about Washington and her books, please click on the following link: https://alsreaders.weebly.com/

Knight in Charlotte by Edward McKeown is a work of urban fantasy featuring Jeremy Leclerc, a Knight Templar and part-time graphic designer living in present-day Charlotte. Published in 2013, this work is told in the form of a series of inter-related adventures. The protagonist encounters a variety of supernatural characters, including angels, vampires, and demon bankers. Specific places in and around Charlotte figure in the work, such as South Park, Central Avenue, Balantyne, and the Renaissance Festival located in Huntersville. Knight in Charlotte is something of a departure for McKeown, who is known primarily for his science fiction novels set in other worlds. However, when he moved from New York to Charlotte, he decided to use his new hometown as the setting for his Knight Templar stories. For more information about McKeown and his books, please click on the following link: https://edwardmckeown.weebly.com/

Larceny and Old Lace, the first book in Tamar Myers’s Den of Antiquity mystery series, came out in 1996. The central character, Abigail Timberlake, opens an antique store in Charlotte that she calls the Den of Antiquity. The store is located on the same block where her crotchety aunt Eulonia Wiggins operates a run-down antique/junk shop. In fact, Abigail and Eulonia are both members of the Selwyn Avenue Antique Dealers Association. In the beginning of the novel, Eulonia is found strangled by an antique bell pull. Determined to find out who killed her aunt, Abigail becomes an amateur sleuth. The Charlotte setting figures in most of the other books in the series, although the final books in the series take place in Charleston. For more information about Meyers and her books, please click on the following link: https://www.tamarmyers.com/

Let’s Get It On by Cheris Hodges is the first of several romance novels featuring Kenya Taylor and Maurice Goings. Dafina Books, a major publisher of genre books by African American writers, brought out Let’s Get It On in 2008. The story begins when Kenya (a successful Charlotte lawyer) and Maurice (a star player for the Carolina Panthers) run into each other while each is on vacation in the Bahamas. The readers learn that Kenya and Maurice had an earlier relationship that ended on a sour note, but as the story progresses, they begin to rekindle their relationship. Much of the novel takes place in Charlotte, and the Carolina Panthers figure prominently in the plot. In writing this novel, Hodges drew on her experience covering the Panthers as a journalist for Charlotte’s Creative Loafing. However, in her version of events, the Panthers win the Super Bowl. For more information about Hodges and her books, please click on the following link: https://thecherishodges.com/

Pretty Little Girls is a mystery thriller by Charlotte writer Jenifer Ruff. Published in 2019, Pretty Little Girls is the second book in the Agent Victoria Heslin Series, although it can be read as a stand-alone novel. In this novel, FBI Agent Victoria Heslin is called to Charlotte to help the local police solve a mystery surrounding the kidnapping of a girl from a wealthy Charlotte family. As Agent Heslin pursues her investigation, she uncovers a sex trafficking ring that is operating in the shadows of Charlotte. The novel is fictional, but Ruff’s description of the sex trafficking operation is based on factual research. For more information about Ruff and her books, please click on the following link: https://jenruff.com/index.html

Pretty Poison is the first book in the Peggy Lee Garden Mystery Series by the prolific writing duo of Joyce and Jim Lavene. The Lavenes lived just outside of Charlotte in the community of Midland. However, they frequently visited Charlotte, and they drew extensively on their knowledge of Charlotte in their Peggy Lee Garden Mystery Series. Pretty Poison came out in 2005 while the 8^th and last book in the series came out in 2015, the same year that Joyce Lavene died. Jim Lavene intended to keep the series going, but he died just six months after the death of his wife. In Pretty Poison, Peggy Lee runs a garden shop in downtown Charlotte called The Potting Shed. As the story opens, she comes to work on a fall day only to discover on the floor of her shop the body of one of Charlotte’s wealthiest citizens. She calls the police, and they quickly concludes that the victim was murdered by a homeless man. Peggy, however, is not convinced and begins her own investigation. The book abounds with references to Charlotte landmarks, such as Latta Arcade, Brevard Court, Anthony’s Caribbean Café, and Queens University. For more information about Joyce and Jim Lavene and their books, please click on the following link: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/joyce-and-jim-lavene/

As the aforementioned books demonstrate, Charlotte figures prominently in many works of genre fiction. The Queen City appeals especially to writers of mystery novels, but writers of romance and urban fantasy also use Charlotte as a setting for their stories. These various genre writers show Charlotte from different angles and in different lights, but they all make contributions to Storied Charlotte.

Tags: genre fiction mystery novel mystery series mystery thriller romance novels urban fantasy

Paula Martinac and the Queen City

June 22, 2020 by Mark West

In Paula Martinac’s recently published novel Clio Rising, the central character, a young woman named Livvie Bliss, leaves her home in North Carolina and relocates to New York in 1983. She moves to New York so that she can pursue a career in publishing and because she feels that she can live openly as a lesbian in New York. Paula’s story has connections to Livvie’s story, but there is a key difference. Paula spent much of her adult life pursuing a publishing and writing career in New York, but in 2014 she moved to North Carolina and took up residence in Charlotte.

Since arriving in the Queen City, Paula has quickly established herself as one of Charlotte’s leading LGBTQ writers. In 2017, Paula published The Ada Decades, a novel set in Charlotte between the years of 1947 and 2015. It tells the story of the evolving relationship between Ada Shook, a school librarian, and Cam Lively, a teacher in the Charlotte public schools. The novel deals with the prejudices facing lesbians during this time period, but it also deals with the desegregation of the Charlotte schools. At its core, though, this novel is a love story that spans six decades. Two years after the release of The Ada Decades, Paula published Clio Rising. Like The Ada Decades, Clio Rising is a story about a relationship, but in this case the relationship is a professional one between the young protagonist and an elderly writer named Clio Hartt. Last month Clio Rising received the gold medal for the Northeast Region in the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards. For more information about Paula’s books, please click on the following link: http://paulamartinac.com/

I recently contacted Paula and asked her about her experiences as a lesbian writer living in Charlotte. Here is what she sent to me:

On June 15, the Supreme Court delivered a historic ruling in Bostock vs. Clayton County, Ga., which held that “an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. My Facebook and Twitter feeds lit up with friends and colleagues telling their stories of being fired because they’re queer.

I’m lucky. I’ve been out for a long time, and no employer has fired me for being gay. Because I write on LGBTQ themes, however, homophobia has taken a toll on my writing career. I’ve been passed over for writing and teaching gigs and, just last year, “disinvited” as a speaker (a common occurrence for queer artists).

Still, I’ve had amazing support for my writing. I have strong queer readership and a publisher dedicated to LGBTQ writing. In the physical communities where I’ve lived, the sources of support have shifted over the years. When I lived in New York 25 to 30 years ago, support came from other queer friends and writers. In Pittsburgh, where I lived until 2014, it came from a mix of queer and straight people. Here in Charlotte, it has come almost exclusively from straight colleagues. UNC Charlotte friends have attended my readings, bought my books, and touted my successes. I’m connected to a vibrant writing community at Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts, where I teach and coach, and also at Charlotte Readers Podcast. I’ve received fellowships from the Arts and Science Council and the NC Arts Council. The change strikes me as huge.

I’ve channeled my energies into writing queer historical fiction because I think it can help make that history more vivid and alive. In my most recent novels, LGBTQ workplace issues have been a major theme. In my novel-in-stories, The Ada Decades (2017), the protagonist is a white lesbian who works as a middle school librarian in Charlotte during the early days of school integration and busing; her female partner is an English teacher at the same school. They have a lively circle of queer friends, but losing their jobs is an ever-present threat. In Clio Rising (2019), a young lesbian moves from western North Carolina to New York City in 1983 and determines to be out everywhere—especially at work. In my novel-in-progress, Testimony (2021), a college history professor in Virginia in 1960 faces hearings and dismissal when a neighbor spots her kissing another woman through her kitchen window. That novel was inspired by a true story.

As Paula mentions in her comments, she teaches creative writing courses as a part-time faculty member in UNC Charlotte’s English Department. I take pride in the fact that I played a role in hiring her while I was serving as the Chair of the English Department. Also, since June is LGBTQ Pride Month, I think that now is an especially good time for all of us who are associated with Storied Charlotte to take pride in the fact that Paula Martinac is now a Charlotte writer.

Tags: lesbian LGBTQ queer writing career

Shelton Drum, the Founder of Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find

June 15, 2020 by Mark West

For Charlotte’s readers of comic books, graphic novels and manga, Shelton Drum has achieved the status of a local legend. Forty years ago, Shelton founded Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find, an independent comics shop, which is now located at 417 Pecan Avenue in Charlotte’s Plaza-Midwood neighborhood. Although he was only in his twenties at the time, he already had extensive experience collecting comic books. His customers appreciated his expertise and enjoyed talking with a fellow comic book fan, and he soon developed a loyal customer base. Nowadays Heroes (as the store is generally known) ranks among America’s most influential comic book retailers. For more information about Heroes, please click on the following link: http://www.heroesonline.com/about/

Two years after Shelton opened his store, he founded his annual HeroesCon. This family-friendly event has grown into one of the nation’s largest and best-run comic book conventions, and it regularly attracts many of the top comic book artists and writers. HeroesCon usually takes place over the Father’s Day weekend, but this year Shelton had to cancel his convention because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, next year’s HeroesCon is already set to take place at the Charlotte Convention Center on June 18-20, 2021.

Shelton’s store and convention attract a wide range of patrons, including children who are just getting into collecting comics, long-time fans of particular comic book lines, and readers of graphic novels. Alan Rauch, one of my colleagues in the English Department at UNC Charlotte, is an example of a customer who goes to Heroes to purchase graphic novels. He often teaches courses on graphic novels, including an honors course titled “Jewish Identity and the Graphic Novel.” For the purposes of today’s Storied Charlotte blog post, I contacted Alan and asked him to comment on his experiences as a frequent customer at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find. Here is what he sent to me:

Most Charlotteans are probably only familiar with Comic Book Stores from venturing into Stuart Bloom’s “Comic Center of Pasadena” in “The Big Bang Theory.” To be sure, it is a parody of that type of store, and like most parodies it gets a lot of things right… but also just as many things wrong. Where it goes wrong is where Charlotte’s own comic bookstore Heroes aren’t Hard to Find goes right. Now in its 40^th year, Heroes (as it’s popularly known) is still owned and managed by the remarkable Shelton Drum, who brings self-confidence, vision, and knowledge to his work where poor Stuart could only bring a sense of despair and insecurity. Forty years ago, we were all—young and old—in need of comic-book stores, as we watched mom and pop stores, with racks of magazines and comic book,s give way to corporate chains that could never thrive on the profits from the sale of a (then) 40¢ comic. The opening of Heroes also coincided with new visions of what comics should look like. The graphic novel, a now established genre of literature, was just emerging in works such as Will Eisner’s Contract with God and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta and Watchmen would be published within a decade. While it’s true that comics also became darker, more thoughtful, and more complex, they were always—from their inception– as Shelton understood, a vital part of the culture. (He might deny being a “scholar,” but engage Shelton in a brief conversation about comic history and you’ll see that the title fits.)

Shelton’s store was (and continues to be) a meeting place for everyone, whether they are children searching for delightful entertainment, adolescents looking for escape and validation, or adults eager to immerse themselves in new and challenging narratives. And yes, the audience includes girls, women, and persons of color too, as the genre has developed important characters who are strong, independent, and self-determining. One sees this not only in Shelton’s store, but in the remarkable annual conference called HeroesCon, which has drawn (before Covid) thousands and thousands of people, from artist and writers to cos-players to parents and kids, to Charlotte every year. Shelton recently made the conference free to children under 18, recognizing that all kids should be a part of the Heroes-Con experience. For me, Heroes (only blocks away from where I live), is a neighborhood experience. But I have come to depend on the store, with Shelton and the remarkably loyal staff he has assembled, including Seth, Elias, Karla, Samuel, and Phil, as a source of knowledge for the works that will appear in my Graphic Novel course syllabus. But the reach of Heroes and of Shelton’s impact extends beyond the neighborhood, not only to Charlotte, where it is a legitimate “institution” (sometimes a bit crazy, though certainly not like Arkham), but to North Carolina, the southeast, and across the country. So, Happy Birthday Shelton and “Heroes,” and thank you for making Charlotte a little weirder and a lot better!

As Alan’s comments indicate, Shelton Drum is much more than a successful business person. Many of Shelton’s customers see their weekly visits to Heroes as both a cultural and a community-building experience, and many families in the southeast incorporate HeroesCon into their Father’s Day celebrations. In the past forty years, Shelton Drum has contributed in countless ways to Charlotte’s community of readers and writers. He is one of Storied Charlotte’s heroes.

Tags: comics cos-play graphic novel heroes

T.J. Reddy: Charlotte’s Own Civil Rights Activist, Poet, and Artist

June 06, 2020 by Mark West

As I reflect on the on the recent demonstrations and protest marches in Charlotte and the rest of our country in response to the killing of George Floyd, I am reminded of the life and legacy of T.J. Reddy, one of Charlotte’s leading civil rights activists. Reddy died on March 31, 2019, but he and today’s protesters are all part of a longer struggle for social justice. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” For the purposes of today’s Storied Charlotte blog post, I want to take a moment to reflect on T.J. Reddy’s role in this larger story.

I first met T.J. Reddy in 1986. I had recently purchased the house where my wife and I still live, and my mother gave me an antique Swedish print as a house-warming gift. I decided to get the print framed, so I brought it to a nearby business called Ready Art Shoppe. The sign said it specialized in “Quality Custom Framing and Afro American Art.” T.J. owned the business, and I ended up having a long conversation with him about the print and the importance of honoring one’s ancestors. I explained to him how the print was tied to my mother’s Swedish ancestors, and he showed me some examples of art tied to his African ancestors. He did a beautiful job of framing the print, and it still hangs in our dining room. After I picked up the print, I told Ann Carver (one of my colleagues in UNC Charlotte’s English Department at the time) about my interactions with T.J. She then informed me about T.J.’s background as a civil rights activist, poet, and artist. Ann retired many years ago, but she and I are still in contact. I invited her to share her memories of T.J for this blog post, and she sent me a moving essay (see below).

Thomas James “T.J.” Reddy was born in Savannah, Georgia, on August 6, 1945. He moved to Charlotte in 1964 to attend Johnson C. Smith University, and the next year he transferred to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he studied history and creative writing. While a student at UNC Charlotte, he became involved in various civil rights activities and protests. He and two of his fellow activists (known as the Charlotte Three) ended up being arrested on dubious charges, and 1972 he was sentenced to a twenty-year prison term. The case drew national attention with Tom Wicker, a New York Times columnist, calling it a “miscarriage of justice.” In 1979 Governor Jim Hunt commuted T.J.’s sentence.

During the 1970s, T.J. focused much of his creative energy on his poetry. In addition to publishing poems in various literary journals, he published two collections of poetry: Less Than a Score but a Point came out in 1974, and Poems in One-Part Harmony came out in 1979. In the words of poet and critic Skylark Aberjhani, Reddy’s poetry “provides unsettling snapshots of the impact of racism and poverty on the psyches of African-American children. … Ultimately, however, [Reddy’s poems] are defined by the qualities of political outrage balanced with spiritual contemplation and romantic inclinations that inform his aesthetic sensibilities.”

T.J. continued to write poetry throughout his life, but in the 1980s he began focusing his attention on the visual arts. He opened the Ready Art Shoppe in 1982, and in the late 1980s, he studied painting at Winthrop University. As a visual artist, T.J. aligned himself with the social realism movement. His art often deals with difficult topics, such as incarceration and police violence, but he offers hope for a better future. In many of his paintings, T.J. celebrates teachers. When talking about his art, he frequently expressed his desire to provide children with positive examples of caring and responsible adults.

In the summer of 2017, the Projective Eye Gallery at UNC Charlotte Center City sponsored a retrospective exhibition of T.J.’s work titled “Everything Is Everything,” which included both his poetry and his paintings. After viewing this exhibition, I came away feeling in awe of T.J.’s ability to integrate his commitment to the civil rights movement with his passion for the poetic and visual arts.

“Everything Is Everything” was T.J.’s last major exhibition, but his art continues to touch the lives of young people. One of his paintings is on display in the main stairway of UNC Charlotte’s Atkins Library. It’s titled “The Child as an Open Book,” and it depicts a mother and a child reading a book together. I think it is the perfect image to capture T.J. Reddy’s many contributions to Storied Charlotte.

Remembering T.J. Reddy

By Ann Carver

When I met T.J. he was painting, working to make positive change in Charlotte’s African American communities, and actively opposing the Viet Nam War. At a community center, he was counseling young African American men about how to avoid being drafted.

Just after a local riding stable refused to allow him and some friends to ride because of race, the stable burned and horses died in the fire. T.J., Dr. Jim Grant, and Charles Parker were charged with the crime. Both T.J. and Jim Grant were well-known civil rights and anti-Vietnam War activists. Neither of them knew Charles Parker well.

At their trial, it became clear that the men were being tried for their political views and activities, not for the charge of setting fire to the barn. The prosecution brought no physical or forensic evidence. They claimed to have found a bottle with gasoline at the site, but the bottle had somehow been lost. They brought in “witnesses” to testify, both of them unknown to the defendants, both of whom were convicted felons who had made deals with the prosecution for lower sentences in exchange for their testimony. The prosecution constantly referred to them as dangerous militants and with other negative politically charged terms. T.J., Jim Grant, and Charles Parker all had solid alibis for the night and time of the fire. None had any prior record, and both T.J. and Jim Grant were known to have non-violent philosophies of protest and activism for positive change.

Nevertheless, they were judged “guilty” and sentenced to prison. There were so many irregularities and flaws in the prosecution’s case that it seemed inevitable their appeal for a new trial would be granted. It was not. They were sent to prison. As one appeal after another was denied, and when the same exact formula was used in Wilmington to charge and convict another UNCC student, Ben Chavis, and 9 other young black political activists, it became undeniably clear that a formula to convict black political activists on trumped up charges was being tested in North Carolina.

T.J., Dr. Jim Grant and Charles Parker became “The Charlotte 3,” and Ben Chavis and the other 9 young men in Wilmington became “The Wilmington 10.” The North Carolina Political Prisoners Committee was formed, and we worked tirelessly for years until their freedom was achieved when North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt commuted their sentences in 1979.

During the time T.J. was incarcerated, his wife and members of the N.C. Political Prisoners Committee took picnic lunches and visited him every week on visitors’ day, regardless of weather. We realized his life was in constant danger from those who wished to silence him and the others. T.J. and also Ben Chavis were suddenly moved a number of times, without allowing them to notify anyone, from one prison facility to another. It was important that those in authority knew people were watching so that nothing could be done in secret and go unnoticed. While in prison, T.J. continued to paint, using the materials at hand: dirt, grass and other plants, gravel, crayons and pencils. He taught other inmates how to read, and he helped inmates properly file appeals and other legal documents. T.J. also completed his M.Ed. degree through UNCC in 1977.

When T.J. was at last released from prison, he devoted himself to developing his art, teaching and working with youth in the African American communities, working with students and faculty at UNC Charlotte, working with the African American Cultural Center, writing poetry and storytelling. T.J.’s beautiful, masterly crafted, and powerful art speaks for itself. I have donated my collection of T.J.’s paintings, which I collected over the years from the time we first met, to the UNC Charlotte Atkins Library. It is available for exhibit and study. Through the legacy of his community work and his art, T.J. made, and continues to make, a difference. He was my friend.

Tags: activist African ancestors art community paintings poetry storytelling

War Stories

May 25, 2020 by Mark West

With Memorial Day upon us, now is a fitting time not only to honor those who lost their lives while serving in the military but also to reflect on the power and significance of well-told war stories. The type of war stories that I find most moving are those that focus on how individuals respond to the high-stakes situations associated with wars. Two such books are Wynne’s War (2014) by Aaron Gwyn and Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship That Saved Two POWs in Vietnam (2004) by James S. Hirsch. Wynne’s War is a novel set in the mountains of Afghanistan while Two Souls Indivisible is a work of nonfiction about two American pilots held captive in a POW camp during the Vietnam War. Both books provide insights into how people deal with the realities war, and both books have connections to the Charlotte area.

Aaron Gwyn, the author of Wynne’s War and several other books of fiction, is a creative writing professor in the English Department at UNC Charlotte. He was raised on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma where he rode horses throughout his growing up years, and his familiarity with horses is reflected in Wynne’s War. This novel focuses on two characters—a young Army Ranger named Elijah Russell, who is known for his excellent horsemanship, and Captain Carson Wynne, who commands a group of Green Berets. Wynne assigns Russell with the task of training his group of Green Berets how to ride horses so that they can carry out a secret mission in the mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan where horses are well suited for the treacherous terrain. Over the course of the novel, the relationship between Russell and Wynne becomes increasingly complex, especially for Russell. As they travel deeper and deeper into enemy territory, Russell finds himself torn between his obligation to follow Wynne’s orders and his growing concern about Wynne’s obsessive and almost fanatical behavior. Wynne’s War is very much an action-packed war story, but it is also a thoughtful character study.

James S. Hirsch’s Two Souls Indivisible focuses on the evolving relationship between Fred V. Cherry, who grew up in Suffolk, Virginia, and Porter A. Halyburton, who grew up a little north of Charlotte in Davidson, North Carolina. As Hirsch recounts in his book, both men served as pilots during the Vietnam War, and both were captured by the North Vietnamese and held as prisoners of war for more than seven years. Their captors imprisoned them in the same cell, thinking that Cherry (an African American) and Halyburton (a white southerner) would have an intense animosity toward each other. However, the two men developed a deep friendship and supported each other throughout their years in captivity. Hirsch’s book does not gloss over the horrible experiences these men faced as POWS, but he emphasizes their friendship and resilience. The friendship that Cherry and Halyburton forged during their years in a POW camp persisted long after they gained their freedom. The two men stayed in frequent contact until Cherry’s death in 2016.

General William Sherman once said, “War is hell.” Wynne’s War and Two Souls Indivisible certainly provide support for Sherman’s assertion. However, these books transcend the hellish horror of war. They provide readers with insights into the hearts and minds of the participants in our wars. Although these books are set in far-away places, they are still part of Storied Charlotte.

Tags: prisoners of war war horses war stories

Of Anchors, Books, and Juggling Women

May 17, 2020 by Mark West

My guess is that in other cities television news anchors and radio broadcasters don’t generally write books, but in Charlotte it’s another story. This month Molly Grantham, a WBTV news anchor, published her second book, The Juggle Is Real: The Off-Camera Life of an On-Camera Mom. Grantham is not the only Charlotte-area anchor or broadcaster to have published multiple books. Sheri Lynch of the Bob and Sheri radio show has also published two books, and the former news anchor Robert Inman has published numerous books.

Grantham’s The Juggle Is Real is a follow-up volume to her first book, Small Victories, which came out in 2017. In fact, both books share the same subtitle: The Off-Camera Life of an On-Camera Mom. Grantham wrote her first book while on maternity leave. It started as a series of Facebook posts that she wrote on a weekly basis shortly after the birth of her second child. Small Victories has a candid and humorous feel to it. The Juggle Is Real is just as candid has her first book, but it is more serious in tone. The book opens with Grantham recounting her visit with her dying mother. From there she writes about experiences of juggling her job and her responsibilities as a parent while working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic. Grantham includes lots of humorous observations in this memoir, but it is all set against the sobering backdrop of our current public health crisis. For more information about Grantham’s books, please click on the following link: https://www.mollygrantham.com/

Grantham’s two memoirs are perfect shelf mates to Sheri Lynch’s two books about motherhood: Hello, My Name Is Mommy: The Dysfunctional Girl’s Guide to Having, Loving (and Hopefully Not Screwing Up) a Baby, published in 2004; and Be Happy or I’ll Scream!: My Deranged Quest for the Perfect Husband, Family, and Life, published in 2007. Both Grantham and Lynch have a knack for writing self-deprecating humor, but Lynch’s humor is a bit edgier than Grantham’s. Like Grantham, Lynch writes about the difficulties of juggling her family life and her career, but Lynch’s juggling act often doubles as a comedy act. For more information about Lynch’s career, please click on the following link: https://bobandsheri.com/bio/

Of the Charlotte-area news anchors who have also published books, no one can match the record of Robert Inman. From 1979 to 1996, Inman worked as a news anchor for WBTV, but he took an interest in writing novels in the mid-1980s. He published his first novel, Home Fires Burning, in 1987. In 1996, he decided to step down as a news anchor and become a full-time writer of novels, plays, screenplays, and essays. For more information about Inman’s books, please click on the following link: http://robert-inman.com/about-the-author

Inman’s most recent novel, The Governor’s Lady, came out in 2013. Like Grantham’s and Lynch’s memoirs, this novel deals with the experiences of a woman attempting to juggle multiple roles and expectations. In the case of The Governor’s Lady, the central character is Cooper Lanier, the wife of an ambitious southern governor who decides to run for President of the United States. Her husband concocts a plan for her to succeed him as governor so that he can devote more time to his presidential campaign. However, when she is elected governor, she finds herself torn between being a stand-in for her husband and following her own ideas and plans. The result is a story that combines family dynamics and political intrigue.

For Molly Grantham, Sheri Lynch, and Robert Inman, the demands associated with their broadcasting careers have not prevented them from launching new careers as authors. All three of them have written memorable books about the realities of contemporary women’s lives, and Storied Charlotte is richer for it.

Tags: family life humor juggling life motherhood news anchors novels radio broadcasters

The Forging of Andrew Hartley’s Impervious

May 11, 2020 by Mark West

In our roles as UNC Charlotte professors, Andrew Hartley and I were both on campus on April 30^th of last year, the day that two UNC Charlotte students lost their lives in a shooting that took place in a campus classroom. I had left campus about fifteen minutes before the shooting occurred. Andrew, however, was in the middle of an end-of-year theatre departmental celebration when the shots rang out, so he and his students experienced first-hand the terror of huddling in a dressing room while the police investigated the shooting. Shortly after this experience, Andrew began writing a young adult fantasy novel in which he responded in a creative way to the shooting. The result is Impervious, which Falstaff Books released in April. For more information about this release, please click on the following link: http://falstaffbooks.com/impervious-book-release/

In his new novel, Andrew combines the grim reality of gun violence, the gritty world of today’s schools, and the liberating power of fantasy. Although real-world issues and problems often figure in Andrew’s fantasy novels, in Impervious the very real problem of school violence is at the center of the story. I recently contacted Andrew and asked him about how he combines fantasy and reality in the pages of Impervious. Here is his response:

Though I loved Tolkien growing up, I quickly gravitated to novels whose paranormal or fantastic elements were more clearly rooted in conventional reality and whose brand of evil was less abstract and more specifically human. That may have begun for me with Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy, but it expanded across genres and drove many of the stories I came to love, whether it was detective fiction or in the ordinary horrors of Stephen King. I developed a fascination with the way that the imagined, the spooky, or the otherworldly might be tied to the everyday. Likewise in television and film, I came to love the way that the most unlikely narratives might be the shadows cast by commonplace events, people or attitudes.

I didn’t start writing for younger readers till my son was old enough to read it. Until then I had written mostly adult mystery and thriller, but I came back to fantasy, my first literary love, moving from middle grade fiction to young adult as he aged. But I never lost that sense that the best fantasy did not point away from reality so much as it reflected back on it, albeit through a fun-house mirror which distorts and makes the familiar strange.

The idea for Impervious came to me several years ago: a fantasy novel in which the elements which marked it as fantasy gradually broke down, revealing an all too real and horrible event at the center, something the protagonist had not been able to bear looking at directly. I didn’t know how to write it, however, and it sat as a half developed outline, no more than a few pages long.

Then came April 30^th 2019. I was trapped on campus at UNCC with a handful of students, hidden in a dressing room in the theatre building where I work, waiting for the police to determine it was safe to go out. A gunman had killed two students and injured four more. We waited for two hours in silence, trying to track events on our phones, see what had happened, what was happening, what might happen.

It was a few days before the extent of the trauma became clear to me. I was jumpy, emotional, prone to flashes of panic. It was odd because I had not actually been in real danger, though I hadn’t known that at the time. The shooter was subdued quickly, partly through the self sacrifice of a student, Riley Howell.

I don’t remember if it was my idea to write the book or if my wife suggested it. I’ve written through trauma before and it made sense to do it again. So I took the outline I had written for the fantasy novel built around a traumatic event, restructured it and spent two weeks at my computer, pausing, pretty much, only to sleep and eat. It just poured out. It was painful to write because I felt like I was reliving everything, but it was cathartic, and when it was done, I felt better.

I don’t know what other people will make of it, and a part of me doesn’t care, because writing it was, for me, both necessary and inevitable. If it brings other people closer to a sense of such things without having to live through them, if it helps them to reflect on violence, on heroism, all the better. I want it to. But I didn’t write it with that end in mind. I wrote it because if I was ever going to get out of that dressing room, I had to. Sometimes, that’s how writing is.

Andrew (or A.J. Hartley as he is known to his readers) has published many novels since moving to Charlotte in 2005, but Impervious is the one that has the deepest connections to his experiences in our city. Impervious was not just written in Charlotte; it was forged in the heat of one of Charlotte’s most hellish days. As such, Impervious is very much part of Storied Charlotte.

Tags: April 30 gun violence Impervious school violence young adult fantasy novel

Dannye Romine Powell and Her 45 Years as a Player in Charlotte's Literary Scene

May 04, 2020 by Mark West

Shortly after I moved to Charlotte in the summer of 1984, I subscribed to The Charlotte Observer. At the time, Dannye Romine Powell served as the book editor for the paper. Back in those days, the paper published a two-page book section every Sunday. It included original book reviews, interviews with authors, and news about local literary events. As a regular reader of the paper’s book section, I got to know Dannye through her writing and through seeing her at book signings and other literary events in the community. I soon came to see Dannye as a key player in Charlotte’s literary scene.

Dannye made her debut on the Charlotte literary scene in 1975 when she became the book editor for The Charlotte Observer. She remained the paper’s book editor until 1992. In this role, she often interviewed Southern authors. She decided to collect these interviews in a book titled Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers, which came out in 1995. In addition to her interview book, Dannye has published five poetry collections, two of which have won the the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Award for best book by a North Carolina poet. Her most recent collection, In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver, just came out from Press 53. For more information about this collection, please click on the following link: https://www.press53.com/dannye-romine-powell

I recently contacted Dannye and asked for her reflections on her long career as a Charlotte journalist, columnist, and poet. Here is her response:

In the beginning – at least in the beginning of my tenure as book editor of the Charlotte Observer in 1975 – there was Charleen. Nobody said, “Charleen who?” Everybody knew. The ebullient, charismatic Charleen Whisnant was all the literati this town needed. She published a series of hardback literary reviews – The Red Clay Reader – unparalleled in their energy and excellence. Before long, Charleen reclaimed her maiden name – Swansea. She divorced her high school sweetheart, married a young entrepreneur, and moved on to South Carolina and other pursuits.

Charlotte was rich in poets in those years. But in 1970s and ‘80s, with one or two fleeting exceptions, to unearth a novelist, Charlotte had to dig back to Carson McCullers’ brief stay here in 1937. Chapel Hill had the goods –Reynolds Price, Doris Betts, Daphne Athas and Max Steele. And Greensboro with novelist and poet Fred Chappell. And Columbia, S.C., with James Dickey – predominantly a poet – and Jackson, Miss., with Eudora Welty, whose genius was the short story.

Before long, a new crop of novelists sprang up – again in the Chapel Hill area — Lee Smith, Alan Gurganus, Marianne Gingher, Angela Davis-Gardner, (Charlotte native) Lawrence Naumoff and others.

A decade before my arrival at the Observer, my predecessor Harriet Doar had discovered Louisiana’s Walker Percy and his first novel, “The Moviegoer.” By discovered, I mean she had snatched his book from the dozens that poured in each week to the newsroom and wrote about it as if Percy belonged to us. As Harriet once explained, “Sometimes you just know a good book by its feel.”

My own find was the young Kaye Gibbons of Raleigh in 1987. Thanks to Harriet, I too had learned to feel my way to a promising read. One day, I plucked a small volume from the pile and noticed blurbs from both Eudora Welty and Walker Percy. I wept as I read the first page of Gibbons’ magical “Ellen Foster” — a sure sign my sensibilities had encountered genius.

Charlotte came so close to having our very own novelist with the late Dot Jackson, a former Observer columnist, who spent the 1970s and part of the ‘80s writing the splendid “Refuge,” after working all day at the paper. But by the time it came out in 2006, she had moved on to Six Mile, S.C.

We finally snared one in 1991 when Algonquin Books published Simmons Jones’s first and only novel, “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” Jones, a Charlotte native, was 70 when the book came out.

Today, Charlotte teems with novelists. There’s Judy Goldman, poet-turned-novelist- turned memoirist. And the internationally bestselling Kathy Reichs. Among others, there’s Mark de Castrique, Kimmery Martin, Kim Wright, Jeff Jackson, Sarah Creech, Nancy Stancill, Kathryn Schwille, Phillip Lewis, Webb Hubbell, Jon Buchan, Megan Miranda, Amber Smith, Erika Marks, Alan Michael Parker, Andrew Hart, Marybeth Whalen, Alicia D. Williams, Renee Ahdieh, Gail Z. Martin, Paula Martinac, Aaron Gwyn, Carrie Ryan, Joy Callaway and Bryn Chancellor.

And, yes, poets still thrive here. Julie Suk, now 96, has a new collection due in May from Jacar Press.

Funny, isn’t it. When the literary pickings were slim here, The Observer’s book page flourished. Now the writers are flourishing. And where oh where is the book page?

Nowadays Charlotte’s literary scene has many players, but few can match Dannye’s long record. For her 45 years of contributing to Storied Charlotte, I thank her.

Tags: book editor columnist journalist literary scene North Carolina poet

Mark de Castrique, Man of Mysteries

April 27, 2020 by Mark West

Mark de Castrique, one of Charlotte’s most prolific writers of mysteries, recently brought out his 19^th novel. Titled Murder in Rat Alley, this novel is the 7^th in his Sam Blackman Series. For more information about Murder in Rat Alley and Mark’s other books, please click on the following link: http://www.markdecastrique.com

In most of Mark’s mysteries, there is no clear line demarcating the past and the present. Events that happened long ago often have a bearing on the mystery at hand, and the dead often have a say in the unfolding of the story. Such is the case with Murder in Rat Alley. Although the story is set in present-day Asheville, much of the story deals with the disappearance of a NASA engineer in 1971. In this novel, the underside of the Space Race and the current climate change crisis converge in a dark alley in Asheville. Rat Alley is a real place.

Since the publication of his first mystery, Dangerous Undertaking, in 2003 to the publication of Murder in Rat Alley in December 2019, Mark has published on average about one book per year. I recently contacted Mark and asked him how he sustains this high level of productivity. In his response, he interrelates the past and the present, just as he does in his mysteries. He also addresses the importance of being part of Charlotte’s community of writers:

Writers often are portrayed as solitary figures, alone in a room with a pen, blank sheet of paper, and their imagination. That image isn’t necessarily false. But there comes that time when pen must go to paper or keyboard connect to computer screen, and I’ve found those secluded moments more productive because of the community that has contributed to my writing endeavors.

I came to creative writing through a side door. My career has been in film and video production. In Charlotte, I’ve worked on documentaries and bio-pics that offered the opportunity for collaborative script writing, editing, and wide public distribution. In short, storytelling. My only creative writing education had been several screenplay courses as an undergraduate. I was not familiar with Charlotte’s writing community.

I was introduced to that community through the good fortune of being in a city with outstanding higher educational institutions. It’s my belief, that from community college to major universities, writing cells come into existence when nurtured by the shared desire to learn the craft. With that goal in mind, I nervously signed up to take a continuing-education short story writing class at Queens University (Queens College at the time). I found myself in a room with twenty students and an instructor. What I soon discovered was writing isn’t a competitive sport. Someone else’s success doesn’t diminish your own. Someone’s authentic voice doesn’t silence your own. And writers who want to support other writers have the ability to become honest and constructive listeners. That first class and its collaborative spirit taught me it’s not the writing, it’s the rewriting that leads to success.

Out of that class grew a smaller writing group that encouraged and critiqued each other’s work. That gave me the confidence to plunge into grad school in the English Department of UNC Charlotte, which introduced me to a whole faculty of writers of one kind or another. They became my community as I concentrated on narrative theory and how a story is constructed. Thanks to faculty support, my creative graduate thesis became a published novel.

That was nearly twenty years and twenty novels ago. One thing I’ve learned is that there is always more to learn. The Charlotte Writers Club has a wonderful history of offering programs. I was privileged to speak recently at their monthly meeting. New technologies create new support methods such as Landis Wade’s Charlotte Readers Podcast that not only connects readers to writers but writers to writers.

Yet, there is no escaping that moment of staring at the blank page. I try to remember it represents a world of possibilities. I don’t face it alone. I have a community of writers behind me.

Mark’s remarkable success as a mystery writer is not the only reason I think of him as a man of mysteries. There is also a bit of a mystery behind his name. In most cases, names that include “de” are French in origin. Since “de” is French for “of,” a name that includes “de” technically means that a person with that name is “of” a particular place in France. However, there is no Castrique in France. In an effort to solve this mystery, I sent Mark an email and asked him about the origins of his name. In his response, Mark wrote, “The last name of my great grandfather Charles was Castrique. This was in England. His father had several altercations with the law so when Charles immigrated to the U.S. he added the de.” Well, now that I know that Mark isn’t tied to some village in France named Castrique, I think it might be more appropriate to call him Mark de Charlotte, as in Storied Charlotte.

Tags: Castrique mystery writers

For the Love of Libraries

April 20, 2020 by Mark West

For the Love of Libraries— Since National Library Week runs from April 19 through April 25, now is a fitting time to celebrate the many ways in which the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library contributes to Charlotte’s community of readers and writers. Even though all of the library branches are closed because of the coronavirus outbreak, our public library is still providing online support to area readers and writers, and the library is still participating in National Library Week. For more information about the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s celebration of National Library Week, please click on the following link: https://cmlibrary.org/blog/national-library-week-2020

Whenever I talk with Charlotte writers about the public library, they all have stories to tell. However, for the purposes of this blog post, I am focusing on three writers whose connections with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library have especially deep roots. One of these writers is Jeffrey Leak, whose books include Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature and Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas. Another is my wife, Nancy Northcott. Her fiction includes The Herald of Day, the first novel in a historical fantasy trilogy,and a novella in Welcome to Outcast Station, the first volume in a science fiction series. Both Jeffrey and Nancy grew up in the Charlotte area, and their library connections go all the way back to their childhoods. The third writer is community historian Thomas Hanchett, whose books include Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975 and Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont. I asked each of these three authors to send me a paragraph about their experiences with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.

Here is what Jeffrey sent to me:

I have a long-standing appreciation for the public library. I grew up near what is now Northwest School of the Arts, riding my bike in the summer to the library, then located on LaSalle Street, now located on Beatties Ford Road. My journeys there were the result of an ultimatum from my mama: “if you come in my house one more time, you’ll be in till this evening.” Tired of me running in and out, Hattie Leak told me to make up my mind. Inside or outside. Heat or AC. More times than not, I chose the former. The librarians understood my dilemma, sometimes even including me on their lunch-run to Hoyles or Mr. C’s, less than a block away. but the main thing they gave me was access to books and the encouragement to read them. African American history and culture came alive in that welcoming space. From reading there, I always wanted to travel to the northeast where figures like Benjamin E. Mays and Zora Neale Hurston had gone. These black librarians took my curiosity and interests and, like the story of Jesus and the feeding of the fish to the multitudes, multiplied them. I don’t have any data to support this claim, but I think my reading skills actually improved in those pre-teen summers. What I do know is that my education has taken me to points in the northeast, including Maine and New York City (the respective places associated with Mays and Hurston), Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. Oh the places I have been! But I’ll always know that much of what I have been blessed to experience started at the library on LaSalle.

Here is what Nancy sent to me:

As a geek child, I didn’t fit in with my more athletic, outdoorsy neighbors. I found a haven in the Davidson Public Library. I loved to ride my bike down to Main Street, check out as many books as the bike’s basket would hold, and pedal home to start reading. Mrs. Wally, the librarian, often had recommendations ready when I walked in the door. She knew I loved science fiction, history, historical fiction, mysteries, and YA romance, and her suggestions ran the gamut. I reveled in the imaginary journeys those books provided. The library was also special to me because my father and I often went there together. Those trips were the one activity only the two of us shared. Every couple of weeks, after supper, he would ask if I wanted to go. I always jumped at the chance. You can bring home so many more books when you have a car! During those visits, I regularly read the comic strips in the back of Boys’ Life magazine. I wanted a subscription, but my mom nixed that on grounds of my not being a boy. When my dad and I went to the library, I always took the latest Boys’ Life off the shelf and read the comics in the back. He knew but never commented, so that also was just between us. I check out much less fiction than I once did, but I love having the library available for research materials. It’s probably fair to say I wouldn’t have become a writer if the library hadn’t stimulated my imagination all those years ago.

Here is Tom sent to me:

When I’m researching the history of a community, the local public library is always my first stop. I’ve used history collections in dozens of cities nationwide and I can tell you for sure that the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room is among the best in the U.S. Arriving in Charlotte back in 1981 to research older neighborhoods for the Historic Landmarks Commission, I went directly to the original Carolina Room. It was then a single room staffed by a single person, Mary Louise Phillips. I wasn’t sure what she would make of a this 26-year-old non-native, barely able to find Charlotte on a map, asking so many questions about Myers Park, Biddleville, cotton mills, land development. But she welcomed me in. The Carolina Room has been a home-base ever since. Today I’m delighted to be finishing my term as the Carolina Room’s first Historian-in-Residence, thanks to the vision of Library CEO Lee Keesler. In partnership with fellow community historian J. Michael Moore, we’ve just debuted a how-to website of tools, tips and weblinks for researching your house or neighborhood in Charlotte CharlotteHistoryToolkit.com. More work I’ve done over the years, drawing on the Carolina Room, can be found at my website www.HistorySouth.org. And while you’re on the internet, check out the Carolina Room’s own rich website, www.CMstory.org.

As the responses I received from Jeffrey, Nancy and Tom reveal, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has played a significant role in these writers’ lives. In a sense, the public library can be seen as a reoccurring character that plays a variety of roles in the individual stories of Charlotte’s readers and writers, but it is also a central character in the overarching narrative of Storied Charlotte.

Tags: Carolina Room charlotte history libraries

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