{"id":4686,"date":"2025-10-12T12:26:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T16:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=4686"},"modified":"2025-10-12T12:26:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T16:26:57","slug":"the-12th-annual-celebration-of-verse-vino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2025\/10\/12\/the-12th-annual-celebration-of-verse-vino\/","title":{"rendered":"The 12th Annual Celebration of\u00a0Verse & Vino"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The twelfth annual celebration of Verse & Vino<\/em>, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation\u2019s grand literary gala and fundraiser, will take place in the Charlotte Convention Center on November 6, 2025.  In the span of just twelve years, Verse & Vino<\/em> has come to be recognized as one of our community\u2019s premier cultural events as is reflected in the fact that this year\u2019s event is already sold out. I contacted Maggie Bean, the Director of Communications for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation, and I asked her to comment on the success of Verse & Vino<\/em>.  Here is what she sent to me:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation\u2019s literary gala Verse & Vino returns this fall \u2014 and though the event is already sold out (with a long waitlist of hopefuls), there\u2019s still plenty to celebrate about its storied history.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First held in 2014 at the Westin, the inaugural Verse & Vino sold out all 850 seats. The lobby was so packed that guests coming off the escalator practically ran into each other on their way to toast the evening\u2019s authors. That first lineup included five writers, among them New York Times bestselling romance novelist Debbie Macomber, who delighted the crowd with the story of her most loyal fan club: male inmates who write her heartfelt letters from across the country. (She writes them back.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the eleven years since, Verse & Vino has grown into one of Charlotte\u2019s most anticipated events, raising more than $5.4 million to support Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. PNC Bank has proudly served as the Presenting Sponsor since day one, and beloved radio personality Sheri Lynch has emceed every year, reading each featured author\u2019s work in full before stepping up to the microphone to deliver personal and eye-opening remarks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Park Road Books has been the exclusive bookseller since the beginning as well, selling an impressive 12,750 books through the years, but none has been more popular than Chef Edward Lee\u2019s Bourbon Land, which sold 417 copies last year. Longtime event planner Todd Murphy and his team have orchestrated each year\u2019s celebration including immersive and elaborate vignettes based on the novels. Just don\u2019t lay on the beds; they\u2019re cardboard.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there will be wine. More than 7,000 bottles of wine have been poured over our eleven years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s gathering is the largest yet, welcoming 1,380 guests<\/strong> to hear from an exceptional roster of 2025 authors: <\/em>Nathan Harris<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Amity), <\/em>Rachel Hawkins<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (The Heiress), <\/em>Diane Kochilas<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Athens), and <\/em>Jason Mott<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (People Like Us).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verse & Vino may be one night only, but its good vibes last all year long.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I attended the very first Verse & Vino<\/em> event in 2013, and I remember how much I enjoyed the evening.  Since then, I have been impressed with how our community has embraced this event and in the process has embraced the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. As I see it, Verse & Vino <\/em>is more than a fundraiser for our public library; it is also a celebration of libraries, literacy, books, and our Storied Charlotte community of readers and writers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The twelfth annual celebration of Verse & Vino, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation\u2019s grand literary gala and fundraiser, will take place in the Charlotte Convention Center on November 6, 2025.  In the span of just twelve years, Verse & Vino has come to be recognized as one of our community\u2019s premier cultural events as is reflected in the fact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[141],"class_list":["post-4686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte","tag-verse-vino"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4686"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4689,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions\/4689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}