Author Appearance

Thomas Rain Crowe will visit City Lights Bookstore on Friday, May 31st at 6:30 p.m.  He will present the collected poems of Yvan Goll he edited titled, The Inner Trees.  Yvan Goll is one of the most important but neglected European writers of the 20th century Because he wrote in several languages and was not claimed by any country his work is not well known here. This book includes translations spanning sixty years which have been out of print for decades. The translators include Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Bly, W.S. Merwin, Galway Kinnell, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Patchen, Paul Zweig, and Nan Watkins.

Thomas Rain Crowe is an internationally-published and recognized author and translator of more than thirty books, including the multi-award winning nonfiction nature memoir Zoro's Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods.

Swain county poet Benjamin Cutler will read from his debut collection on Saturday, June 1st at 6:30 p.m. Catherine Carter said of The Geese Who Might Be Gods, Ben Cutler’s first book of poems is rooted in a particular soil, or bone, of this world, the mountains and rivers of the southern Appalachians; but its branches and crowns stretch out to the hope of a post-apocalyptic tomato sandwich and back to Eden. Cutler’s imagination, like his vulture, is endlessly hungry, but it quivers, “lip-torn and breathless”, with empathy for and identification with everything it touches—bees, bats, children, god-geese whose necks write the letter S “for all their secrets.”  These are quirky, accessible poems full of the music of common language. The casual browser, in picking up this collection, need not fear being bullied or patronized—nothing too scary here, unless you count loneliness, death, the perils of love, or the end of the world. But it is in their setting that the poet’s perilous love for the world finds its context and its meaning. The Geese Who Might Be Gods will reward reading and re-reading with passage into a familiar world both rendered strange and seen anew, as on “the first day’s morning—// when everything first opened / and reached for the new light.”

Catherine Carter and Megan Lucas will also be on hand to read poems, prose and to introduce Benjamin. To reserve copies of The Geese Who Might Be Gods please call City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC at 828-586-9499.

City Lights Bookstore will host Kim Michele Richardson to launch her new book on Saturday, May 4th at 6:30 p.m. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is Richardson’s fourth novel and is set in 1930’s Kentucky. The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything---everything except books that is. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome’s got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter.  Cussy isn’t just a librarian. She’s the last of her kind. Her skin is a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy’s family for the Library Project and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she's going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachian mountains and suspicion as deep as the holler.

Ann Melton will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, April 20th at 3 p.m.  She will present her book While Walking with God.  The events of this book illustrate God’s unlimited and amazing power; he is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. He promises that he will cause all things to work together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. That means he will take our failures and mistakes and turn them into something worthwhile.

May these true accounts of many who walk daily with God encourage a closer relationship with and more dependence on our Lord and Savior. May they also be a reminder of God’s goodness, faithfulness, mercy, and grace.

Joe Landwehr will visit City Lights Bookstore on Friday, March 22nd at 6:30 p.m. He will present his two volumes of Astrology and the Archetypal Power of Numbers. Part One (A Contemporary Reformulation of Pythagorean Number Theory) is a meandering exploration of the extant teachings of Pythagoras about number.   Part Two (The Construction of the Birthchart by Number) is an explanation of how this Pythagorean sense of number is reflected astrologically, both in moments of historical significance and in the birthcharts and lives of individuals who have changed the course of history.

Joe Landwehr is an astrologer of 45+ years experience, seeking an eclectic integration of astrology, spiritual psychology, and ancient wisdom teachings. Author of several books and Director of The Astropoetic School of Soul-Discovery, brings a wide-ranging spiritual background to his work. He lives in Whittier, NC.

George Ellison will visit City Lights Bookstore on Sunday, May 5th at 1 p.m.  He will present the biography he and Janet McCue collaborated on, Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography.  Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain, said of the biography, “This meticulously researched and carefully considered book is a great contribution to the history and culture of the Southern Appalachians.”

Kerry Madden returns to City Lights Bookstore to read her new children’s book, Ernestine’s Milky Way on Tuesday, April 16th at 4 p.m.  In Maggie Valley, North Carolina, in the 1940s, Ernestine, who is five years old and a big girl, carries fresh milk to needy neighbors through thickets, down paths, and over a barbed-wire fence, despite her fears.

Kerry Madden is the author of the Smoky Mountain Trilogy, which includes Gentle's Holler, Louisiana's Song, and Jessie's Mountain. Gentle's Holler was included on the Bank Street College Best Children's Books list. Her first novel, Offsides, was a New York Public Library Pick for the Teen Age. Up Close: Harper Lee made Booklist's Top Ten Biographies for Youth list. Her first picture book, Nothing Fancy About Kathryn and Charlie, was illustrated by her daughter, Lucy. Kerry directs the creative writing program at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

Dana Wildsmith and Susan O’Dell Underwood will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, May 25th at 3 p.m. They will read from their latest collections of poetry, One Light and The Book of Awe, respectively.

Dana Wildsmith is the author of a novel, Jumping, and an environmental memoir, Back to Abnormal: Surviving With An Old Farm in the New South, which was a finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. She is also the author of five collections of poetry. Wildsmith has served as Artist-in-Residence for Grand Canyon National Park and for Everglades National Park. She lives with her family on an old farm in north Georgia and works as an English literacy instructor at Lanier Technical College.

Susan O’Dell Underwood is currently a Professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Carson-Newman University. In addition to The Book of Awe she has published two chapbooks, From and Love and Other Hungers.

Mason Lackey will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, June 22nd at 3 p.m.  She will present her books, Come Walk with Me and Horris the Horrible Germy Worm. Come Walk with Me is a poetry collection that reflects on childhood memories, the beauty of nature, and seeing the beauty in our surroundings. Horris the Horrible Germy Worm is a children’s book and is a playful story with an important message to children about health. To reserve copies of her books, please call City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC at 828-586-9499.

George Singleton will return to City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, March 16th at 3 p.m.  He will present his new short story collection Staff Picks.  In the tradition of Donald Barthelme, T. C. Boyle, Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver, Singleton creates lingering, darkly comedic tales by drawing from those places where familiarity and alienation coexist. A remarkable and distinct effort from an acclaimed chronicler of the South, Staff Picks reaffirms Singleton's gift for crafting short story collections that both deliver individual gems and shine as a whole.