Author Appearance

Lin Stepp, author of the Smoky Mountain Novels will present her latest in the series on Saturday, May 21st at 3 p.m. at City Lights Bookstore.  Welcome Back finds Lydia Cunningham returning to the mountains she loves hoping to reestablish a bond with her family.  Set in western North Carolina, there are familiar locales throughout the book including City Lights Bookstore.

City Lights Bookstore and The Jackson County Public Library will co-sponsor a reading with New York Times bestselling author Ann B. Ross on Saturday, April 16th at 3 p.m. The reading will take place in the Community Room of the JCPL.

The Coffee with the Poet series continues on Thursday, April 21st at 10:30 a.m. at City Lights Bookstore. April will feature Charlotte poet visual artist, Jonathan K. Rice. He will read from his latest collection, Killing Time. He has also written a chapbook titled Shooting Pool with a Cellist and another full length collection, Ukulele and Other Poems.

The Coffee with the Poet series is cosponsored by the NetWest program of the North Carolina Writers Network and gathers the third Thursday of each month. For more information about Coffee with the Poet or to reserve copies of Killing Time, please call City Lights Bookstore at 828-586-9499.

Franklin author, James Kautz will read from his inspirational novel on Saturday, May 28th at 3 p.m. In Digger, a respected biblical archaeologist and professor, Paul Gartin has a dream -- to prove the existence of the elusive Old Testament kingdom of David with scientific, objective facts.

Educated in theology, James Kautz did archaeological fieldwork in Palestine’s West Bank, Jordan, and Israel for nine summers. He taught biblical studies and church history for three colleges.

Nelda Holder will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, March 19th at 3 p.m. to present her book, The Thirteenth Juror. The book is an investigative report on the grand jury transcripts released to the public in the case of the Michael Brown homicide in Ferguson, MO.

Nelda Holder is a freelance writer and editor in Asheville, NC. She has worked in the past as a feature writer and columnist for The Tampa Times, and writer and associate editor for Asheville's Mountain Xpress. She is a political columnist for Asheville's multicultural newspaper, The Urban News, and she created and manages the political/cultural website Politically Purple NC. 

City Lights Bookstore and Innovation Brewing are teaming up to help David Joy celebrate the one year anniversary of the release of Where All Light Tends to Go.

Kim Michele Richardson will return to City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, April 23rd at 6 p.m. She will read from and sign her new novel, GodPretty in the Tobacco Field. This novel is the story of a young girl living in rural eastern Kentucky in the ‘60s. Subjected to grueling labor by her God-fearing uncle, she strives to find a ray of hope in her poverty-stricken town through her own tobacco patch, a forbidden first love, and her home-made paper fortunetellers. A Coal Miner's Daughter meets Winter’s Bone in a tale of tender love and loss which examines the power of the land, crushing poverty, oppression of Appalachian women then, and that which is relevant now. David Joy, author of Where All Light Tends to Go, said, “A voice rich and authentic, steeped in the somber beauty that defines life in the South. Richardson knows this place well, and GodPretty in the Tobacco Field sings of that honesty.”

Kim Michele Richardson resides in the rolling hills of Kentucky where she is a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and an advocate for the prevention of child abuse and domestic violence. Liar’s Bench was her first novel. She is also the author of the bestselling memoir The Unbreakable Child. She is a contributor to the Huffington Post. 

Katy Simpson Smith will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, February 27th at 6:30 p.m. She will present her new novel Free Men. Set in the late-eighteenth-century American South, this novel follows a singular group of companions--an escaped slave, a white orphan, and a Creek Indian--who are being tracked down for murder. Publishers Weekly said, “Evokes the complexity of a fledgling America in precise, poetic language. . . . Rich with insights about history and the human heart.”  She is also the author of the critically acclaimed The Story of Land and Sea which is set on the coast of North Carolina during the Revolutionary War.

Professor and cyclist, Jimmy Guignard will present his book, Pedaling the Sacrifice Zone at City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, November 21st (2015) at 6:30 p.m. Living on 7 acres above the Marcellus Shale – an active gas play in Pennsylvania, Jimmy Guignard has witnessed the gradual transformation of the rural landscape his family calls home into an industrial sacrifice zone. In his new book Pedaling the Sacrifice Zone: Teaching, Writing, and Living above the Marcellus Shale, the English professor and experienced cyclist grapples with the meaning of place and the power of words. From the vantage point of a cyclist, Guignard tracks the takeover, pedaling thousands of miles through Tioga and surrounding counties, where he encounters increased truck traffic, crosses pipeline construction on trails and passes a growing number of flaring gas wells.  Juggling his roles as disinterested professor, anxious father and citizen and reluctant activist, Guignard reveals how the rhetoric of industry, politicians and locals reshaped his understanding of teaching and his faith in the force of language.