Dear Gentle Reader,

Not that we shouldn’t slow down and savor the moment, but October is here next week.  Yiiikes!

Saturday (September 27 at 11am) we welcome crowd favorite Susan Gregg Gilmore,The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush  and Heather Frese, The Saddest Girl on the Beach, who will discuss their latest fictions. Susan Gilmore’s love of storytelling flows naturally from her Tennessee roots. She’s the daughter of a revival preacher’s son, brought up on the land and streams that populate this novel that is, as Appalachian novelist Lee Smith says, a “homespun Pilgrim’s Progress.” When twelve-year-old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, he decides to give his leg a proper burial in the hilltop cemetery of his East Tennessee town. This event somehow sets off a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events. In Frese’s novel, Charlotte, a young woman, seeks solace in an Outer Banks beach town where her best friend’s family runs a small inn, while she is grieving her father’s death. The family welcomes Charlotte with chowder dinners and a cozy room, but her friend Evie has a looming life change of her own, and soon Charlotte seeks other attractions to navigate her grief. Heather Frese, winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize and author of The Baddest Girl on the Planet, sets Charlotte on a beautifully rendered course through human frailty, unrelenting science, and the awesome forces of the Carolina coast.

On Sunday at 2pm, The NC Poetry Society readings continue with readings byClaudine Moreau, Liza Wolff-Francis, and Lola Haskins. Claudine Moreau, author ofDemise of Pangaea, teaches physics and astronomy at Elon University. Her writing has appeared in Chaotic Merge, The Pinch, Tar River Poetry, and PANK. Liza Wolff-Francis is the 8th Poet Laureate of Carrboro, NC. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and is a feminist ecopoet, who has taught creative writing workshops for over a decade. Lola Haskins’s Like Zeros, Like Pearls is her fifteenth poetry collection. Homelight was named Poetry Book of the Year by Southern Literary Review. Asylum, Improvisations on John Clare was featured in the New York Times.

Next weekend (Saturday, October 4) is a double header with  John Claude Bemisstarting off our day at 11am with his middle grades graphic novel, Rodeo Hawkins and the Daughters of Mayhem. Then at 2pm, Scott Gould discusses his novel, Peace Like a River with Marjorie Hudson.

And some items of interest…

Beloved Vietri founder Susan Gravely will be here for a cocktail reception at the Fearrington House in honor of her latest book, Italy in a Glass on Friday, October 10th.

Acolytes of book clubs and great reads take note! We are offering a pair of events for your edification. On Thursday, October 16th we are hosting Book Club Night, an evening of book recommendations, beverages and bites. Then Friday morning, the 17th, over coffee and nibbles, we will be hosting a Book Club Morning Social and offering more recs and a book talk with Linda-Marie Barrett for her book, Creating a Salon.

And we are soooooo excited to host Lily King in discussion with Algonquin Executive Editor Kathy Pories on Saturday, November 8th at 11am. Buy a copy of her stellar novel, Heart the Lover, and you and a friend can attend. See a select list of our upcoming events in the list below and more for kids and adults on our website!

All the best from the Usual Suspects,

Pete, Johanna, Sarah G., Tyler, Amy, Juliana, Sarah C. and Keebe