Literary Arts Events & Book Releases for Fall 2018

Compiled from multiple sources by Lisa Zerkle.

Fall brings a fresh slate of book releases and literary events for writers and readers to note.  We’ve rounded up some highlights here, but this is by no means a complete listing. Keep an eye on events calendars for Park Road Books, Queens University (try here and here), and UNCC. If you’re willing to venture further afield, Davidson College and Main Street Books Davidson both have a slate of readings and events, most free and open to the public.  While we didn’t list it here, Lenoir Rhyne’s Visiting Writers Series celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. If you’re willing to drive to Hickory on a weeknight, you’ll find a host of excellent writers including Laila Lalami, Li-Young Lee, and Juan Felipe Herrera. Lit’s weekly newsletter calls out local lit arts events and we do our best to mention them on our website, too. Let us know if there’s something we missed.

Kathryn Schwille reading: What Luck, This Life
Thursday September 20, 7 to 8:30 pm at Park Road Books

What Luck, This Life begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle’s break-up, as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after he is disinvited to his family reunion. A closeted father facing a divorce that will leave his gifted boy adrift retrieves an astronaut’s remains. An engineer who dreams of orbiting earth joins a search for debris and instead uncovers an old neighbor’s buried longing. Info

Janet Mock, author of Redefining Realness, Reynolds Lecture (free, but tickets required)
Tuesday, September 25, 7 pm at Davidson College

Writer, TV host and producer, and advocate Janet Mock’s bestselling memoir Redefining Realness was the first autobiography written from the perspective of a trans girl. She produced the MSNBC series Beyond My Body and the HBO documentary The Trans List. Mock is a contributing editor at Allure, where she writes the column “Beauty Beyond Binaries.”

The First Annual Yorkville Literary Festival
October 5-6

Friday: Poetry Slam and Open Mic at the Sylvia, 9 pm. Saturday: events from 10 am-2 pm, including author presentations inside shops and cafes along Congress Street, children’s read-alouds, writing activities, and street performers. Downtown York. Info

Launch Party and Reading: Jeff Jackson, Destroy All Monsters
Friday October 19, 7-9 pm at Goodyear Arts

An epidemic of violence is sweeping the country: musicians are being murdered onstage in the middle of their sets by members of their audience. Are these random copycat killings, or is something more sinister at work? Has music itself become corrupted in a culture where everything is available, everybody is a “creative,” and attention spans have dwindled to nothing? With its cast of ambitious bands, yearning fans, and enigmatic killers, Destroy All Monsters tells a haunted and romantic story of overdue endings and unlikely beginnings that will resonate with anybody who’s ever loved rock and roll.

Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina Poet Laureate, Q&A on Poetry, Activism,and Community
Tuesday, October 30, 7:30 pm, at Davidson College

Jaki Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and is a 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate, 2007 Sam Ragan Award in Fine Arts and won the 2003 North Carolina Award in Literature. Open to the public. No tickets are required.

Verse and Vino, fundraiser for Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation
Thursday, November 1, 6 to 9:30 pm, Charlotte Convention Center

Featuring authors Elliot Ackerman, Lou Berney, Casey Gerald, Paula McClain, Julia Reed. Tickets required. Info

North Carolina Writers Network Fall Conference Hilton Charlotte University Place
Friday-Sunday, November 2-4, 2018

The Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country and provides a weekend full of activities that include readings, keynotes, tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and the opportunity for one-on-one manuscript critiques with editors or agents. For the first time, this year the conference offers a full slate of sessions designed specifically for writers of stage and screen. In addition, as part of the Network’s ongoing mission to serve writers at all levels of experience, the Charlotte Lit will sponsor a “Business of Writing” track at Fall Conference for those who feel ready to take their manuscripts to market. Conference faculty include professional writers from North Carolina and beyond, including John Amen, Bryn Chancellor, Morri Creech, Sarah Creech, Julie Funderburk, Judy Goldman, Patrice Gopo, Maureen Ryan Griffin, Jodi Helmer, Kathy Izard, Paula Martinac, Dannye Romine Powell, Paul Reali, Amy Rogers, Betsy Thorpe, Kim Wright, Lisa Zerkle. Registration now open. Info

Morri Creech reading, Blue Rooms
Tuesday November 13 at Queens University

The Arts at Queens presents Writer in Residence Morri Creech reading from his fourth poetry collection, Blue Rooms, for the English Department Reading Series. These poems explore the terrain between conscious perception and the objective world and include references to such artists as Magritte and Goya. Creech’s last book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

December 4X4CLT Poetry and Art Poster release with featured poet, Maurice Manning
Friday November 30 at Resident Culture Brewing, Saturday December 1 at Charlotte Lit

December’s 4X4CLT features Maurice Manning who will read at the release party on Friday November 30 at Resident Culture Brewing in Plaza Midwood and teach a master class at Charlotte Lit on Saturday December 1. Manning teaches at Transylvania University in Kentucky and is on faculty at Warren Wilson’s MFA program. He is the author of six books, the latest, One Man’s Dark, published in 2017. In 2010 his book The Common Man was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Manning’s poem “Orchard at the Bottom of the Hill” recently appeared in Time.