
IN HONOR OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS 13)
Honoring the legacy of a civil rights icon, groups across the mountains began celebrating the birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
Saturday morning, the MLK Association of Asheville and Buncombe County hosted a virtual prayer breakfast.
It had been recorded at New Mt Olive Baptist Church in Asheville and featured gospel singers, sermons and testimonials.
ASHEVILLE’S 40TH DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. CELEBRATION MOVES ONLINE

*ASHEVILLE NEWS from Our City – Arts, Energy, Racial Equity excetera
Look ahead: City of Asheville projects and initiatives for the new year, 2021
Asheville residents can look upon the new year with optimism. Together, we’ve weathered a pandemic and a vaccine will be available this year. Even so, the City of Asheville’s response to COVID-19 will continue in the new year, in coordination with the state of North Carolina and Buncombe County.
Residents can look forward to advances in social change in 2021 as well, as City staff incorporate Advancing Racial Equity in Asheville into the budget, reimagining public safety and all the other work that will go into serving this community in the coming year. CLICK FOR MORE

ASHEVILLE TRAVEL BLOG

JOIN OUR PROGRAMS at MOUNTAIN TRUE for Action and Advocacy
Programs
Through a focus on sensible land use, forest health, and water quality, MountainTrue advocates for policies that allow people and the environment to thrive. MountainTrue unleashes the power of people’s voices to protect the natural heritage of our region through knowledge, action and collaboration. We convene key partners — nonprofit and community groups, government, and private industry — to devise the best strategies to improve the quality of development and preserve the unique rural character of our region.

*FEATURE: REGIONAL PERFORMING ARTISTS and friends of SheVille – So, why is performance art important, you ask?
In the closing decades of the 20th century, performing arts critics became increasingly despondent about the longevity of these art forms. Many believed that the performing arts would gradually become obsolete, thanks to the rise of the TV and also of the early Internet. The critics stated that the arts would become as relevant to 21st-century society as string quartets were to their own time, and believed that gradually, the performing arts world would become unfashionable and little used by society.

GWEN IFILL’S Profound Impact on African-American Women Journalists
By Yanick Rice Lamb in Women’s Media Center
Gwen Ifill made it easier for Sonya Ross to cover the White House. She set a great example, provided pointers, and boosted her confidence.
“She blazed a trail,” said Ross, a White House reporter at the Associated Press for nearly seven years who is now AP’s race and ethnicity editor. “She didn’t just teach me how to do it; she showed the world how to do it.”
Indeed, people around the world were stunned by reports of the 61-year-old Ifill’s death from cancer in mid-November—two days before she was to receive the 2016 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism at Columbia University. Everyone from President Obama to people on the street praised the way in which she protected “the public’s right to know” throughout her career, most recently as moderator and managing editor of Washington Week as well as co-anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour. Continue reading

AMI WORTHEN: Writing for Social Justice Action
Ami Worthen aims to illuminate, amplify, and fortify transformative community action.
Her writing and collaborative projects center social justice. Based in what is now known as Asheville, NC, a region that is the ancestral homeland of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, Ami follows the call of collective liberation.

FLATIRON WRITERS ROOM Workshops and Events
Write Here. Write Now.
Welcome to the Flatiron Writers Room – providing a brick & mortar hub for the Asheville writing community.
Located at 5 Covington Street in West Asheville’s vibrant Haywood Road corridor, the Flatiron Writers Room provides space for writers to learn, teach, read, celebrate and, of course, WRITE.

*SUSTAINABILITY: Climate Justice, Citizen Climate Lobby and What’s Happening
International lawyers draft plan to criminalise ecosystem destruction
Plan to draw up legal definition of ‘ecocide’ attracts support from European countries and small island nations
November, 2020 by Owen Bowcott in the Guardian
International lawyers are drafting plans for a legally enforceable crime of ecocide – criminalising destruction of the world’s ecosystems – that is already attracting support from European countries and island nations at risk from rising sea levels.

DIVERSE, THE CONTEMPORARY FEMALE GAZE — Works by Angela Cunningham, Anne Bessac & Melisa Cadell
The Female Gaze is a distinctive, but not a preordained schema, based on a single perspective of the female gender. The rich diversity of the contemporary female gaze is shown by works of Melisa Cadell, Angela Cunningham and Anne Bessac, using distinctively different visual strategies to engage the human figure. Through this process, they have been opened to the interaction among themselves and their various working strategies. Although this process has been limited by Covid-19, all three artists valued the cross pollination of ideas that occurred, and their individual commitment to their own working process, and feeling energized by the exchange that this exhibit made possible.

AMI WORTHEN: Community Care During Coronavirus
This information from Asheville Blade was originally published in March 14, 2020 by Leigh Cowart.
With a pandemic upon us, here are some links and notes that I hope will be of use. Much love as we take care of ourselves and those around us.
The reality
Thanks to the Asheville Blade for this informative article, Preparing for COVID-19 – definitely worth reading and sharing widely.

A NOTE FROM ELIZABETH MCCAIN: A Lesbian Belle Tells Southern Stories of Family, Loss and Love


PIONEERS of the Modern-Day Women’s Movement
We remember those who have made a significant contribution to gender equality and women’s lives and well-being, and thus to human rights and well-being. With honor and respect for their work and effort, we will not forget.

*CHANGEMAKERS
Remembering the Life’s Work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
By Peggy Clark and Anne Mosle
The legacy of the inimitable Ruth Bader Ginsburg is powerful and far-reaching beyond measure. A tiny giant amongst us, her life’s work reached every individual in our society and moved us closer to the kind of equality we dream of for America.

REMEMBER THIS: The Ancient Metaphor that Created Modern Sexism
By Robert S. McElvaine in the Washington Post
Where does sexism come from? Why do evangelicals ignore the president’s serial mistreatment of women? Why does the U.S. Constitution still not guarantee equality for women? Why do women earn less than men? Why didn’t most conservatives care whether the accusations of sexual assault brought against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh were true?

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS – Broad Strokes Blog
Women to Watch 2020: Lucha Rodríguez
The sixth installment of NMWA’s Women to Watch exhibition series, Paper Routes, is presented by the museum with the integral partnership of our national and international outreach committees. The exhibition showcases contemporary artists working in paper, celebrating their wide-ranging approaches and the transformation of this ubiquitous material into complex works of art. CLICK FOR MORE
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MALAPROPS BOOKSTORE Presents Shelf Awareness, Kids Reading & Ticketed Events
Our doors are closed but our hearts are always open to our amazing community! We are working daily to fill online orders so you can stay home and stay safe with good books.
We have resumed curbside pickup and are offering limited in-person shopping by appointment. Please visit malaprops.com for important details. Thank you for your support!
Please visit malaprops.com for details. Thank you for your support!

OUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS Great Gift Ideas Year ‘Round
Why Read? Advice From Harold Bloom
The most healing of pleasures
“Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you, because it is, at least in my experience, the most healing of pleasures. It returns you to otherness, whether in yourself or in friends, or in those who may become friends. Imaginative literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness. We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.”

SIMPLIFY YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE by Dawn Starks @ Starks Financial
104 Easy Tips for Creating the Abundant Future You Desire
Dawn Starks’s mission throughout her career has been to demystify money matters for people who want to have control over their financial lives. In her new book, Simplify Your Financial Life, she provides 104 easy-to-understand practices that will remove the financial clutter in your life and give you confidence with your money management. Freeing up that cluttered space in your life allows you to live more fully, intentionally, and without hindrances.

SOFT FOCUS ART a soothing way to see
The Art of Soft Focus
by Jenna Martin in Medium 2018
I like to forage for wild mushrooms and collect edible wildfood. It is a gentle way to sink into a place and learn local ecology.
It also provides us with some really delicious mushrooms and herbs as well as knowledge of local poisonous plants; for example, our front yard is abundant in snakeweed, which was what killed Abraham Lincoln’s Mother.
Cows can digest the plant but the poison will leak into her milk and kill people! Interesting, no? CLICK FOR MORE