NEW OFFERINGS: Writing, Beethoven & Malaprops
Write It!: 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire
Description
Be inspired and find your voice with this guided journal of writing prompts designed for emerging poets. Compose your work on these beautifully designed pages, each of which offers a thoughtful prompt to help you craft writing that authentically expresses your inner life.
Work with award-winning poets Jessica Jacobs and Nickole Brown to develop your voice as a writer. This easy-to-use guided journal expertly elicits meaningful writing with 100 thoughtful, stimulating, and fun prompts.
Explore themes, refine your voice, experiment with form and imagery, practice different approaches, and hone your emotional and literary tools of expression, while creating a body of work that you can enjoy privately or share easily.
Discover yourself as a writer in this gorgeous guided journal that will become a treasured keepsake. CLICK TO ORDER>
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!
IDEA OF THE DAY: Libraries for democracy
The sociologist Eric Klinenberg published a book in 2018 called “Palaces for the People,” about the importance of shared public spaces in American life. Libraries, child care centers, churches and parks had all been crucial to the country’s historical success, he wrote, and he argued that they remained crucial to helping the country function better and overcome its deep divisions today.
ELIJAH’S VIOLIN A poem in memory of Elijah McClain, February 25, 1996 – August 24, 2019
This afternoon I’m taking a break from making lists of what I think needs to be done in order to fix what’s wrong with the world.
I wish Elijah were still alive, toting his violin to the animal shelter as he often did, to soothe the kittens—when he saw their fear, this was his simple, kind gesture.
Had Elijah been read to as a child, he likely knew the story of the Jewish fairy tale, about children who learned to overcome fear through the power of music?
He would have known of his namesake, the ancient prophet Elijah and his magical violin that had the power to calm, and to release the secret melodies of the heart.
Had he taken his violin with him that evening on his walk to the corner store, it might have saved his life.
It might have signaled to those men who murdered him that he was not a rapist, marauder, or thief.
They might then, have taken a minute to understand that he had simply walked to the corner store to buy some iced tea.
Jean Cassidy, August 6, 2020 Asheville, North Carolina
(August 2020 is the 75th anniversary month of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki – We remember)
A NOTE FROM JUSTIN, Malaprop’s Senior Buyer and General Manager
The senseless death of George Floyd and so many others has saddened us at Malaprop’s. We are also saddened, angered, disgusted, and disappointed in the behavior of police and our government, both nationally and locally. We feel the sorrow created by our nation’s collective grief and the disappointment in the way local law enforcement and leadership have treated those in our community who wish to have their voices heard.
Surviving Life Beyond the Pale: I was set up! A journey from innocence through abuse to strength
Grateful Steps Publishing House is pleased to announce the arrival of Surviving Life Beyond the Pale: I was set up! A journey from innocence through abuse to strength, a new book by M.A. Sandry, an Asheville native. With a goal of helping others through similar difficult circumstances, the author takes the reader on a journey through her multiple, severe early life traumas, which she remarkably overcame through personal insight, courage and spiritual growth.
THE SHINING ROCK POETRY ANTHOLOGY & BOOK REVIEW New Issue 2020
I am thrilled to announce that with the help of my co-editor, Daniel T. O’Hara, our Book Review Editor, Vanessa Loh, and our Cover Editor, artist Rosie Bruno, Issue 9, a whopper of a Double Issue of The Shining Rock Poetry Anthology & Book Review, is now free and online.
GIVING KIDS A HEAD START Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Buncombe County Literary Council
According to the Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. The key is to start reading to them at birth.
The Rememberists
By Kara Imle
I’ve been a memoirist since childhood. It started with drawing. Pencil gripped in my fist, I scrawled out the things I saw in my head: herds of horses; packs of wolves; a toothy, bat-winged dragon. These creatures did things I witnessed in my dreams and in my waking life, as I tumbled about in the woods or stared spacily at the walls while my mother tried to get my attention. The adults around me hailed my scrawlings as budding creativity, but to me it was only an observational skill. Perhaps they’re one and the same. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE
Feature photo by Ross Henderson in Unsplash. Thank you!
Writing Women Back into History
MARCH is National Women’s History Month The overarching theme for March 2010 is Writing Women Back into History In 2010, in celebration of our 30th Anniversary, we’ll highlight themes from previous years, ones that recognize a different aspect of women’s achievements…
WOMEN’S WORK: Louise Gluck, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna
by Ron Charles in the Washington Post BOOK Club
Poetic justice: Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize in literature yesterday (story and video). The Swedish Academy cited the “austere beauty” of her poetry. Glück, already one of the most celebrated writers in America, is the 16th woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature since it was first awarded in 1901. The chair of the prize committee, Anders Olsson, said, “Glück’s voice is unmistakable. It is candid and uncompromising, and it signals that this poet wants to be understood — but it is also a voice full of humor and biting wit.”
The Legendary Language of the Appalachian “Holler”
Is the unique Appalachian dialect the preserved language of Elizabethan England? Left over from Scots-Irish immigrants? Or something else altogether?
I HAVE A SECRET – Grateful Steps Foundation New Arrival
Grateful Steps Publishing House is pleased to announce the arrival of I Have a Secret, a new book by Asheville author, Andrew Barnett. I Have a Secret honors the struggle of children who have felt they must not tell others about the abuse that has been done to them by adults.
NEW RELEASE: Spanish Influenza: Nineteen Days in 1919 – from the diaries of Hilda Dorothea Zapf
Denise D’Angelo Jones Releases Her Book “Spanish Influenza: Nineteen Days In 1919” During COVID-19 Pandemic
Readers are taken on a journey through the accounts of a young lady that survived the Spanish Flu. There are details of hand washing, lockdowns, wearing of facemasks, and care for the sick!
WYATT EARP AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY, An Historical Literary Fiction Trilogy on the Life of Wyatt Earp by Mark Warren
“Think you don’t like to read Westerns? Adobe Moon will change your mind.” ~ Allison Marlowe, Gulf Coast News Today.
Western historian Mark Warren’s award winning trilogy Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey transports the reader back to the 19th century West.
“…Warren is able to convey scenes with a cinematic clarity…” ~ Peta Stevalli on Born to the Badge, New Zealand Booklovers
CHANGING THE MESSAGE: Cruelty to persons who are gay is incompatible with Christian teaching
Grateful Steps Publishing House is pleased to announce the arrival of Changing the Message: Cruelty to persons who are gay is incompatible with Christian teaching, a new book by a North Carolina author, Julie Wood, about her son, an UNCA student who died by suicide. The boy had been viciously berated in front of his peers by a youth minister. The author is a Winston-Salem resident.
The book is about a tragedy with a potential of great public interest. It challenges the hidden danger in the exclusionary language regarding homosexual behavior in The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, an international organization.
Featured Book & CD: TOWARD the CLEARING, by Jean Cassidy
We’ve done a re-run of my poetry book and CD, Toward the Clearing, more copies available!
Jean describes her poetry as “a choreography of words” as she joins her poetry with musical accompaniment. Her poetry book includes a CD of the poems accompanied by oboe, English horn, flute, piano, fretless banjo, violin, and balafon in the final product that is a beautiful collaboration with regional musicians and readers. Jean’s work has previously been published in It’s All Relative – Tales from the Tree, in The Great Smokies Review – Online Publication through UNC Asheville, in Speckled Trout Review, fall 2019 in These Trees by Ruthie Rosauer
In Ordinary Time Click to hear Susan Shinn read “In Ordinary Time” with piano accompaniment by Lytingale
This Conversation is the BREAK YOU NEED – Introducing the Youth Poet Laureates
We introduced two Youth Poet Laureates over Zoom. Dive into their conversation in Lily Lines at the Washington Post – Story by Madeline Weinfield, Illustrations by Maria Alconanda Brooks
You probably know that there is a United States Poet Laureate, but you would be forgiven for never having heard of the Youth Poet Laureate. This country has had a Poet Laureate for nearly a century, but it took until 2017 to formally celebrate the work of young poets with an official title. It was Urban Word, one of the oldest youth literary arts organizations in America, that instituted the position, utilizing panels of esteemed writers to select a Youth Poet Laureate each year not only for their art, but also for their activism. Featured photo by Hugo Ruiz CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE
Simplify Your Financial Life
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.
LISA UNGER BASKIN COLLECTION – Duke University Libraries “The unifying thread is that women have always been productive and working people and this history essentially has been hidden.”
Collection Overview
The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection arrived at Rubenstein Library in April 2015. Carefully assembled over forty-five years by noted bibliophile, activist, and collector Lisa Unger Baskin, the collection is a transformative body of material documenting women at work. In Baskin’s own words,
“The unifying thread is that women have always been productive and working people and this history essentially has been hidden.”
