Dr. Jeff Broadwater

The U.S. Constitution is as relevant today as it was on September 17, 1787, when it was signed by delegates of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia—perhaps even more so now than ever, as what the Constitution calls for and what it stands for is under vigorous debate in today’s political landscape.

To commemorate the 232nd year since the signing of this enduring document, the Willis N. Hackney Library on the campus of Barton College will host a Constitution Day celebration on Tuesday, September 17, in the Hackney Library Learning Commons from 5 -7 p.m. 

This event will feature Dr. Jeff Broadwater, professor emeritus of history at Barton College and an historian of American history, who has also authored and edited a number of books and articles about both the American founding fathers and the Constitution itself.  His presentation during the event will address the topic “Faithful Friends and Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Madison, and the Constitution.”

Two of his most recent books, Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution, and North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders (co-edited with Troy Kickler), will be available for purchase at the event.  A reception with refreshments and the book signing will begin at 5 p.m., and the featured program will begin at 5:30 p.m.  There will be additional opportunities to purchase books to be signed following Dr. Broadwater’s presentation.

A lawyer, historian, and scholar, Dr. Broadwater is the author of four previous books about leaders in American history and politics: Eisenhower and the Anti-Communist Crusade (1992); Adlai Stevenson and American Politics (1994); George Mason, Forgotten Founder (2006), which received the Richard Slattern Award for biography from the Virginia Historical Society and was listed among the Washington Post’s Best Non-Fiction Books of 2006; and James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of the Nation (2012), which won the Ragan Old North State Award from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.  He has also written a chapter titled “James Madison and the Dilemma of American Slavery” for A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe (2012), and numerous journal articles.  Dr. Broadwater taught history at Barton College from 1992-1995; and from 2003-2018.

We hope you will join us on September 17 for an enlightening discussion of the founding fathers who created the Constitution and a chance to purchase and have autographed one or both of Dr. Broadwater’s most recent books.

For additional information about this event, please contact Ann Dolman, Outreach and Public Services Librarian in Hackney Library, at 252-399-6507 or adolman@barton.edu.

Here’s what’s in store for you at this year’s event:

• Delicious build-your-own ice cream sundaes in the library foyer
• Fabulous door prizes* (must be present at 5:30 to be eligible to win!), including:
  • Google Home Mini
  • Noise-Canceling Headphones
  • Bluetooth Portable Wireless Speaker
  • Fire TV Stick
  • Slim Travel Backpack with USB Charging Port
  • Jackery Bolt dual iPhone External Charger
  • Adjustable Laptop Stand
  • Visa and Amazon Gift Cards
• Free giveaways at 7 stations throughout the library
• Free T-Shirt giveaways (designed by Barton student Heather Dupree)
• NEW this year: Barton FIT Active Work Stations (try out the treadmills and bikes!)
• The opportunity to find out more about the services offered by Hackney Library, the Office of Academic and Career Planning, the Oral Communications Center, and the Ragan Writing Center–and meet the people who provide them.

Plan to drop in, collect some swag, and start the academic year off right.  We look forward to seeing you this Thursday!

Vivian Howard (Photo Credit: Rex Miller)

UPDATE:  We have good news!  We are opening up this event to non-Friends members, so if you are interested in attending, please come by either Hackney Library or the Wilson County Public Library ASAP to pick up an invitation.  Deadline for RSVPs and payment is now Monday, October 1, 2018 by 5 pm; we will take RSVPs on a first-come, first-served basis.

Barton College’s Friends of Hackney Library and the Friends of the Wilson County Public Library are cooking up a feast for their jointly-sponsored Fall 2018 Dinner/Lecture.   The featured speaker at the event will be Vivian Howard, Kinston chef, restaurateur, New York Times bestselling author, and star of PBS’s award-winning television show, A Chef’s Life.   The event will be held on Tuesday, October 9, 2018, 5:30-8 pm, in Wilson Gym on the campus of Barton College.

Because of Howard’s prior commitments, the schedule of events will begin and end earlier than for a typical Friends event:  A wine reception and book signing will be held from 5:30–6:30 pm (note the earlier start time), followed by dinner at 6:30 pm and the program at 7:15 pm.  Copies of Howard’s New York Times bestselling cookbook, Deep Run Roots:  Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South, will be available for purchase, and Howard will be available to sign them, during the wine reception/book signing only (not after the program).  The debut cookbook has won numerous awards, including the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Cookbook of the Year Award in 2017, as well as its additional awards in three of four categories in which it was a finalist:  General, Chefs and Restaurants, and Julia Child First Book.

Vivian Howard is the owner and award-winning chef of two Kinston restaurants (the acclaimed Chef & The Farmer Progressive Eatery and the Boiler Room Oyster Bar).  In 2017, she and her husband and business partner, Ben Knight, opened a third, Benny’s Big Time Pizzeria, in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Next on the docket is a bakery in Kinston called Handy and Hot, to feature sweet and savory hand pies and serving a need in Kinston for “a place to get an excellent cup of coffee, and something tasty, creative, and satisfying for breakfast and lunch,” says Howard in an “Eater” interview with Hillary Dixler Canavan.  These hand pies, shallow-fried in lard, are a throwback to Howard’s childhood, when she ate them growing up at B & S Café in Deep Run, her hometown.  B & S Café chef Claire Merrell Barwick shared her secret with Howard long after she retired:  Soft dough, rolled so thin as to be translucent.  As Howard recounts in the “Eater” interview, “That’s what sets these apart from an empanada or a Jamaican meat patty….Delicate is what you’re going for.”  Handy and Hot is slated to open in the same block as her two other Kinston eateries.

Howard’s inaugural cookbook, Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South (featuring more than 200 recipes celebrating the flavors of eastern North Carolina), was nominated for a James Beard Award for the American Cooking category and has won four awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals in these categories:  Cookbook of the Year, Julia Child First Book, Chefs & Restaurants, and General.  In addition, Deep Run Roots was selected as the winner of the 2017 Southern Book Prize for the Nonfiction – Cooking category, and it debuted at #5 on the New York Times bestseller list.  Howard describes the book this way: “Part story, part history, part recipes, I’d like to think Deep Run Roots is much more than a cookbook.  And I hope it’s the first of many books like it [that] I get to write.”  Howard is now at work on a second book.

Not only is Vivian Howard a successful restaurateur and a New York Times bestselling and acclaimed author, she is also the star of the award-winning PBS television show, A Chef’s Life, which wrapped its fifth and final season this past spring.  According to a July 25, 2018 Eater interview, a last “Harvest Special” series epilogue of sorts will air in the fall of 2018. The show, with some 2.5 million viewers per episode, garnered a Peabody award, two Daytime Emmy awards (in 2015, for Outstanding Directing in a Lifestyle/Culinary/Travel Program; and in 2018, for Outstanding Culinary Program), and a James Beard award (2015, for Outstanding Personality/Host).

But Howard’s not yet finished with television:  Drew Jackson with the Raleigh News and Observer reports in a July 24, 2018 article that Howard has a new series of six one-hour episodes in production, tentatively titled South by Somewhere, that will feature “Howard playing the part of culinary anthropologist and showcasing the foods and traditions that cross and connect cultures.”  Like A Chef’s Life, the new show will also air on PBS and will be produced by Markay Media.

Howard has also just picked up a second James Beard award (2018’s Best Instructional Video, for her step-by-step instructions for making black bean glazed salmon with ginger cabbage for the website pannacooking.com).

Howard, her husband, and their two children live in Deep Run, North Carolina, near Kinston.

Admission to this event is $45 per person.  We expect a large turnout for this limited seating program, so priority admission by mailed invitation only is limited to the following:

•  Current member couples of either the Friends of Hackney Library or the Friends of the Wilson County Public Library, and to
• A current individual member of either group, plus one guest.

The members’ RSVP deadline is 5:00 pm on Monday, September 17, 2018.  In the event that there are still spaces available after the September 17 members’ deadline, we will open the event up to non-members, and the non-members’ RSVP deadline for that group will be Monday, October 1, 2018.

For more information about the event, please contact Ann Dolman at (252) 399-6507, or email the Friends of Hackney Library at fohl@barton.edu.

K . D. Kennedy, Jr. Rare Book Room

Barton College’s Willis N. Hackney Library is pleased to present the Sir Walter Scott Symposium as part of the K.D. Kennedy, Jr. Rare Book Room / Special Collections annual programming on Monday, April 9, at 5 p.m.

The featured keynote speaker will be Dr. Patrick Scott, Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at the University of South Carolina, and the former director of the University’s Irvin Department of Rare Books & Special Collections. The symposium will be held in the Willis N. Hackney Library and is open to the public free of charge. The community is invited to attend.

An afternoon reception at 5 p.m. will open the symposium, providing an opportunity for all attendees to meet the featured speakers and to participate in a free Rare Book Drawing that will be ongoing throughout the symposium. At 5:30 p.m., the official program will begin with Barton trustee emeritus Dr. K.D. Kennedy, Jr., providing a brief overview of the Rare Book Room and Special Collections. Shawn McCauley, assistant professor of English in the School of Humanities, will lead a lively discussion about Sir Walter Scott’s poetry books. And, Dr. Scott will focus his keynote address on the novels of Sir Walter Scott. 

This distinguished event will raise awareness of the importance of rare books in academic and personal collections as well as showcasing how they are used in teaching to support the development of undergraduates’ critical thinking skills and to inspire innovative student research.

“Barton College and the Willis N. Hackney Library are most appreciative of Dr. Kennedy’s ongoing generous support for the rare book room and its special collections,” shared Robert Cagna, dean of the Willis N. Hackney Library. “His genuine interest for research and special collections has ignited a similar passion for original inquiry and historical research within our current students. It’s truly inspiring to witness their enthusiasm as students are introduced to rare documents and books that they may otherwise have never had the opportunity to hold and read.”

About the Keynote Speaker:

In addition to his serving as a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, Dr. Scott served for 15 years in his role as Director of the University’s directing the Irvin Department of Rare Books & Special Collections. During this period, the Irvin Department of Rare Books & Special Collections added more than 100 distinct collections, largely through gift, and, in 2010, it moved into a new building, the Hollings Special Collections Library. The department also developed the use of special collections in education and outreach, with an expanded exhibition program, special events and conferences, pioneer digital projects, and regular undergraduate courses in book history giving students hands-on experience with rare materials.

Before moving to South Carolina in 1976, he taught at the secondary level in Nigeria and Britain, and at the college level in Leicester, Edinburgh, and at the College of William & Mary. While at South Carolina, Dr. Scott taught more than 35 different courses in British literature, writing, African literature, historical bibliography, and rare book librarianship.

Since 2012, he has edited the journal “Studies in Scottish Literature”; he is an honorary research fellow in Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow, and he currently has NEH support for research relating to Robert Burns. Dr. Scott has Master of Arts degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Leicester and a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.

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Author Drew Perry

The Friends of Hackney Library association is pleased to welcome writer Drew Perry as featured speaker at its Spring 2018 Dinner/Lecture program on Tuesday, April 3, 2018.  The event will be held in Hardy Alumni Hall on the campus of Barton College.

A book signing and wine reception will be held from 6:00 pm to 6:30 pm, followed by dinner at 6:30 pm with the program commencing immediately afterward.   Perry will be on hand to sign copies of his books at the event, which will be available for purchase both at the book signing and following the program.

Perry is the author of two humorous novels as well as several short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction works, and he is a regular contributor to Our State magazine.  An Associate Professor of English at Elon University, he is described on its web site  as “a family man . . . [who] writes about relatable challenges and fears involving fatherhood, parenting, marriage, love, and life in general.”

Perry’s first novel, This Is Just Exactly Like You, was a finalist for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, a Best-of-the-Year pick from The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and a SIBA Okra pick.  It has proven to be a favorite of critics and fellow novelists alike.  Author Jill McCorkle summarizes it this way:

Drew Perry’s wonderful debut will hold readers spellbound from beginning to end—think A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in a small college town, plus a dog named Yul Brynner.  The estranged grownups switch partners and dance back and forth with some of the liveliest dialogue I’ve read in years, all while struggling to come face to face with reality.  And at the center of this often comical, sometimes tragic chaos is that reality—a child, Hendrick, brilliant and autistic—with the power to ultimately pull this cast of memorable characters back into the light of day, and give them new perspective on what is most important.  Perry is a gifted writer, and this novel, with its wit and warmth and wisdom, is an absolute winner.

Kids These Days, Perry’s second novel, is also highly acclaimed:  It was an Amazon Best-of-the-Month pick and was named to Kirkus Reviews’ “Winter’s Best Bets” and “Books So Funny You’re Guaranteed to Laugh” lists.  Author Dave Barry has this to say about it:  “A terrific writer, Perry has written a wonderful book about a man dealing with—among other things—the angst of impending fatherhood.  It’s sweet, soulful, smart, and funny as hell.  A great read.”  A Library Journal review calls the book “[a] timely look at contemporary America, with its unexpected economic setbacks and the bargains made to surmount them.  Readers of Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, and Jonathan Tropper should enjoy this compelling novel, the story of a man in transition that might lure a few Florida fiction fans as well.”  Matt Simmons of Southern Literary Review says Perry’s Kids “can be read as the strongest statement yet about the new middle-American ‘normal’ . . . . An entertaining and very emotionally satisfying story . . . . Drew Perry might have written the perfect novel for our times.”

While his first two novels each feature a contemporary setting, a single narrator, and cover a relatively short span of time, Perry’s third effort is a bit more complex.  According to Elon University, his current work-in-progress is “more ambitious in size and scope.”  Titled Dear Firecracker, this third novel, “situated around two Space Shuttle disasters of 1986 and 2003, is historical, with multiple narrators.  It aims to be a Big American Novel, a book that asks big questions and seeks to comment on the American Experiment in more direct ways than his other two.”

Perry is a native of Jacksonville, Florida but grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.  He attended the University of Georgia, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Advertising and Journalism (because “he discovered creative writing too late to major in it,” according to a February 23, 2014 interview with Isaac Groves of Times-News).  He then earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  He has been teaching at Elon University since 1999.

He is married to Tita Ramirez, fellow writer and Associate Professor of English at Elon University; they have two young sons and live in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Admission to the event is $30 each for Friends of Hackney Library members, and for Barton faculty/staff, students, and spouses.  For all other guests, admission is $35 each.

For more information about invitations for the event, please contact Ann Dolman at (252) 399-6507, or email the Friends of Hackney Library at fohl@barton.edu.  Space is limited, and after invitations have been issued in late February/early March, the deadline for reservations is Monday, March 26, 2018.

 Please join us for a humorous evening with this entertaining author and speaker.

Update:  To see a video of Drew Perry’s presentation, click here.

Coming Fall 2018–Vivian Howard, renowned chef, author, restaurateur, and TV personality will be coming to Barton College on October 9–stay tuned for more details!

D. G. Martin (Photo Credit: Alicia Stemper)

The Friends of Hackney Library and the Friends of the Wilson County Public Library are pleased to announce that author, columnist, and TV and radio talk show host D. G. Martin will be the guest speaker for the Friends’ jointly-sponsored 2017 Fall Dinner and Program on Tuesday, October 3, 2017.

The event will be held in Hardy Alumni Hall on the campus of Barton College.  A book signing and wine reception will be held from 6:00 to 6:30 pm, followed by dinner at 6:30 pm and the program immediately afterward. Martin will be available to sign copies of his latest book at the event, which will be available for purchase both at the book signing and following the program.

David Grier (D. G.) Martin, Jr., was born in Atlanta but raised in Davidson, North Carolina, where his father served as president of Davidson College.  Martin attended Davidson and played basketball under coach “Lefty” Driesell.  After graduation, he joined the U.S. Army, eventually becoming a Green Beret.  Martin attended Yale Law School after leaving active duty, and upon graduation, returned to North Carolina to practice law in Charlotte for 20 years.  Subsequently, he joined the University of North Carolina, serving as Vice President for Public Affairs and chief legislative liaison.

Martin is a Renaissance man of sorts, to which his career and civic activities attest.  He has been involved with public service and politics throughout his life, including stints after retirement as interim Vice Chancellor for Development and University Affairs at both UNC-Pembroke and North Carolina Central University; work as the Carolinas Director of the Trust for Public Land; in leadership positions with the Triangle Land Conservancy, North Carolina’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and as President of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Fund.  In the political arena, he conducted two races for Congress in 1984 and 1986, and a hard-fought 1998 campaign for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate against John Edwards.  He has also served in leadership roles at Davidson College, the YMCA, the United Way, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the North Carolina Bar Association.

Since 1999, he has hosted UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, the state’s premier literary television series featuring interviews with more than 380 North Carolina authors.  In addition, he has participated in other UNC-TV productions, including segments of the popular Our State series, and the intriguing documentary, The Search for Princess Charlotte.  He currently writes a weekly newspaper column, One on One, that covers books, politics, and related topics and is carried by some 40 North Carolina newspapers;  he is also a frequent contributor to Our State magazine.  In addition to his work in television and print, Martin has interviewed over 1,000 individuals as the host of Who’s Talking, a daily interview program on WCHL-1360, a Chapel Hill, NC, radio station.  In May 2008, Wingate University awarded him an honorary degree.

Martin’s latest publishing endeavor is a book about the state’s local food joints:  North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries:  A Traveler’s Guide to Local Restaurants, Diners, and Barbecue Joints (UNC Press, October 2016).  In it, Martin, who spent years traveling the highways and byways of North Carolina, recounts more than 100 notable North Carolina eating establishments not far off the interstates that range from local barbecue joints to Mexican restaurants to Greek diners, as well as introducing readers to the restaurants’ owners and the locals who frequent their establishments.  According to novelist Charles Frazier (of Cold Mountain fame), “I’ve had the good fortune to have D. G. as my personal guide to some of the fine eateries in this book.  I’m grateful to him for introducing me not only to so many memorable meals but also to the many fine local people and places that I’ve come to treasure.”  Says Bridgette Lacy of the News & Observer, “Martin wants . . . us to take his guide and have our own adventures. . . . He encourages readers to go a little out of their way to be greeted like an old friend at one of these places even if it’s your first visit.”  Organized by interstate highways and the eating establishments located near each, the book provides a wealth of information not only about great places to eat throughout North Carolina but also about the local color and culture they reflect.  And in the “After Eating” section following each restaurant write-up, Martin recommends other nearby “don’t-miss” sites to explore.

Martin and his wife, Harriet, live in Chapel Hill and have two grown children and four grandchildren.  Their son, Grier Martin, serves in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Admission to the event is $30 each for Friends of Hackney Library members; for Friends of the Wilson County Public Library members; and for Barton faculty/staff, students, and spouses.  For all other guests, admission is $35 each.

For more information about invitations for the event, please contact Luann Clark at (252) 399-6329, or email the Friends of Hackney Library at fohl@barton.edu.  Space is limited, and after invitations have been issued in late August/early September, the deadline for reservations is Monday, September 25, 2017.

This event is co-sponsored by the Friends of Hackney Library and the Friends of the Wilson County Public Library.

We hope you will join us for a delightful evening with this engaging raconteur!

During the event, we will both be welcoming new students, faculty, and staff to the Library, to the Office of Student Success, and to Information Technology (IT) and welcoming back returning students and employees.

The Open House, which is sponsored by Hackney Library, the Office of Student Success, and the Friends of Hackney Library, is also open to the public.

This year’s Open House celebrates Wes Moore’s The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, which has been chosen as this year’s FYS Summer Reader.

As in years past, we will have plenty of swag for attendees to enjoy:

• All who complete a brief online survey at the event will once again receive one of our wildly popular Library Open House t-shirts ( designed again this year by Barton art professor Susan Fecho, it incorporates themes inspired by Moore’s book).
• In addition, other giveaways from the Library and the Office of Student Success (OSS) will be available to attendees visiting seven “stations” around the library.  Each is designed to introduce new Barton community members to the library’s, OSS’s, and IT’s faculty/staff and services, as well as to refresh the memory of returnees.
• Satisfy your sweet tooth by partaking of our “build-your-own” scrumptious ice cream sundae again this year in the library’s foyer (with the help of Tony Tilley and his stupendous Aramark crew).

And last but not least, a door prize drawing for fantastic prizes will be held at 5:30 pm, so plan to hang around until then, as you must be present to win! 

Here’s a list of door prizes you could score during the drawing at 5:30:

• Amazon’s Echo Dot
• Skullcandy’s GRIND Wireless Headphones
• Roku Streaming Stick that works with all top movie and TV streaming services
• Tile Mate Key/Object finder phone app to locate misplaced phones, keys, and other items
• OontZ Angle Plus Portable Wireless Speaker
• $25 Gift Card from Buffalo Wild Wings
• $25 Gift Card from Starbucks

An opportunity to join the Friends of Hackney Library will be also be available at a table at the event for those who’d like to support the work of the library while reaping the benefits of membership.

So come check us out on Thursday, August 17th from 4-6 pm and see what Hackney Library and the Office of Student Success have to offer at this 12th Annual Hackney Library Open House!

Bobby Boykin and K. D. Kennedy, Jr. present Atmore’s “The Methodist Memorial” to George Loveland, right. [Photo courtesy of Diana James]

In addition to the first edition of Atmore’s book, the Friends board also donated a modern reprint of the work.  Both books, which were purchased by the board from K. D. Kennedy, Jr., will be added to the K. D. Kennedy, Jr. Rare Book Room collection.

At the reception, Kennedy gave a history of the work to some 30 faculty, staff, and Friends board members gathered, and along with Bobby Boykin, former past chair of the Friends board, presented the book to George for his perusal before it is cataloged for the Rare Book Room.  Dr. Gary Daynes, Barton Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, recounted the professional accomplishments of Loveland during his time at Barton and thanked him for his service, indicating that he would be missed.

Daynes announced that a new library dean, Robert Cagna, will be coming on board July 24.

We wish George well in his new career and look forward to welcoming Robert Cagna when he arrives in July.

Author Lee Smith (photo credit: Diane Matthews Photography)

The Friends of Hackney Library are pleased to welcome celebrated author Lee Smith as guest speaker at the Spring 2017 Book Signing, Lecture, and Dinner.  The event will take place on Tuesday, April 4, 2017 in Hardy Alumni Hall on the campus of Barton College.  The book signing and wine reception will begin at 6:00 pm, followed by dinner at 6:30 pm and the program immediately after.  Books by the author will be sold both during the reception and following the program.

Lee Smith is the author of thirteen novels, including Oral History, Fair and Tender Ladies, Saving Grace, The Last Girls (a New York Times bestseller), On Agate Hill, and Guests on Earth, among others; four short story collections; an off-Broadway musical, Good ‘Ol Girls (based on the stories of Smith and her former student, author Jill McCorkle).   

Her most recent work is a memoir, Dimestore:  A Writer’s Life (Algonquin Books, 2016).

Smith was born and raised in Grundy, Virginia, a small Appalachian coal-mining town less than ten miles from the Kentucky border, where her father owned a Ben Franklin five-and-dime store and her mother taught home economics.  She received a bachelor’s degree in English from Hollins College (now University) in Roanoke, Virginia.  This background gave birth to her deep understanding of and empathy for the people of Appalachia and its culture, which is reflected in the sense of place that infuses her work.

Smith was raised in a household in which stories were the currency of communication:  “I didn’t know any writers,” Smith says, “[but] I grew up in the midst of people just talking and talking and talking and telling these stories. My Uncle Vern, who was in the legislature, was a famous storyteller, as were others, including my dad. It was very local. I mean, my mother could make a story out of anything; she’d go to the grocery store and come home with a story,” according to the official biography on Smith’s web site.

As a child of parents steeped in the art of storytelling, Smith naturally followed in their footsteps.  “I started telling stories as soon as I could talk–true stories, and made-up stories, too. It has always been hard for me to tell the difference between them,” she says in “In Her Own Words” on her web site.  A 2003 Southern Living interview with Smith reveals that during her time at Hollins College, she began to appreciate her family’s ability to spin tales from everyday life:  “This language that I grew up with—this wonderful, spoken vernacular language—was beautiful and just so full of rich imagery.”  Not only has her penchant for storytelling found expression in her acclaimed novels, but also in her short stories.  Smith is described on the flyleaf of her short story collection Mrs. Darcy Meets the Blue-Eyed Stranger as “a master of the short story [who] has been compared with such luminaries as Katherine Ann Porter, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor.”  She won O. Henry Awards for her short stories in 1979 and 1981.

That importance of storytelling has stayed with her.  “Narrative is as necessary to me as breathing, as air,” she says.  “I write for the reason I’ve always done so:  simply to survive. To make sense of my life.  I never know what I think until I read what I’ve written.  And I refuse to lead an unexamined life.  No matter how painful it is, I intend to know what’s going on.  The writing itself is a source of strength for me, a way to make it through the night.”

A common thread weaves through her work, from her first story, written at the tender age of 8 on her mother’s stationery, to her latest works.  Smith explains in “In Her Own Words” that she “was fixed upon glamour and flight, two themes I returned to again and again as I wrote my way throughout high school, then college.  Decades later, I’m still at it.”

In addition to the O. Henry Awards, Smith has won numerous accolades for her writing, including the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction for Oral History in 1983 and Fair and Tender Ladies in 1989; the North Carolina Award for Literature, 1984; the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature, 1988; the Robert Penn Warren Prize for Fiction, 1991; the Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Award, 1995 – 1997; the Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1999; the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, 2002 for The Last Girls; admission to the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, 2009; the Thomas Wolfe Award, 2010; and the Lifetime Literary Achievement Award from State of Virginia, 2010.  In 1991, she was elected as a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Her latest effort, Dimestore:  A Writer’s Life, is Smith’s most recent foray into nonfiction and explores the impact on her life and on her life’s work of a childhood rooted in Grundy.  As her web site recounts,

Although her parents were raising her to leave Grundy, Smith loved every aspect of her hometown—set deep in the rugged Appalachian Mountains—from the Ben Franklin dimestore her father owned and ran for many years, to the music played down by the river bank, to ice tea and gossip on the front porch, to the drive-in theater where The Stanley Brothers played before the movie began.  And while her education and travels took her far from Virginia, Smith’s appreciation of Appalachian culture never wavered. In telling the story of her enchanting childhood, revealing the mental illness that courses through her family tree, sharing her mother’s long-cherished recipes, and introducing readers to relatives, local characters, and people who changed her life, Smith portrays a time and place that most of us will never experience, a way of life that is fast disappearing.

Smith explains the inspiration for the 15 essays that appear in the memoir in this way:  “I always knew I wanted to set down some thoughts and reminiscences based around these themes – about place, memory, and writing – but this project got a real kick-start recently when the entire town of Grundy was demolished as part of a flood-control project. . . . Only last August, the house I grew up in was bulldozed too.”  Although the physical town of Grundy, Virginia may now exist only in memory, its influence continues to be felt in Smith’s work.

Praise for Dimestore has poured forth from myriad sources:    Author Annie Dillard (a fellow Hollins alum and college rock band go-go girl), proclaims, “Here’s Lee Smith at her best.  Dimestore is personal nonfiction, where her brilliance shines.  Her wide warmth blesses everything funny about life and–here especially–everything moving and deep.”  Pam Kingsbury of Library Journal concurs in a recent critique: “This memoir is Smith. . . at her finest. There is not one false note in the book. . . .This wonderful memoir—filled with tenderness, compassion, love, and humor—is highly recommended for fans of Smith’s fiction, lovers of Southern writing, and readers who are interested in the changes in small-town America.”  Author Elizabeth Spencer says of this latest effort, “In Lee Smith’s memoir, Dimestore, readers will gladly join her, finding her writing with the same lively spirit that has always informed her fiction. She never turns away from her Appalachian roots, revealing that remote region with discerning affection.”

In addition to crafting her own works of fiction and nonfiction, Smith taught writing for many years at various institutions in the Triangle, including Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Caroline State University.  She lives with her husband, writer Hal Crowther, in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Smith is currently at work on her next book, to be titled Silver Alert.

Admission for the event is $30 each for Friends of Hackney Library members; for Barton faculty/staff, students, and spouses. For all other guests, admission is $35 each.

For more information about invitations for the event, please contact Luann Clark at (252) 399-6329, or email the Friends at fohl@barton.edu. Space is limited, and after invitations have been issued, reservations for the dinner must be received by March 27, 2017.

This event is sponsored in part by BB&T.

Author Michael Parker

The Friends of Hackney Library and Friends of the Wilson County Public Library are pleased to welcome short story writer, novelist, and journalist Michael Parker as guest speaker of a jointly-sponsored dinner/lecture on October 4, 2016, in Hardy Alumni Hall on the campus of Barton College.

The event will begin with a book signing and wine reception at 6:00 pm, followed by dinner at 6:30 pm, and the program immediately afterward.   Titled “A Man Came Up From Wilmington Carrying A Bag of Snakes” after one of his essays,  Parker’s presentation will address the relationship between his work and his having grown  up in Eastern North Carolina.

Michael Parker, a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia, is the author of six novels – Hello Down There, Towns Without Rivers, Virginia Lovers, If You Want Me To Stay, The Watery Part of the World, and his latest, All I Have In This World–and two collections of stories, The Geographical Cure and Don’t Make Me Stop Now.

His latest work, All I Have In This World, is “a tender novel about our desire to reconcile past mistakes, and the ways we must learn to forgive others, and perhaps even ourselves, if we are ever to move on,” Parker’s web site explains.  The plot centers around two troubled but appealing characters, Marcus and Maria:  “Two strangers meet on a windswept car lot in West Texas. Marcus is fleeing the disastrous fallout of chasing a lifelong dream; Maria is returning to the hometown she fled years ago, to make amends. They begin to argue over the car that they both desperately want–a low-slung sky-blue twenty-year-old Buick Electra.”  And thus begins an unlikely partnership, not just in their impulsive decision to purchase and share jointly the car Marcus affectionately dubs “Her Lowness,” but also in their mutual struggle toward absolution for their respective life missteps.

The novel has garnered much acclaim.  Mark Richard, author of House of Prayer No. 2, characterizes Parker’s latest work in this way:  “’Car as crucible’ might be the thesis for Michael Parker’s best novel yet.  In front seats and back seats we conjure love and contemplate ruin, as do the wonderful characters in All I Have in This World.  Parker again extends his geographical and emotional ranges here in this layered and nuanced story of heartbroken, debt-ridden and atonement-seeking creatures much like many of us. So get in and drive on. Or as they say in North Carolina, ‘Let’s go to ride.’”

A Denver Post critique praises the authenticity of the novel and its characters as expressed through the use of humor:  “But what makes ‘All I Have in this World’ memorable is this:  While any number of disasters can (and do) take place along the way, and while some are heartbreaking, the watershed moments happen not with sadness or blood or pain, but with cascades of laughter.  It’s through moments of unabashed humor, when Marcus and Maria let go and laugh, that his characters finally, and completely, connect.  Which feels a lot like real life.”

Parker’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various journals including Five Points, the Georgia Review, The Southwest Review, Epoch, the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine, Oxford American, Shenandoah, The Black Warrior Review, Trail Runner, Runner’s World and Men’s Journal.

Parker has received fellowships in fiction from the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Hobson Award for Arts and Letters, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His work has been anthologized in the Pushcart, New Stories from the South and O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies.  He is the Vacc Distinguished Professor in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and since 2009 has been on the faculty of the Warren Wilson Program for Writers.  He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina and Austin, Texas.

Critics have lavished prodigious praise on the memorable characters and descriptive language in Parker’s entire body of work.  The Washington Post characterizes his appeal in this way:  “In prose languid and mysterious. . . . Parker writes descriptions as precise as line engravings, more revealing than recordings or photographs.”  Frederick Busch of The New York Times Book Review offers his assessment of the allure of Parker’s work:   “What makes Mr. Parker so satisfying a writer: his bone-deep affection for his characters; his love of clear, crisp, pungent language. . . his confidence in the possibility of redemption.” And as author Lee K. Abbott puts it in the flyleaf of Parker’s novel If You Want Me to Stay, “Only Michael Parker can tell a story you don’t want to quit about folks you don’t want to leave. . . . He has us all in mind—all of us who are needy and scared and running fast from the past, all of us who believe in magic and miracles, all of us beleaguered and bewitched by love.”

Books by the author will be sold at the event both during the book signing/wine reception prior to the program and following dinner; Parker will be on hand to sign books at those times as well.

Admission to the event is $30 each for Friends of Hackney Library members; for Barton faculty/staff, students, and spouses; and for Friends of the Wilson County Public Library members.  For all other guests, admission is $35 each.

For more information about invitations for the dinner, please contact Luann Clark at (252) 399-6329, or email the Friends of Hackney Library at fohl@barton.edu.  Space is limited, and after invitations have been issued, reservations for the dinner must be received by September 27, 2016.

This event is sponsored in part by BB&T.