A Product of Time, Place, and Taboo
Morgana, Mississippi, is to Eudora Welty as Green Branch, South Carolina, is to Spartanburg writer Susan Beckham Zurenda. Besides being fictitious backdrops for exploring…
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Wild Life
In July 1966, a brutal murder in Henderson County would ooze to the surface of consciousness like rainwater saturating drywall. Terry Neal summarizes the gruesome crime thusly: “Three people were murdered in a small town in the mountains of Western North Carolina. But there was much, much, much more to the story than anyone would’ve realized.”
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The People Still Need a Poet
The deep fryer is fertile ground for poetry. While tending to chicken thighs churning in hot vegetable oil, part-time deli worker, part-time dishwasher, and “people’s poet” Tony Robles writes. He writes about peach cobbler and green beans, about snapping turtles marooned on Greenville Highway. He writes about racism. But mostly, Robles writes about people.
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Stealing Back Memories
Local author’s latest murder mystery has a personal twist Alzheimer’s disease is like riding a roller coaster in the dark, says Henderson County author…
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The Art of Persuasion
Ethereal depictions of local vistas are rich in observed detail Perception is a fickle thing. Alan McCarter knows that firsthand. He never saw his…
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Time to Talk About It
Vietnam veterans bring their war stories to Flat Rock Stephen Henderson received no homecoming when he was medevacked to Jacksonville’s Camp Lejeune in 1970. Having…
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Helping the Underdog
Some might think dragons exist only in medieval folklore, but ask any Western North Carolina native and they’ll tell you different. The Hellbender, a…
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If the Glass Slipper Fits
Growing up in San Francisco’s arts scene, Caroline Hewitt took piano lessons, but not because she wanted to. “Music started as a chore,” admits…
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“The Reward of a Living Wage” — 100 Years Later
“If a country is justified in rewarding its heroic pioneers,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumna Ellen Swallow Richards wrote in her 1907 report, Desirable…
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Embroidering on a Theme
Since 1996, the number of North Carolina textile and apparel plants has decreased by 40 percent, per a Duke University study. Made in WNC,…
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