This investment will be returned — the 2009 Creative Industry report showed that creative individuals and businesses contribute $41.4 billion worth of products and services, nearly six percent of N.C.’s total production.

Read more about the grants awarded here.

Read more about the creative industry here.

Find the history of state grants in the arts here.

Highlights of the 2010 conference include sessions by Barbara Goldstein, public art director for San Jose, Calif., and creator of the Public Art Academy; a keynote address by Bill Ivey, former director of the National Endowment for the Arts and author of Arts Inc.: How Greed and Neglect have Destroyed our Cultural Rights; and a closing address by conceptual visual artist Mel Chin.

Payment is by check only. To learn more about the conference and to register, visit www.publicart360.com or contact Diane Ruggiero at (828) 259-5815 or druggiero@ashevillenc.gov.

Sebastian Matthews

August 22, 2010 Sebastian Matthews joined Cathy and Jeff to share some of the work of his father, the poet William Matthews, and to treat us to some of his own new poems. Musical breaks by Charlie Mingus, Bill Evans, and McCoy Tyner. Listen or download the show here.

“The Laureate’s Radio Hour” is part of the “Wordplay” radio show on AshevilleFM. The show airs on the 3rd Sunday of every month at 5:00 PM

ASC president Scott Provancher told the Charlotte Observer that education funding “has got to be a priority for us.”

The Charlotte Observer reported on Monday, Aug. 23, that “the ASC administers the schools’ money for arts-education programs put on by cultural groups — such as the orchestra, Children’s Theatre and Mint Museum — and by individual artists. It adds money from its own campaigns. This school year, it will have $497,000 to spend — down from $1.6 million before the tailspin.

Proponents of keeping arts programs in schools say they do more than just introduce children to orchestras, plays or paintings. They say the arts help develop children’s minds and prepare them to compete in the global economy.”

To read the complete article, click here.

Earlier this summer, her company spent a week in Germany to rehearse and perform Flight Distance at PACT-Zollverein in Essen as finalists for the Kurt Jooss Prize 2010. The PACT-Zollverein center is an old coal mine and coke factory converted into a performance space.

Returning to the American Dance Festival, this time as faculty instead of as a graduate student, she taught an intermediate level modern technique class. She was also artist-in-residence at the Bates Dance Festival in Maine.

In November she will be one of only 12 artists selected to perform at The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2010: New York City produced by the Joyce Theater Foundation. Read more about Helen’s whirlwind summer on her Web site at http://www.helensimoneau.com/.

Now in its 23rd year, the Bull Durham Blues Festival, a program of the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation Inc. is North Carolina’s largest celebration of the blues, with fans attending from more than 175 North Carolina cities, 25 states and five countries. This year it presents blues megastar Buddy Guy, vocalists Bettye Lavette, Ruthie Foster and New Orleans’ The Wild Magnolias along with artists with North Carolina connections. Triangle group Mel Melton & The Wicked Mojos bring a Zydeco/Cajun flavor to the festival, and M.S.G. – The Acoustic Blues Trio performs traditional Piedmont blues.

For Gastonia native Mel Melton, what started out as a short visit to Louisiana in 1969 turned into a music career that included singing and playing harmonica with a Zydeco band called Bayou Rhythm. He went on to Chicago to pursue another love, Cajun cooking and brought both skills back to North Carolina in 1990. Today, he’s the proprietor of Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse in Durham, commuting from his farm in Yanceyville to serve up a mixture of Cajun cooking, live music and dancing for an appreciative Triangle clientele. His current band, Mel Melton & The Wicked Mojos, will take the stage at the Hayti Heritage Center on the opening night of the Bull Durham Blues Festival.

Mel Melton

“I enjoy playing the festival here because this is my base, so I get to interact with a lot of regulars who come and see me play,” Melton says. Although he’s performed at the Bull Durham Blues Festival almost a half-dozen times, this is his first time at the Hayti Heritage Center. “I’ve always wanted to get on that stage, so I’m pretty excited about it. I like the organization—program director Diane Pledger and the people at the Hayti Heritage Center and St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation have a passion for doing the festival and they’re very accommodating to the musicians as well as the public.”

Melton says the Wicked Mojos will typically start off with straight blues, some with rhythm-and-blues influences, and then switch over to Zydeco numbers. “The water all comes out of the same well,” he says. “There are some aspects that can be tied in to any American blues music. With Piedmont blues you get some of the same instrumentation but it’s a little bit more polyrhythmic. One of the things I’ve always admired about the Piedmont artists is they’re not afraid to pick up a banjo to play a blues song, or pick up a fiddle and do some buck dancing.”

Melton agrees that it’s important for the citizens of North Carolina to have an appreciation for their native music. “It’s our heritage, it’s valid and it’s important that it doesn’t get denigrated,” Melton says. “The only way to do that is to keep people informed and give them the opportunity to experience it, enjoy it and take it for what it is.”

His restaurant also caters food for the musicians at the festival, including some of his musical heroes like one-time headliner Taj Mahal. “I got the back story on some of his early music, and we talked about how he attacks some of his blues,” Melton says. “I also got to set up a little buffet for him, including a catfish topped with crawfish etouffee. I think he probably still holds the record on that one, because the man can eat!”

Melton says there will always be a connection between food and music.

“You get to experience the culture they’re both drawn from, and get immediate gratification,” he says. “It’s not like sitting down to write a book or read a book. You’re sitting there and the song sounds great, you love it, you’re dancing; your plate of food comes out, it looks great, you eat it, you’re happy. It’s immediate; you know right away whether you’re successful with it or not. That’s why I like it, and why other people appreciate it, too.”

For more information about the Bull Durham Blues Festival, visit http://www.hayti.org, http://www.bulldurhamblues.org or call (919) 683-1709 ext. 21.

If you’ve still got an itch for the blues this fall, the Music Maker Relief Foundation’s Annual Warehouse Blues Series returns for a seventh year from Sunday, Sept. 12, through Sunday, Oct. 3. The free concert series features Music Maker artists including Cool John Ferguson and Bubba Norwood on drums (Sept. 12), Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen with Bubba Norwood along with Proffitt & Sandidge (Sept. 19), Drink Small and Hubby Jenkins (Sept. 26) and Big Ron Hunter and Kelley & the Cowboys (Oct. 3). Concerts take place from 5 to7 p.m. in Durham Central Park, 502 Foster Street, Durham. For more information, visit http://www.musicmaker.org or call (919) 643-2456.

Moogfest

Although he was born in New York City, Moog synthesizer inventor and electronic music pioneer Robert Moog lived the last 30 years of his life in Asheville until his death in 2005. Now Moogfest, the annual music event held in his honor in New York City, is moving to Asheville for the first time. The three-day festival, held in venues throughout the city will feature musical performers including Devo, Van Dyke Parks (collaborator with the Beach Boys, U2 and Bonnie Raitt) Clare and The Reasons, The Disco Biscuits, Ikonika and many others. There will be panel discussions and workshops with artists, opportunities for interactive experiences with a variety of Moog instruments, visual art exhibitions, installations and film screenings from Friday, Oct. 29, through Sunday, Oct. 31. For more information or to order tickets, visit http://moogfest.com.

The Kruger Brothers

The Kruger Brothers, Jens on banjo and Uwe on guitar, have been mainstays at the Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention since its inception. Born in Switzerland and playing music professionally since 1973, their first visit to North Carolina resulted from an invitation to play Merlefest 1997, and since 2003 they have made their homes in the region. It’s their love of traditional music that brought them here and keeps them here.

(Left to right) Jens Kruger, Joel Landsberg and Uwe Kruger

“When I was nine years old in Switzerland I learned a little tune called Tom Dooley,” recalls Uwe. “My mom gave me an English dictionary, and I sat down and translated the song to German because I wanted to know what was happening in it. In a little while, I’m going to be playing at the Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention, located right next to the gravesite of Laura Foster (the song’s star-crossed lover). If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is!”

The Kruger Brothers enjoyed a successful career in Europe, playing as many as 250 shows a year. “But when we moved to America, we said we’re not going to do this hustling anymore—it was really wearing us down,” says Uwe. “In North Carolina we can be freer in our art than anywhere else in the world.” That freedom includes meeting and playing with some of the icons of North Carolina music including Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs.

“Doc Watson comes to our shows; he invites us up to his house, gets out all the old banjos and shows us different tunings,” Jens says. “We sit together and joke and laugh and have a good time. At one point he said, ‘You boys just have to stick to what you do, and you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.’ Doc’s wife Rosa Lee said, ‘Sing me this song. And don’t try to sing it like Doc—I want to hear you.’ That’s the encouragement that we really need, and we get it from all of our heroes.”

Another musical friend is Newton native Bobby Hicks, a 10-time Grammy Award-winning fiddler who is also appearing at the Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention this year. Hicks toured with Bill Monroe and has played the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years.

“I’ve always been a fan of his; in Europe, I traveled 500 miles, crossed two borders and bought incredibly expensive tickets just to see him play with Ricky Scaggs,” Uwe says. “Then we started playing over here, and we’d get invited to Bobby’s birthday parties. He showed up at one of our performances and said, ‘If you boys need a fiddler, you just let me know and I’ll play with you.’”

Rather than playing strictly bluegrass or old-time music, the Kruger Brothers describe their songs as “folk music.” For them, traditional music is an art form that has an important story to tell about the shared community in which they live—and that’s why they keep coming back to the Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention.

“Young people can learn a lot by listening to the songs because they learn that they’re not alone with their problems,” Jans says. “Other people have the same problems and the same joys, and it gives you a sense of community, an understanding that you are not as alone as you thought you were.”

“Everybody can join in the music and be peaceful with each other, sometimes if it’s just for a few hours,” Uwe adds. “It is a bringer of peace, and a bringer of joy, and a bringer of hope, so I think it’s very important that people keep on doing this.”

McCoy Tyner

Two legends from different ends of the musical spectrum are part of Carolina Performing Arts’ new season this September. Renowned for his work with Hamlet, N.C. native saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner has earned four Grammy Awards and recorded nearly 80 albums with a diverse range of players, young and old. He brings his trio to Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill on Thursday, Sept. 9, along with special guest Gary Bartz, the Grammy-winning saxophonist who first played with Tyner in 1968. Carolina performances also brings North Carolina musical legend Earl Scruggs to Chapel Hill on Wednesday, Sept. 15. Scruggs played banjo with Bill Monroe and his work in Flatt & Scruggs helped make them the most successful instrumental bluegrass duo in history. Joining him will be Tony Award-winning string band revival group the Red Clay Ramblers, whose work spans old-time music, bluegrass, country, rock, New Orleans jazz, gospel and American musical styles. For more information or to order tickets, visit http://www.carolinaperformingarts.org/. (The Ramblers will also make an appearance at the historic (and recently renovated) Thalian Hall in Wilmington Nov. 6. http://thalianhall.com/)

Brooklyn Rider (Photo by Richard Frank)

The Raleigh Chamber Music Guild Masters Series begins its 69th season Sunday, Sept. 12 with Brooklyn Rider, an adventurous string quartet featuring four members of violinist Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble at Fletcher Opera Theater in Raleigh. This concert is part of the 2010 September Prelude Chamber Music Festival, which will also bring Brooklyn Rider to Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill on Friday, Sept. 10 and Duke University’s Reynolds Theater on Saturday, Sept. 11. Raleigh Chamber Music Guild continues its Masters Series Sunday, Oct. 10 at the Progress Energy Center with the Grammy-nominated Cuarteto Latinoamericano, an award-winning ensemble that performs Latin American music for string quartet. For more information about the series or to order tickets, visit http://rcmg.org/ or call (919) 821-2030.

Choreographer Mark Dendy, a native of Weaverville returns to the role of Amanda in a restaging of 1993’s Faith Healing, Jane Comfort’s take on Tennessee Williams’ Glass Menagerie. North Carolina State University in Raleigh presents this cutting-edge blend of dance, theater, duets and lip-synched film scenes as part of its Center Stage series, Friday, Oct. 22 at 8 p.m. at the Stewart Theatre. Explore the entire 10-week series of music, dance and theater events at http://www.ncsu.edu/centerstage/index.html. Playwright August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Fences comes to Carolina Playmakers Wednesday, Oct. 27, through Sunday, Nov. 14. The play examines the lives of an ex-Negro League ball player and his family facing racial, generational and societal challenges in the 1950s. See the rest of Playmakers’ 2010-2011 season offerings, including Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, at http://www.playmakersrep.org/performances/event.aspx?id=58c9933c-c3a2-4c65-b364-0f0c64e2022e.

Innovative Music in the Mountains

Daniel Bernard Romain

From collaborating and performing with Lady Gaga on American Idol to combining spoken word, video and chamber orchestra in Darwin’s Meditation for the People of Lincoln, Haitian-American violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain is an innovative and always surprising performer, composer and band leader. He will perform his Voodoo Concerto #1 with the Western Piedmont Symphony Thursday, Nov. 11 through Saturday, Nov. 13 at the P.E. Monroe Auditorium, Hickory. For more information, visit http://www.wpsymphony.org/.

After celebrating traditional music at the Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention and touring Texas and Oklahoma this fall, the Kruger Brothers return home to North Carolina to premiere a new work commissioned by the Ashe County Arts Council. They’ll join the Blue Ridge Chamber Players for An Appalachian Concerto, composed and arranged by Jens Kruger, at the Ashe Civic Center on Saturday, Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Founded in 2005, the Blue Ridge Chamber Players is an eclectic ensemble based in Charlotte. For more information about the new work, currently in rehearsal, visit http://www.ashecountyarts.org/.

There are other opportunities to expand your musical horizons across North Carolina this fall. In Charlotte, North Carolina Dance Theatre’s eclectic contemporary ballet series Innovative Works features choreographers Mark Diamond, David Ingram, Sasha Janes and Dwight Rhoden working with “green” themes of conservation, pollution, waste and the environment. Performances take place Thursday, Nov. 11 through Saturday, Nov. 13 at the Knight Theatre. For more information, visit http://www.ncdance.org/. In Greenville, East Carolina University presents the eclectic Takács Quartet, performing Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 71/3 and more on Friday, Sept. 24 at Wright Auditorium. The quartet’s innovative programming has included a performance of Everyman with Academy Award winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, collaborations with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikas, and a music and poetry program with the poet Robert Pinsky. For more information, visit http://www.ecu.edu/cs-ecu/calendar.cfm?a=5&e=4333.

The Mint Uptown’s Grand Opening Oct. 1

The Mint Museum Uptown opens to the public with a 24-hour celebration starting at 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 1. Kathleen Jameson, executive director, the Mint Museum, sees countless opportunities to collaborate with neighboring museums at the Levine Center for the Arts, along with the Knight Theatre and North Carolina Dance Theatre, all of which will benefit the citizens of North Carolina.

Kathleen Jameson (photo by Thomas R. DuBrock)

“Visitors can park their car once and be able to experience a lot of different cultural organizations, knowing that they can spend a full day and still not see everything,” Jameson says. “That convenience alone is a tremendous draw for folks living in Charlotte as well as visitors from outside of the area. This is also the first time we really have our two museums in one place—the Mint Museum uptown has major parts of our collection from the Mint Museum Randolph location (which remains open) as well as the entire Mint Museum of Craft and Design, so you get to see both. Each has its own floor, and you get to see how they talk to each other, which is really fun.”

Jameson is exploring potential collaborations with the many cultural institutions on and near the Levine Center for the Arts, whether ticket discounts or one-price day passes. “We’ve got this great plaza in front of the museums, and I think our stairs are like an amphitheater, so we can have performances and collaborate in a lot of different ways,” Jameson says.

Some of those collaborations are already taking place. Video artist Janet Biggs is producing a video about NASCAR at the nearby NASCAR Museum that will be part of her installation at the Mint this November. A February 2011 program with the Charlotte Symphony will include a performance at the Knight Theatre followed by a salsa party at the Mint. Next March, North Carolina Dance Theatre is premiering an original ballet as part of a citywide commemoration of Charlotte-born artist Romare Bearden’s 100th birthday, and the Mint has been providing works of art from its Bearden collection to inspire the choreography and even the set design.

“The sense of collaboration here is extraordinary—and rare,” Jameson says. “You can already see the benefits in the community.”

“For me, art isn’t something that’s separate from life— it’s a part of everyday life,” she adds. “When people go through the museum they will see things they will really be able to relate to. Craft and design is one very important point of entry, because it does seem more accessible and is often more fun. It is a living tradition, and in North Carolina it is so rich and such a treasure. It’s important for people to be able to connect to that and to understand the leading role that North Carolina plays on a world stage.”

The Record at The Nasher

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Thursday, Sept. 2 through Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011, examines the culture of vinyl records through 50 years of contemporary art from the 1960s to today. The exhibition includes the work of 41 artists from around the world, including popular artists like Laurie Anderson and David Byrne, established artists like Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha and Carrie Mae Weems and rising stars of the contemporary art world like William Cordova, Robin Rhode and Dario Robleto. Some of the artists, including Kevin Ei-ichi deForest, Jeroen Diepenmaat, Taiyo Kimura and Lyota Yagi will have their work shown in a U.S. museum for the first time.

The Nasher commissioned two original works for the exhibition. Thundersnow Road was created by Xaviera Simmons, a Brooklyn-based artist whose work includes photography, performance, installation, theater and sound projects. She proposed making a series of large-format film photographs based on the landscape of North Carolina and using those photographs as inspiration for songs.

Xaviera Simmons

“I love the landscape of the South,” Simmons says. “I spent two years making a walking pilgrimage retracing the trans-Atlantic slave trade, so I have walked much of the eastern seaboard, the Caribbean and Africa. Oftentimes I ‘hear’ my images. I feel like a composer in a way, only while some artists compose with sound, I compose with imagery.”

Fifteen artists were asked to respond to Simmons’ photographs, and their music was pressed onto a limited-edition vinyl record album. “They really paid attention to the images, and it seems like they were deeply inspired by the project,” Simmons says.

When the decision was made to press the album on vinyl, Durham-based Merge Records was a natural fit. Now in its 21st year, the independent record label founded by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan had its first number-one hit on Billboard 200’s Aug. 21, 2010 album-sales chart with The Suburbs, the new album by Montreal rock band Arcade Fire. McCaughan says that five percent of the album’s sales in the first week were in the vinyl format, an exceptionally high number. (Arcade Fire’s three albums on the Merge label have sold a total of more than one million copies.)

McCaughan, who is a guitarist and singer for the Merge band Superchunk, was one of the artists asked to compose a song for the project, collaborating for the first time with friend Harrison Haynes, drummer for the indie rock band Les Savy Fav and one of the former owners of the late Branch Gallery in Durham. They composed a musical reaction to Simmons’ photograph of a person in a red sweatshirt, boxing in a field.

“I love the idea of visual art and music being combined,” McCaughan says. “I have recorded a couple of soundtrack film score albums (Who Loves the Sun and Looking for Leonard) and to me it’s the same thing, in terms of combining the visual with writing music.”

The album received a limited pressing of 1,000, each numbered and signed by Simmons, and will be played in the gallery during the exhibition. McCaughan gives it a positive review. “I think it plays really well as an album,” he says. “It’s rural without being nostalgic or old-timey. Some of the instrumentation certainly evokes that, and some of the feel of the music is Southern, but it’s not revivalist.”

Simmons was energized by her collaboration with the musicians as well as with McCaughan. “Merge really helped me learn the logistics involved with producing a vinyl record, and now I plan to produce one every year or year and a half, hopefully making my own music or sounds–but always in collaboration with my community.”

Norman Rockwell and More at the North Carolina Museum of Art

The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh celebrated its dramatic new building this spring, and on Sunday, Nov. 7 it debuts the renovated former museum facility for exhibitions with five concurrent shows.

American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell (through Jan. 30, 2011) will trace the evolution of Rockwell’s art over his six-decade career. It features 40 original works of art and a complete set of 323 Saturday Evening Post cover tear sheets, spanning 47 years. (This exhibition requires a ticket; sales are currently open to museum members and will be available to the general public starting Sunday, Sept. 5. Other exhibitions are free. For more information, visit http://www.ncartmuseum.org/.)

Bob Trotman: Inverted Utopias (through March 27, 2011) features the North Carolina native’s painted, stained and carved wood figurative sculptures from the past decade. (Trotman is a 2010 recipient of a N.C. Arts Council Fellowship.) Fins and Feathers: Original Children’s Book Illustrations from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (through Jan. 30, 2011) features original illustrations for children’s books from the late 1960s through today, including illustrations by Leo Lionni, Eric Carle and Petra Mathers.

Binh Danh: In the Eclipse of Angkor (through Jan. 30, 2011) includes this Vietnamese photographer and artist’s chlorophyll prints, found butterfly specimens and Daguerreotypes, with a focus on his recent works documenting and interpreting the genocide that took place in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. John James Audubon’s The Birds of America will be on permanent display in a special gallery devoted to Audubon’s art. It consists of 435 large, hand-colored prints produced by a combination of engraving and aquatint and is one of only 200 complete sets remaining in existence.

The North Carolina Museum of Art is open Tuesday–Thursday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays.

Other Engaging Exhibitions

There are notable exhibitions at other North Carolina museums this fall. The Ackland Museum in Chapel Hill features Flowers from Earth and Sand: Art Glass and Ceramics, 1880-1950 from Sunday, Sept. 12 through Sunday, Dec. 12. Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits at the Asheville Art Museum Friday, Aug. 6 through Sunday, January 9, 2011 highlights the work of Stillman (1924–1992), who studied with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College. And the Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro features Works from the Rosenblum Collection: Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol Saturday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011.

Beyond the parking lot of Jack’s
Convenience Mart, halfway between
the clinic and Lincoln High, it finds

me, insinuates itself under the sole
of my left shoe, Winter Poem by Nikki
Giovanni, scrawled sloppily in ink

and torn from a spiral notebook. I shift
the sack of bread and milk to my right
hand, reach down and pick it up.

Once a snowflake fell
on my brow…the opening reads,
the script maintaining an artless

integrity that by line three
has already begun to falter…& I
loved it slash so much I kissed

it & it was happy scribble slash….
Our teenage amanuensis seems to rally
here, writing through without an error

to the end. Following is an assignment
some teacher made—Syntax Symbol Diction—
like a doctor’s clipboard checklist, a proper

diagnosis of the poem at hand. No
mention of the heart’s terrain, words
that in one breath can break and mend,

render bright the tarnished world
below. How clever that young hand
to let it go.

(From The Candle I Hold Up to See You, Iris Press, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 2009)

The abundance of writers living in North Carolina provides ample opportunities for readers to meet their favorites, ask questions about their craft and buy their books. North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers and keynote speakers Tony Earley and Paul Cuadros are among the highlights of the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, Friday and Saturday, Sept. 10 and 11 in Burnsville. Other author appearances include N.C. Arts Council Fellowship recipients Joseph Bathanti and Holly Iglesias. The festival supports regional authors and smaller presses and events occur in galleries, stores, libraries and other venues throughout the town. Also on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 10 and 11, the Charlotte Literary Festival presents 30 authors including Susan Taylor and Mary Monroe, neo-soul singers Dwella and Algebra, and children’s storytelling and games at the Park Expo (formerly the Merchandise Mart). For more information, visit http://www.realeyesbookstore.com/.

The BOOKMARKS Festival of Books will be held on Saturday, Sept. 11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Winston-Salem’s Downtown Arts District centering on Trade and Sixth Streets, where authors will make presentations in enclosed tents and interior spaces like the Millennium Center and galleries including 5ive and 40rty and Artworks. The family-friendly event features readings, signings, storytelling, demonstrations, workshops and activities for kids. Writers with a North Carolina connection include New York Times bestselling author John Hart, emerging voices panelist Erica Eisdorfer and Kennedy Center teaching artist Irania Macias Patterson. Panel discussions will include The Art of Mystery Writing and Sense of Place, and workshops will include The Art of Poetry Writing: A Workshop for Beginners, and Finding Your Voice in Oral Literature. For more information, visit http://www.bookmarksbookfestival.org/.

On The Same Page, Ashe County’s literary festival brings together eight North Carolina-connected authors along with book lovers of all kinds from Tuesday, Sept. 14 through Saturday, Sept. 18. At a group luncheon and panel discussion, Fred Chappell, Julia Ebell, Georgann Eubanks, John Hart, D.G. Martin, Robert Morgan, Ed Southern and Daniel Wallace will address three queries dealing with the role of “place” in the authors’ writing: where did you grow up, and how did that place and its landscape influence your writing?; have you moved away from or closer to that place in your writing?; and how is place a character in your writing? The festival takes place in 11 different venues across Ashe County. For more information, visit: http://www.onthesamepagefestival.com/.

The seventh Eastern North Carolina Literary Homecoming, scheduled Friday and Saturday, Sept. 17 and 18 at East Carolina University in Greenville explores the impact of shared traditions and values with the theme Contrasting Cultural Expressions: Perceptions of Place and Self. North Carolina writers will include five-time New York Times notable book author Jill McCorkle, novelist and playwright Jim Grimsley and novelists Carole Boston Weatherford and Michael Malone. The Roberts Award for Literary Inspiration will be given to Nancy Olson, owner of Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh for her efforts at promoting and supporting local artists. For more information, visit http://www.ecu.edu/lithomecoming/.

The North Carolina Writers’ Network celebrates its 25th anniversary at its annual Fall Conference, Friday through Sunday, Nov. 5 through 7 at the Omni Charlotte Hotel in Charlotte. Writers at all levels of experience can participate in workshops and hear speakers including Michael Malone and North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers as well as a presentation on Literary Trails of the Piedmont, a project of the N.C. Arts Council and written by Georgann Eubanks. For details or to register, visit www.ncwriters.org or call (336) 293-8844. North Carolina Writers’ Network president Ed Southern talks about the organization and the fall conference in this video.