Punch Bucket Lit will present its first literary festival Friday-Saturday, Sept. 20-21, at the Wortham Center for Performing Arts and the Renaissance Asheville Downtown Hotel. Launched in 2022 as a monthly literary reading series at Cellarest Beer Project, Punch Bucket became a nonprofit in February 2023.
“Punch Bucket’s vision has always been to support local writers while also working to provide a platform for regional and national writers interested in sharing their work with the Asheville-area community,” says Alex McWalters, outreach director for the organization. “As the series grew, we felt it was time to create a larger platform for the exchange of ideas and the showcasing of local and national literary talent and to provide a chance for the wider community to partake as well. It seemed to us that Asheville was ready and eager for a literary festival.”
The event will feature more than 100 writers, including New York Times bestselling and three-time National Book Award-nominated author Lauren Groff. Groff’s novels include The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia and Fates and Furies.
Also on tap will be readings, workshops and panel discussions covering memoir, fiction, nonfiction and poetry. An all-day book fair will host representatives of more than 20 literary magazines and presses, including The Sun magazine, Ecotone, The Rumpus and Loblolly Press.
Plans for the festival began shortly after Punch Bucket Lit achieved nonprofit status, McWalters explains.
“We set out designing the sort of festival we ourselves would be interested in attending. We called it a festival, as opposed to a conference, because we knew we wanted the emphasis to be on writers reading/sharing their work.”
The festival will open at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, at the Wortham Center with five-minute prose-and-poetry performances by authors Leah Hampton, Halle Hill, Bryn Chancellor and Ye Chun, as well as poets Jessica Jacobs, Meg Day, Melissa Crowe and Evelyn Berry.
On Saturday, Sept. 21, the event will feature more prose-and-poetry readings, literary panels and workshops from 8:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m. at both venues. The book fair will run from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Wortham Center.
Saturday Night’s keynote event will begin with poets Diamond Forde and Jóse Olivarez in conversation with Eric Tran. The festival’s headlining event will feature Groff in conversation with memoirist and novelist Tessa Fontaine.
“We hope each attendee experiences a deep personal connection to at least one piece of work they encounter during the festival,” McWalters says. “Literature has the power to allow us to see ourselves and to see others in new and deeper ways, and perhaps the only thing more powerful than internalizing that power — the power of art — is to have that experience amongst others, in community.”
The Wortham Center for the Performing Arts is at 18 Biltmore Ave. The Renaissance Asheville Downtown Hotel is at 31 Woodfin St. For more information about the Punch Bucket Literary Festival, visit avl.mx/prye.
Local poet publishes interviews with colleagues
Black Mountain poet Michael Hettich has released And the Poet Said…, a book featuring interviews he conducted with 14 fellow poets for Hole in the Head Review, a journal of poetry, art and photography.
The idea of collecting the interviews, originally published in the journal over four years starting in 2020, came from Hole in the Head founder and editor Bill Schulz, Hettich says.
“Seeing all these interviews collected here under one cover is gratifying and impressive,” he says. “I’m impressed by the variety and range of answers I got to fairly straightforward questions. I’m impressed also by their range and depth, by their commitment to the art of poetry.”
Hettich found it natural to reach out to local poets, and six of the poets featured in the book have Asheville ties: Mildred Barya, an assistant professor of English at UNC Asheville; Jeff Davis, a former instructor with UNCA’s Great Smokies Writing Program; Marie Harris, a former New Hampshire poet laureate who now lives in Asheville; Sebastian Matthews, a former Warren Wilson College teacher; Merrill Gilfillan, who lives in Asheville; and Eric Nelson, a former Georgia Southern University professor who retired to Asheville.
“All of the poets interviewed for the book shared a dedication to craft that included wide and creative reading as well as daily practice,” Hettich says. “They are all serious artists. That shouldn’t surprise me, since I count myself one of them, but it does fly in the face of the wrongheaded notion that poets are people who simply write when the impulse grabs them or when they’re ‘inspired.’”
For more information, go to avl.mx/e3r.
Ballet under the stars
The Asheville Ballet’s first show of the 2024-25 season, Fall Into Dance: An Artistic Harvest, will take place Friday-Saturday, Sept. 13-14, 7:30 p.m., at the Roger McGuire Green stage in Pack Square Park.
Ann Dunn, the ballet’s artistic and executive director, describes it in a press release as “a perfect opportunity for people, young and seasoned, to encounter professional classical and contemporary dance in a wonderful collection of artistic visions, from funny to powerful.”
Among the works performed will be Dunn’s “Conch,” Alisha Ear’s “Donde Voy,” Phillip McRorie’s “Just Do What You Can” and Tricia Renshaw’s “Re-dress.” Other featured choreographers will be Fleming Lomax, Regina Rice, Rachel Sanford and Rachel Taylor.
Pack Square Park is at 80 Court Plaza. For more information, go to avl.mx/e3s.
Meet your neighbors
The City of Asheville’s Neighborhood Advisory Committee will present the Festival of Neighborhoods on Saturday, Sept. 14, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., at Martin Luther King Jr. Park.
The event, created to strengthen community connections, will include an inflatable obstacle course, a pop-up bike park, a firetruck, yard games, food trucks and a DJ.
Representatives from neighborhood organizations will be on hand to discuss projects, initiatives and volunteering opportunities. Residents will also have the chance to talk to city employees from departments, including police, public works, parks and recreation, and transportation as well as mental health providers and literacy organizations. In honor of Emergency Preparedness Month, Fire Department representatives will provide information on how to get ready for emergency events.
Admission is free.
Martin Luther King Jr. Park is at 50 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. For more information, visit avl.mx/e3t.
Local memoirist speaks at library
Jennifer McGaha, a teacher at UNC Asheville and coordinator of the Great Smokies Writing Program, will discuss her 2023 memoir Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out, on Thursday, Sept. 12, 7-8 p.m., at the West Asheville Library. The talk will be the first of three presented by the Wilma Dykeman Legacy as part of its “My Story 2024” series.
Described by its publisher as “part writing memoir, part nature memoir and part meditation on a life well lived,” Bushwhacking features essays on McGaha’s experiences running, hiking, biking, paddling and getting lost across the Appalachian Mountains. “Every time I went into the woods, I learned something new, something that captivated and inspired me and somehow translated to my writing life,” she writes in the book.
The Dykeman Legacy will also present talks by Ann Batchelder, author of Craving Spring: A Mother’s Quest, a Daughter’s Depression, and the Greek Myth that Brought Them Together, on Thursday, Nov. 14; and Benjamin Gilmer, who wrote The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice, on Thursday, Dec. 12. Both events will be from 7-8 p.m. at the West Asheville Library.
The Wilma Dykeman Legacy is a nonprofit that honors the life of the late writer and activist, a Buncombe County native best known for her 1955 book, The French Broad.
The West Asheville Library is at 942 Haywood Road. To register to participate by Zoom, email MyStory@wilmadykemanlegacy.org. For more information, go to avl.mx/e3v.
Skate it off
Asheville Parks & Recreation will host Swiftie Skate Night on Friday, Sept. 13, 6-8:30 p.m., at Carrier Park.
The free event will feature an all-Taylor Swift soundtrack. Participants are encouraged to dress in a way that represents their favorite Swift era and bring friendship bracelets to trade. Only a limited number of rental roller skates will be available.
Carrier Park is at 220 Amboy Road. For more information, visit avl.mx/e3w.
Comedy show benefits pets
Stand-up comedians Clay Foley and Shivani Nadarajah will perform at Comedy to The Rescue, a benefit for the Street Dog Coalition of Asheville, on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2 p.m., at The Grey Eagle.
All proceeds from the show will go to the coalition’s emergency fund, which provides advanced veterinary care for pets of people who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The coalition also holds free clinics focused on preventive care every two months at the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry.
For more information, go to avl.mx/e43.
