ASHEVILLE NC – On Saturday, February 4 volunteer lawyers from the North Carolina Bar Association (NCBA) and local bar associations across the state will hold public “Ask-A-Lawyer” events at 11 locations in North Carolina. One of these events will be at Pack Memorial Library in downtown Asheville:
Pack Memorial Library
67 Haywood Street, Asheville
Saturday, February 4
10 a.m – 2 p.m.
During this event, individuals with questions about specific legal issues or the legal system in general will be able to talk with lawyers on a one-on-one basis free of charge. All members of the general public are invited and encouraged to come to the event with any questions they may have.
The program is a public service of the NCBA and is provided at no cost to the public.
Stephen Cash would welcome opportunities to be interviewed or otherwise provide information to the public in the days prior to the event. He may be reached at 828-210-6811 or scash@roberts-stevens.com.
Ask-A-Lawyer is organized by the Community Relations Committee of the NCBA’s Young Lawyers Division.
ASHEVILLE NC – On Jan. 17, at the direction of Council, City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee considered a Dec. 2011 proposal made on behalf of The Office of the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte for the purchase of the city-owned Haywood Street property. In the PED committee meeting, committee members reaffirmed Council’s commitment to the Request for Proposals (RFP) process approved by Council and managed by city staff in 2007/2008.
Current Status
In April 2008, Council directed staff to negotiate with the McKibbon Hotel Group for purchase of the Haywood Street site for redevelopment. The development agreement is still being reviewed.
ASHEVILLE NC – Natasha Tretheway, one of America’s most acclaimed poets and a compelling speaker, will offer a reading and talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in UNC Asheville’s Humanities Lecture Hall. This event is free and open to the public.
Tretheway won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for “Native Guard” (2006, Houghton Mifflin). The title poem of this collection recalls one of the first black Confederate regiments mustered during the Civil War. The regiment was organized in New Orleans, but later stationed on an island near Trethewey’s hometown of Gulfport, Miss.
“Native Guard,” Trethewey’s third published collection, also contains poems examining feelings in Mississippi about Tretheway’s biracial heritage. Her parents travelled to Ohio to marry because they could not legally do so in their home state.
Tretheway “has a gift for squeezing the contradictions of the South into very tightly controlled lines,” according to a Washington Post review.
In her UNC Asheville appearance, Trethewey will likely present poems from her newest collection, to be released this fall, which is concerned with colonialism in the Americas. “My obsessions stay the same – historical memory and historical erasure,” said Trethewey. “’Thrall,’ which is the name of the new book, arises out of the research on ‘Native Guard.’ I always go to the Oxford English Dictionary … the first definition [of native] is ‘someone born into the condition of servitude, of thrall.’”
Trethewey is Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University. Her appearance is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities Professorship at UNC Asheville. For more information, contact the UNC Asheville Department of Humanities at 828.251-6808.
ASHEVILLE NC – Numerous entertainment publications are reporting that filming will begin soon for the motion picture adaptation of “Serena,” the bestselling novel penned by Ron Rash, Western Carolina University’s Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture.
Actors Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, who recently played leading roles in the to-be-released David O. Russell movie, “The Silver Linings Playbook,” will team together again in “Serena,” which is set for release in 2014. The location of the filming has not been announced.
Lawrence was in North Carolina last year for filming of “The Hunger Games,” to be released next month.
Rash’s Depression-era novel tells the story of a timber baron, George Pemberton, and his ruthless wife, Serena, who move to Western North Carolina to create a business empire. When Serena finds out she cannot bear children, her anger becomes directed toward her husband’s illegitimate son. Cooper and Lawrence will portray George and Serena Pemberton.
The movie will be directed by Academy Award winner Susanne Bier for 2929 Productions. Bier recently finished her work on an Italian drama with Pierce Brosnan titled “All You Need Is Love.” Her other films are “Things We Lost in the Fire” and “In a Better World.”
The release of the book version of “Serena” in September 2008 resulted in a cascade of glowing reviews for Rash, a descendant of Southern Appalachian families who was raised in Boiling Springs. Reports about the movie version of “Serena” are appearing as the literary world looks toward the April 10 release of Rash’s new novel, “The Cove.” That book is set in Western North Carolina during World War I.
Rash teaches creative writing and Appalachian literature at WCU. His nine works of fiction also include the short story collection “Burning Bright,” which garnered him the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, the world’s richest prize for the short story literary form.
ASHEVILLE NC – New works by Susan Lingg, an artist based in Cullowhee, North Carolina, will be on display at The North Carolina Arboretum. Opening January 24, Within and Around the Ancients will depict the unique mountain landscapes of the Southern Appalachians.
Using watercolors, poured inks, and handmade paper, Lingg portrays the unique granite exposures of the mountains of the region, as well as native flora. Described as realism through an artist’s eye, her work captures and celebrates a passing moment.
A registered artist with Handmade in America, Lingg has been exhibiting her work since 1982. She is a member of the Jackson County Visual Arts Council, the North Carolina Watercolor Society, and Dogwood Crafters. Lingg is also an instructor in watercolor and handmade paper.
The exhibit will be on display at the Education Center of the Arboretum through April 8. For more information, please call (828) 665-2492 or visit www.ncarboretum.org. The central mission of The North Carolina Arboretum, an affiliate institution of the 17-campus University of North Carolina system, is to cultivate connections between people and plants.
ASHEVILLE NC – “The Vanderbilts at Home and Abroad” grand opening set for April 7, 2012. When a new exhibition of rarely displayed treasures collected by the Vanderbilt family opens this spring, visitors to Biltmore will have the opportunity to learn more about the intriguing family who lived in Biltmore House, America’s Largest Home, at the turn of the 20th century.
Through archival letters, documents, personal items and exotic treasures, “The Vanderbilts at Home and Abroad” explores the personalities of George and Edith Vanderbilt, and their only child, Cornelia. The exhibition opens April 7, 2012, in Antler Hill Village at Biltmore.
Starting with the Vanderbilt family tree, dating back to industrialist Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, George Vanderbilt’s grandfather, visitors will take in details and descriptions of the Vanderbilt courtship and wedding; Cornelia’s birth; grand parties at Biltmore House; and travels through Europe and the Far East. Milestones are portrayed through archival photos, many of the pictures taken by Edith Vanderbilt, an avid student of photography. The fascinating story of the fateful decision that saved the Vanderbilts from perishing on Titanic is also told in this exhibition.
Some of the family’s cherished possessions to be displayed include:
• An extraordinary collection of Samurai armor and weapons and an intricate Cartier vanity and lipstick case.
• A 12-sided Tiffany & Co. coffee pot given to George and Edith Vanderbilt by President Theodore Roosevelt’s sister, Anna Roosevelt Cowles, for their 1898 wedding.
• The Holland House books, a set of gilded volumes collected originally at England’s Holland House, a gathering place for more than 200 years of some of Britain’s most famous thinkers, leaders and philosophers. The books contain letters, prints, etchings and drawings spanning British history from the mid-1500s through the late 19th century, including correspondence from Queen Elizabeth I, Napoleon, Lafayette and Lord Byron.
Entry into the exhibition is included in estate admission. For more information, please visit www.biltmore.com.
About Biltmore Located in Asheville, North Carolina, Biltmore was the vision of George W. Vanderbilt. Designed by Richard Morris Hunt, America’s largest home is a 250-room French Renaissance chateau, exhibiting the Vanderbilt family’s original collection of furnishings, art and antiques. Biltmore estate encompasses more than 8,000 acres including renowned gardens designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture. Today, Biltmore has grown to include Antler Hill Village, which features the award-winning Winery and Antler Hill Farm; the four-star Inn on Biltmore Estate; Equestrian Center; numerous restaurants; event and meeting venues; Biltmore For Your Home, the company’s licensed products division; and Biltmore Inspirations, Biltmore’s home party business. To learn more about Biltmore, go to www.biltmore.com or call 877-BILTMORE.
ASHEVILLE NC – Registration is now open for UNC Asheville’s Super Saturday program for creative, highly motivated and/or academically gifted students in grades 3-8. Classes begin on March 17, with topics including chess, photography, wildlife exploration, creative writing, foreign language, theatre, and martial arts. More than 12,000 children from across Western North Carolina have explored their special interests through hands-on learning at Super Saturdays on the UNC Asheville campus.
The 22 courses offered range from “Spanish for Beginners” and “Sketchbooking,” to “Art in Science, Science in Art” and “Improv for the Theatre.” Budding scientists can explore plants, insects, and bones in “Icky Sticky Fun Biology,” or lasers and holograms in “Physics is Phun.” “World of Wildlife” and “Movie Making and Animation” are also likely to be popular.
Super Saturday classes are taught by UNC Asheville faculty members, upper-level students, experienced artists and other professionals.
Super Saturday classes meet from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays from March 17-April 28. The mail-in registration deadline is March 9 and online registration closes March 11. Tuition is $69 for each six-week course. A limited number of need-based scholarships are available.
For more information or to register, call UNC Asheville’s Cultural Events and Special Academic Programs at 828.251.6558 or visit the Super Saturday web page.
ASHEVILLE NC – Diana Wortham Theatre presents The Importance of Being Earnest. Crammed full of larger-than-life characters and with comic timing as sharp as Wilde’s witticisms, Aquila’s Earnest is unmistakable fun. This delightful and tantalizing production overflows with humor, elegance, romantic comedy, and insights into the flamboyant lifestyle of the fashionable British upper classes — as Wilde’s Algernon admits, “If I am occasionally over dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over educated.” Count on creative staging and the beautiful use of physical humor for over-the-top merriment.
Tickets: Regular $35, Student $30, Child $12 Groups of 10-19: $32 each
Groups of 20 or more: $30 each
1920′s era clothing and mobster attire is strongly recommended. The party gets started at 8pm and goes late into the night with DJ Lorruh spinning period music with a contemporary twist.
ASHEVILLE NC – The Highlands Biological Foundation has received a $25,000 grant from the Eckerd Family Foundation to create “Backyard Naturalists,” an after-school program designed to inspire a lifelong appreciation of the natural world through science, art and technology. The program is created in partnership with Meet Your Neighbours, an international photographic initiative designed to reveal the wildlife living amongst us in an extraordinary way, and will draw upon the educational resources of the Highlands Nature Center. The Pilot program will begin on March 19, 2012 in Highlands, NC.
Backyard Naturalists participants will learn the essentials of how to be an amateur naturalist. The program will include eight weeks of lessons, one afternoon per week, structured to promote a better appreciation and understanding of the natural world by nurturing creativity and independent observation skills. Study topics will include learning about plants and animals, community interactions between species, nature journaling, illustration and a nature photography workshop. Using this knowledge, the students will work together to develop a wiki, a website that is collaboratively developed by a community of users, which allows them to freely add content, edit and become active participants of the website rather than just visitors. After the initial pilot program is launched in Highlands, NC we will incorporate images produced by other Meet Your Neighbours photographers around the world into the wiki and encourage the development of similar Backyard Naturalists programs in their own communities. In this way technology becomes a tool and an asset used to put students in touch with the natural world around them in ways that only beautiful close-up photography can provide. It is our hope that Backyard Naturalists will have a lasting, positive impact on the lives of our participants and encourage them to get outside and explore the natural world that is as close as their own backyards.
For over 84 years the mission of the Highlands Biological Station and Foundation has been to foster education and research based on the rich natural heritage of the Highlands Plateau. To become a part of the Highlands Biological Foundation and assist in this mission visit Highlandsbiological.org To learn more about Backyard Naturalists or to sign up please visit www.backyardnaturalists.com or, or call (828) 526-2221. To learn more about Meet Your Neighbours, visit www.meetyourneighbours.net
