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Note: Asheville is amazing, but there’s a pandemic going on, y’all! Please use this post to inspire your post-COVID travel plans. Know that if you visit literary Asheville before the pandemic is over, many of these experiences may not be available.
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina, Asheville is an eclectic city with a rich literary history. Often compared to larger cities like proudly weird Austin, Texas, and wonderfully granola Portland, Oregon, Asheville has a small town vibe with big city ambitions. Exploring literary Asheville will have you visiting local bookstores, national monuments, and historical locations alike. It’s an Appalachian adventure you should definitely embark upon!
Descendants of Carl Sandburg s goats still roam Michael Patrick Shiels, For the Lansing State Journal
President Lyndon B. Johnson described poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sandburg as “America’s voice,” but it was the quiet that drew Sandburg, in 1945, away from life in Southwest Michigan after almost 20 years. Sandburg, who’d moved to Michigan from Chicago, this time traveled, at age 67, to a new home on a lush piece of mountainous land in western North Carolina.
You can experience the solitude he sought by strolling the expansive grounds of the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site just off I-26 a few exits southeast of Asheville and 30-miles north of Greenville, SC.
Glenis Redmond, State Theatre s Artist In Residence Hosts Online Poetry Reading On April 14
(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) State Theatre New Jersey’s Artist-in-Residence, nationally-acclaimed poet Glenis Redmond hosts a FREE online Community Poetry Reading during National Poetry Month on Wednesday, April 14 at 7:00pm via ZOOM. This special event is a celebration of our community, and the power of poetry to connect us all. The event will start with Glenis as she performs poetry from her 20+ year career. Later in the program, she will be joined by some of the people that she has guided and inspired to create their own personal poems.