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Founded 05-05-05

Lee Smith To Speak at Watauga Public Library April 22

Story by Celeste von Mangan

New York Times bestselling author Lee Smith is making a special presentation on Sunday, April 22, at the Watauga County Public Library beginning at 2:00 p.m. at the Friends of the Library annual meeting. The free presentation is open to the public.

“We’re delighted that the Friends of the Watauga Public Library and the Watauga County Literacy Association are sponsoring Lee Smith,” said Beth Mueller, retired Appalachian Regional Library director and Friends of the Library member. “It’s our annual meeting but it will only take about five minutes to elect officers. The presentation will be in the main portion of the library so we can have more than 75 people. The writer’s group of young people from NaNoWriMo will put on a program. Lee started writing when she was very young and we thought that would be fun.”

Smith’s most recent novel, On Agate Hill, has been chosen for Western North Carolina’s Together We Read program involving 22 counties.

While growing up in Grundy, Va., a coal-mining town in the Appalachian Mountains, Smith wrote her first novel on her mother’s stationary when she was just 8 years old. By the time she was 9, she was selling her stories for a nickel apiece, and at age 11, Smith and her best friend Martha Sue Owens published a neighborhood newspaper called The Small Review and hand-copied the paper for 12 neighbors. One of Smith’s editorials— “George McGuire is Too Grumpy”—caused a stir and Smith subsequently had to apologize to her neighbor, Mr. McGuire.

Smith attended Hollins College in Roanoke, for a time becoming a go-go dancer with fellow student and now-famous essayist and novelist Annie Dillard in an all-girl rock band called The Virginia Woolfs. Her first published work of fiction was her 1968 novel The Last Day the Dog Bushes Bloomed. Smith is a 1999 recipient of the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is renowned for her portrayal of mountain folk life in her works, such as Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, Devil’s Dream and Black Mountain Breakdown.

To date, Smith has had 12 novels and two collections of short stories published and has received eight major writing awards.

“Lee has a special place in my heart,” said Mueller. “I have a special feeling for Lee. I was a librarian in the old library and Lee came charging into the library 15 minutes before she was intended to speak there. She said, ‘Do you have a typewriter? I have a student who needs a reference, pronto.’ I thought it tells you something about her. She has also spoken at Ashe and Wilkes though she is now more than a regional writer. And people will be coming from as far away as Charlotte to hear her on Sunday.”

Black Bear Books will be on hand Sunday with some of Smith’s books for sale, and refreshments will be served. No library materials can be checked out on Sunday. For more info, call 828-264-8784.

Want To Go?

Date: Sunday, April 22
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: Watauga Public Library, Boone
Cost: Free

Lee Smith Reads at Appalachian April 25

Novelist Lee Smith will read from her latest novel On Agate Hill Wednesday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 114, Belk Library and Information Commons. A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

The event is sponsored by the Richard T. Barker Friends of the Library at ASU. Additional sponsors are Appalachian’s Department of English, Center for Appalachian Studies, Appalachian Heritage Council, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Blue Ridge Folklife Institute of Boone, Avery County Arts Council and Friends of Mountain History of Asheville.

Musicians Alice Gerrard and Tom Sauber will accompany Smith’s reading. Gerrard’s song “Agate Hill” inspired Smith while she was writing her most recent novel On Agate Hill.

Gerrard has had a career spanning some 40 years in bluegrass and old-time music beginning with her groundbreaking collaboration with Hazel Dickens in the 1960s and 1970s. A tireless advocate of traditional music, Gerrard has won numerous honors, including an International Bluegrass Music Association Distinguished Achievement Award, a Virginia Arts Commission Award and the North Carolina Folklore Society’s Tommy Jarrell Award.

Gerrard and Sauber also will give a mini-performance and free workshops in voice, guitar and fiddle on April 25. From 3:30 to 4:15 p.m., Gerrard and Sauber will give a demonstration in the Plemmons Student Union Multicultural Room. From 4:15 to 5:00 p.m., Gerrard will conduct a singing workshop in the Plemmons Student Union Multicultural Room, and Sauber will conduct a fiddle and banjo workshop at Belk Library, Room 114.

For more information, contact Lynn Patterson at 828-262-2087 or pattersondl@appstate.edu.

Want To Go?

Date: Wednesday, April 25
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Room 114, Belk Library, ASU
Cost: Free