The Southern Highland Reader

Once, about ten years ago, I was having lunch at a Sylva restaurant called the Spring Street Cafe.

From my table I caught a quick glimpse down an unlikely sightline — framed just so by some plants and interior drapes, down a hallway, and through a cracked door — of a baker’s table. On the table was a wedding cake, and the cake was being carefully decorated by two hands. The hands were all I could see.

The owner of those baker’s hands would one day become my wife, and we would come to own a house across the street from the cafe, where we live today with our three girls.

Spring Street, which has been closed for nearly a year, will soon open again under the ownership of former employee Emily Elders, a Cullowhee native. One of her ideas for an advertisement is a group shot of kids that have sprung from the many friends that have surrounded the cafe for the past ten years. (It better be a big ad).

All along, Spring Street Cafe has held a particular niche in Sylva’s lively-for-a-small-town restaurant scene.

First, in the nineties, it was City Lights Cafe, a small eatery attached to the bookstore upstairs, and under the proprietorship of Joyce and Allen Moore.

About a decade ago it was expanded into it’s full service self by Faye Holliday, whose culinary flair traces at least a little of its lineage to Asheville’s Hector Diaz, owner of the eclectic and popular eateries Salsa’s, Zambra and others.

Holliday and her unusually loyal (for food service) crew built a strong following through wild explorations of fresh local and world cuisines, and Tuesday night old time jam sessions and Sunday brunches were de rigueur among a certain Sylva social set.

Faye’s slow food influence can now be felt in a number of kitchens in the southern mountains.

Holliday sold the place to Lisa Agee a few years back, and Agee, whose desserts were quite a calling card, closed her business last spring, a victim of the economic malaise.

Enter Ms. Elders. As a single mom, a student and director of the Jackson County Greenways Project, you’d think she might have enough on her plate to worry about what’s on everybody else’s, but she’s game. She and a band of volunteers have been sprucing the place up in preparation for a January 26 opening.

“I’m very much inspired by Faye’s ideals,” Elders says. “We’ll be as local and as organic as we can be. My goal right away is to keep price points down, and bring back a lot of the items people remember and love.”

Elders has assembled a crew of former employees and a front-of-the-house manager that’ll be familiar to Sylva folks: Michael Redmon has been a longtime employee of Annie’s Bakery.

Several of the specifics that fans of the place remember will return, sushi Wednesdays and Sunday brunch among them. In addition, Elders and new City Lights Bookstore owner Chris Wilcox hope to develop a more symbiotic relationship than the two businesses have shared before. The cafe’s hours will be much closer to those of the bookstore, and the bookstore will open on Sunday afternoons.

Spring Street will hit the ground running, events-wise. Elders will host a Chamber of Commerce business after hours on January 28th, and will open for business the next day.

Book-signings and an art opening are already on the schedule for February.

SYLVA–City Lights Bookstore, a retail anchor in downtown Sylva since the early eighties, is changing hands.

Owners Joyce and Allen Moore are selling the store to longtime employee Chris Wilcox, effective January 1.

Moore informed her customers of the change in a letter written on Monday, in which she wrote, in part:

As I begin my 66th year and a new decade, I feel the need to slow and simplify my own life, but I believe that I am leaving the store in capable hands, well suited to dealing with the evolving complexities of the bookselling world.

The Moores bought the store from local author Gary Carden in 1986, and moved it from Main Street to its current location at the corner of Spring St. and East Jackson St. a few years later.

In her letter, Moore also wrote:

Chris and his employees will also be facing many changes.  Some are beginning to affect not only the face of the bookselling world, but even the book itself.  It will take hard work, a constant acquisition of new information, flexibility and most of all, your continuing support to carry City Lights into the new decade.

Many independent bookstores across the country are closing in these economic hard times, but you have continued to say with your dollars that having a real bookstore in Sylva is important to you.  It is essential that you continue that commitment, not only to City Lights, but to all the independent businesses in downtown Sylva.

SYLVA–One of the most harrowing crimes committed in western North Carolina during the first half of the 20th century is the alleged murder in 1913 of two-year-old Roberta Putnam by her grandmother, Nancy Kerley, known as Nance Dude. Released from prison after 15 years hard labor, Nance Dude lived out her life rejected by her family. But as she never admitted her guilt or testified in court, her side of the story was never heard. In his acclaimed play, Gary Carden imagines what she might have said, combining folklore, some compelling historical evidence, and a playwright’s storytelling art.The much-performed play is now available as a DVD, featuring a performance by Elizabeth Westall.

Friday, December 4, City Lights Bookstore in Sylva will host a reception and discussion to celebrate the release.

The evening at City Lights will feature copies of the DVD for sale as well as refreshments and conversation with the playwright. The focus of the discussion will be not only on the play but also more generally on the subject of preserving and celebrating the folklore and heritage of the region. Pam Duncan, Rob Neufeld, and Michael Beadle will join in the discussion, as well.

From the folks at City Lights Bookstore:

CULLOWHEE–Dorothy Allison, a major literary voice from the South, talks about her work in an audience participation program, 7:30 p.m., November 19, in the UC Theatre at Western Carolina University. Allison’s novel, “Bastard out of Carolina” is the focus of the show, which will be simulcast with interaction on http://www.Citizen-Times.com. The event is free and open to the public.

The program, called a WNC Read-for-All, begins with a twenty-minute author feature and continues with forty minutes of discussion, emceed by Rob Neufeld. (Several WCU students have read Allison’s book in preparation for the event). See the website, “The Read on WNC” for more details and a Reader’s Guide. Representatives from REACH and The Jackson County Community Table will attend the event, and books will be available for signing courtesy of City Lights Books. The event is funded by the Parris Distinguished Professorship in Appalachian Cultural Studies.

The first member of her family to graduate from high school, Allison attended Florida Presbyterian college on a National Merit Scholarship and studied anthropology at the New School for Social Research.

Bastard out of Carolina contains many remarkable features: the story of a girl who forges a positive identity in the teeth of her stepfather’s abuse; the depiction of a poor, Southern extended family; and great storytelling. Allison received mainstream recognition with this novel, a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award. The novel won the Ferro Grumley prize and became a best seller and award- winning movie. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

The expanded edition of Allison’s short-story collection Trash (2002) included the prize winning short story, “Compassion,” selected for both Best American Short Stories 2003 and Best New Stories from the South 2003. Allison’s chapbook of poetry, The Women Who Hate Me, was published with Long Haul Press in 1983. A novel, She Who, is forthcoming.

Dorothy Allison was Emory University Center for Humanistic Inquiry’s Distinguished Visiting Professor, Spring, 2008. In 2006, she was writer in residence at Columbia College in Chicago. This fall, Allison is the McGee Professor and writer in residence at Davidson College in North Carolina.

Read Rob Neufield’s interview with Allison here.

SYLVA–The 5th Great Smoky Mountains Book Fair takes place Saturday, Nov. 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Christian Life Center of the Sylva First United Methodist Church.

More than 50 authors will be on hand to greet book lovers and discuss their works. The fair will have activities for all ages, including storytelling, bookmaking and poetry writing. Author presentations will cover a wide variety of interests, as well as how to get published. A panel discussion will focus on a writer’s sense of place.

Authors scheduled to appear include: Ron Rash, Pamela Duncan, Vickie Lane, Alan Wolf, Bob Plott, Fred Chappell, Jim Casada, Sheila Kay Adams, Ed Schubert, Terry Taylor, Wayne Erbsen, Doug Elliot and North Carolina Poet Laureate Katherine Stripling Byer.

Adams, who is also a musician and storyteller, will perform with Wayne Erbsen, a radio show host and musician who tells stories in song. Following their presentation, Wolf, an Asheville performance poet, will read the winning poems from a contest for students from first through 12th grades in Jackson, Swain, Macon and Haywood counties.

“This year we have a program that will excite everyone, from school children to their grandparents,” said Joyce Moore, one of the organizers and owner of City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. “I can’t wait to see the book making demonstrations and listen to the storytelling and folk songs or hear the panels.”

Admission is free, and 20 percent of all book sales go toward the new Jackson County Public Library Complex. The Fair is sponsored by City Lights Book Store, the Friends of the Jackson County Main Library, the Jackson County Public Library and the Downtown Sylva Association.

A special feature this year is called “The Poet Is In.” For a donation to the library, folks can receive a poem written on the spot by Byer, who is in her fourth year as N.C. Poet Laureate.

On Friday evening, Nov. 13, Gary Carden’s play, “The Prince of Dark Corners” will be staged at the First United Methodist Church. The play begins at 7:30 p.m. and stars Franklin actor Steve Brady. Tickets for the play are $10 for adults and $5 for children.

Lily’s Treasures

Loretta Womack’s toy store “Lily’s Treasures”, open for about two years now at the corner of Main and Spring, is closing.

It’s a loss for Main St., in that it will leave a big hole at a prominent location, it’s a loss for the Downtown Sylva Association, of which Womack was president-elect, and it’s a loss for local families who like a step up from the standard fare, toy-wise.

“Almost all of the toys I carry have an underlying social or educational value, and they require interaction on the part of the child,” Womack told me recently. “Our kids need to explore and develop their own superheros and princesses,” she added. “Where is the imagination if all that is done for them?”

A nurse by trade, Womack has hired on with WestCare.

Spring Street Cafe

When most recent owner Lisa Agee closed Spring Street Cafe in late summer, it ended a 15-year stretch during which an eatery filled the spot beneath City Lights Bookstore.

Ownership of the restaurant has reverted to founder Faye Holliday, but the space still belongs to bookstore owners Joyce and Allen Moore.

The three are still considering possibilities, but clearly would like to see another dining establishment in the Spring Street space — one that’s as complementary as possible to a bookstore, Joyce Moore emphasizes.

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A note from City Lights bookstore:

Novelist Amanda C. Gable will be at City Lights on Friday, August 28th at 7:00 p.m. to read from her new book, entitled “The Confederate General Rides North”. Several of us at the store are reading the book now and are recommending it to customers. Friday night’s reading will be a good introduction to the book for potential readers, so if you think you might be interested, we hope you’ll attend.

Growing up in Georgia in the 1960s, eleven-year-old Katherine McConnell, a precocious Civil War buff, is so fascinated by stories of the war’s generals that she often imagines herself one of them, commanding troops and planning campaigns. This strategy helps her bring some sense of order to a chaotic family life. When Kat’s mother wakes her early one morning for an impromptu road trip north to find antiques for a shop she wants to open, Kat seizes the opportunity for real adventure. It will be just her, her mother, and their Chevy Impala.

As the navigator, Kat cleverly charts a course that takes them to battlefields and historic sites, following the path of her heroes. She hopes the trip also will provide her beautiful, impulsive mother the means for success. But as they travel farther from home, Kat discovers that each stop brings not only new experiences but new questions. Unexpected revelations test her faith in her mother, her understanding of the war, and her confidence in the trip’s outcome; neither her mother’s intentions nor the glory and adventure depicted in her history books are quite what they had seemed.

Gable, who was born in Marietta, Georgia and now lives in Decatur, has a PhD. in American literature and feminist studies. Her short stories have been published widely, but this is her first novel. She is at work on a second. An autographing will follow her reading. To reserve a signed copy of the book, or for more information, please callCity Lights at 586-9499.

CULLOWHEE – Western Carolina University will host the fourth annual Community Service-Learning Fair from 1 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 27, in the Grandroom of A.K. Hinds University Center.

The fair, which is free and open to the public, will allow members of community organizations to inform students, faculty, staff and other visitors to the fair about volunteer and course-based community service opportunities.

Participating groups will have displays highlighting programs and services in areas of animal care, children and youth, environmental issues, food and hunger, health and wellness, and legal issues.

“This is a special event for the campus as we develop and strengthen collaborative relationships with the wider community,” said Jennifer Cooper, assistant director of the Center for Service Learning and fair coordinator. “Students will be able to gather information on a variety of community service opportunities available to them, and community agencies will be able to recruit volunteers.”

Businesses that have donated raffle prizes to give away at the event include Annie’s Naturally Bakery, Bogart’s, City Lights Bookstore, Food Lion, Motion Makers Bike Shop and Shot in the Dark Cafe.

For further information, contact Cooper at jacooper@wcu.edu or (828) 227-7184.