Events Calendar

• ONSITE | 

  Instructor: Alexandra Holland

  $35 Adult Non-Member

   (**Arboretum Members receive a 10% discount on all classes.)

  BRN – Elective, 2 hours | BREG – Elective, 2 hours | NCEE – Criteria II, 2 hours

  Limit: 15

  Spring is here, and the natural world is waking from its winter rest! Naturalist and botanist Alexandra Holland leads this wildflower walk at the Arboretum, pointing out the array of spring wildflowers emerging and in bloom. Learn some basics of wildflower ecology and identification while taking in the beauty of spring.

  Alexandra Holland graduated from Duke University and earned her Master’s degree in botany from the University of Texas at Austin. She was in the first class of students to be certified as Blue Ridge Naturalists. Alexandra managed the UTEX Culture Collection of Algae at UT Austin and spent many hours working with education programs at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  She has taught botany for over a decade and leads nature hikes in Western North Carolina for groups of all ages.

**The Upstate Pathfinders Volkssport Club** is a not-for-profit club providing interesting walks available daily, at your pace, in 11 different Greenville locations. Our Swamp Rabbit Trail route is somewhat shaded. The March 10 walk features 6k and 10k routes starting at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe at 205 Cedar Lane Rd, Greenville. The walk goes north to Sulphur Springs at the RR car and returns to and past the Cafe to Unity Park for 10K walkers. 6k walkers may stop and enjoy lunch at the Cafe or just shop the Grocery store for that unusual item you have not seen for a while. 10k walkers can stop at the Commons or Pangaea Brewery for a bite and refreshers before returning to the finish at the Cafe. Pets are allowed on a 6 ft leash.
* **Start Point:** 205 Cedar Lane Rd, Greenville; start from a table in the outside seating area. Restrooms available at the Cafe and at Unity Park in the Commons.
* **Registration**: Register between 9:30 and 10:00. Walk with a group or on your own with turn by turn instructions. Group walks start very shortly after 10:00. 9:30 and 10:00. Walk with the group or on your own with turn by turn instructions. Groups start very shortly after 10:00. Cost is $4 for all participants at registration. Please bring exact change and small address stickers to speed up registration.
* **Parking**: The Cafe is popular and to assist in parking use the lot across the Reedy River from the Cafe. This allows spaces for customers to shop there.
* The walk is sanctioned by America’s Walking Club and eligible for IVV Credit.

Instructor: Susan Patrice

$24 Non-member Adult**

 (**Arboretum Members receive a 10% discount on all classes.)

Limit: 12

Take a fresh look at the objects, moments and vistas that surround you during this “awe walk” led by documentary photographer Susan Patrice. The contemplative practices she teaches help you experience place through new and loving eyes, to see beauty and wonder in your surroundings. Bring cameras or phones to capture what calls to you in the enveloping landscape. Participants will be sent meeting instructions for this small-group class that will take a slow intentional walk through parts of the Arboretum forest and forest meadow. This walk is a precursor to the generative writing and contemplative photography workshops to be held the following weekend.

Susan Patrice is a documentary photographer, community artist, and founder of Makers Circle. She recently launched Kinship Photography Collective, a global community of practice designed to create rich visual conversations that explore the intimate connections between nature, culture and belonging. Susan’s own photography and public installations focus primarily on the Southern Landscape and its people and feature intimate images that touch deeply into the questions of place, gender, and belonging.

This National Poetry Month, turn your sparks of inspiration into beautiful poetry in an all-new poetry workshop led by Greenville Poet Laureate Glenis Redmond. Whether you’re just dipping your toes into the world of poetry or you’ve been penning verses for a while, this workshop is tailor-made for you. From brainstorming ideas to crafting captivating lines, Glenis will guide you every step of the way. Unleash your inner wordsmith and explore the magic of poetry with a true master.

The $125 registration fee is for admission to the three-part workshop taking place at 6:00 PM on April 11, 18 and 25. Please bring paper and your preferred writing tool with you. The workshop culminates in a reading during the final session where participants can invite a guest to enjoy their poetry progress.

Greg Lobas will lead a virtual writer’s workshop titled: “Writing Your Life into Poetry.”

“Write what you know” is one of the first and best maxims for the aspiring writer. But what if “what you know” is ordinary, even mundane? This workshop will look at ways to mine the gold that is in everyone’s life and turn it into poetry. It may take some digging. It may take a little change in perspective. But it is there, and it is material only you can use. We will focus on the narrative poem as a means of story-telling but will consider the lyric poem as well.

This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels and is a fun way to find inspiration from a new prompt or revise current work. It is hosted by the Friends of Carl Sandburg at Connemara and will Zoom for the virtual connection. Sign up to attend the workshop at workshop here:

Greg Lobas has been published extensively as both an outdoor writer and a poet. His debut book, Left of Center, won the 2022 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, and placed second in the Delaware State Press Association awards. The book deals with his real life experiences as a fire captain and paramedic. His poems have been published in many journals. He is an experienced poetry workshop facilitator at Isothermal Community College.
Greg lives with his wife Meg and his dog Sophie in Polk County North Carolina.

Music, poetry, art, and dance collide for Carolina Muse: Arts Jam, a celebration of our multimedia literary & arts magazine’s published creators based in the Carolinas.

This intimate, immersive arts event features local musicians, dancers, writers, and visual artists all in one show. Shop art pieces & crafts made by local artists and enjoy performances & readings from talented creators of several styles & genres. We’re excited to build community with fellow artists & arts-lovers of several creative mediums.

– Music & dance performances
– Poetry readings
– Art & crafts for sale
– Raffle tickets!

📆 Saturday, May 25, 2024
🕰️ 1pm-4pm (art sale starts at 12pm)
📍 The Artistry Gallery, GVL, SC
💵 $15

How can a writer begin a story or get unstuck when they are in the middle of a draft? In this workshop, we will look specifically at (very short) stories to discover what captivates and arrests our attention and what resonates with a reader long after the last line is read. After we discuss examples in class you will be then given a series of writing prompts. Come ready to write and be inspired! Students will produce writing to start a new story or find fresh avenues into a work already in progress. You will receive in-class feedback from the instructor and your classmates. This class can work for fiction and non-fiction writers.

This virtual workshop will be held on Zoom on Wednesdays, June 5, 12, 19, & 26 at 6:00 ET.

Libby Flores‘s writing has appeared in One Story Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Gagosian Quarterly, American Short Fiction, Ploughshares, Post Road Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House /The Open Bar, The Guardian, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the Associate Publisher at BOMB Magazine and the 2024 guest fiction editor of the Bennington Review. She has taught creative writing workshops for the Sackett Writing Workshop, Tin House, One Story, Hub City Writers Project, Bennington College, and PEN America. She is currently a visiting faculty member at Bennington College. She lives in Brooklyn, but will always be a Texan. Libby is represented by Sarah Bowlin at Aevitas Creative Management. You can find her at libbyflores.com.

RANGER is a true tale of war seen through the lens of a Special Operations soldier, Sgt. David Waterhouse, in Iraq and Afghanistan. This first-hand account documents the brutality of combat and the raw nature of killing and death. It’s a journey of innocence lost, and the scars of war etched into the minds of service members. An untold account everyone should hear.

The Ranger Creed states that, “I accept the fact that as a Ranger my country expects me to move further, faster and fight harder than other soldier.”

After the release of RANGER, Further Faster Harder Foundation was created to give veterans a platform to tell their stories and find their purpose and voice again through documentaries, books, art, podcasts, and many other avenues.

Friday, June 28^th marks the 19-year anniversary of the largest loss of Special Operations life since the Vietnam War. This event honors the memories of the 19 men who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

We want to welcome everyone to join us in our First Charity Screening and Silent Auction to help give Voices to Vets.

Flash Fiction Writing Group meets the 3rd Friday of each month and examines, explores and uses the elements and techniques of short fiction writing.

When you write grant requests, event invitations, annual reports, and even humble emails, you want to move your readers to action. But too often jargon, lack of practice, and outdated rules from school can get in your way.

Power up your writing in this 90 minute workshop. You’ll leave equipped to:

• Tell stories that stick
• Write sentences that sing
• Keep your focus on your reader
• Find your voice
• Scrap what you’ve learned about writing that isn’t working

About the presenter:

Katy Pugh Smith is a seasoned facilitator and planner with significant experience in convening coalitions of community members, supporting them in identifying goals and action plans, and working with them to see those plans through to results.

Katy is executive director of Greater Good Greenville, which galvanizes nonprofit organizations, philanthropic funders, and mission-minded people for collaborative problem-solving and learning, advocacy, and joint investing to address our community’s challenges.

She earned her Master of Social Work degree in administration, planning, and community organizing from University of Georgia where she co-authored and published several journal articles. But before she took the path to a career in the social sector, Katy planned to be a writer, and she received her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University with a scholarship for creative writing. She has always loved writing for work and updating her skills as styles and technology change.

Flash Fiction Writing Group meets the 3rd Friday of each month and examines, explores and uses the elements and techniques of short fiction writing.

Join us for a book-inspired wine tasting! We pair the qualities of each wine with a book that shares the same spirit. Your ticket to the tasting, apart from the tastes, includes your choice of one of the featured books. Bottles of the featured wines will be for sale at great prices, too. This event is a crowd favorite, serving as a great date, a perfect girls night out, or treat to yourself. Buy your ticket now and join us on September 18th at 7:30 pm!

*Refunds or transfers can only be accommodated 24 hours prior to the event.

Flash Fiction Writing Group meets the 3rd Friday of each month and examines, explores and uses the elements and techniques of short fiction writing.

Join us in the M. Judson Gallery for a haiku workshop with poet Miho Kinnas. The ticket includes the hour and a half intensive instruction and a copy of Kinnas’ latest poetry collection, Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias.

Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias is the third poetry collection by Miho Kinnas, including the poem anthologized in Best American Poetry 2023. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her unique, sophisticated voice keeps pushing the boundary of what brevity can accomplish. She writes about the state of being by interweaving love, books, travel, family, women and history.

Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Miho Kinnas is a writer, translator, and poet living in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. She is the author of Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias, her third poetry collection. Her poems, prose, and translations have appeared in various anthologies and journals, including Best American Poetry 2023, Coast Lines (upcoming), Tokyo Poetry Journal, and American Review of Books. She leads poetry workshops at Writers.com, Pat Conroy Literary Center, and New York Writers’ Workshop, among other locations.

Experience mouthwatering Southern baking—from humble home kitchens to innovative new Southern chefs. One of the world’s richest culinary traditions comes to life through this essential cookbook from bestselling author Anne Byrn. With 200 recipes from 14 states and more than 150 photos, Baking in the American South has the biscuits, cornbread, cakes, and rolls that will help you bake like a Southerner, even if you aren’t. Recipes can tell you volumes if you pay attention—the crops raised, languages spoken, family customs, old world flavors, and, often, religion. Did you know that where a mill was located affected the recipes handed down from that area? Or that baking and selling pound cakes directly impacted the Civil Rights Movement? These stories and recipes, developed from good times and bad, have been collected and perfected over years and are now accessible to us all. Anne’s expertise in assessing, modernizing, and developing well-written recipes makes this the definitive guide for bakers of all levels. From-scratch, Southern classic recipes include: Thomasville Cheese Biscuits Ouita Michel’s Sweet Potato Streusel Muffins Nina Cain’s Batty Cakes with Lacy Edges The Best Lemon Meringue Pie Georgia Gilmore’s Pound Cake This fascinating dive into the history of 14 Southern states—Texas, Florida, Kentucky, and more—features stories and beautifully photographed recipes from pre-Civil War times to today’s Southern kitchens. It’s about the places, the people, the products and the culture of the moment that influenced what people baked. It’s about African-American women and the monumental contributions they have made to the art of Southern baking, about home cooks and how they’ve kept traditions alive wherever they settle by baking family recipes each year for holidays and celebrations, and about the pastry chefs who have thoughtfully reimagined how the South bakes. Experience the recipes and the stories behind them that showcase the substantial contributions Southern baking has made to American baking at large. Food historians, bakers, foodies, and cookbook collectors from every corner of the country will want this cookbook in their collections.

ANNE BYRN is a New York Times bestselling food writer and author. She writes the weekly newsletter Between the Layers, one of the top 20 food and drink newsletters worldwide on Substack. She has authored several cookbooks. Her latest books are A New Take on Cake and Skillet Love, the latter exploring the history and modern uses for the cast-iron skillet. They followed American Cookie and American Cake, which NPR named one of the best cookbooks of 2016. The Cake Mix Doctor and sequels have more than 4 million copies in print, and USA Today called The Cake Mix Doctor the bestselling cookbook the year it debuted. Byrn’s career began as a food writer for The Atlanta Journal. Her food writing was named the Best Food Section by the Association of Food Journalists. She studied at La Varenne École de Cuisine in Paris and lived in England where she wrote about food and travel for a year. Anne is a contributor to Food52, Bon Appétit, and the Bitter Southerner. Byrn is a Nashville native and a fifth-generation Tennessean. For several years, she was the food writer for The Tennessean. Byrn has been featured in People magazine, The Washington Post, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, and many other publications. She has appeared on Good Morning America, Later Today, CNN, The Food Network, and QVC and has taught cooking classes across the country. She and her husband live in Nashville.

Drinks with author Kimberly Brock to celebrate her latest novel, The Fabled Earth! Your ticket includes entrance to the event, a copy of the book, and a signature cocktail (or mocktail).

Inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island, The Fabled Earth is a sweeping story of family lore and the power of finding your own voice as Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide with a changing world. 1932. Cumberland Island off the coast of Southern Georgia is a strange place to encounter the opulence of the Gilded Age, but the last vestiges of the famed philanthropic Carnegie family still take up brief seasonal residence in their grand mansions there. This year’s party at Plum Orchard is a lively group: young men from some of America’s finest families come to experience the area’s hunting beside a local guide; a beautiful debutante expecting to be engaged by the week’s end, and a promising female artist who believes she has meaningful ties to her wealthy hosts. But when temptations arise and passions flare, an evening of revelry and storytelling goes horribly awry. Lives are both lost and ruined. 1959. Reclusive painter Cleo Woodbine has lived alone for decades on Kingdom Come, a tiny strip of land once occupied by the servants for the great houses on nearby Cumberland. When she is visited by the man who saved her life nearly thirty years earlier, a tempest is unleashed as the stories of the past gather and begin to regain their strength. Frances Flood is a folklorist come to Cumberland Island seeking the source of a legend – and also information about her mother, who was among the guests at a long-ago hunting party. Audrey Howell, briefly a newlywed and now newly widowed, is running a local inn. When she develops an eerie double exposure photograph, some believe she’s raised a ghost–someone who hasn’t been seen since that fateful night in 1932.

Kimberly Brock is the award-winning author of The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare and The River Witch. She is the founder of Tinderbox Writers Workshop and has served as a guest lecturer for many regional and national writing workshops including at the Pat Conroy Literary Center. She lives near Atlanta with her husband and three children.