Events Calendar
Explore family friendly events, theatres, galleries, concerts, nightlife, things to do, and more in the Greenville, SC and Upstate areas.
Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.
Join us on Thursday, July 13th at 5:30 pm for an In Conversation event with Elizabeth Wafler as we launch her new book A Cleft in the World into the world!
“A Cleft in the World serves up Southern charm with a quirky main character, combining page-turning intrigue in a small college town with a long-lost love story. The result is a novel that keeps you guessing but has you cheering for a win.”
—Kathryn Dodson, author of Tequila Midnight and President of the Good Book Collective
Come by, hear more, and celebrate the launch with us and Elizabeth! This is a free event.
SUMMARY
French professor Georgie Bricker hasn’t poked a toe outside Virginia’s Willa Cather College for women in two decades. She realizes the irony: she’s working to shape her students into world leaders even as PTSD-induced agoraphobia, a result of trauma she suffered as a girl, keeps her prisoner on a tiny college campus. She tells herself her life is fine. Yet on her forty-ninth birthday, she wishes for something extraordinary.
Georgie is shattered to learn that her sanctuary is heavily in debt. While she scrambles to rescue the French department, her first love, Truman Parker, arrives to serve as a financial consultant to the school. By day, Georgie works as faculty liaison to his committee. By night, she’s a moth to his porch light.
When the college announces it will shutter, Georgie and fiercely independent Laurel Cross, the student who’s closest to Georgie’s heart, organize a rally to save it. Between her rekindled love for Truman and Laurel becoming the daughter she never had, her wish for the extraordinary seems to have been granted. But the pivotal rally forces Georgie into the bigger, unsheltered world, where she must confront her final fears—or forfeit her chance for emotional freedom and a fulfilling new life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author of four novels—with another on the way—Elizabeth writes evocative women’s fiction and romance. She is an active member of the South Carolina Writers Association, and she enjoys working with other writers through her side hustle, Four Eyes Editorial. In 2022, she created her own publishing entity, Evocative Publishing, LLC.
Elizabeth can be found working at her blue desk, at a farmer’s market, poking through a book or vintage furniture store, taming her garden into submission, or enjoying a great read and a pretty cocktail on her porch. She resides with her husband in Simpsonville, South Carolina.
Book Club
Read and discuss The Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden. Email [email protected] or call 864-234-4904 to register.
Join Hub City Bookshop in welcoming Ross White, director of Bull City Press, in celebration of his debut book of poetry! White will be in conversation with Scott Gould. You don’t want to miss this chat about baseball, art, and mortality, so meet us at the bookshop!
About the Book
Ah, yes, the simple pleasures of a junk drawer, the small gods and tender votives they contain. Each tiny nuisance of our history, each fascinating button, leaking pen, soy sauce packet, screw driver. “True son to both Wallace Stevens and Frank O’Hara,” Ross White’s debut Charm Offensive reveals to readers his junk drawer, his smitten seconds, laments, and casual, witty uncertainty on the afterlife.
Opening with a cardiogram–White’s humiliation of his “white belly” and the jokes he shares with his wife over his aging body–and ending with a psychic’s prediction that his life will end at 52 (heart troubles) – White scours time, tenderness, and the mighty (godly) pleasures of overlooked things.
A collection of travel through pasts (Michaelangelo’s David) and futures (when White, too, will be fossilized into something refreshing to future archeologists), through road rage and bumper-sticker Jesus, stillness and the two swans nearly touching in negative space that hold his racing thoughts at bay, the birds he tends back to health and his relationship between dread and satisfaction–everywhere petrified into Charm Offensive White reckons with spoil–bodies, war, the Ford-tough Savior, animal stuffing, in-flight magazines, and the afterlife as a high school in Kansas, proving his line:
“Time is always fully automatic,
measured not in units but in the space
between finishes.”
About the Author
Ross White is the director of Bull City Press, an independent publisher of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He is the author of Charm Offensive, winner of the Sexton Prize, and three chapbooks: How We Came Upon the Colony, The Polite Society, and Valley of Want. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Tin House, and The Southern Review, among others. He is Director of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-hosts The Chapbook, a podcast devoted to tiny, wonderful things. Follow him on Mastodon: @[email protected].
We are so excited to welcome Kristy Woodson Harvey back to M. Judson for a Lunch & Lit event for her new book The Summer of Songbirds.
A moving new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Veil and the Peachtree Bluff series, The Summer of Songbirds follows four women who come together to save the summer camp that changed their lives and rediscover themselves in the process.
Kristy will be on hand to talk, answer questions, and sign books, as we enjoy an incredible lunch at Soby’s! Get your ticket today!
BOOK SUMMARY
Nearly thirty years ago, in the wake of a personal tragedy, June Moore bought Camp Holly Springs and turned it into a thriving summer haven for girls. But now, June is in danger of losing the place she has sacrificed everything for, and begins to realize how much she has used the camp to avoid facing difficulties in her life.
June’s niece, Daphne, met her two best friends, Lanier and Mary Stuart, during a fateful summer at camp. They’ve all helped each other through hard things, from heartbreak and loss to substance abuse and unplanned pregnancy, and the three are inseparable even in their thirties. But when attorney Daphne is confronted with a relationship from her past—and a confidential issue at work becomes personal—she is faced with an impossible choice.
Lanier, meanwhile, is struggling with tough decisions of her own. After a run-in with an old flame, she is torn between the commitment she made to her fiancé and the one she made to her first love. And when a big secret comes to light, she finds herself at odds with her best friend…and risks losing the person she loves most.
But in spite of their personal problems, nothing is more important to these songbirds than Camp Holly Springs. When the women learn their childhood oasis is in danger of closing, they band together to save it, sending them on a journey that promises to open the next chapters in their lives.
From an author whose “writing coats your soul with heart” (E! Online), The Summer of Songbirds is a lyrical and unforgettable celebration of female friendship, summertime freedom, and enduring sisterhood—and a love letter to the places and people that make us who we are.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kristy Woodson Harvey is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including The Wedding Veil, Under the Southern Sky, and The Peachtree Bluff series, which is in development for television with NBC. A Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s school of journalism, her writing has appeared in numerous online and print publications including Southern Living, Traditional Home, USA TODAY, Domino, and O. Henry. Kristy is the winner of the Lucy Bramlette Patterson Award for Excellence in Creative Writing and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. Her books have received numerous accolades including Southern Living’s Most Anticipated Beach Reads, Parade’s Big Fiction Reads, and Entertainment Weekly’s Spring Reading Picks. Kristy is the cocreator and cohost of the weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction. She blogs with her mom Beth Woodson on Design Chic, and loves connecting with fans on KristyWoodsonHarvey.com. She lives on the North Carolina coast with her husband and son where she is (always!) working on her next novel.
We are so excited to spend the evening with Amiee Gibbs to talk about her new book The Carnivale of Curiosities! A dazzling gothic tale of Faustian bargains, jealousy, and murder set in a spectacular circus, where star-crossed lovers’ destinies are forged at an unexpected price—this book is perfect for readers of V. E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. So join us for a book-inspired cocktail, great conversation about writing a book like this, and time with Amiee!
Your ticket includes admission, a cocktail, and a copy of the book.
BOOK SUMMARY
In Victorian London, where traveling sideshows are the very pinnacle of entertainment, there is no more coveted ticket than Ashe and Pretorius’ Carnivale of Curiosities. Each performance is a limited engagement, and London’s elite boldly dare the dangerous streets of Southwark to witness the Carnivale’s astounding assemblage of marvels. For a select few, however, the real show begins behind the curtain. Rumors abound that the show’s proprietor, Aurelius Ashe, is more than an average magician. It’s said that for the right price, he can make any wish come true. No one knows the truth of this claim better than Lucien the Lucifer, the Carnivale’s star attraction. Born with the ability to create fire, he’s dazzled spectators since he was a boy.
When Odilon Rose, one of the most notorious men in London, comes calling with a proposition regarding his young and beautiful charge, Charlotte, Ashe is tempted to refuse. After revealing, however, that Rose holds a secret that threatens the security of the troupe’s most vulnerable members, Ashe has no choice but to sign an insidious contract.
The stakes grow higher as Lucien finds himself drawn to Charlotte and her to him, an attraction that spurs a perilous course of events. Grave secrets, recovered horrors, and what it means to be family come to a head in this vividly imagined spectacle—with the lives of all those involved suspended in the balance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amiee Gibbs grew up in rural Maryland, where she still lives on an allegedly haunted road, but has dreams of running away to Ireland. She has worked for Penguin Random House for 13 years as a Sales Manager for Independent bookstores across New England, New York, and the West Coast. Prior to that she was an Assistant Sales Manager at Waldenbooks and Borders. She holds an MLA degree with a focus on world literature and creative writing and is currently teaching herself Gaeilge.
Read and discuss Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton. Registration required. Email [email protected] or call 864-963-9031 to register.
Read and discuss The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Registration required. Call 864-246-1695 or email [email protected] to register
Join author Caleb Wygal for an in-store signing at Fiction Addiction on Thursday, July 20th from 2-4pm to celebrate his new book, Death on the Causeway.
This event is free and open to the public, or you can purchase a $15.89 ticket that includes a copy of Death on the Causeway. Additional books can be ordered on our website or purchased at the event while supplies last.
If you’re unable to attend, signed copies of the author’s book can be purchased on our website.
Tickets can be purchased online through Thursday, July 20th at noon. Refunds can be requested up until the ticket cutoff. At-the-door tickets and books will be available as space allows.
Clark Thomas has a lot on his plate. A new book. A beautiful woman far from home. A missing fiancé. And a mysterious dead body plunges him headfirst into his latest real-world Myrtle Beach investigation.
As he unravels the case involving renowned food bloggers, restaurant reviews, and The Grand Strand, Clark learns that there is more to the story than meets the eye–and more to his wife’s death.
And the one dead body may not be the last.
With his world turned upside down after uncovering new information about Autumn’s death, Clark must get to the bottom of this mystery while he still can… before it’s all too late.
Death on the Causeway is the must-read fourth entry into the Myrtle Beach Mystery Series.
The outcome may change everything.
About the Author:
Caleb Wygal is the award-winning author of 8 novels, including Death on the Boardwalk and Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure. He lives in Myrtle Beach with his family.
Refund Policy:
- You may request a full refund prior to the ticket cutoff.
Read and discuss Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.
Travelers Rest, SC 29690
Zoom Meeting Read and discuss “The Other One” by Tess Hadley via Zoom. A digital copy will be emailed to you when you register.
We are so excited to spend an evening with acclaimed historical novelist Vanessa Riley! Back with another novel based on the life of an extraordinary Black woman from history, Vanessa brings us the story of Haiti’s Queen Marie-Louise Coidavid, who escaped a coup in Haiti to set up her own royal court in Italy during the Regency era, where she became a popular member of royal European society.
We can’t wait to hear all about this novel and Vanessa’s writing process. Join us for a night of convo and cocktails!
Your ticket includes admission, a cocktail, and a copy of the book.
BOOK SUMMARY
The Queen of Exiles is Marie-Louise Christophe, wife and then widow of Henry I, who ruled over the newly liberated Kingdom of Hayti in the wake of the brutal Haitian Revolution.
In 1810 Louise is crowned queen as her husband begins his reign over the first and only free Black nation in the Western Hemisphere. But despite their newfound freedom, Haitians still struggle under mountains of debt to France and indifference from former allies in Britain and the new United States. Louise desperately tries to steer the country’s political course as King Henry descends into a mire of mental illness.
In 1820, King Henry is overthrown and dies by his own hand. Louise and her daughters manage to flee to Europe with their smuggled jewels. In exile, the resilient Louise redefines her role, recovering the fortune that Henry had lost and establishing herself as an equal to the kings of European nations. With newspapers and gossip tracking their every movement, Louise and her daughters tour Europe like other royals, complete with glittering balls and princes with marriage proposals. As they find their footing—and acceptance—they discover more about themselves, their Blackness, and the opportunities they can grasp in a European and male-dominated world.
Queen of Exiles is the tale of a remarkable Black woman of history—a canny and bold survivor who chooses the fire and ideals of political struggle, and then is forced to rebuild her life on her own terms, forever a queen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In addition to being a novelist, Vanessa Riley holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering and a master’s in industrial engineering and engineering management from Stanford University. She also earned BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Penn State University. She currently juggles mothering a teen, cooking for her military-man husband, and speaking at women’s and STEM events. She loves baking her Trinidadian grandma’s cake recipes and collecting Irish crochet lace. You can catch her writing from the comfort of her porch in Georgia, with a cup of Earl Grey tea. Riley lives in Atlanta.
We are so excited to spend the evening with Adrienne Brodeur! Our dear friend author Patti Callahan Henry will be moderating a conversation with Adrienne about her book Little Monsters.
From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets. This book is perfect for you readers who loved The Paper Palace and Ask Again, Yes. We’ll hear all about Adrienne’s writing process, life, and this new book, so join us for a night of convo and cocktails!
Your ticket includes admission, a cocktail, and a copy of the book.
BOOK SUMMARY
Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.
As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit.
Set in the fraught summer of 2016, and drawing on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Little Monsters is an absorbing, sharply observed family story by a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adrienne Brodeur is the author of the memoir Wild Game, which was selected as a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post and is in development as a Netflix film. She founded the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story with Francis Ford Coppola, and currently serves as executive director of Aspen Words, a literary nonprofit and program of the Aspen Institute. She splits her time between Cambridge and Cape Cod, where she lives with her husband and children.
Read and discuss The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. Email [email protected] or call 864-234-4904 to register
Join us for a book-inspired wine tasting, Birthday edition!
It’s our Birthday month, and we want to celebrate with you! We’re pairing the qualities of six wines with six books that share 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.
As a special treat, USA Today bestselling author Eliza Knight will be with us, talking about her book Starring Adele Astaire! A story full of glitz and glam, Starring Adele Astaire delves into the life of Adele Astaire, a spirited and talented woman who served up smiles and love both on and off the stage—with and without her also famous brother Fred Astaire— along with a determined young dancer with rags-to-riches dreams.
Help us celebrate with Eliza Knight. Buy your ticket now and join us on Thursday, July 27th!
Read and discuss Snapdragon by Kat Leyh. Registration required. Email [email protected] or call 864-269-5210 to register.
Fountain Inn Book Club: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Read and discuss A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. Registration required. Email [email protected] or call 864-288-6688 to register.
As an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist, Kathy Reichs knows a thing or two about dead bodies. And as the creator of a nationally beloved character, Temperance Brennan, Reichs also knows what it takes to write stories that keep readers coming back for more. To celebrate release day for the 22nd “Bones” novel, “The Bone Hacker,” Reichs is coming to Spartanburg to celebrate the character’s longevity, talk about the wildly successful television adaptation of her series, and share true stories of her work in forensics.
100 copies of “The Bone Hacker” will be given away at the door (first come, first serve) and Fiction Addiction will be on hand to sell additional copies of Reichs’ books. Kathy will be signing after she speaks, so be sure to bring your other Tempe books to have them signed, too!
We are so excited to welcome Madeline Martin to M. Judson for a Lunch & Lit event for her book The Keeper of Hidden Books based on the real life heroic efforts of Warsaw’s librarians during WWII.
Madeline will be on hand to talk, answer questions, and sign books, as we enjoy an incredible lunch at Soby’s! Get your ticket today!
BOOK SUMMARY
All her life, Zofia has found comfort in two things during times of hardship: books and her best friend, Janina. But no one could have imagined the horrors of the Nazi occupation in Warsaw. As the bombs rain down and Hitler’s forces loot and destroy the city, Zofia finds that now books are also in need of saving.
With the death count rising and persecution intensifying, Zofia jumps to action to save her friend and salvage whatever books she can from the wreckage, hiding them away and even starting a clandestine book club. She and her dearest friend never surrender their love of reading, even when Janina is forced into the newly formed ghetto.
But the closer Warsaw creeps toward liberation, the more dangerous life becomes for the women and their families—and escape may not be possible for everyone. As the destruction rages around them, Zofia must fight to save her friend and preserve her culture and community using the only weapon they have left—literature.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Madeline Martin is a New York Times, USA TODAY, and international bestselling author of historical fiction and historical romance with books that have been translated into over twenty different languages.
We are so excited to spend the evening with one of our very favorite Southern authors David Joy! He’ll be speaking with us about Those We Thought We Knew, a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center. You won’t want to miss hearing from David himself about his writing process, life, and this new book. Join us for a night of convo and cocktails!
Your ticket includes admission, a cocktail, and a copy of the book.
BOOK SUMMARY
Toya Gardner, a young Black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis. But when she encounters a still-standing Confederate monument in the heart of town, she sets her sights on something bigger.Meanwhile, local deputies find a man sleeping in the back of a station wagon and believe him to be nothing more than some slack-jawed drifter. Yet a search of the man’s vehicle reveals that he is a high-ranking member of the Klan, and the uncovering of a notebook filled with local names threatens to turn the mountain on end.
After two horrific crimes split the county apart, every soul must wrestle with deep and unspoken secrets that stretch back for generations. Those We Thought We Knew is an urgent unraveling of the dark underbelly of a community. Richly drawn and bracingly honest, it asks what happens when the people you’ve always known turn out to be monsters, what do you do when everything you ever believed crumbles away?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Joy is the author of When These Mountains Burn (winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award), The Line That Held Us (winner of the 2018 Southern Book Prize), The Weight of This World, and Where All Light Tends to Go (Edgar finalist for Best First Novel). His stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in a number of publications, and he is the author of the memoir Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey and a coeditor of Gather at the River: Twenty-Five Authors on Fishing. Joy lives in Tuckasegee, North Carolina.