Explore family friendly events, theatres, galleries, concerts, nightlife, things to do, and more in the Greenville, SC and Upstate areas.

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Friday, October 6, 2023
Ron Rash Book Talk + Signing
Oct 6 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Pickens County Library System- Hampton Memorial Library - Easley

Join New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash for a moderated discussion at the Kimberly Hampton Memorial Library (304 Biltmore Road, Easley, SC 29640) on Friday, October 6th, at 7pm. Ron will discuss his new book, The Caretaker and will be available afterwards for a book signing. This event is sponsored by the OPAL libraries (Oconee-Pickens-Anderson Libraries), and Fiction Addiction will be on-site for book sales.

There are two ticket options to this event. A $30 ticket admits one & includes a copy of The Caretaker. A $47 ticket admits two & includes 1 hardcover copy of The Caretaker + 1 paperback copy of In the Valley. We will have additional books for sale at the event.

If you are unable to attend, personalized copies can be purchased on our website.

Event tickets can be purchased online through Thursday, October 5th at 1pm. Tickets may be purchased at the door if still available, but buy ahead to guarantee your spot. Refunds can be requested up until the ticket cutoff.

Told against the backdrop of the Korean War as a small Appalachian town sends its sons to battle, The Caretaker by award-winning author Ron Rash (“One of the great American authors at work today”—The New York Times) is a breathtaking love story and a searing examination of the acts we seek to justify in the name of duty, family, honor, and love.

It’s 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interaction with the living. But when his best and only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to serve overseas, Blackburn is charged with caring for Jacob’s wife, Naomi, as well.

Sixteen-year-old Naomi Clarke is an outcast in Blowing Rock, an outsider, poor and uneducated, who works as a seasonal maid in the town’s most elegant hotel. When Naomi eloped with Jacob a few months after her arrival, the marriage scandalized the community, most of all his wealthy parents who disinherited him. Shunned by the townsfolk for their differences and equally fearful that Jacob may never come home, Blackburn and Naomi grow closer and closer until a shattering development derails numerous lives.

A tender examination of male friendship and rivalry as well as a riveting, page-turning novel of familial devotion, The Caretaker brilliantly depicts the human capacity for delusion and destruction all too often justified as acts of love.

 

About the Author:

Ron Rash is the author of the PEN/Faulkner finalist and New York Times bestselling novel Serena, in addition to the critically acclaimed novels The Risen, Above the Waterfall, The Cove, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; five collections of poems; and seven collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, Nothing Gold Can Stay, a New York Times bestseller, and Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Three times the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, his books have been translated into seventeen languages. He teaches at Western Carolina University.

Saturday, October 7, 2023
Friends Used Book Sale
Oct 7 @ 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Hughes Main Library
• Meeting Rooms All

Public Used Book Sales are back! Book lovers, rejoice! The Friends of the Greenville County Library System are hosting this Used Book Sale featuring books, movies, music, including popular fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. Organized by subject, search this unique collectionfor your favorite series, authors, and specialty items including vintage, collector, and antique books.

Volunteers will be on-site to assist you throughout your shopping experience.

Rocky Cove Railroad Exhibit
Oct 7 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
NC Arboretum

On exhibit Saturdays and Sundays from 12 – 4 p.m., Rocky Cove Railroad is a G-Scale (garden scale) model train that demonstrates the coming of trains to western North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. The exhibit is located below the Grand Promenade. Please note, Rocky Cove Railroad will not operate in rainy or wet conditions.

Sunday, October 8, 2023
Rocky Cove Railroad Exhibit
Oct 8 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
NC Arboretum

On exhibit Saturdays and Sundays from 12 – 4 p.m., Rocky Cove Railroad is a G-Scale (garden scale) model train that demonstrates the coming of trains to western North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. The exhibit is located below the Grand Promenade. Please note, Rocky Cove Railroad will not operate in rainy or wet conditions.

Hughes Main Library Friends Half-Price Used Book Sale
Oct 8 @ 2:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Hughes Main Library
• Meeting Rooms All

Public Used Book Sales are back! Book lovers, rejoice! The Friends of the Greenville County Library System are hosting this Used Book Sale featuring books, movies, music, including popular fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. Organized by subject, search this unique collectionfor your favorite series, authors, and specialty items including vintage, collector, and antique books.

Volunteers will be on-site to assist you throughout your shopping experience.

Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Racial Justice Workshop
Oct 10 @ 11:30 am
YWCA of Asheville

The YWCA Racial Justice Workshop is open to our entire YWCA Asheville community – including our staff, volunteers, board, donors, program participants, Fitness Center and community members. This 90-minute workshop will take place on the second Tuesday of each month at 11:30 am and will be facilitated by Gerry Leonard, Racial Justice & Outreach Specialist and Lexus Walker, Tzedek Social Justice Fellow.

 

Jocassee Valley
Oct 10 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Taylors Library

Claudia Whitmire Hembree, author of Jocassee Valley, shares the rich history of the area, including her eyewitness account of the 1970 flooding project and its impact on the area. Registration required. Call 864-268-5955 to register.

Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Community Dinner
Oct 11 @ 6:30 pm
YWCA of Asheville

Gather with your community for a FREE tasty meal, lessons on healthy eating and information on Double Up Food Bucks (a new program through SNAP)! Community Dinners are held on the second Wednesday of each month from 6 – 7:30 pm. FREE childcare provided.

Seating is limited. Reserve your seat online.

For more information, contact Leah Berger-Singer, Preventive Health Coordinator at (828) 254-7206 ext. 212 or [email protected].

Thursday, October 12, 2023
Storytime at Fiction Addiction
Oct 12 @ 10:30 am
Fiction Addiction

Fiction Addiction Storytime

Fiction Addiction hosts a free children’s storytime at our shop at 1175 Woods Crossing Rd. #5 every Thursday morning at 10:30am.

Bring your preschool children to Fiction Addiction for a free weekly storytime reading. Call us at 864-675-0540 or email us at [email protected] for the name of the book we will be reading each week. Children will also receive a coloring page associated with the story.

Visit : fictionaddiction.com

True Home Open Mic at Flood Gallery
Oct 12 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Flood Gallery

Uncensored expression: anyone is invited to step up to share song, music, poetry, comedy, rants & raves!

The most eclectic open mic around, in a welcoming gallery setting! 6 pm signup, perform 6:30-8:30 pm.

Saturday, October 14, 2023
Rocky Cove Railroad Exhibit
Oct 14 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
NC Arboretum

On exhibit Saturdays and Sundays from 12 – 4 p.m., Rocky Cove Railroad is a G-Scale (garden scale) model train that demonstrates the coming of trains to western North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. The exhibit is located below the Grand Promenade. Please note, Rocky Cove Railroad will not operate in rainy or wet conditions.

Sunday, October 15, 2023
Rocky Cove Railroad Exhibit
Oct 15 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
NC Arboretum

On exhibit Saturdays and Sundays from 12 – 4 p.m., Rocky Cove Railroad is a G-Scale (garden scale) model train that demonstrates the coming of trains to western North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. The exhibit is located below the Grand Promenade. Please note, Rocky Cove Railroad will not operate in rainy or wet conditions.

Knit-n-Give
Oct 15 @ 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Mission Rathbun House

Are you looking for an excuse to knit or crochet for a good cause? Help make baby hats and blankets and adult hats, scarves, and slippers to support at-risk newborns and homeless adults.  Your handmade knitwear will keep our neighbors warm.  Volunteers with basic skills in knitting or crocheting are welcome. Please bring your own needles or crochet hooks and a pattern.

Check out Knit-n-Give on WLOS: http://wlos.com/news/only-on-wloscom/close-knit-group-of-women-use-their-talents-to-help-asheville-charities

 

 

Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Empower Hour
Oct 17 @ 11:30 am
YWCA of Asheville

Join us for Empower Hour, a one-hour program and facility tour where you will experience firsthand the YWCA’s work to bridge gaps in earning power, education, health & wellness and access to childcare.

Empower Hours take place twice a month on the first and third Tuesday at 11:30 am.
Lunch is served as part of our Empower Hour, so reservations are required.

To make a reservation: contact Elizabeth Alvandi, Advancement Assistant, at (828) 254-7206 ext. 103 or [email protected].

Book Discussion – The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland
Oct 17 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Greenville County Library System | Hughes Main Library

The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland

Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season. The General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city’s only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that’s done looking for enlightenment in a church.

On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes, sits newly widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn’t give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater’s managers, he’ll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he’ll have to buy her freedom first.

When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined.

Based on the true story of Richmond’s theater fire, The House Is on Fire offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.

Fee
A $2.50 fee is required to assist the organizer with costs related to A Novel Bunch.

Nourishment

We always go to a restaurant to dine after the discussion so plan to join us for this. We will eat at Takosushi.

Thursday, October 19, 2023
Storytime at Fiction Addiction
Oct 19 @ 10:30 am
Fiction Addiction

Fiction Addiction Storytime

Fiction Addiction hosts a free children’s storytime at our shop at 1175 Woods Crossing Rd. #5 every Thursday morning at 10:30am.

Bring your preschool children to Fiction Addiction for a free weekly storytime reading. Call us at 864-675-0540 or email us at [email protected] for the name of the book we will be reading each week. Children will also receive a coloring page associated with the story.

Visit : fictionaddiction.com

book signing party: The Wish Painters
Oct 19 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Artists Collective | Spartanburg
Did you know the Collective is haunted?

Author Cynthia Manuel, our Webmaster, has written and illustrated an intriguing chronicle of the ghost sightings at the Collective. History buffs will get a kick out of the considerable local history that she has woven into the tale.

 

The book, The Wish Painters will be available for sale at the Collective beginning October 3rd. Just in time for that spookiest of holidays.

 

There will be a book signing party at Art Walk on October 19th from 6 – 8pm

True Home Open Mic at Flood Gallery
Oct 19 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Flood Gallery

Uncensored expression: anyone is invited to step up to share song, music, poetry, comedy, rants & raves!

The most eclectic open mic around, in a welcoming gallery setting! 6 pm signup, perform 6:30-8:30 pm.

Saturday, October 21, 2023
Rocky Cove Railroad Exhibit
Oct 21 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
NC Arboretum

On exhibit Saturdays and Sundays from 12 – 4 p.m., Rocky Cove Railroad is a G-Scale (garden scale) model train that demonstrates the coming of trains to western North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. The exhibit is located below the Grand Promenade. Please note, Rocky Cove Railroad will not operate in rainy or wet conditions.

Sunday, October 22, 2023
Rocky Cove Railroad Exhibit
Oct 22 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
NC Arboretum

On exhibit Saturdays and Sundays from 12 – 4 p.m., Rocky Cove Railroad is a G-Scale (garden scale) model train that demonstrates the coming of trains to western North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. The exhibit is located below the Grand Promenade. Please note, Rocky Cove Railroad will not operate in rainy or wet conditions.