Mountain Xpress 10.12.22

ROUNDUP

GREEN GODDESSES

is home to several plant

for their intimate size,

to quality

women.

being

spoke with

shop owners about how

boom

PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Jeff Fobes

ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER: Susan Hutchinson OPERATIONS MANAGER: Able Allen

MANAGING EDITOR: Thomas Calder NEWS EDITOR: Daniel Walton

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR: Thomas Calder

OPINION EDITOR: Tracy Rose

STAFF REPORTERS: Edwin Arnaudin, Thomas Calder, Justin McGuire, Sara Murphy, Brooke Randle, Jessica Wakeman, Daniel Walton

COMMUNITY CALENDAR & CLUBLAND: Andy Hall

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Lisa Allen, Peter Gregutt, Mary Jean Ronan Herzog, Rob Mikulak

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Mark Barrett, Blake Becker, Morgan Bost, LA Bourgeois, Carmela Caruso, Nikki Gensert, Bill Kopp, Linda Ray, Kay West

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS: Cindy Kunst

ADVERTISING, ART & DESIGN MANAGER: Susan Hutchinson

LEAD DESIGNER: Scott Southwick

GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Olivia Urban

MARKETING ASSOCIATES: Sara Brecht, Vicki Catalano, Scott Mermel, Braulio Pescador-Martinez INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES & WEB: Able Allen

BOOKKEEPER: Amie Fowler-Tanner

ADMINISTRATION, BILLING, HR: Able Allen, Mark Murphy

DISTRIBUTION: Susan Hutchinson, Cindy Kunst

DRIVERS: Leah Beck, Desiree Davis, Tracy Houston, Marlea Kunst, Amy Loving, Henry Mitchell, Angelo Santa Maria, Carl & Debbie Schweiger

MOUNTAIN XPRESS

MOUNTAIN XPRESS

Women’s words of wisdom

For our Women in Business issue, we invited women in our local busi ness communities to share insights they’ve gained through their work in Western North Carolina. Look for their stories scattered throughout the issue.

How it sounds behind the drum kit

[ Regarding “Captive Audience: Buskers, Downtown Businesses Grapple Over Amplification,” Oct. 5 , Xpress:] I’ve only busked twice. I play drums. I lug my electric kit to the intersection of Broadway and Patton. The road noise is pretty intense there. Vehicles in three dif ferent directions are accelerating hard to climb to the top of the hill. Anyway, I point my speaker toward what used to be the Vance Monument. I find that I have to turn up the volume a bit just so that I can hear the music with which I’m

CARTOON BY RANDY MOLTON

playing. I may be violating a noise ordinance, and if anyone asked me to turn it down, I would do so. I may relocate to a different corner next time. It’s just too loud on that street

during the day (except on Sunday morning, it was lovely).

I play along to songs that I’ve learned. My playlist includes a vari ety, including very quiet pieces like Lauryn Hill’s “Tell Him” to the Queens of the Stone Age’s raucous “No One Knows.” Maybe I’m part of an emerging problem. But, like I said, the ambient volume level from vehicles accelerating up the hill drowns out what I’m doing. I think part of the noise issue has to do with the exceptional amount of wind that blows through that inter section. I still think the best thing to do with the Vance Monument would be to place a wind turbine there. Other solutions for that inter section would be to build a round about or close the intersection to vehicles. During the day, there are large numbers of people crossing the streets near the monument. It would be much more friendly to pedestrians to remove cars from that interchange. Besides, there are multiple parking garages located a block away.

— Don McAdam Asheville

What’s up with panhandlers at intersections?

[ Regarding “Street Signs: How Is Asheville Addressing Panhandling?” Sept. 28 , Xpress:] Can anyone explain why panhandlers at street intersections usually remain sta tionary even when the traffic light

is red for cars headed in their direction? It seems strange that they don’t walk down the line of cars that are waiting for the light to turn.

I thought there might be some rule prohibiting them approaching drivers, but as I read the rules, the prohibitions only seem to be against threatening persons in cars.

— James Greene Asheville

‘Best Of’ should only be positive

In regard to the letter from Keynon Lake [ “School Staffer Doesn’t Deserve ‘Best Of’ Vilification,” Sept. 28 , Xpress] regarding the person “winning” third place in the best “Local Villain” category, I found your editor’s response highly inap propriate and insufficient.

Your “Best Of” contest is a welcome and helpful celebration of some of the good about WNC by acknowledging many people’s accomplishments. To have a nega tive “Best Local Villain” category is in direct contrast to that greater, positive intention and leaves read ers with no meaningful explanation and the “winner” with no means to defend him/herself.

In these days where we are sur rounded by the negative and the arguing about most everything, this category doesn’t belong in your sur vey. Stick to “The Best.”

— Randy Bell Asheville

Vote for bonds to leave legacy of land

An important choice is coming in November. From Sandy Mush to Fairview, Black Mountain to Upper Hominy and everywhere in between, we’ve seen tangible, posi tive results from various Buncombe County-led initiatives intended to maintain and improve life quality essentials for residents and visi tors alike.

Clean water, healthy air and unspoiled views should not be taken for granted. Properly man aged development can be entire ly compatible with population and economic growth, incentiv izing progress without despoil ing the world around us. While Buncombe County is increasingly viewed as a national leader in land conservation, this is no time to rest on laurels. Tourists will continue to visit, and companies will choose to relocate and expand their business

es here only so long as we are able to maintain the unique attraction of Western North Carolina.

On Nov. 8, Buncombe voters will consider a $30 million bond to support the goal of protecting an additional 6,000 acres by 2030, through various permanent conser vation easements, with a target of preserving 20% (including nation al forests) of land in the county. Buffering against the congestion of homogenized urban sprawl is essential for our rapidly growing community and an economy reliant upon natural beauty.

Bond approval would create addi tional areas for public enjoyment, to include expansion of recreation al trails and greenways across the county, ensuring healthy outdoor opportunities for both current and future generations. Longer term, such spaces could soften the impact of potential natural disasters — storms, floods, wildfires, mudslides and shrinking reservoirs — which in other places have been accel erated by a lack of foresight in land practices.

For the equivalent expenditure of about $20 per family per year, we can leave a land legacy of which our children and grandchildren will be both thankful and proud. For an annual cost of less than one forgot ten trip through a nondescript fast-

food drive-thru and for the sake of a better tomorrow, please seriously consider becoming a stakeholder in where we live and vote “Yes” in favor of this bond referendum.

— D. Everett Big Sandy Mush

Edwards is committed to educators

I’m voting to reelect Amanda Edwards for Buncombe County commissioner this November because she is firmly committed to educators.

Having worked as a teacher in North Carolina since 1997, I can state without hesitation that we need county leaders who support us and recognize the challenges that we face. Amanda has been in our corner since she first took office in 2018. She not only advocates for educators but also for causes such as affordable housing, farm land preservation and emergency services. Her warm heart and sharp mind are always with the marginal ized and underserved in our region.

Because we need her leadership now more than ever, please join me in voting for Amanda in the general election on Nov. 8!

— Ellen J. Perry

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Green

BY JESSICA WAKEMAN

Farmers and homesteaders can get their hands dirty all over Western North Carolina. For those with more modest ambitions, there are houseplants.

Garden stores, chain stores and even pharmacies sell houseplants nowa days, but it’s also an attractive industry for many small-business owners. The Asheville area is home to several plant shops known for their intimate size, attention to quality — and being run by women.

When Melissa Thomas started Flora out of her basement 14 years ago, plant shops weren’t as ubiquitous. She opened a brick-and-mortar 12 years ago in West Asheville and has since watched former employees move on to create their own plant businesses.

“There are so many wonderful plant shops in the area that have come

about,” Thomas tells Xpress. “It adds a lot to our community and gives people the opportunity to support small, local businesses over the box stores to fill their homes with green space.”

Xpress spoke with several women who own plant shops around Asheville to learn more about sourcing the best greenery and how the pandemic house plant boom impacted their businesses.

INSPIRATION IS EVERYWHERE

Many plant shop owners say open ing their own green oasis was a second career after another horticulture-ad jacent industry. In April 2021, sisters Laura and Sarah Carter took over their Woodfin shop, Thyme in the Garden, from their parents, who had

opened it in 2006 after running a land scape business.

Rose Love Bartlett and her late husband owned a successful garden design business in Washington, D.C., designing for the likes of Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sargent Shriver. After her husband’s death, Bartlett moved to Asheville in 2009 and purchased a historic home on Charlotte Street three years later. The idea of selling plants and antiques had been “perco lating” for a while, Bartlett says, but she’d never found the right space in D.C.

In 2013, she opened Rose’s Garden Shop on the ground floor of her home, which had formerly been a hair salon.

“I’m not an office person,” says Erika Mayer, by way of explaining how she came to open Rosarina Plant

Shop. Trained as a landscape archi tect, she grew disillusioned when her job required more time on the com puter than in the dirt. She moved from San Francisco to Asheville in 2018 and began transitioning careers. Mayer purchased a decommissioned school bus from the YMCA, painted it peach and opened a mobile plant shop in 2019 to bring plant pop-ups around town.

The owners of Palm + Pine in West Asheville worked at a plant shop together but wanted to curate a different “vibe,” explains Meghan McIver. She and Lindsay Riley met as co-workers at Flora, where McIver brewed drinks in the cafe and Riley crafted floral arrangements. Realizing their complementary creative natures, the friends went into business.

“We wanted to fill in a gap [with] very vibrant, lively, queer space for our community and for our peers,” says McIver, adding that she sees the shop as an art installation as much as a busi ness. She calls Palm + Pine a “begin ner plant parent shop,” noting that it carries “a lot of approachable, easy care, set-you-up-for-success plants.”

COVID-19’S BUSINESS BOOM

Plant shops are one of the few busi nesses that didn’t wither on the vine during the COVID-19 pandemic, per haps due to the desire that lockdowns and other restrictions created for tac tile activities at home.

Operating Rosarina Plant Shop out of a bus and traveling to farmers markets helped Mayer thrive during the pandemic. And during 2020, Max Puterbaugh at the South Slope’s Farewell coffee shop suggested she sell houseplants there. A new seed was planted: Now Rosarina stocks houseplants seasonally at several cafes around Asheville, including Citizen Vinyl and All Day Darling.

More teens, 20- and 30-somethings began buying houseplants throughout COVID-19’s disruptions, says Laura Carter, noting her shop’s previous clientele had primarily been retirees. She’s found that the younger genera tion of plant lovers is unusually knowl edgeable about the plants, noting that many use apps like Planta. She jokes that some regard caring for house plants, such as the particularly showy tropical monstera, “like having a pet, and you’ve got to educate yourself.”

Still, some local green thumbs say the pandemic doesn’t deserve all the credit for the plant boom. Emma Luyckx, owner of Wilderness Botanica in Fletcher, says houseplants benefit ed from “a hype effect, and [COVID] made being an ‘apartment botanist’ accessible to people who otherwise wouldn’t have the time or energy to

SEEING

Shop,

GEN Z: Laura Carter, left, and Sarah Carter from Thyme in the Garden report that more teens, 20- and 30-somethings are buying houseplants. Photo cour tesy of the Carters

dive into it.” However, she continues, “The houseplant ‘phenomena’ was already on the rise and a very estab lished scene well before COVID-19.”

A couple of local shops temporarily closed during the pandemic. Rose’s Garden Shop shuttered completely for two years; Bartlett felt her safe ty required it, given the shop is on the ground floor of her home. (She reopened on Earth Day 2022.) Palm + Pine held its opening party on Jan. 31, 2020, and then closed for walk-ins six weeks later.

The shop’s owners quickly pivot ed: “We put everything online, got an e-commerce situation set up and then we did free deliveries around town,” says McIver. “We had to learn really quickly how to make it work.” (Helpfully, their landlord temporarily decreased the rent while the shop was shuttered.) Palm + Pine reopened in July 2020.

FROM THE SOURCE

Most owners say they hand-select as much merchandise as possible,

which helps them attend to their par ticular clientele.

Local plant shops mainly source their greenery from growers in Florida. McIver uses a plant broker in South Carolina who works directly with Florida growers. “I would in the future love to have the opportunity to

Consistency and discipline

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

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TIARRA WILKIE

Owner of Groundbreaking Financial

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Wilkie: As cliché as it sounds, the best advice I’ve ever received is to not give up. I think a lot of business owners can agree with me when I say the first two-three years in busi ness are the hardest and essentially a “make-or-break” period. It’s so easy to give up when you’re not getting the customers or clients that you want, or you’re not seeing a return on your investment. Staying consistent, disci plined and driven will play an integral role in your business’s success.

Know when it’s time to pivot. Groundbreaking Financial is 2 1/2 years old, and I’ve had to pivot three to four times already. The vision you have for your business in the early stages may not actually make sense months and even years down the road. I think COVID has shown us just how quick the times can shift. Stay on your toes and be open to implementing new ideas and strate gies that will help get your business to the next level.

As a woman, what unique chal lenges have you experienced within your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

I think we’re all aware that women, especially women of color, often get the short end of the stick. Rather than dwelling on the many obstacles placed in front of us due to society, I’d rather continue connecting with other like-minded, women-owned business es and focus on the many glass ceil ings we’ll break one day! X

Self Care is NOT Selfish

Woman Owned Mom Owned

As a woman, and a mother, I value and understand the time you are taking for yourself when you come to me.

I will use my expertise to meet your body’s needs .

I have a depth of compassion, empathy, and patience.

I know how to nurture your path to healing and fitness.

Tanya Tracy, MPT

The importance of reputation

taught me the importance of my reputation and unique value proposition by encouraging me to build a solid brand and be picky about who I partner with. You really can’t be all things to all people.

AISHA ADAMS Owner of Aisha Adams Media

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Adams: I have amazing mentors who have helped me not only become a better businesswoman but also become a better person. I learned so many things. Here are two:

• My mentor Christopher Murray at Mountain BizWorks would say get your numbers in order, meaning give your cash flow, budget, projections, and profit and loss the energy it deserves.

• My mentor Dr. Joseph Fox from Fox Management

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

Figure out what problem you can solve for others. Get passionate about your customers and learn how to serve them uniquely better than anyone else.

As a woman, what unique chal lenges have you experienced within your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

As a Black woman, I continue to brave the same challenges many people of color face. I have been underfunded, underestimated and underutilized. I think good business acumen, mental toughness, a strong brand, collaboration, a reliable prod uct and my methodology have kept me in business.

direct-source from growers,” she says. (A garden in Sandy Mush does supply the shop’s cacti.)

Bartlett sources from a traveling plant wholesaler. “I’ve tried a few services, but you usually have to order bigger quantities and then … they’re not up to my standards,” she explains. “This is a little bit more work, but I get to handpick 90% of the plants that we sell.”

Luyckx has found a niche in exotic plant varieties, like the dark form of Scindapsus terubii, which has almost black leaves. The Carter sisters at Thyme in the Garden, which sits on a large property, say they’re known for their wide array of outdoor pots.

Flora is unlike other area plant shops in that many of its plants are homegrown. “We’re in the process of renovating a 1960s dairy barn on our property, where we also grow flowers, and we have a tropical greenhouse,” says Thomas.

“We’re doing our best to grow as many of our own tropicals as possi ble,” she adds. “We’re trying to really

cut down on the carbon footprint of the tropical plant industry.”

GROWN ENOUGH

Their merchandise may keep on growing, but the women who run Asheville’s plant shops are largely content to keep their businesses small. Instead of economic expansion, they seem to find more value in something different: loving their jobs.

“In this culture, in terms of capi talism, growth always seems like [the goal] — ‘How much bigger can you get?’” says Mayer. “Actually, I don’t feel like I want to do that.” She says her goal for Rosarina is to be inten tional about selling plants in a few locations, “cap it there and enjoy it.”

For other business owners, the rewards are more spiritual. “It’s really interesting to watch the plant world’s emergence into the mainstream, and I’m grateful to be a part of it,” says Thomas. “I’m grateful to see so many people embracing botani cal living.”

HOME GROWN: Rose Love Bartlett opened Rose’s Garden Shop on the ground floor of her historic Charlotte Street home. Photo courtesy of Bartlett

Helping ‘mompreneurs’

BY JUSTIN M c GUIRE

When Nicole Lee moved to Asheville from Cincinnati two years ago with the idea of starting a con sulting business for aspiring entre preneurs, she reached out to Black Wall Street AVL for assistance.

“They helped guide me to get my name on the map here in North Carolina,” says Lee, who runs the for-profit Counsel to the Entrepreneur as well as the non profit Warrior Moms. “They’ve been an amazing resource for establishing fruitful connections.”

For instance, she explains, when she wanted to do a playwright read ing at the Magnetic Theatre last year, Black Wall Street helped connect her with the right people. And the

group’s pop-up shop series gave her a place to promote her 12 self-pub lished books.

“Black Wall Street has been a gem for me,” she says.

Now the organization is hoping to get the financial resources to help even more “mompreneurs” like Lee, who is a single mother, as well as women who are reentering society after incarceration or substance abuse treatment.

Black Wall Street AVL is one of seven national finalists for the Truist Foundation’s first Inspire Award, given to nonprofits that sup port Black, Indigenous and people of color and women-owned small businesses. The first-place winner will receive $250,000 in grant fund ing, which BWS would use to aid women of color in starting, growing and scaling businesses in marginal ized communities.

“In Asheville, the majority of women who are low income are single moms,” says J Hackett, who founded BWS in 2020. “And so how does this single mom take care of her family and still create a business when everything is already working against her? We believe that we have a solution, one that we’ve tested out for the last two years. And it’s proven to be successful.”

LET’S GET STARTED

The BWS solution includes paying the fees needed to set up limited liability companies and establish websites. The organization picks up the costs of accounting software, vendor fees and classes on business and finance and helps with social media and other marketing efforts. Black Wall Street also helps women work with nonprofits like Mountain BizWorks and Eagle Market Streets Development Corp., which have grant programs available for people of color to get small businesses off the ground.

The organization aids business owners in connecting with the area’s tourists and people who live outside the Black community, something Hackett says is vital in keeping such companies financially viable.

“For me, being a mom who doesn’t fully understand how to run a busi ness, Black Wall Street has offered a structural support system,” says Naomi Waller, owner of Ayoki Styles

Curl Academy and Ayoki Styles Beauty Collection. “So it’s a place where I’m safe to make the mistakes that I need to. It’s a safe place to gain an understanding of how I can take my business to the next level.”

If Black Wall Street wins the $250,000 first-place prize from the

MOTHERS OF INVENTION: Nicole Lee, left, and Naomi Waller are Asheville business owners who found success working with Black Wall Street AVL. Pho tos courtesy of Black Wall Street AVL

Truist Foundation, it would be able to help about 50 women in the region get businesses started, Hackett says. A particular emphasis will be put on aiding women who have been incar cerated or in treatment for substance abuse, he says.

“We know that entrepreneurship is the quickest way for a margin alized group to establish financial independence,” Hackett says. “And for a lot of people, a past crime is a barrier to employment. So instead of them trying to be hired for a job, they can create their own job and then create jobs for other people.”

Lee says running a business allows “mompreneurs” to control their own schedule and spend more time with their children.

“It was entrepreneurship that allowed me to be able to maneuver throughout my children’s school activities,” says Lee, who ran a hair and beauty salon for many years. “It was very valuable as a single mom to

be able to be home when they got off the bus.”

Waller, who is mother to a 2-yearold, says it is sometimes a challenge to be able to tend to her clientele full time. “I need to be behind the chair in order to really serve them, but that challenge actually produced a solu tion for me to where I can do things digitally and still serve my clientele. Black Wall Street actually helped me see that because of their hybrid way of doing business.”

PICKING A WINNER

On Thursday, Oct. 20, Black Wall Street and the other six finalists will participate in a livestream event hosted by journalist and TV person ality Lisa Ling from 7-8:30 p.m. Each organization will present its ideas to a panel of judges, and audience members will choose their favor ite finalist, which will be awarded $75,000 in grant funding. Hackett

Prepare for growth

your worth and plan staffing for when your business grows beyond your workload capabilities. It is hard to recruit, hire and train once you are buried under a mound of work.

As a woman, what unique chal lenges have you experienced within your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

encourages locals to participate in the livestream and support Black Wall Street.

“We really, really, really want Asheville to be represented,” he says. You can register to participate at avl.mx/c1r.

But even if Black Wall Street does not win any grant money through the Image Award, it will still go forward with plans to help women of color in starting and growing businesses, Hackett says. The group has received $15,000 this year through its bank ing partner First Horizon Bank and is seeking grants and partnerships through the Coca-Cola Co., the Truist Foundation and others.

Lee and Waller are confident the group’s efforts will continue to be a boon to women looking to start their own small businesses. Lee says she always encourages her clients to join the 117 Black-owned business es who are members of Black Wall Street AVL.

Adds Waller: “I’m always so sur prised when people have not heard about Black Wall Street. They are really for everybody, and I love the community’s efforts to support one another in this movement.”

MELISSA BLAHA Owner of The Tax Raven

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Blaha: In 2021, I established The Tax Raven, a home-based bookkeeping, tax preparation and small-business consulting firm. The process was one filled with uncer tainty, constant worry and lack of sleep. It felt very much like giving birth. The best advice I received at the start was to thoroughly vet each merchant processor, soft ware company and vendor as if they are applying to be a nanny to your newborn.

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

You have to prepare for growth before it happens. My business grew quicker than I thought because I underestimated my value. That is why it is important to know

Women should consider how self-employment income affects the whole family’s finances from student loans to health insur ance. Women starting out as sole proprietors can find themselves owing money or getting a smaller tax refund than expected, which can jeopardize their business cash flow. It is important to get tax and accounting support as soon as you begin to plan your business to minimize tax liability and increase revenue. Don’t be afraid to reach out to utilize all available resources within our community, including small-business consulting. As a new business owner myself, it has been a pleasure working with many entrepreneurs who face these plan ning decisions as their businesses grow. The support I offer to my clients is so necessary that I hope to establish a “tax school” to educate our community and support the development of small business es in the years to come.

Banking on success

Female financial advisers make their mark

BY LISA ALLEN

lisa.a75@gmail.com

Faith Doyle has seen the good, bad and ugly as a female in the finan cial industry.

Although she came armed with a biochemistry bachelor’s degree (having been the only woman in her program), an MBA, financial planning certifica tion and years of sales experience, her former Asheville employer insisted she begin her financial advising career in the mid-2010s by answering the phones.

“A year and a half later, they hired a man for the same position, but he was treated as a financial adviser right from the start. He didn’t have to answer the phones,” Doyle says.

Doyle also noticed that her boss would ask her male colleagues to join him for lunch, but not her. She recalls, “I asked him about that, and he says, ‘What would my wife think?’”

Today, she works at the all-female Webb Investment Services in Asheville.

(Like most small financial firms, it’s affil iated with a larger entity — in its case, Florida-based Raymond James — for better access to financial research and markets.) “I think women are perfectly suited as financial advisers,” Doyle says. “We have the emotional intelligence to help people think through problems and come up with solutions that work for their specific circumstances.”

The conviction that women make great financial advisors prompted Laura Webb to start her firm 27 years ago. Ever since, she primarily has sought out female advisers and has only hired one male adviser over the company’s history.

“It’s my preference,” Webb says. “I am interested in getting more women in this industry. The needle hasn’t moved much yet, but you have to see it to be it.”

MAKING SENSE OF DOLLARS

Webb wants women to become more comfortable talking about money. “In our society, money is a taboo topic, especially for women,” she explains. And as she says often, taking control of one’s money means gaining control over one’s future.

But she’s beginning to see a shift. “Women my age — I’m in my 60s

— and younger are more comfortable working with women.”

Two years ago, Webb and Doyle launched “Her Two Cents,” a biweekly podcast to help women get familiar with their finances. In all, the segments have been downloaded 9,000 times, Doyle says. Topics range from savings and investing to navigating all of life’s transitions. (Spoiler alert: Every life transition, such as having children, moving, retiring or even getting a dog, involves money.)

“The podcast is multigenerational,” Webb says. “I’m over 60, and Faith is 40. We can’t be everyone’s financial adviser, but we want to help all women take control of their financial futures.”

“Collectively, we’re trying to normal ize the conversation among women about money. We want to help women take control of their wealth,” Doyle adds, noting that more than half of her clients are women. “Women either handle their families’ finances or their husbands encourage them to learn about money because wives often out live their husbands.”

GENDER GAPS

Raising awareness about money matters also may help attract women to the financial sector. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 31% of financial advisers in the U.S. are women, but those in the industry think the number is even lower. Financial magazine Barron’s estimates that no more than 20% of financial advisers are women, and only 12% of the publica tion’s top 100 advisers are women. The numbers thin out even more at the top spots: Only 3% of financial firms’ CEOs are women, Barron’s reports.

Some come to the industry by indi rect paths. Leslie Apple had been a counselor with Outward Bound in Asheville before starting her own career counseling business. It was then that a representative from the St. Louis-based financial firm Edward Jones asked if she had considered a career in finan cial advising.

“I told him, no, I hadn’t thought of being a rodeo clown either. I didn’t see the connection,” Apple says. “But then he explained that, as a career counselor, I help people articulate their goals and create a long-term plan. Financial advising is pretty much the same thing.”

Apple’s success at the Asheville branch of Edward Jones after just five years has been swift, despite having a child and enduring the pandemic. She says she’s been able to build a strong client base more quickly than many advisers.

MONEY TALKS: Laura Webb, left, and Faith Doyle founded the “Her Two Cents” podcast to help women get familiar with their finances. Photo courtesy of Doyle

Never give up

SAFI MARTIN

Chief operations officer for Hood Huggers International, which she runs with her husband and founder, DeWayne Barton, left.

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Martin: Believe in the impossi ble and never give up. No matter what anyone says, stay true to your vision and dream.

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

Get a mentor to walk you through the initial startup, then again when you hire your first employees. Get

a great accountant that wants to help you grow as a business owner. Surround yourself with other business owners and startup types. Being an entre preneur means looking at the world through a different lens — you need other people who see through that same lens cheering you on. Finally, don’t let “failures” or “nos” deter you — keep going. In fact, use these experiences as fuel to feed your own motivation.

As a woman, what unique chal lenges have you experienced with in your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

The two biggest things that have come up for me as a woman are:

• Being underestimated — some folks assume that I’m less capa ble, intelligent, resourceful, cre ative, etc.

• Underestimating myself (imposter syndrome) — buying into No. 1 and letting other folks’ limited imaginations start to define me.  X

DOLLARS AND CENTS: Brittany Marshall rose from being a teller at a small bank in Hendersonville to working as the Asheville-area retail manager for First Bank. Photo courtesy of Marshall

“I went from teaching, which is mostly women, to the financial industry, which is mostly male. I’ve never felt more sup ported and encouraged here,” Apple says. “If they treated teachers like this, they would never leave.”

But the fact that most advisers are men and most support staff are women still trips up financial firms. “Once or twice, when I called home office with a question, they told me that was a topic the adviser should handle,” Apple says. “I said, ‘I am the advisor!” She says that things have gotten better since a woman landed the top spot at Edward

with three companies, but I like how team-oriented it is. I like the fact we are customer obsessed.”

She had previously worked in the energy sector and says finance is a welcome change. “Energy is male dominated, too, but I didn’t get the sense that women were respected,” she explains. “It seems in banking, our clients appreciate that women are so service oriented.”

Brittany Marshall, the Asheville area retail manager for First Bank, says she hasn’t been treated differently as a woman in banking.

In other areas of finance, women still bump against a glass ceiling, even though their talents in customer service

of the

entry-level banking workforce, they make up less than one-third at the senior vice president and C-suite levels, according to consulting firm McKinsey. And across the financial industry overall, including asset management, banking, insurance and payments, 87 women are promoted for every 100 men. The McKinsey study also found that Black women are the least likely to be promoted to a manager position, with just 37 for every 100 men promot ed. (Asian women are more likely than

Despite these odds, some local Lisa is a loan originator at the Asheville office of Radius Financial Group, a Massachusetts-based compa ny founded by a woman. She says she chose Radius because so many of its

“I know every name in the com pany,” Krampf says. “I interviewed

“I am sure there are stories of women who have not been treated fairly in the banking industry, but I have not per sonally encountered any experiences that likely wouldn’t have happened if I were a man,” Marshall says. “I have focused my career in the community bank sector. I have never felt disre spected or belittled for being a woman. I can honestly say that I’ve always felt rewarded for my contributions with upward movement opportunities.”

Having started as a teller at a small bank in Hendersonville, Marshall quickly realized banking provided a long-term career path. She points out that several members of the WNC lead ership team at First Bank are women, including both area retail managers overseeing 16 branches, the treasury services bank officer and the regional private banking executive. And the CFO of the entire company, with 94 branches across the Carolinas, is female as well.

“What I thought was going to be a temporary job has turned into an extremely rewarding 17-year career,” Marshall says. “I looked around and saw women in leadership roles and the various jobs you could have at a bank and knew there were career growth opportunities for me.”

Wildlands Network flags

WNC roads for wildlife crossings

The Wildlands Network, a Utahbased conservation nonprofit with staff in Asheville, has released a new report (avl.mx/c2n) identifying North Carolina’s most important road cross ings for wildlife. Of the 20 sites in the report, six are in Western North Carolina — including the nonprofit’s No. 1 site, Interstate 40’s path through the Pigeon River Gorge.

“The highway cuts right through what would otherwise be a massive core forest habitat block featuring some of the highest biodiversity in North America, hindering wildlife movement and blocking a crucial northern migration route,” says the report about the 28-mile Pigeon River Gorge section. Black bears, deer, elk and other species are regularly killed by vehicle collisions on the road.

Other WNC roads mentioned in the report include U.S. 19 at the Blue Ridge Parkway near Maggie Valley, I-40 east of Canton and I-26 at the North Carolina/Tennessee border. At each site, the Wildlands Network recommends building new infrastruc ture, such as bridges and culverts, that would allow wildlife to cross more safely.

As previously reported by Xpress [see “Somewhere safe: New Children’s Book Highlights Wildlife Crossing Project,” March 24, 2021, avl.mx/c2m], dangerous wildlife crossings take a human toll as well. N.C. Department of Transportation data indicates that, from 2017-19, animal-vehicle colli sions in the state’s 18 westernmost counties caused over $10.5 million in property damage and at least 189 human injuries.

PAWS:

border,

“North Carolina needs to be strate gic about investing in crossing projects that will have the greatest impact on wildlife and travelers’ safety,” said Ron Sutherland, Wildlands Network’s chief scientist, in a press release announcing the report. “The ques tion of the moment is: Where do we need wildlife road crossings in North Carolina? This report is our answer to that question.”

Rabies vaccine airdrops occurring throughout WNC

The N.C Department of Health and Human Services has a message

wildlife

Interstate

for people encountering mysterious, fishy-smelling objects in the WNC woods: Leave them alone.

While that’s probably good advice any time of year, it’s particularly applicable now. NCDHHS is part nering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to distribute oral rabies vaccines across the region. Packets containing the vaccine are coated in fishmeal or encased in matchbox-sized fishmeal blocks and dropped by plane or helicopter.

That fishmeal coating entices rac coons and other animals to bite down and swallow the medication. By vac cinating wildlife across WNC, officials hope to prevent raccoon rabies from spreading west of the Appalachians and reduce the local risk of infection.

An NCDHHS press release notes that anyone who comes into contact with the vaccine should wash the affected area with soap and water and call 866-487-3297. More information is available at avl.mx/c2k.

Opportunity knocks

• The Nantahala Outdoor Center has established a new scholarship pro gram for those with limited means to pursue careers in the whitewa ter rafting industry. The Founders Scholarship, established in partner ship with the Wesser Foundation, will cover guide school tuition, room and board, essential river gear and first-aid training for qual

ified applicants. More information and application details are available at avl.mx/c2e.

• Farmers seeking to diversify or expand their businesses are encour aged to apply to WNC Agricultural Options. The program, managed by Asheville-based nonprofit WNC Communities, provides grants of up to $8,000 for new agricultural initia tives. Those interested in applying must contact their local cooperative extension agent by Friday, Oct. 14; completed applications are due Friday, Nov. 18. More information is available at WNCAgOptions.org.

• Asheville-based nonprofit EcoForesters hosts a free workshop at the A-B Tech Madison County campus 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, for landowners to learn about opportunities for forest stew ardship. Tax incentives for forest management and the financial opportunities of carbon markets will be among the topics covered. More information and registration are available at avl.mx/c2f.

• Local adventurers can win a free canvas tote bag — as well as social media cred — through Asheville Parks & Recreation’s “Fall for APR” selfie challenge, which runs through the end of November. Participants who take photos at eight Asheville city parks or com munity centers and tag them with #Fall4APR will be eligible for the prize. More information and regis tration is available at avl.mx/c2h.

Community kudos

• Asheville’s Southside Community Farm was selected as one of 100 projects for Lowe’s Hometowns, the home improvement store’s nation wide philanthropy effort. On Sept. 14, local Lowe’s employees helped farm manager Chloe Moore install a food forest with seating to provide a community gathering space.

• Asheville nonprofit MountainTrue announced its annual volun teer awards, to be presented at a 40th anniversary celebration Wednesday, Oct. 12. Board member Grady Nance received the Esther Cunningham Award, which rec ognizes “outstanding community service in conserving our natural resources.” Hayden Cheek, Jim Clark, Stacey Cassedy and Don Cooper were named volunteers of the year for the High Country, central, western and southern regions, respectively.

• Several WNC drinking water treat ment plants received Gold Star kudos from the N.C. Division of

Water Resources. The municipali ties of Burnsville, Waynesville and Weaverville, as well as the Maggie Valley Sanitary District, were all recognized for 10 consecutive years of meeting turbidity reduction goals “that are significantly more stringent than state and feder al standards.”

• UNC Asheville’s Owen Hall, which houses the school’s arts and media programs, received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The build ing recently underwent substan tial renovation to use water more efficiently, reduce energy use and enhance indoor air quality.

• Oak and Grist Dilling Co. in Black Mountain was certified as a car bon-neutral beverage producer by industry analyst ClimateHound. The company has committed to offset 172 megatons of carbon diox ide each year, accounting for not only its direct production emissions but also the emissions of its sup ply chain.

Save the date

• Hendersonville’s Historic Johnson Farm holds a Farm Fun Day from 1-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. The event features children’s games and crafts, a farm animal petting zoo, wagon rides and self-guided tours of the historic farmhouse. Tickets are $20 per family and can be pur chased at the door; more informa tion is available at avl.mx/bi9.

• Sugar Hollow Solar celebrates the launch of its commercial solar busi

ness with a ribbon-cutting from 3-6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18, at Dynamite Roasting Co. in Black Mountain. The event will feature food, give aways and The Blood Connection’s mobile donation unit, as well as information on solar power for both individuals and businesses.

• The U.S. Forest Service holds a vir tual information session on future plans for Max Patch from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18. The pop ular mountain bald in the Pisgah National Forest has been closed

to camping and fires since July 2021 due to what federal officials called unsustainable levels of use. More information is available at avl.mx/c2j.

• Representatives from Lights Out! Asheville, a community effort to protect birds by reducing light pol lution, will share an update as part of The Collider’s free weekly coffee talk series, Thursday, Oct. 20, at 10 a.m. Topics will include the effects of nighttime lighting on migratory songbirds and the energy savings realized by Asheville city govern ment after it adopted a “Lights Out” program in February.

• The WNC Sierra Club hosts Rachel Muir, emeritus scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, for a free Zoom presentation on biodiver sity at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3. “All Things Great and Small” will focus on the variety of Southern Appalachian wildlife and its impor tance to the world. Registration is available at avl.mx/prx3.

• Asheville-based earth skills educa tion nonprofit The Firefly Gathering holds its Frost Moon Gala fundrais er at the Asheville Masonic Temple 5-10:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7. The event features music by Leah Song of Rising Appalachia and other art ists, as well as food from Cherokee chef Tyson Sampson. Tickets start at $50 and are available at avl.mx/c2g.

— Daniel Walton X

• WOMEN IN BUSINESS •

Build a support system

biggest cheerleaders in this whole endeavor. I’ve also met an amazing group of people through the local farmers markets who have shared the same struggles as I have. We’ve been able to bounce business and strategy ideas off one another and grow because of it.

MARJORY ROCKWELL

Owner of Conjure Craft Chocolate

Xpress: What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

Rockwell: Build a support system. Starting a business is both mentally and physically draining. You’ll need a solid group of people who will be there for you when obstacles come your way, when everything seems impossible and you want to quit. I moved to Asheville because I have family here, and along with my boyfriend, they have been my

As a woman, what unique chal lenges have you experienced within your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

I’m 5 feet, 2 inches, 100 pounds and look younger than I am. I’m not always taken seriously, which was something I experienced when going through the buildout process of my kitchen/storefront. I usually try to be pleasantly persistent and am naturally very bubbly. If per sistence and my good nature don’t work, then whomever I’m trying to work with doesn’t deserve my business, and I’ll find someone else who does.

MULCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING: Lowe’s employees helped install a food forest and community recreation area at Asheville’s Southside Community Farm on Sept. 14. Photo courtesy of Lowe’s

Local organizations update Buncombe on opioid response

The opioid crisis is bad every where in North Carolina. It’s worse in Buncombe County.

According to figures shared with the county Board of Commissioners by Dr. Shuchin Shukla, a physician and opioid crisis educator with the Mountain Area Health Education Center, Buncombe’s rate of overdose deaths has exceeded the statewide average since at least 2016. In 2021, the county suffered 45.2 deaths per 100,000 residents, compared with 35.8 deaths per 100,000 for North Carolina as a whole.

Shukla was among several stake holders who briefed the board about opioid issues Oct. 4. Representatives from local reentry program Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness, the county’s Post Overdose Response Team and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office all shared updates on their work and dis cussed specific efforts they’d like to see supported.

UNWELCOME OUTLIER: Buncombe County’s rate of opioid overdose deaths has exceeded the North Carolina aver age every year since 2016. Graphic courtesy of Buncombe County

The briefing came as Buncombe continues to plan its spending of over $16 million toward fighting the opioid epidemic. That money, which comes from a historic settlement in litiga tion involving opioid distributors and manufacturers, will be paid to the county in increments over 18 years. Buncombe has received $621,438 so far and is slated to receive another payment of nearly $1.4 million soon.

Current Sunrise employees Kat Sullivan and Tyler Grooms spoke candidly of their histories with addic tion and the necessity of reentry pro grams. Grooms, who said he had been 18 months sober as of Oct. 4, said that he had previously “overdosed over 100 times — as far as I know, more than anyone else in Western North Carolina.”

Speaking from experience, Grooms emphasized the importance of reentry programs after incarceration, positing that “when people get locked up, coin cidentally, they get sober.” To pre vent and treat relapses post-lockup, Grooms argued, the county must con tinue to fund programs like Sunrise’s Linkage2Care Re-entry Program.

Meanwhile, Shukla listed medica tion-assisted treatment as among the most effective responses to the crisis.

The Buncombe County Detention Center has been employing the prac tice among the general jail popula tion since 2020, and Sheriff’s Office officials said overdose deaths among people passing through the jail had subsequently decreased by 22%.

Shulka also pointed to the impor tance of naloxone, a drug that count ers the effects of an opioid overdose in real time. The medication, commonly known by its brand name Narcan, is regularly used by local efforts like PORT to prevent overdose deaths. Echoing Grooms’ testimony, Shukla said that targeted naloxone distribu tion has been particularly effective among the formerly incarcerated.

The demand for these lifesaving drugs is soaring, noted Shukla, but funding for supply can be an issue. “These are the things that if I was a taxpayer — and I am a taxpayer — I’d want my elected officials to invest in,” he said.

While the board made no motions during the informational briefing, members appeared engaged and highly supportive of the information provided. Commissioner Amanda Edwards said the presentations “couldn’t have come at a better time for us.”

Conservation easements approved

In keeping with the county’s goal of preserving 20% of Buncombe land by 2030, the board unani mously approved a $384,000 budget amendment to fund a package of six conservation easements during its regular meeting Oct. 4. Together, those projects will protect approx imately 590 acres from future development, roughly a tenth of the additional 6,000 acres the county needs to meet its 20% target. The money came from $750,000 in funds that had previously been allocated for conservation easements this fis cal year.

The biggest item among those projects was $135,000 toward a 234acre easement at Camp Woodson in Black Mountain. Buncombe had previously allocated $120,000 toward that easement purchase last fiscal year; the property will now be stewarded by Hendersonville-based nonprofit Conserving Carolina.

Q&A: Robin Lake on her quest to uncover her late father’s military service records

In February 2021, when local resi dent Robin Lake decided to look into her late father James A. Edwards’ mil itary service records, she had no way of knowing the length of time it would take to receive the information. Nor did she have any inclination that the journey would result in her accepting a Congressional Gold Medal in his name.

The story began amid the COVID19 pandemic, as Lake and her sister, Wendy White, discussed their father’s military experience. “He told us stories all the time about what he did and where he went, but he never told us that he was a Monford Point Marine,” Lake says.

The Montford Point Marines were the first African Americans to enlist in the Marine Corps. They served in a segregated military force during World War II and trained at Camp Montford Point, a section of Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C. Most of these soldiers

fought in the Pacific theater, with their largest involvement in combat recorded at Okinawa.

Days, weeks and months passed between requests for official information and answers, Lake remembers. “We weren’t getting anywhere for so long,” she says. “But I told my sister, ‘Daddy’s not going be forgotten. We’re just going to have to dig deeper and harder and find something to show that he served this country.’”

After almost 18 months, Lake and her sister received word from Johnny Young, Jr., the president of the Camp Lejeune chapter of the Montford Point Marine Association, confirming her father’s involvement with the MPM.

An invitation to accept a Congressional Gold Medal in her father’s name soon followed. When Carlos Del Toro, the secretary of the Navy, handed her the medal on Aug. 25 tears streamed down her smiling face.

Xpress sat down with Lake to dis cuss her and her sister’s journey to uncover their father’s military records and the subsequent honor their late father received.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited.

Would you mind sharing with us some of the stories your father told you about his service during World War II?

He told us stories all the time about what he did when he was a Marine. He told us how when he joined it was really basic. He and fellow Montford Point Marines even had to make a couple of bunkers and help build Camp Lejeune. It wasn’t all prepared when they got there. He had a scrapbook he made himself. It was 3 or 4 inches thick. He

had all these pictures of his buddies and mementos of places he traveled. He fought in Saipan, Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

One of the things I remember was this big picture. You could see it was almost a mile long with hills rolling up and down. The hills were lined with these little white crosses everywhere. It was a pretty picture because everything was all in a row — hill after hill after hill like that.

I asked him, “What was this about?” And he told me, “These are all the men who died that fought for this country.”

I said, “That’s a lot.” He said, “There’s more. That hill went on. This was just only one place they had a cemetery. There were many more.”

I cried. I was so thankful that he wasn’t under one of those crosses.

Can you speak more about your journey to uncover your father’s mili tary records?

My sister said, “It’d be nice to find out where Daddy went and what he did. I’ve been reading about these Montford Point Marines. You think he was a part of that?”

So, I said I’d call to see if they’d send the official records to me. The first time I called Camp Lejeune, I left a message and waited a week or two. I never got a call back. I called again. The same thing happened. I was talking with a church member who used to work for the Pentagon. He said I probably need ed some type of introduction. He had some Marine friends and offered to call one of them on my behalf.

About four or five days later, I got a phone call from a Marine. I don’t know where he was from, but he was very old. At this point, living members of the

A DAUGHTER’S QUEST: Rob in Lake poses with her late father James A. Edwards’ Congressio nal Gold Medal, which the former Montford Point Marine was award ed posthumously Aug. 25 for his service during World War II. Photo by LA Bourgeois

Montford Point Marines are in their 90s, and some even trying to hit 100.

Through three of these Marine con tacts, I finally got in touch with Johnny B. Young, [Jr.] at Camp Lejeune. He asked for information, told me he’d con tact me in a couple of weeks. Three weeks later, he called me back and said, “We can’t find anything about your father.” A fire had previously destroyed his files.

Well, my Daddy was not going to be forgotten. I was going to find those records. I called my sister, and we were both crying on the phone. He was a Marine. He fought in Saipan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima. Somebody has to have something!

It took us eight months looking for records, and we were about to give up. There had to be an easier way to do

this. Eventually, I came in touch with someone unassociated with the military who had information, but they said they could get in a lot of trouble for sharing the documents.

“Listen,” I said, “We’ve been search ing for eight months trying to find my father’s military records. Send me any thing, please. Even just one paper. I don’t want him to be a forgotten soldier. No one has any records on him. He fought for you, for me — for everybody. He just can’t go down like this and not be honored.”

I guess I touched a nerve. First thing I got was his honorable discharge and then a paper that confirmed he was in the military, stated how long he was there, where he fought, what his job was in the military and all of that. Then I received this picture of him in his uniform. Oh, I was bawling!

I sent those papers down to Johnny Young, [Jr.] at Camp Lejeune, along with his birth certificate. In about a month, he called me back to tell me my dad was a Montford Point Marine.

What does his Congressional Gold Medal mean to you?

This is a story my father told me when we got older. He was in the field in Saipan. His friend was next to him. They had been friends for maybe a couple of months. They were hiding in these hills, and a bomb went off. It hit his friend. All he could remember was wiping his face. And when he got his eyes cleared there was the blood and guts from his friend. My father fought for the United States. He kept this country safe and kept the war from coming over here. I’m proud of him. He sacrificed a lot. He’s deserving of this medal.

More broadly, what has the award meant to the community, in particular the Black community?

The Black military experience was hard for all Black people. They had to fight for equal rights before they were in the U.S. armed forces, while they were in it and afterward.

For the Black community, it showed that these men considered themselves just as good or better in some circum stances because they were called upon to get the other Marines out of trouble. They were that good. The Montford Point Marines made a breakthrough for Blacks to fight just like the Red Tails, the Tuskegee Airmen [both African American fighter pilot squadrons during World War II], and the Buffalo Soldiers [African American cavalry soldiers serv ing after the Civil War].

In the end, they made a way for others to come in behind them and do good things. It’s a history that shouldn’t be forgotten. All these men took that step. And it’s not just Black history, it’s everybody’s history.

‘O Cynthia!’

Fans and scholars of Thomas Wolfe’s writing are familiar with his mother, Julia Elizabeth Wolfe

by Thomas Calder | tcalder@mountainx.com

The literal and fictional death of a milliner, 1884

In his 1929 novel, Look Homeward, Angel, the author fictionalized his life growing up in her Asheville boarding home, pulling from her personality and image as inspiration for the char acter of Eliza Gant.

Within the book, there are dozens of other characters similarly inspired by real life people from the author’s youth, as well as his family’s past. Among them is the character Cynthia Gant, based on Cynthia Hill Wolfe.

Both in life and in fiction, Cynthia is a tragic figure — dying prematurely after a bout with tuberculosis. In the novel, she is briefly noted as the first wife of William Oliver “W.O” Gant — the fictionalized version of Thomas Wolfe’s real father, William Oliver “W.O.” Wolfe.

One of the few scenes that mention Cynthia by name takes place amid the birth of Eugene Gant — the book’s main character and Thomas Wolfe’s fictional stand-in. Drunk and enraged, W.O. pounds on the bedroom door where Eliza is giving birth. Forbidden entry, the story continues:

“‘Cynthia! Cynthia!’ he howled suddenly, invoking the memory of his first wife, the gaunt tubercular spinstress whose life, it was said, his conduct had done nothing to prolong, but whom he was fond of supplicating now, realizing the hurt, the anger he caused to Eliza by doing so. ‘Cynthia! O Cynthia!

Look down upon me in my hour of need! Give me succour! Give me aid! Protect me against this fiend out of Hell!’”

Regardless of Cynthia Gant’s minor role within the book, Cynthia Wolfe’s significance to 20th-century American literature should not be overlooked. Had she and W.O. not met and mar ried in Raleigh on March 25, 1879, and had her illness not spurred them to relocate to Asheville — known at the time for its favorable climate, which many believed was beneficial to those with upper respiratory conditions — there’s a good chance Thomas Wolfe would have never been born.

And of course, without Thomas, there’s no Look Homeward, Angel pub lished in 1929, which means there’s no subsequent article published in Xpress’ 2022 Women in Business issue about Cynthia’s contribution to American literature! (I don’t know about you all, but I’m suddenly in the mood to watch Back to the Future.)

LATEST FASHION: Though her time in Asheville was brief, Cynthia Hill Wolfe helped bring in the latest fashion to city residents from 1880-84. Tragically, she died Feb. 21, 1884, from tuberculosis. She would have been about 41 years old. Photo courtesy of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial

Speaking of Women in Business!

Despite her failing health, Cynthia owned and operated the Millinery and Notion Store during the final years of her life in Asheville. Similar to her references in Look Homeward, Angel, her business’s mention in the local paper was scarce. But what did run in print offers glimpses into her life and how she seemed to keep the business going even as her health continued to decline.

The first known notification about the shop ran on March 4, 1880, in the town’s then-local paper, North Carolina Citizen. The brief entry informed readers that “Mrs. W.O. Wolfe starts North next week to obtain a new stock of millinery, fancy goods, dress trimmings and notions.”

By summer, the shop’s inven tory appeared to have expanded, based on a notification published in the paper’s June 23 edition. In it, Cynthia describes her latest stock, which included “Shade Hats, most

novel styles; also a full line of Dress Buttons and Trimming Silks, and a full line of Notions, Handkerchiefs, collars and cuff, Ties, Roushings, Hair Ornaments, Zephrys, Velvets, Embroidery, Silk, Hamburg Edings, and many other goods too numerous to mention.”

Over the next three years, the entre preneur relocated her business at least two times, ultimately concluding oper ations inside her and W.O.’s home.

Sadly, there is no known obituary for Cynthia Wolfe. The only notifi cation appears to have run in the March 12, 1884, edition of the Raleigh Register. Under the headline “Died” and accompanied by 20-plus other names, the single line reads, “In Asheville, on the night of the 21st inst., after a long and painful illness of consumption, Mrs. W.O. Wolfe.”

Editor’s note: Peculiarities of spell ing and punctuation are preserved from the original documents. X

please

questions

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WELLNESS

Therapeutic Recre ation: Wednesday Morning Movement

A variety of physical activities such as active games, aerobics and dancing. Open to individuals ages 17+ with disabilities. Con tact the Therapeutic Recreation Program at (828)232-4529 for additional information.

WE (10/12, 19), 10am, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave

Front Range Five+ Miler

A 5.75 mile race for beginners or seasoned runners, this course hits classic Pisgah classic such as Black Mountain and Syca more Cove, winding through rhododendron thickets, over bridges, and alongside rushing creeks.

SU (10/16), 10am, $35, Pisgah Ranger District Office, 1600 Pisgah Hwy, Brevard

Zumba Gold for Adults 50+

This free class helps work on mobility while moving to the beat to burn off calories. Every Wednesday and Friday.

WE (10/12, 19), FR (10/14), 11am, Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center, 121 Shiloh Rd

Men's Cancer Support Group

Safely meet in a large conference room and stay socially distant while wearing masks. RSVP to Will at (412)913-0272 or acwein123@gmail.com. WE (10/19), 6pm, Woodfin YMCA, 40 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 101

Dementia Partners Support Group AVL Providing a social setting for individuals to meet and discuss coping techniques, share experiences, and present resource speakers from a variety of agencies.

TH (10/20), 6pm, Scenic View Terrace Clubhouse, 60 Fallen Spruce Dr ART

We Will Not be Silenced : Standing for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

A series of photo graphs and sculptures that bring voice to the international Missing and Murdered Indige nous Women (MMIW) movement through the lens of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Com anche Nation, Lumbee, and other Native American artists. Open Tuesday through Friday, 10am. WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

ORAL HISTORY: The Native American Storytelling Festival will be held at Jubilee! on Sunday, Oct. 16, at 1:30 p.m. The event will feature nomadic storyteller Papa Joe, pictured, as well as Cherokee wisdom keeper and ceremonialist Yona French Hawk and local tale teller David Sharpe, who studied for years with Anishinaabe elders. Photo courtesy of Jubilee!

Cultivating Collec tions : Glass

In this year’s exhibition, student researchers tell the stories of the Muse um’s glass collection, which includes a range of artists who have made significant contributions to the Studio Glass Movement in Western North Carolina. Open Tuesday through Fri day, 10am. Reception Oct. 13, 5pm. WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

The Way I'm Wired: Artist Reflections on Neurodiversity

This exhibition invites artists to share their lived experiences with neurodiversity and how these experiences have impacted their work as an artist.

Open Tuesday through Friday, 10am.

WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

When Was the Last Time You Saw a Miracle? Prints by Corita Kent

Shaped by her expe riences as an artist, teacher, and Catholic nun, Corita Kent

used her art to bring people together and ignite social change. Open Tuesday through Friday, 10am. WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

Inspiration

Features jewelry, fiber, clay and wood from six Southern Highland Craft Guild members. Open daily 10am. Folk Art Center, MP 382, Blue Ridge Parkway

Mountain Legacies : Exploring Appalachian Culture

This exhibit shows how early settlers made their way into the Appalachian Mountains and made them their home, dispelling the myth of an uncultured people and reveal lives rich with customs and traditions, including herbal medicines, handicrafts, and bluegrass music. Open Thursday through Saturday, 12pm. Transylvania Heritage Museum, 189 W Main St, Brevard

A Walk in the Woods

Five guest artists approach the Carolina woodlands through their personal perspectives, revealing Appalachia through a fresh lens, inspired by fall. Open daily 10am, through Oct. 30. Marquee Asheville, 36

Augmented Reality and Oil Painting Exhibition: Big, Bold, and Colorfu l

Contemporary artist Jaime Byrd will be fea tured for the months of October and November, exhibiting her larger scale works.

Open daily 10am. Through Nov. 30. Trackside Studios, 375 Depot St

Our Ecology, Shifting Our Gaze Inward

Atlanta born and raised artist Bevelyn Afor Ukah’s art reflects a collaboration of perspectives on race, sexuality and body image. Through Oct. 30, with a reception and artist's talk on Oct. 22 from 7–9pm.

Open daily 10am, 12pm on Sunday.

Pink Dog Creative Gallery, 348 Depot St Nature’s Gems featuring artist Judy Rentner

The oil painter's colorful works will be on display through Oct. 31. Gallery open daily 11am.

Asheville Gallery of Art, 82 Patton Ave

Rebel/Re-Belle :

Exploring Gender, Agency, and Identity Combines works, primarily created by women, from two significant collections of contemporary art to explore how artists have innovated, influ enced, interrogated,

and inspired visual culture in the past 100 years. Through Jan. 16, 2023. Open 11am, closed Tuesdays.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

ᏔᎷᏣ The Basket

A collaborative public art installation and parklet that centers indigenous voices in the midst of downtown. The day will include interactive family-friendly activities inside and outside of the Center for Craft, live craft demonstrations by cultural specialists from the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, live music, a Cherokee fry bread pop up and more. See p40

SA (10/15), 1pm, Center for Craft, 67 Broadway

Here and Now Opening Reception

A group exhibition featuring new works by a diverse range of national and international artists, with styles raning from representational to abstract; they draw inspirations from various areas such as history, memories, urban life, and nature.

SA (10/15), 5pm, Citron Gallery, 60 Biltmore Ave

NCGC Pumpkin Patch Glassblowers will be filling D Space gallery with glass pumpkins in an array of colors, styles and sizes. Purchases support the nonprofit glass center. Open 10am, closed Tuesday. Through Oct. 31.

North Carolina Glass Center, 140 Roberts St, Ste B

Natural Collector | Gifts of Fleur S. Bresler

Features around 15 artworks from the col lection, which include important examples of modern and con temporary American craft including wood and fiber art, as well as glass and ceramics. Open 11am, closed Tuesday.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

COMMUNITY MUSIC

Latin Cello, Part 2

Cellist Diego Carneiro from Ecuador returns for another program of works for cello and piano by some lesser known Latin-American composers.

SA (10/15), 2pm, White Horse Black Mountain, 105 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain Dance Night in Fines Creek

Clog, line dance, two-step, swing and mountain dance to traditional country and rock group Running

Wolfe and the Ren egades. With a cake walk and 50/50 raffle. Hot dogs and other snacks and beverages available for purchase.

SA (10/15), 6pm, Fines Creek Commu nity Center, 190 Fines Creek Rd, Clyde

Of Mist and Stone: A Concert with John Two-Hawks

Mystical flute music connecting the ancient cultures of the Celts and indigenous people of Turtle Island.

SA (10/15), 7pm, $25, UR Light Center, 2196 NC-9, Black Mountain

Sufi Dances of Universal Peace

An evening of simple melody and move ment. No experience needed.

SA (10/15), 7:30pm, Haw Creek Commons, 315 Old Haw Creek Rd

Family Folk Dance

A leader will teach each dance such as contra, squares, cir cles, play-party games, and other formations, with a live band. All ages are welcome, no experience necessary. Children must be accompanied by an adult.

SU (10/16), 3pm, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd

Julie Fowlis

Best recognized as the singer behind the soundtrack of Disney Pixar’s Brave , the sing er is a standard-bearer for Gaelic music and culture.

WE (10/19), 7pm, Diana Wortham The atre, 18 Biltmore Ave

LITERARY

Wisdom Keeper : My Extraordinary Journey to Unlock the Sacred Within

A book reading and discussion with the author, Asheville resident Chloe Kemp. Followed by a questions and answer session.

WE (10/12), 8:30pm, Sovereign Kava, 268 Biltmore Ave

Marijo Moore: 11 Conjured Stories

The author will read from her new book.

See p38

SA (10/15), 6:30pm, Asheville Raven & Crone, 555 Merrimon Ave, Ste 100

Dark City Poets Soci ety: Poetry Night Monthly event. Cold weather/rain location is BAD Craft, 128 Cherry St, Black Mountain.

TU (10/18), 6pm, The Low Down, 204 Black Mountain Ave, Black Mountain

Poetry Reading: Jeffery Beam Reminiscent of Eastern Bhakti love poetry, and Western Troubadour and

Green Man traditions, Verdant recounts a mid-life passage within a shadowed natural landscape of intense physical and spiritual longing.

TH (10/20), 7pm, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Cen ter, 120 College St

UNCA Visiting Writers Series: An Evening with Poet torrin a. greathouse Featuring transgender punk poet and essayist torrin a. greathouse for an evening of poetry.

TH (10/20), 7pm, UNC Asheville, 1 University Heights

THEATER & FILM

The Frankenstein Rubrics

Asheville playwright David Hopes puts a unique spin on Shel ley’s iconic monster. Performances through Oct. 22, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 4:00pm.

$25, The Magnetic Theatre, 375 Depot St

The Haunting of Hill House

Based on the Shirley Jackson novel, a chilling and mystifying study in mounting terror in desolate and deserted Hill House. Fridays and Saturdays 7:30pm and Sundays 3pm. See p40 $18-25, Hendersonville Theatre, 229 S Washington St, Hendersonville

The Roommate

A comedy from Jen Silverman, about what it takes to re-route your life – and what happens when the wheels come off. Var ious dates and times through Oct. 30. NC Stage Co., 15 Stage Ln

A Wrinkle in Time

Based on the Newbery Medal-winning novel of the same name, this performance is a fantasy drama about

the bonds of family and the power of love through time and space. This Tanglewood Youth Production Class cul minating performance features a youth cast of ages 11-13 years.

SA (10/15), 2:30pm, SU (10/16) , 6:30pm, Asheville Community Theatre, 35 E Walnut S

Robert Dubac’s The Book of Moron

Having been brainwashed by a culture that worships the Kardashians over character, delusion over truth and selfies over self-effacement, Robert Dubac finds himself stuck in a coma of stupidity. Contains adult content.

SA (10/15), 3pm & 8pm, $38, Diana Wortham Theatre, 18 Biltmore Ave Assassins

This multiple Tony Award-winning theatrical production explores the lives of nine men and women who either killed (or tried to kill) one of the presidents of the United States. Also Sunday at 2pm.

FR (10/14) , SA (10/15), 7:30pm, SU (10/16) , 2pm, Hart Theatre, 250 Pigeon St, Waynesville Hamlet Montford Park Players presents Shakespeare's classic revenge tale.

FR (10/14), SA (10/15), SU (10/16), 7:30pm, Hazel Robin son Amphitheatre, 92 Gay St

Playing the Skyline and Spell Songs (Student Series)

Join Julie Fowlis, best known as the vocalist behind the theme song “Touch the Sky” in Disney Pixar’s Brave , for a lecture, musical demonstration, and Q&A, celebrating the rich cultural traditions of Gaelic Scotland. Recommended for Grades 6-12.

WE (10/19), 10am, $12, Diana Wortham Theatre, 18 Biltmore Ave

Foundy Street Flashback Film Series: Little Shop of Horrors Join Foundy Street, Wedge Brewing, and Grail Moviehouse for an outdoor screening of Little Shop of Horrors, with costume contests, performances by Drag Queen Ganymede, tunes by DJ Lil Meow Meow, and exclusive limited seating from Sunnyside Trading Company - benefitting Cat Fly Film Festival.

TH (10/20), 6pm, The Wedge at Foundation, 5 Foundy St

MEETINGS & PROGRAMS

October Star Gaze

With a weather backup of Oct. 15. This event is free and open to everyone - registration is not necessary to attend. Visit avl.mx/6ly FR (10/14), 5pm, Grassland Mountain Observatory, 2890 Grassland Parkway, Marshall

Turning MMIW Awareness into Action

Join Maggie Jackson, Sheyahshe Littledave, and Ahli-sha “Osh” Stephens, enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and hosts of We Are Resil ient: A MMIW True Crime Podcast , for a discussion on how to transform awareness of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement into action.

FR (10/14), 5pm, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 589 Tsali Blvd, Cherokee Henderson County School Employees Self Defense Workshops

Learn how to defend yourself if confronted at this coed training workshop. Wear work out clothing, bring a water bottle, school ID

and a notepad.

FR (10/14), 5:30pm, free, Hendokickboxing & Krav Maga, 245 N King St, Hendersonville

Wolf Howl for Kids

Spend your evening learning about the red and gray wolves of North America at this new program that includes educational crafts, games, and an opportunity to meet a live animal, followed by a trek to the onsite wolf habitats to experience a howling session. Recommend ed for ages 12 and under. Registration required.

FR (10/14), 6pm, WNC Nature Center, 75 Gashes Creek Rd

Family Discovery Day

Explore the 25-acre forest, ninja course, pine play, chicken field, and more.

SA (10/15), 10am, Asheville Farmstead School, 218 Morgan Cove Rd, Candler Forest Landowner Workshop

Hear from EcoForest ers, Madison County Extension, North Carolina Forest Ser vice, Mountain Valleys RC&D, and NRCS about opportunities to steward your forest. Lunch provided, regis tration required.

SA (10/15), 10am, free, A-B Tech Madison Auditorium, Marshall

Wolf Howl

Spend your evening learning about the red and gray wolves of North America. This adult focused program starts with an indoor presentation, followed by a trek outdoors to the wolf habitats. 14+

SA (10/15), 6pm, WNC Nature Center, 75 Gashes Creek Rd

Breed Meetup: Huskies & Northern Breeds

All dogs welcome, dogs six months or older must show poof of vaccinations and be spayed/neutered. 21+

for humans, no dog necessary.

SU (10/16), 11am, Wagbar, 320 Merrimon Ave, Weaverville

The Bloody Summer of Independence:

The Cherokee War of 1776

In this seminar, participants will hear about the conflict that broke out between the Cherokee peoples being forced off their ancestral lands and white settlers after the American Revolution.

MO (10/17), 6pm, Free-$5, Black Moun tain Public Library, 105 N Dougherty St, Black Mountain

WNCHA History Hour:

The Lost North Fork Community

This program focuses on the history of cultural impacts of submerged towns, using the North Fork community as a case study.

MO (10/17), 6pm, avl.mx/prww

Bingo Night Doors open 4:30pm. Up to $2500 in prizes, weekly.

TU (10/18), 7pm, $25, American Legion Post 70, 103 Reddick Rd

Boy Scout Troop 91 Fall Kick Off

For boys ages 11-18, free to attend first two meetings. Visit: avl.mx/bxq

TU (10/18), 7pm, St. Pauls United Methodist Church, 223 Hillside St

Cozy Up for Fall Retreat

Two hours of relaxation time to slow down and reset, as well as experience per sonal breakthroughs.

WE (10/19), 7pm, $20, avl.mx/c2o

Third Thirsty Thurs day: WCC Social Monthly meeting for the subchapter of the International Coaching Federation, Charlotte.

TH (10/20), 4:30pm, Highland Brewing Co., 12 Old Charlotte Hwy

LOCAL MARKETS

Leicester Farmers Market

Leicester's only community-led farmers market with local produce, cheese, meats and crafts.

WE (10/12, 19), 3pm, Leicester Community Center, 2979 New Leicester Hwy, Leicester

River Arts District (RAD) Farmers Market

Located on the river with live music and over 30 local vendors.

Safely accessible via the greenway, plus ample parking.

WE (10/12, 19), 3pm, Smoky Park Supper Club, 350 Riverside Dr

Weaverville Tailgate Market

Local foodstuffs, alongside a small lineup of craft and artisan vendors.

WE (10/12, 19), 3pm, 60 Lake Shore Dr Weaverville

Staples Artisan Market

Small and homegrown market.

WE (10/12, 19), 11am, Staples Artisan Market, 65 Merrimon Ave

Etowah Lions Club Farmers Market

Fresh produce, meat, sweets, breads, arts, and more, through October 26.

WE (10/12, 19), 3pm, 447 Etowah School Rd, Hendersonville

Enka-Candler Tailgate Market

Fresh local produce and heritage crafts. Weekly.

TH (10/13, 20), 3pm, A-B Tech Small Business Center, 1465 Sand Hill Rd, Candler

Flat Rock Tailgate Market

A diverse group of local produce farmers, jam and jelly makers, bread bakers, wild crafters, and merry makers.

TH (10/13, 20), 3pm, Pinecrest ARP Church, 1790 Greenville Hwy, Flat Rock

East Asheville Tailgate Market

Local goods, every Friday.

FR (10/14), 3pm, 954 Tunnel Rd

Craft Bazaar & Rummage Sale Featuring knitted and crocheted items; holiday items for Hal loween, Thanksgiving and Christmas; books, and bake sale. Café will be available from 8am to 11am, serving homemade cinnamon buns, and from 11:30am to 1:30pm serving sloppy joes.

SA (10/15), 8am, St Barnabas Church, 109 Crescent Hill Rd, Arden

Hendersonville Farmers Market

Produce, meat, eggs, baked goods, coffee, crafts and more from

30+ local vendors.

With live music, kids' activities and cooking demos weekly.

SA (10/15), 8am, 650 Maple St, Hendersonville

Mills River Farmers Market

A producer-only mar ket, selling products raised or produced within 50 miles of the market. With local musicians, a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs, and high-quality crafts.

SA (10/15), 8am, Mills River Elementary School, 94 School house Rd, Mills River

North Asheville Tailgate Market

The oldest Saturday morning market in WNC. Over 60 rotating vendors.

SA (10/15), 8am, 3300 University Heights

Asheville City Market

Over 50 vendors and local food products, including fresh pro duce, meat, cheese, bread, pastries, and more.

SA (10/15), 9am, 52 N Market St

Black Mountain Tailgate Market

Seasonal community market event fea turing organic and sustainably grown

produce, plants, cut flowers, herbs, locally raised meats, seafood, breads, pastries, cheeses, eggs and local arts and handcrafted items.

SA (10/15), 9am, 130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Junk-O-Rama Saturday

Vintage antiques market, every Saturday through Oct. SA (10/15), 11am, Fleetwood's, 496 Haywood Rd

Jackson Arts Market

Makers & Music Festival

With live, local music on Saturdays and an open mic on Sundays.

SA & SU (10/15 & 16), 12pm, Downtown Sylva

Makers Market

Each month will feature vendors and artisans selling housewares, vintage clothing, original art, handmade crafts, fair trade imports and more.

SA (10/15), 12pm, Atelier Maison & Co., 121 Sweeten Creek Rd Sun & Moon Makers Market

A monthly indoor/out door market featuring a rotating lineup of local makers of hand

made leather goods, jewelry, blown glass, vintage treasures and candles. Half of the vendor fees go directly to Helpmate. Rain or shine, dog friendly.

SA (10/15), 1pm, pl ē b urban winery, 289 Lyman St

West Asheville Tailgate Market

Over 40 local vendors, every Tuesday.

TU (10/18), 3:30pm, 718 Haywood Rd

FESTIVALS & SPECIAL EVENTS

MountainTrue's 40th Anniversary Celebration

The 1982 throw back-themed gathering will include heavy hors d'oeuvres provided by Chef Steven Moore of The Broke Stove catering, as well as an online auction to raise funds for MountainTrue’s work.

Registration required.

WE (10/12), 5:30pm, Salvage Station, 468 Riverside Dr

Blueprint Breakfast for Dinner

Join Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity and some of Asheville’s culinary best for an evening of

creative cuisine and craft beverages in support of one of our region’s most pressing issues– housing.

TH (10/13), 5:30pm, Rabbit Rabbit, 75 Coxe Ave

75th Annual Fall Edi tion Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands Filling both the concourse and arena levels of the venue, makers exhibit a variety of craft ranging from contemporary to traditional in works of clay, wood, metal, glass, fiber, natural materials, paper, leather, mixed media, and jewelry. See p40

SA & SU (10/15 & 16), 10am, Free-$12, Harrah's Cherokee Center, 87 Haywood St

Apple Harvest Festival

Over 100 craft vendors and 15 food trucks on site.

SA (10/15), 10am, Downtown Waynesville Fall Festivities Donation-based pony rides, hay rides, local apples, fresh pressed cider, sould silo and a pig viewing area. All donations go toward Project HNG nonprofit.

SA (10/15), 10am, Hickory Nut Gap Farm, 57 Sugar Hollow Rd, Fairview

Kid Hop Hooray! & Appalachian Wild "Meet the Animals" Music, break dancing to family-friendly tunes from DJ Oso Rey, a local face painter, educational ambassa dor animals you can meet, a raffle, and educational activities.

SA (10/15), 10:30am, Rabbit Rabbit, 75 Coxe Ave

A21 Walk For Free dom Asheville

A day of global aware ness and local action in the fight against human trafficking, join thousands of abolition ists who will hit the streets in hundreds of cities across the globe to walk in a single file line.

SA (10/15), 11am, Pack Square Park

Best Little Beer Town Oktoberfest

Featuring 12-ounce pours of seven styles of German beer, pop up tents with local vendors, hammerschla gen, stein hoisting, axe throwing, costume contest, with prizes provided by Sarah’s Sunshine Pottery. Oompah Band at Black Mountain Kitchen + Ale House, 3-5:30pm. SA (10/15), 12pm, Downtown Black Mountain

Farm Fun Day Games and crafts for children, farm animals available for petting, and wagon rides for guests of all ages. The historic farmhouse will be open for self-guid ed tours, and the Heritage Weavers and Fiber Artists as well as Caregivers of Mother Earth will be on site to lead activities and talk about their organizations. Popcorn and drinks available for purchase.

SA (10/15), 1pm, $20, Historic Johnson Farm, 3346 Haywood Rd, Hendersonville

Our Careful Tending

A roaming perfor mance where three persons in black robes will hold large paper masks with ancient peaceful faces and read poetic words of healing. As part of the city's Art in the Heart, Pack Square Plaza Visioning Project. See p34-35

SA (10/15), 5pm, Pack Square Park

Annual Eliada Fall Festival and Corn Maze

One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to benefit the children, youth and families served at Eliada.

SU (10/16), 10am, Eliada, 2 Compton Dr Native Amerian Storytelling Festival Yona FrenchHawk, PapaJoe, David Sharpe and friends will be sharing stories at this family friendly event with ticket sales to benefit Jubilee! and Cherokee elders.

SU (10/16), 1:30pm, $10-15, Jubilee!, 46 Wall St

LEAF: Solid Gold 50th Fall Festival

Celebrating 27 years of connecting cultures and creating communi ty through world music and arts. See p38 TH (10/20) - SU (10/23), Lake Eden, Black Mountain

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Arts AVL Town Hall: City Candidates

Socialize with other arts advocates and find out where Ashe ville Mayor and City Council candidates stand on local arts issues. Moderated by Arts Coalition chairs Jessica Tomasin and Reggie Tidwell. WE (10/12), 5pm, Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave

Get-Out-The-Vote

Concert

Learn about the candidates and issues, featuring two bands: The Mountain Moun tain Mountain Boys and Pierce Edens.

TH (10/13), 5:30pm, Main Street Cafe

Courtyard, 18 N Main St, Marshall

BENEFITS & VOLUNTEERING

Fairview Road Resilience Garden

Work Day

Volunteers are needed at the garden every Wednesday. All ages and skill levels are welcome to harvest, weed, plant, and build community.

WE (10/12), 5:30pm, Fairview Resilience Garden, 461 Fairview Rd

"Your Dog Here" Fundraiser

For a donation of $30 to Asheville Humane Society, you can guarantee your pup’s spot on a DSSOLVR beer label and support your local animals.

FR (10/14), 5pm, Down Dog, 51 Sweet en Creek Rd

Annual Fall Celebra tion Event

Vegan food plus beverages including beer and wine, as well as over 80 animals to meet. With live music and a silent auction.

SU (10/16), 1pm, $25, Animal Haven of Asheville, 65 Lower Grassy Branch Rd

Stop the Pain

Concert: Raising Awareness of Suicide & Bullying

With four bands, including country band Lonestar's former lead singer Richie McDonald, who will headline. One hundred percent of the money raised goes to help families who have lost loved ones to suicide.

See p38&40

SU (10/16), 2pm, Asheville Outlets, 800 Brevard Rd

HALLOWEEN EVENTS

Beetlejuice : Spooky Movie Night Outdoors. Chairs welcome. Food truck onsite.

FR (10/14), 6pm, Rabbit Rabbit, 75 Coxe Ave

The 10th Annual Haunted Trail at The Adventure Center of Asheville

This event is ideal for Halloween lovers of all ages, with 3-12 being the suggested age range. An outdoor theatrical and immersive expe rience. Ticket sales to benefit MANNA Food Bank. Various dates and times through Oct. $18, Adventure Center of Asheville, 85 Expo Dr

Scary Stories for Halloween Presented by local storytellers

Jill Tottman, Debbie Gurriere, Lulu Edmonds, and Sherry Lovett. Stories will be suitable for children 10 and over. Present ed by the Weaverville Center for Creative and Healthy Living at the Weaverville Community Center.

FR (10/14), 7pm, Lake Louise Community Center, Weaverville

Kid's Karaoke & Costume Party

With prizes and treats - "fur babies" included.

SA (10/15), 3pm, The Odd, 1045 Haywood Rd

Hocus Pocus : Spooky Movie Night Outdoors. Chairs welcome. Food truck onsite.

TH (10/20), 6pm, Rabbit Rabbit, 75 Coxe Ave

Practice what you preach

Entrepreneurs bring wellness opportunities to Asheville area

BY LINDA RAY

lindarayaccess@gmail.com

Asheville may never have won an official designation as “city where you’re most likely to encounter someone wearing hiking boots in a bar.” Residents and tourists alike, however, know that this is a place where yoga pants, muddy Tevas and a reusable water bottle are practical ly the local uniform.

One demographic that’s embrac ing this health- and wellness-con scious scene are local businesswom en. They are joining and growing the area’s wellness industry in all its many facets: hiking, strength train ing, yoga, forest bathing and even reading tarot. “Right now is such a rich time — a new, wonderful time — to own a wellness company,” says Nicole Will, owner of Asheville Wellness Retreats & Tour. “After all the upheaval from the past cou ple years, people are looking for meaning and connection and healthy living options.” Through her busi ness, Will loves to provide visitors who don’t want to “only do the nor mal touristy things” with plenty of cool options.

Xpress spoke with several women who have started wellness business

es in recent years about finding their way to these careers and riding out the bumps during COVID-19.

MEANT TO BE

Asheville’s wellness entrepre neurs hail from many different back

grounds and previous careers. Nadja Simon got the encouragement she needed to change careers while working out at the YMCA of Western North Carolina. “I was making a meager living as a glass blower in Asheville,” recalls Simon, who has a master’s degree in fine arts. “The dean of arts and sciences at A-B Tech was working out beside me and told me, ‘You’re a beast.’ I took it as a compliment and a sign.”

Simon enrolled at A-B Tech, earn ing an associate degree in health and fitness science in 2017 and certifica tion as a personal trainer through the American Council on Exercise. The YMCA then hired her to teach TRX (suspension weight training) and Pilates. “I know now that this is the swimming pool I was meant to be swimming in,” says Simon. She now owns the personal training studio Allon Health and Wellness in Woodfin.

Kim Drye took a roundabout path to ownership of West Asheville Yoga. In 2007, she literally fell off a horse and began to explore the mind/body connection while heal ing. Drye experimented with psy chedelics in 2008 while a student at UNC Asheville but “then I wanted to explore different states of con sciousness without drugs and fell in love with yoga and meditation,” she explains. After working at West

Asheville Yoga for years and tempo rarily leaving to start a family, she returned and took over the business in May.

After working as a senior vice president for behavioral health com panies, Sue Crowell started feel ing job-related stress take a toll on her health. She talked to her sister Teresa Olster, a registered nurse with her own set of nonstop stress ors, about finding a retreat. Their vision was to relax and rediscover healthy practices.

“After always being on the road helping other people start busi nesses, I thought it was my time,” Crowell says. “I told my sister that I just needed her retirement money, and we could then open our own retreat.” From that conversation, the sisters founded Skyterra Wellness in 2016 in Pisgah Forest. A one-week retreat provides participants with opportunities for joyful movement, massage and spa services, calm ing breathing techniques, mindful eating and meditation. Guests can unplug while relaxing in a stressfree environment.

Will from Asheville Wellness Retreats & Tours was more purpose ful in her journey toward self-em ployment. After graduation in 2003, she worked on a fly-fishing ranch in Colorado “just to get the restlessness out of my system,” she says. She then came to Asheville to work for a wil derness therapy program. Working with at-risk adolescents brought her to some realizations about her own trauma and how the outdoors and a wellness focus made her feel freer and more open.

With still too much restlessness inside, Will moved to Ecuador where she organized custom itineraries for travelers. In 2016, she organized a trip in the Galapagos for a yoga instructor from Asheville. “I realized after meeting her that I was look ing outside of myself for meaning,” Will says. “I knew in my bones that my restless period was over. So, I bought a house in Asheville and started ‘adulting.’”

After organizing walking tours around town and yoga hikes, Will opened Asheville Wellness Retreats & Tours with a friend. She now owns the company as a ‘solopreneur.’

STRONG IS BEAUTIFUL: Nadja Simon used to make her living as a glass blower in Asheville. After going back to school, she is now a personal trainer based out of a fitness studio in Woodfin. Photo by Linda Ray

PIVOTING AND REGROUPING

The COVID-19 pandemic brought some difficulties to the well ness industry given that so many activities take place around other people. But with these difficulties came ingenuity.

The beginning of the pandem ic led Will to panic after spending days processing refunds for goat yoga and forest bathing. During this period, she met a tarot card reader and hired that person to offer virtual tarot card readings. Her creative pivot “saved the company,” Will says.

Simon worked at the YMCA when COVID-19 caused the facility to send their instructors home without pay. She found that she missed her cli ents almost as much as she missed the steady income, explaining, “I did some Zoom [personal] training, but it’s so much more effective when I can see people in person to pick up body signals of what they need.”

But she found an opportunity there. “This was my time to pivot,” Simon says. She visited clients in their driveways and in parks during summer 2020. When restrictions began to loosen up, she rented space from Phil Roth, a physical therapist at Bodylogic Integrative Physical Therapy in Woodfin to do her per sonal strength training., She used savings and stimulus money to buy

equipment and open the studio she now rents in Woodfin.

In addition to her own personal training with clients, Simon rents space to two other personal train ers, a massage therapist and a yoga instructor.

Drye had a baby during the COVID-19 pandemic and got a remote job until she could return to teaching yoga in the studio. She added goat yoga classes and guided yoga hikes to provide more out door services.

Meanwhile, at Skyterra, Crowell and Olster temporarily shut down

Know your values

Learn as much as you possibly can about your craft, and when you learn something new that’s in conflict with an old practice, be willing to change. It’s these ongo ing adaptations that will keep you nimble and ready when the next opportunity shows up.

and “regrouped,” Crowell says. “We remodeled and built an indoor swim ming pool, which just opened in September 2022.”

KEEPING ON, GOING STRONG

After a bumpy few years during the pandemic, Crowell says she and Olster, who serves as Skyterra’s gen eral manager, are hitting their stride. “The world is in need of wellness,” Crowell says. She welcomes 30 new guests every week at their retreat center. Nearly half their business comes from visitors who want to lose weight in the Lose Smart program offered at Skyterra — a four-week program consisting of education, counseling and a plan to follow at home to keep excess weight off.

Will recently hired two full-time employees to handle bookings for her wellness tour company. She maintained her bookings numbers in 2020, but grew 355% in 2021 and has seen a 40% increase to date in 2022.

In Woodfin, Simon says she’s searching for a bigger place as her business grows. “I want to have more open space to offer classes,” she says. And in West Asheville, Drye says she’d like to wait to move

until she’s “busting at the seams. But I’m afraid we may be ready for that now.”

TRENDS ARE TRACKING

Often in the forefront of wellness trends, Asheville is a great place to carry out her vision to embrace community, says Drye. She recently started a class called Flow of Life for pre- and postnatal women. And at West Asheville Yoga, she is grateful to thrive while maintaining her com mitment to community.

Simon sees an increased interest in strength training as older adults receive revealing results from bone density tests. In addition to wordof-mouth, she gets a lot of her refer rals from physical therapists who encourage patients to do regular strength training so they can con tinue hiking and enjoying popular physical activities like pickleball.

At Skyterra, Crowell believes that the most important trend in well ness today is the understanding that with proper nutrition and consistent exercise, a person can be healthy at any size or shape. She says, “Having healthy lifestyle options is a trend that will last.”

ERIN MCGRADY

Co-founder of Authentic Asheville, a camper van blog that focuses on travel in Western North Carolina, which she runs with her wife, Caroline Whatley, left.

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

McGrady: Know your values and do your best to carry them out in the ways that you interact with your customers, your community and within your own team.

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

As a woman, what unique chal lenges have you experienced with in your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

There aren’t a ton of women who offer both photo and video services, but we refuse to let that lack of representation hold us back. We help businesses with their brand ed storytelling in the outdoor gear space as well as the food and bev erage space. While we don’t see a whole lot of other people like us — we’re a queer, interracial woman-owned business — we have the mindset that together we can do just about anything. Creativity, integrity, hard work and grit know no gender.

Dao Yin Sinew Releases - October 28-30

Learn sinew release techniques to relieve muscle tension and pain. Dao Yin & Qi Gong exercises help free up muscles, tendons, and ligaments to realign the skeletal system and bring new dimension to the treatment of pain conditions. This course is for bodyworkers, massage therapists, acupuncture

– anyone looking for acute or chronic pain relief.

I FEEL GOOD: Nicole Will, owner of Asheville Wellness Retreats & Tours, has a knack for planning fun excur sions like forest bathing or goat yoga classes. Photo by Linda Ray

The juggle is real

BY KAY WEST

Buchi founders Jeannine Buscher and Sarah Schomber met in 2008. At the time, both women had their children enrolled in the same home school cooperative. One day, Buscher explains, “The teacher came to my house before school was starting, and I offered her a glass of kombucha I had been brewing. Later, when she went to Sarah’s house for a visit, Sarah also offered her a glass of kombucha she was brewing. The beverage was so unusual at the time that the teacher told Sarah, ‘You have to meet this other mom.’”

A year later, Buchi was born. While the company’s origin story is unique, its elements of moth erhood and happenstance played key factors in the establishment of two other locally owned, female-led

nonalcoholic beverage companies as well — Shanti Elixirs and Sarilla.

And those elements, particularly motherhood, continue to influence and inform how these three busi nesses operate. Because when it comes to balancing work and fami ly, women entrepreneurs are clear: The juggle is real.

PRODUCTS WITH A PURPOSE

Rather than a serial entrepre neur, Sara Stender Delaney describes herself as a social entre preneur. “I have never been driven by financials,” she says. “I always saw my businesses as mission driv en and impactful and my products as purpose first.”

Though established in 2017, Sarilla’s origin dates to 2007, when Delaney lived in Rwanda, where she worked with genocide survi vors. During that period, she also met and began helping Rwandan tea farmers connect with U.S. busi nesses. By 2016, Delaney herself

became a buyer and distributor of packaged loose-leaf tea.

“I came up with the recipe for cold brew tea in my kitchen,” she says. “The demand for ready-todrink beverages had more opportu nity than loose-leaf tea, so I reached out to the Craft Beverage Institute at A-B Tech to help me develop the idea for a carbonated tea.”

Originally called Silverback, all of Delaney’s products are now consol idated under the name Sarilla.

Like Delaney, Shanti Volpe ’s mission for her company, Shanti Elixirs, is fueled by more than mere profit. Volpe — whose parents met at a yoga retreat and whose family vacations included philanthropical trips to India and the Dominican Republic — was imbued since birth with the belief that food is medicine.

“We did yoga and meditation daily, we were raised vegetarian, cooked from the garden, and my parents didn’t drink alcohol,” she says. “I chose to continue that path myself.”

But finding healthy and delicious nonalcoholic beverages to drink

was often a challenge — until Volpe attended a sacred beekeeping work shop in 2016 and had her first taste of jun. “I felt an immediate effect on my body and was so intrigued I knew I had to learn how to make it,” she says. “I brought home a SCOBY [symbiotic culture of bac teria and yeast used as the ‘mother’ for fermented beverages] and start ed brewing the very next day.”

A quest for healthier options is also what inspired Buscher’s and Schomber’s interest in kombucha. By the time the pair met in 2008, Buscher was already in the pro cess of getting her kitchen certified to produce kombucha to sell at local tailgate markets. Meanwhile, “Sarah’s husband had been encour aging her to start a business with another mother, so when I told her I was getting certified, she asked if I wanted to do it together,” Buscher explains.

The pair fine-tuned the prod uct in Buscher’s kitchen that fall, then moved to the Blue Ridge Food Ventures commercial kitchen to build inventory before debuting their Buchi kombucha — under the limited liability corporation Asheville Kombucha Mamas — at the North Asheville Tailgate Market in spring 2009.

Asheville’s interest in healthy alternative beverages was imme diate and tremendous, Buscher recalls. “When I first started brew ing kombucha, we were living in Dallas,” she notes. “My friends were like, ‘What do you mean it’s alive? That’s weird, you’re weird!’ Asheville embraced the weird and the health-based mission.”

WOMEN AT WORK: Buchi founders Jeannine Buscher and Sarah Schomber believe teamwork is dream work when it comes to building a business. Photo courtesy of Buchi

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE JUN: Shanti Volpe, founder and owner of Shanti Elixirs, displays a jar of SCO BY, the magic mother culture from which her beverages are born. Pho to by Camilla Calnan

GROWTH SPURTS

Running and growing a business while parenting is challenging, to say the least, but all four women say the two have much in common, and that business can benefit from their skills as mothers.

When Buchi outgrew Blue Ridge Food Ventures, Buscher and Schomber moved operations and their residences to a 120-acre prop erty in Weaverville that included an on-site 7,000-square-foot building originally constructed as a ware house for beer and wine distribu tion. “We stayed there for six years, and that was pivotal to our growth of the business, but also to raising our families while growing a busi ness,” Buscher says. “Our children played together and ran around the property together. Even though we worked all the time, we were always around our families.”

They note that before starting the business, they had both been stay-at-home moms and had admit tedly unrealistic expectations of maintaining that lifestyle while also starting and growing a business. But it worked out.

Adds Schomber, “Work and life were a blend that went together, and I truly think if we didn’t have that time where we got to know each other on such a deep level and navigate some really tough times we might not have made it.”

Delaney, on the other hand, ini tially flew solo, while also being a single mom from the get-go. She says the experience has been both difficult and helpful. “From the time my son was born, I had to learn how to become efficient and prioritize,” she says. “It helped me learn time management. I work more than I would if I were working for some one else in a job, but having my own business also gives me flexibility to be at his baseball games and here when he gets home from school.” As her business has grown, Delaney continues to add staff.

Volpe points to other traits she brings to the table as a woman and mother. “Women do things differ ently. I have very high expectations coupled with a generous amount of flexibility and compassion,” she explains. “ I think parenting set me up for great success in figuring out how to be a business owner. I often look at Shanti as my baby and I treat Shanti Elixirs and my employees as my family. That’s how I nurture them.”

Buchi’s co-mother Schomber agrees. “We have 115 employees now, and it’s like having 115 chil dren! The goal is to keep them all

POP A TOP: Sara Stender Delaney, who is 16 years sober, created her nonalcoholic canned sparkling tea because “I want Sarilla to be an al ternative for people who don’t want to drink but want to be social, par ticularly young people on college campuses.” Photo by Aris Wells

motivated, focused and moving in the same direction while feeling valued and cared for.”

INTO THE FUTURE

In January 2017, Buchi moved to a 30,000-square-foot building in Marshall. In addition to increasing employment, the company contin ues to increase distribution, vol

ume and product line. It has just introduced Living Energy in two flavors — raspberry lime and lemon mint. The drink adds a boost of 100 milligrams of clean caffeine to kombucha, along with L-theanine and lion’s mane mushrooms.

“Kombucha was our jumping-off point,” says Buscher. “We see our selves continuing to experiment and come out with new products and being part of the functional beverage trend. Never stop inno vating or you’ll go backward.”

Adding to her own mix, Delaney recently introduced two new Sarilla products as well — caffeine- and sugar-free botanical infusions in two flavors, vanilla rooibos and Tulsi lime. She intends to expand Sarilla’s distribution reach. “My goal is to become a nationally known brand.”

For Volpe, who now has 14 employees, her immediate goal is to get Shanti Elixirs as a craft nonalcoholic option in as many bars, breweries and restaurants in Asheville as possible. But she’s also thinking bigger.

“We want to continue to grow our collaborations with other Asheville makers like French Broad Chocolate, Asheville Tea and Wedge Brewing Co. for new flavors,” she says. “My long-term goal is to cre ate a destination location/retreat center/nonprofit honeybee apiary and junery taproom, with a bar that features all the great nonalcoholic beverages made in our region that everyone can enjoy.” X

WOMEN IN BUSINESS

It takes time

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

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KAYE BENTLEY

Owner of Asheville Rooftop Bar Tours

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Bentley: Once you launch your business, even with great market ing, it will still take a bit of time to get the word out and start generating revenue.

Look to your local community and online to see what business resourc es are already available — some are often free resources. Take the time to learn as much as you can through these resources and absolutely ask all of the questions. The connections you make through these resources are invaluable, even after your initial startup period.

As a woman, what unique challenges have you experienced within your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

Starting a tourism-based business — and my business also being the very first of its kind — it took time to gain a foothold in the existing local tour market. X

Marty Reed, Merchant Advisor

Agent Office: Asheville NC

Marty@capitalbankcardne.com https://capitalbankcard-asheville.com

Contact us today for a free consultation: We help businesses of all sizes find the right solution

Plot twist

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN

In Asheville’s gig economy, even some of its most successful writers wear multiple hats.

Along with publishing celebrat ed works, Tessa Fontaine, Jessica Jacobs and Heather Newton have established themselves as freelance editors and instructors. But while the extra jobs may seem as if they could inhibit these creative women from crafting new works at a steady pace, the multiple roles have proved nicely complementary — albeit with plentiful planning and self-care along the way.

FORWARD PROGRESS

All three women have wanted to write professionally since they were

young, but their journeys toward achieving that goal have taken dis tinct paths.

In her junior and senior years of high school, Newton placed in the Raleigh Fine Arts Society short story contest, judged by regional writers Doris Betts and Guy Owen. Encouraging words from both writ ers led Newton to imagine herself one day joining the pair in their professional ranks. Upon entering college, she planned to become a writer but took what she calls “a long detour for law school and a legal career.”

After several years of practicing law in Boston, Newton moved to Asheville in 1992. Like many aspiring writers, she experienced numerous rejections from agents and pub

Seeking Professional Music Industry Artists

lishers while still maintaining her law practice.

But in 2009, things began to change. She landed an agent for her manuscript Under the Mercy Trees, which Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publisher, subse quently published. That same year, Newton also signed up for a Great Smokies Writing Program workshop led by local author Tommy Hays.

During the workshop, she met and befriended fellow classmate Maggie Marshall. The pair established a writing group “and a few years later, Maggie and I hatched the Flatiron Writers Room, a project I would never have undertaken without her,” Newton says.

Among the numerous writ ers who’ve led classes at FWR is Fontaine. The Bay Area native stud ied theater and global studies as an undergraduate, thinking she’d be either an actor or work for the United Nations. The interests led her to purchase a one-way ticket to New York City to pursue both careers. Neither panned out, but she’d long loved writing and knew that it would be part of whatever she did.

“I never dreamed that I would be able to do it for a living because it’s so hard to make that work,” she says. “But I also didn’t really know all of the ways in which you can be creative in to support yourself as a writer.”

Getting there, however, took years. But with her 2018 book, The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, Fontaine experienced greater opportunities for teaching creative writing, and in 2019, she was offered

a faculty position at Warren Wilson College as its nonfiction professor.

“Suddenly, lots of people were interested in having me teach work shops or be a guest writer at a uni versity,” she says. “And I love doing it, but it’s a really bizarre moment because for me as a writer, nothing was different the day before my book came out as opposed to the day after. But it really becomes this kind of turning point after which people are like, ‘OK, you’re legit. We accept you. Come do this thing.’”

THE NEW CLASSROOM

Fontaine left Warren Wilson in 2021 and now works with writers from a range of ages via freelance editing, accountability workshops and coaching.

Jacobs has had a comparably enriching experience since departing from the traditional classroom set ting as well. The author of multiple volumes of poetry, including Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going, the poet’s major turning point came in 2010, when she met her now wife, fellow local poet Nickole Brown

At the time, Jacobs was living in Manhattan and working for a large textbook publisher as an acquisi tions editor. But she decided the corporate life wasn’t for her and quit what she describes as “probably the highest-paid job I’ll ever have” to get her Master of Fine Arts degree and become a writer and a teacher.

THE POWER OF THREE: From left, Asheville-based authors Heather Newton, Tessa Fontaine and Jessica Jacobs have further established themselves as ed ucators and editors. Photo by Edwin Arnaudin

Rev. Robert B. Jones

Matt Watroba

Music That Matters

“Deciding that I wanted to do something with my life that felt deeply meaningful as opposed to something that sounded good, paid me a lot and left me feeling very empty — that was a huge thing,” Jacobs says.

Upon earning her degree from Purdue University, she moved to Arkansas. There, she taught at Hendrix College, while Brown held a tenure-track position at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Three years into her position and with tenure in sight, Jacobs nevertheless found herself at anoth er professional crossroads.

“[Tenure is] kind of the brass ring that we’re all told we want as writers, and instead I said, ‘OK, but is there a better way to live?’” she says. In response, she and Brown moved to Asheville and began trav eling the country, giving readings and teaching workshops together. “It’s definitely a lot more hustle, doing more of a freelance thing, but it’s much more rewarding.”

On Sept. 1, Jacobs launched the nonprofit Yetzirah, the first literary organization in the U.S. for Jewish poets. And she and Brown also run SunJune Literary Collaborative,

which offers workshops and free online generative writing sessions. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, these programs were held in person, but in recent times they’ve shifted their offerings to virtual settings.

Through Zoom, over 100 people from around the world regularly participate in the monthly gen erative sessions, creating a sense of community that Jacobs thinks wouldn’t have arisen otherwise.

But as COVID-19 cases continue to drop, SunJune — which offi cially formed during the pandemic — will host its first in-person week end retreat, Nov. 4-6 at the N.C. Arboretum. And while its co-found ers plan to continue offering hybrid workshops, Jacobs feels the online platforms have room to grow.

“The one thing that Zoom has not been able to replicate is how to sit down and talk to people one-on-one within a large group of people,” she says. “And just to have moments with people after a reading. You can’t really do that yet.”

CREATIVE SUSTAINABILITY

Despite their many years in the industry, new and recurring chal

lenges inevitably arise. Newton’s weeks consist of balancing legal work with writing fiction and co-managing the Flatiron Writers Room. Because the FWR just launched its fall season, she’s also kept busy emailing instructors and students, paying faculty, scheduling marketing campaigns for upcom ing classes and administering eve ning workshops.

“The main challenge of trying to practice law and write is that the two things take the same type of mental energy, and often by the time I’ve spent hours doing legal work, I’m too burned out to write fiction,” Newton says. “I cope with that by setting aside days where I do nothing but write.”

She adds that self-care has never been her strong suit but says thanks to “a terrific family, sup portive friends, a view of our beau tiful mountains from [my] deck, a large jug of lavender bubble bath” and being able to travel again now that pandemic-induced restrictions have lifted, she maintains a fairly rosy outlook on life.

“I love the storytelling aspect of both my legal work and my writing work,” Newton continues. “When I advocate for my clients, I’m telling their stories. When I write or help other writers, it brings new stories into the world that, I hope, can make people think as well as entertain.”

Come 2023, Fontaine will join Newton as a published novelist. Along with being in the final editing stages of the book, she teaches The Art of Death for on-demand course company Atlas Obscura, which explores death from a philosophical, social, and cultural point of view. Fontaine also does regular freelance editing and runs the “Here to Save You” podcast with Massachusettsbased writer Annie Hartnett and Santa Barbara, Calif.-based author

Ellen O’Connell Whittet , which looks at writing, parenting and cre ative accountability.

“I also have a baby, which com plicates things,” Fontaine says. “So, there’s lots of shepherding her back and forth to day care and doing baby stuff.”

Though Fontaine makes time to take her child and dog for daily walks, she notes that setting limits to what she says “yes” to as a free lancer plays a major factor in the sustainability of her work. When things get tough, leaning into the relationships that she’s built and formed over time — including with Newton and Marshall at the FWR — has likewise proven beneficial.

“I think that’s been part of it, too — allowing people that I care about and trust and respect and like — letting those relationships form something bigger that can be part of my life in a really positive way, both in terms of how I like to spend my time, but also in terms of how I try to make money or run business day to day,” she says.

Tapping into that community is similarly essential for Jacobs, who also releases tension by running and kayaking. When she feels like she’s reached a wall in her work, she calls a fellow writer and has been amazed by how generous peo ple have been with their time. In turn, she’s been trying to surround herself with what she calls “very wise counsel” and has been happy with the results.

“I think that sometimes, when I feel most stuck, it’s because I feel like I have to do it by myself,” she says. “I’m just trying to remind myself that there are all these amaz ing people out there and they’re invested in what we’re going to then do together. And it’s just me taking the step to be vulnerable and to call them.”

X

You can’t please everyone

heavy equipment, technological challenges, a constant need to expand your musical catalog and (realistically) a lot of expenses. Is it still one of my favorite parts of my life? Absolutely.

ANNELISE KOPP

DJ Lil Meow Meow

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Kopp: My business “launch” has been more like a many-year process of evolution into different roles as a DJ. I was encouraged to try some low-stake gigs first. I got a chance to get a feel for what was involved — to see if I enjoyed it and what the challenges might be. And it evolved from there.

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

First, consider and weigh the sacrifice. While DJing might seem like a great social activity, the real ity is that you’re likely to find yourself busy on weekends, holi days and special occasions. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve met some of the best people and had some of my favorite experiences in this job, but it’s not for the faint of heart. Think late nights,

Secondly, have fun and trust yourself. If you start worrying about pleasing every single person, you’ll be playing the lowest common denominator of music in no time. I like to focus on just a few people and move from there. The more you get clear with yourself about your tastes and stylings (provided you can still move a room), the more people will trust it. I’ve gotten plenty of negative feedback, and it’s actually helped me understand that an individual’s personal dislike of my taste doesn’t determine my trajectory as a DJ. If you’re not a DJ, I think this all works as a great metaphor for life.

As a woman, what unique challenges have you experienced with in your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

DJing is still a field dominat ed by men, so I’ve had to carve out a space that feels uniquely my own. I’ve been lucky to have the support of some wonderful peo ple, and I think that’s something every women in business should be considering how to pay forward to people who face even greater barriers to entry. X

ART

Public access

Art in the Heart imagines the future of Pack Square Plaza

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN

earnaudin@mountainx.com

With the Vance monument gone, Pack Square Plaza’s future design remains an open question. But some of the first steps in this process are taking form via the city of Asheville’s Art in the Heart program, described on its website as “a way to unite, heal and strengthen the community.” The current series of temporary installations, artwork and performances will run through March with the hope of sparking community wide conversations about the role of public spaces and what goes in them.

APPLY WITHIN

According to Karli Stephenson, urban designer and public art coordi nator, 29 Art in the Heart submissions were received between the May 25 call for artists and the Aug. 1 application deadline. The proposed projects then went before an 11-person selection committee, which included members from the Public Art and Cultural Commission, Stephenson and three fellow city staffers, as well as four exter nal stakeholders, including representa tives from the Asheville Art Museum, UNC Asheville, the Biltmore Estate and the Friends of Buncombe County Special Collections.

“The selection panel met three times and provided a lot of feedback along the way,” Stephenson says. “The panel was especially interested in projects that were interactive, created in response to this program and that made an effort to address the themes/ questions proposed.”

The committee also looked for appli cants with a proven record of develop ing, sharing and removing public art, as well as projects that emphasized viewer experience and interactivity. But since Stephenson notes that “public spac es and monuments are dynamic and should be a reflection of the people and history they represent,” the panel was especially interested in how artist proposals embraced the theme of social equity and inclusion, and the ways in which they answered two guiding questions: What should Pack Square Plaza look and feel like in the future? And what stories haven’t been told or represented in downtown Asheville?

“I really loved that we received such a mixture of art types,” Stephenson says. “A lot of times when you say

’public art,’ folks think of a sculpture or mural. I think the range of projects submitted says a lot about the potential for Pack Square Plaza’s future.”

The projects range from intimate puppet shows to 15-foot sculptures with projected visuals and audio. Most artists chose the most visible location — the center median — for their project, which Stephenson says makes sense from an accessibility standpoint.

“But it also helps us, as urban design ers and planners, think about the plaza differently from that perspective,” she says. “Where can we open up views and better facilitate connections into and from the plaza? Where are there opportunities for gateways? What are those spaces that are hidden now but could be made more visible, accessible and comfortable for art and people?”

Regarding the second guiding ques tion, Stephenson notes that many of the stories and topics chosen by the artists address the challenges and histories within and around the plaza, including housing insecurity, the enslaved people of the Vance family, free speech, cli mate change and inclusivity.

“Several of the projects are based on amplifying community voices

that aren’t often heard: those expe riencing homelessness or searching for an affordable home, [and] Native American and Black communities,” she says. “I think overall, there was a desire for Pack Square Plaza to evolve into a place that supports hard conversations and realities and allows anyone to cele brate their culture and identity.”

SOLID-COLORED FLAGS

Among the selected creators and cur rent exhibits is Asheville-based instal lation artist Jackson Martin, whose “Room in the Sky” — consisting of 12 nylon flags of various colors hanging around a steel structure — debuted Sept. 18 and will be on display through Sunday, Oct. 30. Part of Martin’s art practice is searching for exhibitions and other opportunities to apply to, and he says he’s always excited when he sees calls for site-specific and site-respon sive work.

“These types of opportunities allow me to shift outside of my normal way of thinking, encouraging me to imagine something entirely different,” he says.

“The overarching theme of Art in the Heart is about ‘inclusivity and equity’

MOONAGE DAYDREAM: Local poet Tiffany Narron poses with the mask made by her Art in the Heart collaborator, Hot Springs-based artist Lydia Nichole. Photo by Micah Mackenzie

— ideas that have gained a lot of atten tion in the last couple years. My prior work has not been directly about those ideas, and I am proud to be part of this important conversation now.”

The premise of “Room in the Sky” began as a reimagining of the Vance Monument. It was originally designed to sit atop the remaining base, though the design intended to represent some thing starkly different than the for mer structure. But ongoing litigation concerning the monument’s removal ultimately prevented “Room in the Sky” from being on the base. Instead, Martin’s work stands at eye level and has become more interactive than he planned.

“I chose an overall form that directly relates to the old monument base but

also one that represents both healing and inclusivity — a plus sign or medical cross,” Martin says. “The solid-colored flags that hang from the structure are intended to represent groups that expe rience discrimination and prejudice in this country, including the LGBTIQA and BIPOC communities. Many of my students, closest friends and family members have been affected by dis crimination and prejudice, and I am honored to stand as an ally in the fight for equality.”

GRIEF AND HOPE

On Saturday, Oct. 15, the installa tion’s space will be shared with “Our Careful Tending,” an interactive grief ceremony spearheaded by local writer

WOMEN IN BUSINESS

Give yourself time and space

Tiffany Narron. Her titular poem will be read aloud and handed out on small slips of paper as three people in black robes hold large paper masks, while five additional people walk alongside them, carrying lanterns.

Narron feels that the poem “speaks to the intention needed to address harm as well as the shared joy we must cultivate and lean on together at the same time — a difficult dichotomy to hold, especially for a culture that hasn’t been taught well how to hold multiple truths at once.”

The masks, which Narron says “remind us of our ancestors who walk with us on all sides as we go,” were made by Hot Springs-based artist Lydia Nichole and Jennifer Murphy, co-founder of Asheville’s Street Creature Puppet Collective. According to Murphy, Narron shared an image with her by artist Stasys Eidrigevicius and asked for help creating something with a similar vibe.

This time, I wanted to combine foraged basketry materials with papier-mache.”

Narron notes that Murphy also lay ered in words from the poem on hold ing grief into the face alongside a sacred geometry seed of life pattern to imbue the full meaning of the presence the mask will hold. The poet then worked separately with Nichole, listening to a podcast on grief and moon conscious ness together while the latter wove in natural layers of beeswax and coffee ink for the mask to hold a natural form.

Together, the artists hope that “Our Careful Tending” encourages attend ees to connect into an intentional space where they can hold grief and hope alongside one another. But they see even greater potential for Art in the Heart as a whole.

AMBER NIVEN Co-author of “Discovering the Appalachian Trail: A Guide to the Trail’s Greatest Hikes”

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Niven: “Give yourself enough runway to soar.” This is the advice I think about the most. Soul work is slow work. It doesn’t happen over night, and it requires steady devo tion. For me, writing is like painting a canvas. There are layers involved: research, storyboarding, editing and more editing. Sometimes I feel myself rushing to complete a piece, and like an airplane with an insufficient runway, it just doesn’t get off the ground. Giving myself space and time to focus on my goal of becoming a published author allowed me to focus on my craft, cultivate resilience and ultimate ly create a book I am incredibly proud of.

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

If someone were passionate about writing and wanted to com plete a manuscript, I would encour age them to fight every day to keep that dream alive. I would

tell them to touch their project daily, even if it meant writing one badly formed sentence. Our mod ern world is full of distractions and messages saying we should be doing anything and everything we are not. When starting out, we often don’t have the luxury of holing up in an artist cave for an extended amount of time so that we can focus, free from distractions. The reality for many of us is that we must write in the stolen moments, the early mornings before a job, lunch breaks and nap times. So I say, find a way to keep hope alive, and remember, if you want to soar, give yourself the time and space your art asks of you.

As a woman, what unique challenges have you experienced with in your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

Being a woman strongly con nected to my emotional body and intuition serves me well in my creative endeavors; however, par adoxically, it has also proved to be my greatest challenge. Living a dis ciplined life with boundaries does not come easy to me. However, in the business of writing, one must be able to sit down and write even when feelings suggest otherwise.

Over time, I’ve learned how to value a disciplined life. On days I feel sluggish, full of self-doubt or mom-guilt has the best of me, those are the days I feel like floating in the sea of emotions, not writing. But each time I sit in my chair and write anyway, I am saying that my art matters, that I matter. As a woman and mother, this radical act means everything.

“She wanted something with a peaceful, wise countenance, that had a moonlike feeling,” Murphy says. “I have made many papier-mache masks over the years, and lately I’ve been making ceramic and concrete ones for the garden, so it’s a subject I enjoy.

“This project really seeks to hold a space for our community to both question and show up to how we tend and re-mother the wounds of racism and colonialism in the history, structure and growth of our city, both person ally and collectively,” Narron says. “I hope that this helps spark real conver sation alongside all of the incredible projects being shared so that we can begin to collectively reenvision Pack Square Park as our full community envisions it.”

What’s new in food

Food Truck Boot Camp rolls into Cherokee

Have a brilliant idea for a food truck but no idea how to turn it into reality? The Food Truck Boot Camp, taking place Monday-Thursday, Nov. 7-10, in Cherokee, might be your launch pad.

“The people who will be served by this are the dreamers with an idea who need help in learning how to build a food truck business, as well as established people who want to refine and grow their business,” says Laura Lauffer, project director of EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems. EMFS is a multiyear proj ect focused on expanding opportu nities and capacity to food and farm businesses across the southwestern region of the state.

In addition to working with area organizations and institutions, the gathering will feature the Street Food Institute, a New Mexico-based nonprofit that works with culinary

leaders and entrepreneurs to pro mote business development and growth. Alongside local industry-re lated members and government officials, the Street Food Institute will share its expertise in multiple sessions and one-on-one coaching.

Food Truck Boot Camp’s first day will cover topics including getting started, writing a business plan, bookkeeping and basic regulations for food trucks. On subsequent days, attendees can learn about financing, operational safety, pricing, efficient truck design, media and marketing, creating a menu and controlling food waste.

“We’re excited to have a TikTok influencer from the [Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians], Taylor Wachacha, who will do some sam ple TikToks with truck owners and teach them how to make their own,” Lauffer adds.

Take risks

both present and future. It’s also a great way to connect with other peo ple just starting their businesses and form early partnerships. And seri ously, hire a good accountant — it’s worth the peace of mind to have your numbers right.

Attendees will also tour existing food trucks and have access to a large commercial kitchen in the Ginger Lynn Welch building, adjacent to the EBCI Commerce Department build ing where sessions take place. Meals will be provided by local food trucks and caterers.

turned his focus to the Depot Street parking space that Zia Taqueria’s former food truck previously occu pied in the River Arts District.

LAURA WALTON Owner of The Crunchy Baker

Xpress: What is the best advice you were given about launching your business?

Walton: No. 1: View other local businesses as partners rather than rivals. We’re all trying to make money and do awesome things within the same industry; we do best by sup porting each other. No. 2: It’s OK to make money and lots of it — you can use that money toward causes you care about, and to strengthen your business to do so. No. 3: Hire an accountant — it’s worth the money.

What is the best advice you’d share with someone just starting out today?

Take a business class. You’ll get accounting resources, and it’ll force you to think about and plan the many facets of your business,

As a woman, what unique challenges have you experienced within your industry, and how have you overcome these obstacles?

It can be difficult to take risks and know when the risks are worth it, especially with money. For me in particular, I have a hard time seeing money as something to invest, rather than something to let sit in a savings account “just in case.” However, I’ve learned that it’s worth spending a little more to make things easier, or prettier or tastier — it means more money comes back my way to keep investing in my business! I’m thank ful that my industry is dominated by women, especially in the farmers market and festival sectors, so I get to see and discuss other women’s successes through their risk-taking and build my confidence in doing the same.

Editor’s note: Laura Walton is married to Xpress News Editor

Daniel Walton

Two of the most visible operat ing trucks in the Cherokee area are Nikki’s Frybread and Grill owned by Nikki and Anthony Crisp and Sugar’s Place owned by moth er-and-daughter team Sugar and Tasha Martinez. Both businesses will be providing food and partici pating in the conference. The latter was also a recipient of a grant from EMFS; the money helped the food truck purchase a new wrap.

Cindy Mathews, a retired teacher, is among those participating in the boot camp. She is currently in the process of opening a new ice cream truck. Like Sugar’s Place, Mathews is also a recipient of a recent grant from EMFS to help her get her business up and running. “I couldn’t have gotten started without EmPOWER and Laura,” she says. “And I’m really excited about going to the boot camp. I have a lot to learn, but you’re never too old.”

The event takes place at 876 Acquoni Road, Cherokee. Tickets are $50. For more information, including a complete schedule and tickets, visit avl.mx/c1t.

Come to mama’s

When John Atwater ’s quest to take over the now-defunct Zia Taqueria building in West Asheville didn’t pan out, the local restaurateur

“We had kept in touch with the Zia food truck guys who have a big following of regulars,” says Atwater, who owns Mamacita’s and Taco Temple. “We thought we could team up and do some of their pop ular items, add some specials we had done at Mamacita’s and some new things.”

Mamacita’s Street Food, now open outside the Old London Road soc cer pub, is just that: a mashup of Zia Taqueria and Mamacita menus, along with new dishes.

Highlights include Mexican-style hot dogs, which are near and dear to Atwater, who spends a lot of lei sure time fishing in Mexico. “They’re basically built like a taco, with sliced avocado, pico de gallo and maybe some hot sauce, but it’s a Snap-oRazzo all-beef hot dog wrapped in bacon and on a bun, not a tortilla.”

Another fusion is the taco Arabe, a Lebanese interpretation of the Mexican staple; the dish originated in Puebla, which is home to a large Lebanese population. “Our head chef at Mamacita, Francisco Romero, is from Puebla, and he is very famil iar with the dish,” Atwater explains.

“It’s thinly sliced pork seasoned with oregano and thyme, grilled and served with caramelized onions and a Coca-Cola chipotle salsa Francisco makes, on a pita.”

Meanwhile, the food truck’s tachos combine nachos and tater tots. And esquites, a popular snack in Mexico, are also available. Atwater describes the latter as “elote street corn in a

READY TO FRY: Anthony and Nikki Crisp are looking forward to sharing their frybread with other participants of the Food Truck Boot Camp in Cherokee Monday-Thursday, Nov. 7-10. Photo courtesy of Nikki’s Frybread and Grill

cup, so you don’t need to carry dental floss with you.”

Because Old London is a sports bar, Mamacita’s Street Food has kept Zia Taqueria’s wings, which use a dry rub recipe from Sam Nicholson, who is heading the food truck. Breakfast burritos, another neighborhood favorite, remain on the menu as well.

Mamacita’s Street Food operates 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday at 270 Depot St.

Pop-up culture

Diners curious about Oaxacan cui sine — originating in Oaxaca, Mexico — are often stymied by the proper pronunciation. It’s Wa-HA-ca. Native Oaxacan (Wa-ha-can) and Asheville resident and chef Luis Martinez is reprising his popular pop-ups, host ing two this month. On Thursday, Oct. 13, at 6:30 p.m., he will serve a four-course Oaxacarolina dinner at Botanist & Barrel. A standout dish promises to be the pork shank with sweet potato mole, white beans and purslane salad. Tickets for the dinner are $110 per person; optional cider pairings are available for an additional $30.

Botanist & Barrel is at 32 Broadway, Suite 110. For more information, visit avl.mx/c1o .

On Sunday, Oct. 16, at 10:30 a.m. Martinez partners with Cooperative Coffee Roasters for a four-course Tequio brunch. Trade in those tired waffles and take a walk on the wild side. Highlights include grilled figs with mizuna and mussels escabeche with fermented carrot. Oaxacan cof fee will also be included in the mix, with optional alcoholic beverage pair ings selected by Eli Masem, owner of Cooperative Coffee Roasters.

Cooperative Coffee Roasters is at 210 Haywood Road. Tickets are $75 per per son and should be reserved by email to eli@ cooperativecoffeeroasters.com.

Little (more) Chango

Since opening last November, diners have worn a path to the doors of Little Chango Hispanic Craft Kitchen in South Slope for its Caribbean-inspired menu of arepas, yuca fries, tostones, ropa vieja and pork shoulder. Like many downtown restaurants dependent on tourist traffic, owners Luis Betances, Iris Rodriguez and Jose Busto switched to shorter winter hours in January, closing at 5 p.m. on weekdays.

By spring, staffing issues forced the eatery to continue with its reduced hours. “We didn’t want to compromise service or food, so we had to keep that schedule,” Betances explains.

But now, thanks to a larger staff, Little Chango will be open Tuesday through Sunday at 11:30 a.m., clos ing Tuesday through Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m.

And the restaurant has added another lure to the bright sunny yellow building — tres leches cake.

“It started as a special and it’s so popular we added it to the daily menu,” Betances says. “It’s made with gluten-free flour and served with rosewater orange whip and pistachio crunch. People love it as much as the flan.”

Little Chango is at 134 Coxe Ave For more information, visit avl.mx/c16.

Fermentation fever

The art and science of fermenta tion are having their moment, and White Labs Brewing Co. is here for it. On Thursday, Oct. 13, 6-7:30 p.m., the brewery will present White Labs Fermented Pairings + Tasteful Fermentation Class. White Labs Brewing Co.’s research chef, Bert Sheffield, and head of education,

Erik Fowler, will conduct a showand-tell while participants taste and consider how fermentation adds fla vor, complexity and preservation to unique dishes, as well as compare fermented and nonfermented dishes paired with yeast-driven beer styles.

White Labs Brewing Co. is at 172 S. Charlotte. Tickets are $55 per person and include three courses of proteins, vegetables and dessert plus beers. For more information, visit avl.mx/c1p.

Shuck it off

“Beer grown here” is Sideways Farm and Brewery’s tagline. On Thursday, Oct.13, it’s teaming up with Feta Flav and adding buckets of oysters, shrimp, sausage, corn, pota toes, two fall desserts (by Diggity Doughnuts) and a bottle of beer or jun to the brewery’s bounty. The collaborative oyster roast begins at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $150 for two people to share. Sideways Farm is at 62 Eade Road, Etowah. For more information, visit avl.mx/c1q.

Kay West X

Around Town

After several years spent editing and publishing the works of Indigenous writers, artists and activists, MariJo Moore is back with her latest book, 11 Conjured Stories

“Although I enjoy helping others who have a right to be heard, it feels good to be back in my own writing,” says Moore, a poet, journalist and author who is of Eastern Cherokee, Dutch and Irish ancestry.

Moore will read and sign copies of 11 Conjured Stories at Asheville Raven & Crone on Saturday, Oct. 15, at 6:30 p.m. She describes her latest collection as a mix of fact, fiction and “faction,” offering readers new ways to consider one’s inner self.

“My editor of this collection, Tom Kerr, told me, ‘I think that over the years you’ve discovered a more reveal ing voice and the courage needed to share it,’” she says. “I totally agree, as I am at the age now where I no longer feel obligated to explain, argue about or apologize for what I am and what I am not.”

Among the collection’s stories, Moore hopes “This Earth Is Tilting — An Enlightened Nana Speaks” will touch the lives of many, especially young women, mothers and grandmothers.

Meanwhile, in “Stories from Spirits,” Moore takes the opportunity to explain her writing process to readers.

“These stories offer an opportunity to journey into a deep reality that sometimes people miss due to struc tured reasoning, political mindsets, organized religion, culture, lack of knowledge and misunderstanding the importance of all people,” she explains. “Basically, we are all interconnected through our spirits, and the spirit of everything in this universe.”

Asheville Raven & Crone is at 640 Merrimon Ave., Suite 207. For more information, go to avl.mx/c1v.

Golden celebration

LEAF 50th Festival was supposed to take place in May 2020 but was can celed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The following year, organizers put together an event with about half the usual number of people and dubbed it the 49.5th festival.

“You only get one chance in your life to have a 50th celebration,” says Jennifer Pickering, LEAF founder and executive director. “And so, we wanted to wait until we knew that the time was right and that the world was

right — a place of health and safety and kindness, so that we could all come together in a full celebration.”

LEAF 50th Festival finally will take place at Lake Eden on the grounds of the historic Black Mountain College, Thursday-Sunday, Oct. 20-23. The celebration’s theme is “Legends of Africa.”

The weekend will include perfor mances from world music super stars Angélique Kidjo of Benin, Rocky Dawuni of Ghana, Chinobay of Uganda, the LEAF International Rwanda J. Troupe with Culture Keeper David Kwizera and more. The bill also will include American musical acts such as Chatham County Line, Jordan Scheffer, Funkin’ Around with Garfield, Melissa McKinney and longtime festival favorites Ménage and The Dead Poets, both of whom are reuniting for the celebration.

Also on tap will be an assortment of events including Poetry Slam with James Nave, Unifire Theater, the Street Creature Puppet Collective and Keith Shubert’s Toybox Theater.

Roots rockers Donna the Buffalo, who were at the first leaf festival in 1995, will perform on Sunday as will finale headliners Rising Appalachia, led by Leah Song and Chloe Smith. The sisters first attended LEAF as children with their parents more than 20 years ago, Pickering says.

“This has been a really tricky time to both stay alive and then to start to rebuild,” Pickering says. “We were in place of almost losing it and of not knowing if we could go forward because of the pandemic. And so, this 50th celebration is really that moment

of us stepping into the future and rebuilding and creating.”

The festival takes place at 377 Lake Eden Road, Black Mountain. To see the full lineup or buy tickets, go to avl.mx/c1x.

Stop the Pain

When country musician and Enka native Jody Medford lost his mother to suicide several years ago, he knew he wanted to do something to help people in pain.

“On top of it being a huge shock and heartache to the family, you also have to scramble to try to cover funeral costs,” he says. “Not long after my mom passed, I saw on TV where a woman lost her daughter to suicide, and she said her daughter had been bullied and couldn’t take it anymore.”

So, Medford launched Stop the Pain, a free concert to raise awareness of suicide and bullying. The fourth annual concert will take place Sunday, Oct. 16, at 2 p.m., at Asheville Outlets.

The show is free, but organizers will collect donations that go to local fami lies that have lost loved ones to suicide.

Headlining the concert will be Richie McDonald, former lead singer of country band Lonestar. Also on the bill will be Medford’s band, local country artist Kayla McKinney and bluegrass band Sons of Ralph.

Between sets, guest speakers will share stories of losing loved ones.

“The last concert we had, I had three people contact me on Facebook to say they felt like the concert saved their

AUTHOR, AUTHOR: The collection 11 Conjured Stories is MariJo Moore’s 27th book. Photo courtesy of Moore

MOVIE REVIEWS

Local reviewers’ critiques of new films include:

AMSTERDAM: There are nearly enough famous faces (Christian Bale! Margot Robbie!) and moving pieces (fascism! assassins!) in this 1930s comedy/ mystery to distract viewers from by far the worst script in writer/ director David O. Russell’s illustrious career. Grade: C-plus

— Edwin Arnaudin

HELLRAISER: Director David Bruckner’s bloated reimagining of the Clive Barker classic takes its time delivering scares. But the moments of intense body horror are generally worth the wait. Grade: B-minus

— Edwin Arnaudin

life,” Medford says. “They were con templating suicide, but after hearing the pain it caused families, they said they were going to try to think more positive. I was so happy to hear this news because my goal is if we save one life it’s worth all the effort to do these concerts.”

Asheville Outlets is at 800 Brevard Road. For more information, go to avl.mx/c1w.

75 years and counting

The 75th annual fall edition of the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands takes place Thursday-Sunday, Oct. 13-16, at Harrah’s Cherokee Center – Asheville, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (with an earlier end time of 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16).

The fair will feature contemporary and traditional artisans working in clay, wood, metal, glass, fiber, natu ral materials, paper, leather, mixed media and jewelry. Members of the craft guild will fill the arena and concourse level of the downtown Asheville venue.

Participating artists underwent a two-step jury process as a part of the guild’s effort to uphold its estab

lished standards. The fair will also feature craft demonstrations with interactive activities for visitors and mountain musicians performing live on the arena stage.

Harrah’s Cherokee Center –Asheville is at 87 Haywood St. For more information or to purchase tick ets, visit avl.mx/77o.

Ghost of a chance

Hendersonville Theater will present The Haunting of Hill House Friday, Oct. 14-Sunday, Oct. 23. The show will run at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.

Based on Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel, the play tells the story of a small group of “psychically receptive” people who are brought together in a desolate and deserted mid-Victorian mansion known as a place of evil.

Jonathan Forreste r will direct a cast made up of Madison Brightwell, Kai Elijah Hamilton, Joshua Kerber, Allison Starling, Terry Terranova, Sharon Taylor and Blaine Weiss

For more information or to buy tickets, go to avl.mx/c1z.

Cherokee remembrance

The Center for Craft will celebrate the opening WMG The Basket , a collaborative public art installation centering on indigenous voices in downtown Asheville on Saturday, Oct. 15, 1-4 p.m.

The installation, which is on a historic Cherokee trading route, addresses the lack of recognition of Cherokee culture and heritage in downtown Asheville. The artwork will allow visitors to learn about the Cherokee land, language, tra ditions and culture that are still thriving today.

The day will include interactive family-friendly activities inside and outside the Center for Craft and live craft demonstrations by cul tural specialists from the Museum of the Cherokee Indian as well as music, a Cherokee fry bread pop-up and more.

The Center for Craft is at 67 Broadway. For more information, visit avl.mx/c20.

— Justin McGuire X

CLUBLAND

For questions about free listings, call 828-251-1333, opt. 4.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12

12 BONES BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY ACADEMY

Ashevillians: A local comedy showcase, 7pm

BOLD ROCK MILLS RIVER Trivia Night, 6pm

CAMDEN'S COFFEE HOUSE Open Mic hosted by Kathryn O'Shea, 7pm

FINCH GOURMET MARKET

Altamont Jazz Project, 5pm

FLEETWOOD'S Josh Carpenter, Mon soon, Janet Simpson, Diana Superstar (indie/ experimental), 8pm

HI-WIRE BREWING RAD BEER GARDEN Game Night, 6pm HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Well-Crafted Wednes days w/Matt Smith, 6pm

ISIS MUSIC HALL & KITCHEN 743

• Kuntala Ray w/Jay and Aditi (world), 7pm

• Sunny Sweeney (American, honky tonk, country folk), 8:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Old Time Jam, 5pm OKLAWAHA BREWING CO. Mountain Music Jam, 6pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST Latin Night Wednes days w/DJ Mtn Vibez, 8pm

SALVAGE STATION

Monophonics w/GA-20 & Kendra Morris (R&B, soul), 9:30pm

SILVERADOS Wednesday Night Open Jam hosted by Hamza Vandehey, 6pm

SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN

BREWERY

Jazz Night w/Jason DeCristofaro, 6pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Poetry Open Mic w/ Host Caleb Beissert, 8pm

SWEETEN CREEK BREWING

Witty Wednesday Trivia, 6:30pm

THE FOUNDRY HOTEL Andrew Finn Magill (acoustic), 7pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Half Gringa (indie), 5pm

THE ODD

Nunslaughter, The Black Moriah, Oblivion Throne (death metal), 7pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Two Feet (alt/indie), 8pm

THE POE HOUSE Team Trivia w/Wes Ganey, 7pm

THE SOCIAL Wednesday Night Karaoke w/LYRIC, 9pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY Wednesday Open Mic, 5:30pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN Traditional Irish Music Session, 7pm

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13

185 KING STREET

Larry Stephenson Band w/Gypsy & Me (bluegrass), 7pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

MGB (covers, sing er-songwriter), 7:30pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

The Widdler + Sicaria Sound, & Makak (edm), 9pm

ASHEVILLE PIZZA & BREWING CO.

Slice of Life Standup & Comedy Open Mic hosted by Hiilliary Begley, 6:30pm

BROTHER ACT: Waynesville-based Americana rock band The Brothers Gillespie will perform outdoors in Highland Brewing Co.’s meadow Friday, Oct. 14, 7-9 p.m. Photo courtesy of Highland Brewing Co.

BATTERY PARK BOOK EXCHANGE

Dinah's Daydream (Gypsy jazz), 5:30pm

CAFE CANNA SpanGLISH Karaoke Patio Party, 9pm

CASCADE LOUNGE Trivia Night w/Nick, 7pm

DOUBLE CROWN The Krektones (surf rock, exotica), 7pm

FLEETWOOD'S Norman Westberg (SWANS), Chandra Shukla (Psychic TV), Watches (industrial), 8pm

FRENCH BROAD BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

GIGI'S UNDERGROUND Mr Jimmy (blues), 10pm

GREEN MAN BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

HIGHLAND DOWNTOWN TAPROOM

Chris Jamison Duo (singer-songwriter), 6pm

HOMEPLACE BEER CO. Big Dawg Slingshots (Western swing), 6:30pm

ISIS MUSIC HALL & KITCHEN 743

• Courtney Patton (Americana, country folk), 7pm

• Italian Night w/Mike Guggino & Barrett Smith (world), 8:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Bluegrass Jam w/Drew Matulich & Friends, 7pm MILLS RIVER BREWING Jon Cox & Bridgett Gossett (Americana), 6pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL Phirsty Phursdays w/ Lumpy Heads (Phish tribute), 9pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST Pocket Strange (rock), 7pm

PISGAH BREWING CO.

David Zoll Quartet (blues, soul, rock), 6:30pm

SALVAGE STATION Kitchen Dwellers & Daniel Donato (country), 8pm

THE FOUNDRY HOTEL

The Foundry Collective ft Pimps of Pompe (jazz, acoustic), 7pm

THE GETAWAY RIVER BAR

Rum Punchlines Come dy Open Mic, 6pm

THE GREY EAGLE

The Lil Smokies (modern American roots), 8pm

THE ODD Desolation w/DJ Exo (industrial, EBM, darkwave), 9pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Calexico w/Ada Lea (alt/indie), 8pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY Thursday Night Karaoke, 8:30pm

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14

185 KING STREET Supatight (rock, funk), 8pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

Mr Jimmy's Big City Chicago Blues, 7:30pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Evanoff + 5AM, Rohan Solo, & Mycolyco (edm), 9pm

BOLD ROCK

ASHEVILLE Onyx & Honey (indie, rock, songwriter), 7pm

CASCADE LOUNGE Friday Night Bonfire Karaoke, 6:30pm

CEDAR MOUNTAIN CANTEEN

Jazz Night w/Jason DeCristofaro, 2pm CORK & KEG

The Uptown Hillbillies (honky tonk), 8pm

DIRTY JACK'S

Jeb Rogers Band (funk, soul, bluegrass), 7:30pm

FLEETWOOD'S

Vakili Band, The Deathbots & Call the

Next Witness (indie/ punk), 8pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

CO.

Brothers Gillespie (roots rock), 7pm

HOMEPLACE BEER CO.

Brother Bluebird (indie folk), 7pm

ISIS MUSIC HALL & KITCHEN 743

Ashley Heath (country, blues), 8:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD

PUB

West End String Band, 9pm

MEADOWLARK

MOTEL

Friday Night Karaoke, 7pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Free Dead Friday w/ Gus & Phriends & Generous Electric Duo (Grateful Dead tribute), 6pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING

5j Barrow (folk rock), 8pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

Alien Baby (funk), 9pm

RIVERSIDE

RHAPSODY BEER CO.

Ionize (reggae), 6pm

ROADMASTER STAGE Songs From The Road Band (bluegrass), 8pm

SALVAGE STATION

Doom Flamingo w/Josh Phillips (soul, funk), 8pm

SILVERADOS

Here Come the Mummies w/Saxsquatch (rock), 7pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Sadurn, Sinai Vessel, & Claire Wall (melancholy indie), 8pm

THE GETAWAY RIVER BAR

Getaway Comedy: Adam Mamawala, 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Corey Parlamento & Claire Hoke (sing er-songwriter), 5pm

• Madison Cunningham w/Bendigo Fletcher (folk rock, indie), 8pm

THE ODD

Cloud City Caskets, CodaPen, Supercollider (alt/indie), 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Chelsea Cutler (pop), 8pm

THE OUTPOST

12Eleven (soulful R&B, pop), 6pm

WORTHAM

CENTER FOR THE

PERFORMING ARTS

Hot Brass (Chicago/ Earth Wind & Fire experience), 7pm

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15

185 KING STREET

Freeway Jubilee (South ern rock, mountain music, funk), 8pm

305 LOUNGE & EATERY

Old Men of the Woods (folk, pop), 3pm

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY ACADEMY

Beauty Parlor Comedy: Scott Eason, 7pm

ASHEVILLE CLUB

Mr Jimmy (blues), 8pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

Miami Gold (rock), 7:30pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

GLOW: Halloween Edition (edm), 9pm

BATTERY PARK BOOK EXCHANGE

Dinah's Daydream (Gypsy jazz), 5:30pm

BENT CREEK BISTRO

Old Men of the Woods (folk, pop), 12pm

BOLD ROCK

ASHEVILLE

Iggy Radio (rock, metal, blues), 7pm

BOLD ROCK MILLS RIVER

Skies of Avalon (pro gressive rock, classic rock), 6pm

BURIAL BEER CO.

FORESTRY CAMP TAPROOM

Burnpile 2022, 1pm CORK & KEG

The Gypsy Swingers (up tempo jazz, Latin, bossa nova), 8pm

DIFFERENT WRLD Urban Combat

Wrestling: Return of the Smack, 10pm

FLEETWOOD'S Rocky MTN Roller, Istari & Radio Ruse (heavy boogie rock, stoner metal), 8pm

HARRAH'S CHEROKEE CENTER - ASHEVILLE Ryan Adams (rock, indie), 8pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Chalwa (reggae), 6pm

HIGHLAND

DOWNTOWN

TAPROOM

ImiJ of Soul (Jimi Hendrix tribute), 7pm

ISIS MUSIC HALL & KITCHEN 743

Keturah Allgood with Cody Siniard Duo (Americana, country), 8:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

• Nobody’s Darling String Band, 4pm

• West King String Band (newgrass, folk), 9pm

MEADOWLARK

MOTEL

Smoky Blue Rain (folk, blues, jazz, traditional country), 6pm MILLS RIVER BREWING

• Gin Mill Pickers (Americana, Piedmont blues, ragtime), 2pm

• Pleasantly Wild (indie/ alt, reggae), 7pm

ONE STOP AT

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Threesound (rock), 10pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

• The Knotty G's Full Band (soulful roots rock), 4pm

• The Lumpy Heads (Phish tribute), 9pm

RIVERSIDE RHAPSODY BEER CO.

Rudy's Rhythm Review, 6pm

SALVAGE STATION

Keller Williams ft Dave Watts & Tye North w/ Dogs in a Pile (roots, jazz, rock), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Doug Stanhope (comedy), 7pm

• Illiterate Light w/ Dogwood Tales (indie rock), 10pm

THE HAWK & HAWTHORNE

Raury w/Kyle Bent (hip-hop), 3pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Stereolab w/Fievel Is Glauque (alt/indie), 9pm

UPCOUNTRY

BREWING CO.

Dirty Dawg (acoustic, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia), 3pm

URBAN ORCHARD

CIDER CO. SOUTH SLOPE

Coustin TL (throwback hip-hop dance party), 7pm

WAGBAR

Tommy Yon (vintage country, folk, rock), 5pm

WINE DOWN ON

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16

185 KING STREET

Sunday Open Eelctric

Jam ft. the King Street House Band w/John Trufant, 5pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

Mark's House Jam and Beggar's Banquet, 3pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Arkansauce (newgrass), 9pm

BENT CREEK BISTRO

Old Men of the Woods (folk, pop), 12pm

BOTANIST & BARREL

TASTING BAR + BOTTLE SHOP

Fancy Marie (alt coun try, honky tonk), 2pm

CATAWBA BREWING SOUTH SLOPE Don't Tell Comedy: South Slope, 7pm

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF ASHEVILLE

The Larry Stephenson Band (bluegrass), 4pm

FRENCH BROAD RIVER BREWERY

Tré Burt w/Joules Satyr (folk), 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Hope Griffin (acoustic, folk, blues), 2pm

HIGHLAND DOWNTOWN TAPROOM

Mr Jimmy Duo (blues), 1pm

HOMEPLACE BEER CO.

ISIS MUSIC HALL & KITCHEN 743

• Wes Collins and Andrew Delaney (indie folk), 6pm

• Brother and The Hayes with Dawn Landes (Americana), 7:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD

PUB

• Bluegrass Brunch, 12pm

• Traditional Irish Jam, 4pm

MILLS RIVER BREWING

Knotty G's (soul-soaked Americana), 2pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

• Sunday Jazz Jam Brunch, 1pm

• Phuncle Sam Libra Party (Grateful Dead, rock, jam), 6pm

• Hustle Souls (soul), 9pm

PISGAH BREWING CO.

Sunday Jam hosted by Spiro and Friends, 6:30pm

SILVERADOS Karaoke Sunday Nights w/Lyric, 9pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Cash Langdon, Walk home, & Sinai Vessel (folk, alt/indie), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE of Montreal (alt/indie), 8pm

THE OUTPOST Alex Krug Combo (folk), 6pm

ZILLICOAH BEER CO. Sunday Bluegrass Jam Series, 4:30pm

B URBAN WINERY Robert's Totally Rad

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17

305 LOUNGE & EATERY

Old Men of the Woods (folk, pop), 5pm

5 WALNUT WINE BAR

Freshen Up Comedy Open Mic, 7pm

CASCADE LOUNGE Industry Night, 6pm

DSSOLVR

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

GREEN MAN BREWERY

Old Time Jam, 5:30pm

HAYWOOD COUNTRY CLUB

Taylor Martin's Open Mic, 6:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Quizzo! Pub Trivia w/ Jason Mencer, 7:30pm

SILVERADOS

Bluegrass Jam Mondays w/Sam Wharton, 7pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS Daikaiju & Abacus rock), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Sylmar (alt/indie), 5pm

• Sudan Archives (R&B, hip-hop, violin), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Mr Jimmy at and Friends (blues), 7pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Max & Iggor Cavalera (death metal), 8pm

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18

185 KING STREET

The Foreign Landers w/ Anya Hinkle, 6:30pm

5 WALNUT WINE BAR

The John Henrys (jazz, swing), 8pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

• Mapache (West Coast pop, Americana), 6:30pm

• Tuesday Night Funk Jam, 10pm

CASCADE LOUNGE

Tuesday Bluegrass Jam, 6pm

FRENCH BROAD BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

HEMINGWAY'S CUBA Para Gozar (Cuban), 6pm

ONE STOP AT

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Early Tuesday Jam (funk), 9pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Grateful Family Band Tuesdays (JGB, Dead tribute, rock, jam), 6pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Open Jam hosted by Chris Cooper & Friends, 7pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Sasha & the Valentines, Gummy, and Day & Dream (dreampop), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

W.I.T.C.H. w/Paint (rock), 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Paula Cole (pop), 8pm

THE SOCIAL

Travers Freeway Open Jam Tuesdays, 7pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY

Tuesday Night Trivia, 7pm

WAGBAR

Tuesday Night Trivia With Your Dog, 6pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK

MOUNTAIN

Open Mic Night, 7pm

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19

12 BONES BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY ACADEMY

Queer Comedy Party: Bailey Pope, 7pm

BOLD ROCK MILLS RIVER Trivia Night, 6pm

CAMDEN'S COFFEE HOUSE Open Mic hosted by Kathryn O'Shea, 7pm

FINCH GOURMET MARKET

Altamont Jazz Project, 5pm

HI-WIRE BREWING

RAD BEER GARDEN

Game Night, 6pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Well-Crafted Wednes days w/Matt Smith, 6pm

HIGHLAND

DOWNTOWN

TAPROOM

Vinyl Night w/DJ Nato, 6:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Old Time Jam, 5pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Mountain Music Jam, 6pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST Latin Night Wednes days w/DJ Mtn Vibez, 8pm

SALVAGE STATION Matisyahu (alt, indie), 8pm

SILVERADOS

Wednesday Night Open Jam hosted by Hamza Vandehey, 6pm SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN BREWERY

Jazz Night w/Jason DeCristofaro, 6pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Poetry Open Mic w/ Host Caleb Beissert, 8pm

SWEETEN CREEK BREWING Witty Wednesday Trivia, 6:30pm

THE FOUNDRY HOTEL Andrew Finn Magill (acoustic), 7pm

THE GREY EAGLE Brent Cobb & Hayes Carll (singer-songwrit er), 8pm

THE ODD

Austin Lucas, Laura Blackley, Connie Page Henshaw (indie folk punk, singer songwrit er, country), 7am

THE ORANGE PEEL Styles P w/Spaceman Jones and The Mother ships (rap), 8pm

THE POE HOUSE

Team Trivia w/Wes Ganey, 7pm

THE SOCIAL Wednesday Night Karaoke w/LYRIC, 9pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY Wednesday Open Mic, 5:30pm

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR Blue Ridge Jazzway, 7:30pm

CAFE CANNA

SpanGLISH Karaoke Patio Party, 9pm

CASCADE LOUNGE

Trivia Night w/Nick, 7pm

FLEETWOOD'S Dreamboat, Bad Sleep ers, TVOD, Gesserit, Slow Stab (punk), 8pm

FRENCH BROAD BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

GIGI'S UNDERGROUND

Mr Jimmy "After Hours" (blues), 10pm

GREEN MAN BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

ISIS MUSIC HALL & KITCHEN 743

• Grace Pettis (Ameri cana country), 7pm

• Paula Hanke & Peggy Ratusz: 70’s Rock, Pop & Disco Queens, 8:30pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Bluegrass Jam w/Drew Matulich & Friends, 7pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Phirsty Phursdays w/ Lumpy Heads (Phish tribute), 9pm

PISGAH BREWING CO.

Brushfire Stankgrass (modern mountain music), 6:30pm

SALVAGE STATION BoomBox w/ Equanimous (dance, electronic), 8pm

THE FOUNDRY HOTEL

The Foundry Collective ft Pimps of Pompe (jazz, acoustic), 7pm

THE GETAWAY RIVER BAR Rum Punchlines Comedy Open Mic, 6pm

THE ODD

All Hell, Lost Hours, Dead Register (funeral doom, doomgaze), 7pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Kevin Morby w/ Cassandra Jenkins (alt/indie), 8pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY Thursday Night Karaoke, 8:30pm

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Magic Realism Bot” is a Twitter account that generates ideas for new fairy tales. Since you will benefit from imagining your life as a fairy tale in the coming weeks, I’ll offer you a few possibilities. 1. You marry a rainbow. The two of you have children: a daughter who can sing like a river and a son who is as gleeful as the wind. 2. You make friends with a raven that gives you savvy financial advice. 3. You invent a new kind of dancing; it involves crying and laughing while making holy prayer gestures toward your favorite star. 4. An angel and a lake monster join forces to help you dream up fun new adventures. 5. You discover a field of enchanted dandelions. They have the power to generate algorithms that reveal secrets about where to find wonders and marvels.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): On February 1, 1976, singer Elvis Presley was partying with buddies at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. As the revelry grew, he got an impetuous longing for an 8,000-calorie sandwich made with French bread, peanut butter, blueberry preserves, and slabs of bacon. Since this delicacy was only available at a certain restaurant in Denver, Colorado, Elvis and his entourage spontaneously hopped onto his private jet and flew 900 miles to get there. In accordance with astrological omens, Taurus, I encourage you to summon an equally keen determination to obtain pleasurable treasures. Hopefully, though, they will be more important than a sandwich. The odds of you procuring necessary luxuries that heal and inspire are much higher than usual.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini writer Nikki Giovanni reminds us, “It cannot be a mistake to have cared. It cannot be an error to have tried. It cannot be incorrect to have loved.” In accordance with astrological omens, I ask you to embody Giovanni’s attitude. Shed any worries that your caring and trying and loving have been blunders. Celebrate them, be proud of them, and promise yourself that you will keep caring and trying and loving. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to renew your commitment to your highest goodness.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I was born near Amarillo, Texas, where the U.S. Energy Department stores over 20,000 plutonium cores from old nuclear warheads. Perhaps that explains some of my brain’s mutant qualities. I’m not normal. I’m odd and iconoclastic. On the other hand, I don’t think my peculiarity makes me better than anyone. It’s just who I am. I love millions of people who aren’t as quirky as me, and I enjoy communicating with unweird people as much as I do with weirdos. Everything I just said is a preamble for my main message, Cancerian: The coming weeks will be prime time for you to give extra honor and credit to your personal eccentricities, even if they comprise a minor part of your personality.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Author Jennifer Huang testifies, “Poetry is what helps me remember that even in my fragments, I am whole.” What about you, Leo? What reminds you, even in your fragments, that you are whole? Now is an excellent time to identify the people, animals, and influences that help you generate a sense of unity and completeness. Once you’re clear about that, spend quality time doing what you can to nurture those healers. Maybe you can even help them feel more cohesion and harmony in themselves.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo journalist Sydney J. Harris described “the three hardest tasks in the world.” He said they weren’t “physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts.” Here they are: 1. to return love for hate; 2. to include the excluded; 3. to say “I was wrong.” I believe you will have a special talent for all three of these brave actions in the coming weeks, Virgo. Amazingly, you’re also more likely than usual to be on the receiving end of those brave actions. Congratulations in advance!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): When he was young, Libran poet W. S. Merwin had a teacher who advised him, “Don’t lose your arrogance yet. You can do that when you’re older. Lose it too soon, and you may merely replace it with vanity.” I think that counsel is wise for you to meditate on right now. Here’s how I interpret it: Give honor and respect to your fine abilities. Salute and nurture your ripe talents. Talk to yourself realistically about the success you have accomplished. If you build up your appreciation for what is legitimately great about you, you won’t be tempted to resort to false pride or self-absorbed egotism.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In his absurdist play Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett offers us two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who patiently wait for a white-bearded man named Godot. They’re convinced he will provide them with profound help, perhaps even salvation. Alas, although they wait and wait and wait, Godot never arrives. Near the end, when they have abandoned hope, Vladimir says to Estragon, “We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment.” My sense is that you Scorpios, like Vladimir and Estragon, may be close to giving up your own vigils. Please don’t! I believe your personal equivalent to Godot will ultimately appear. Summon more patience.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Poet Charles Wright has testified, “I admire and revere and am awed by a good many writers. But Emily Dickinson is the only writer I’ve ever read who knows my name, whose work has influenced me at my heart’s core, whose music is the music of songs I’ve listened to and remembered in my very body.” In my astrological reckoning, now is an excellent time for you Sagittarians to identify artists and creators who provide you with similar exaltation. And if there are no Emily Dickinson-type influences in your life, find at least one! You need to be touched and transformed by sublime inspiration.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I’ve read and studied poetry for many years, but only recently discovered Capricorn poet Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856–1935). How is it possible I missed her? Her contemporary, journalist H. L. Mencken, described her work as “one of the imperishable glories of American literature.” She received many other accolades while alive. But today, she is virtually unknown, and many of her books are out of print. In bringing her to your attention, I am announcing my prediction about you: Anything in your life that resembles Reese’s reputation will change in the next 12 months. If you have until now not gotten the recognition or gratitude you deserve, at least some of it will arrive.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Author Sophia Dembling defines a friend as a person who consoles you when you’re feeling desperate and with whom you don’t feel alone. A friend is someone whose life is interesting to you and who is interested in your life. Maybe most importantly, a friend must not be boring. What’s your definition, Aquarius? Now is an excellent time to get clear about the qualities you want in a friend. It’s also a favorable phase to seek out vital new friendships as you de-emphasize mediocre and overly demanding alliances.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Do you or do you not wish to capitalize on the boost that’s available? Are you or are you not going to claim and use the challenging gift that would complicate your life but also expedite your growth? Act soon, Pisces! If you don’t, the potential dispensation may disappear. This is an excellent chance to prove you’re not afraid of achieving more success and wielding more power. I hope you will summon the extra courage necessary to triumph over shyness and timidity. Please claim your rightful upgrade!

REAL ESTATE & RENTALS | ROOMMATES | JOBS | SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENTS | CLASSES & WORKSHOPS | MIND, BODY, SPIRIT MUSICIANS’ SERVICES | PETS | AUTOMOTIVE | XCHANGE | ADULT

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RENTALS

APARTMENTS FOR RENT

2BD/2BA: VISTA VIEWS!

Deluxe chalet, wrap around deck, tastefully furnished private west Burnsville. Easy access to 26; 20 min to Weaverville/45 min to Asheville. No pets. Refs. 6 month min. $1,400. Text 954-496-9000

SHORT-TERM RENTALS

6 MONTH RENTAL - WEAVERVILLE Fully furnished townhome available - 11/15/22 til 5/15/23 2bed. 2.5 Baths. 1 mi from North exit 21. $1,800 all inclusive. First mo.+security deposit. No pets, 2 adults max. References required. 828-450-4388.

EMPLOYMENT

GENERAL PROGRAM ASSOCIATE--ENGLISH FOR SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES (ESOL) Literacy Together is hiring a Program Associate for our ESOL program. The program recruits and trains volunteer tutors to work with immigrants seeking to learn English to improve employment opportunities, navigate the health care system, participate in school conferences with their children and/or prepare for the citizenship exam. The ESOL Associate will work alongside the ESOL Director in all aspects of the program. The ideal candidate will be proficient in Spanish and have experience teaching English as a Second Language. This is a 30 hour/

week position with flexible hours, a generous time-off policy, and the ability to work remotely for a portion of the time. Salary is $28,000/year. For details and application go to: https://lit-together. org/job-openings/

WAREHOUSE WORKER -

WEEKLY PAY Immediate hire - no experience needed. Weekly pay! $16/hr warehouse worker position at a local recycling facility. Full time. Benefits available. Apply today at atlanticstaffing.net, call 828-579-2880 or email resume@atlanticstaffing.net.

ADMINISTRATIVE/ OFFICE

ADMISSIONS MANAGER Adventure Treks is seeking an admissions manager to join our team in WNC. The ideal candidate is a self-starter and detail-oriented, and will be responsible for our admissions process. info@adventuretreks.com adventuretreks.com.

JOIN THE BLUE RIDGE PUBLIC RADIO TEAMDEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE Blue Ridge Public Radio is hiring a Development Associate! The Development Associate joins a strong team of professionals that applies a balanced approach to annual and philanthropic giving to advance the goals of the organization. This role is recognized as foundational and essential for the team and BPR as a whole. The organization offers competitive salary and benefits. Please visit www. bpr.org/careers for the full description of the position and to submit your application. careers@bpr.org www.bpr. org/careers

RESTAURANT/ FOOD

HIRING! HOSTS, SERVERS, BUSSER Hiring full or part time for day shift. Hosts, servers and busser. Weekends a must. Possible hours between 6 am and 3 pm, 6 days/week. Closed Wed. Send resume to Kostasfiresidepancakeinn@ gmail.com

HUMAN SERVICES

QUOTES! Party & wedding; event planning services. We provide sound, lights, flowers, fog, fun & amazing vibes for any age group! My fiancé arranges the flowers while I play the tunes. Our rates stay competitive so call or email today and let us make your special day AMAZING! wegolocofortacos@gmail. com or 828-370-7101

HOME 4G LTE HOME INTERNET NOW AVAILABLE! Get GotW3 with lightning fast speeds plus take your service with you when you travel! As low as $109.99/mo.! 1-866571-1325. (AAN CAN)

YOUR CAREER STARTS HERE WITH MHC! Get paid to do good! Assessment/ Youth Counselors are needed to support at-risk youth in our residential facility in Asheville. We offer paid training and excellent benefits. Apply at bit.ly/MHCCareers 919754-3633 vpenn@mhfc.org mhfc.org/opportunities

SERVICES

AUDIO/VIDEO

DISH TV SPECIAL $64.99 For 190 Channels + $14.95 High Speed Internet. Free Installation, Smart HD DVR Included, Free Voice Remote. Some restrictions apply. Promo Expires 1/21/23. 1-866-566-1815 (AAN CAN)

ENTERTAINMENT

ANNOUNCEMENTS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

A COURSE IN MIRACLES ONLINE/ ZOOM GROUP

A truly loving, open study group. Meets first and third Mondays 6:30 p.m. on Zoom. For information, contact Susan at 828-712-5472 or email TJ at tjstierslcsw@gmail.com

ATTENTION HOMEOWNERS If you have water damage and need cleanup, call us! We'll work with your insurance to get your home repaired and your life back to normal ASAP! Call 833-664-1530 (AAN CAN)

BATH & SHOWER UPDATES

In as little as ONE DAY! Affordable prices - No payments for 18 months!  Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available. Call: 1-866-370-2939 (AAN CAN)

PARTY & WEDDING EVENT PLANNING SERVICES WITH FLOWER

CALL US

FREE

BATHWRAPS IS LOOKING FOR HOMEOWNERS We update bathtubs with new liners for safe bathing and showering. Specialize in grab bars, non-slip surfaces and shower seats. All updates are completed in one day. Call 866-531-2432. (AAN CAN)

COMPUTER & IT TRAINING

PROGRAM Train online to become a computer & help desk professional. Grants and scholarships available for certain programs for qualified applicants. Call CTI 888-2811442. Computer with internet is required. (AAN CAN)

CREDIT CARD DEBT RELIEF!

Reduce payment by up to 50%! Get one LOW affordable payment/month. Reduce interest. Stop calls. FREE no-obligation consultation Call 1-855-761-1456 (AAN CAN)

DIRECTV SATELLITE TV Service Starting at $74.99/ month! Free Installation! 160+ channels available. Call Now to Get the Most Sports & Entertainment on TV!  877310-2472 (AAN CAN)

DO YOU OWE OVER $10K

TO THE IRS OR STATE IN BACK TAXES? Our firm works to reduce the tax bill or zero it out completely FAST. Let us help! Call 877414-2089. (Hours: Mon-Fri 7am-5pm PST) (AAN CAN)

DON'T PAY FOR COVERED HOME REPAIRS AGAIN

American Residential Warranty covers all major systems and appliances. 30 day risk free / $100 off popular plans. Call 855-731-4403 (AAN CAN)

DONATE YOUR CAR FOR KIDS Fast free pickup. Running or not. 24 hour response. Maximum tax donation. Help find missing kids. Call 855504-1540. (AAN CAN)

LONG DISTANCE MOVING Call for a free quote from America’s Most Trusted Interstate Movers. Let us take the stress out of moving! Call to speak to our Quality Relocation Specialists: Call 855-787-4471. (AAN CAN)

NEVER CLEAN YOUR GUTTERS AGAIN! Affordable, professionally installed gutter guards protect your gutters and home from debris and leaves forever! For a FREE Quote call: 844-499-0277

PAYING TOP CA$H FOR MEN'S SPORT WATCHES! Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Heuer, Daytona, GMT, Submariner and Speedmaster. Call 888320-1052

SPECTRUM INTERNET AS LOW AS $29.99! Call to see if you qualify for ACP and free internet. No Credit Check. Call Now! 833-955-0905

TOP CA$H PAID FOR OLD GUITARS! 1920-1980 Gibson, Martin, Fender, Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild, Mosrite, Rickenbacker, Prairie State, D'Angelico, Stromberg. And Gibson Mandolins / Banjos. 877-589-0747 (AAN CAN)

TRAIN ONLINE TO DO MEDICAL BILLING! Become a Medical Office Professional online at CTI! Get Trained, Certified & ready to work in months! Call 866-243-5931 (M-F 8am-6pm ET). Computer with internet is required.

WATER DAMAGE TO YOUR HOME?

Call for a quote for professional cleanup & maintain the value of your home! Set an appt. today! Call 833-664-1530 (AAN CAN)

CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

BAKING CLASSES! Baking classes now available at Dogwood Cottage Baking located in Woodfin, NC. 10 classes to choose from to dive deep into the science of baking. Sign up online today! 828-484-7254 dogwoodcottagebaking. com.

BUNCOMBE COUNTY BEEKEEPERS CLUB

BEGINNERS BEEKEEPING SCHOOL Buncombe County Beekeepers Bee School to be held Nov. 1st & 3rd evenings; Saturday Nov. 5th all day. Find information and sign up at wncbees.org. Get all the information to start your journey.

a date night or bring a friend!

Create your own wreath with a local and experienced florist of 30 years! https:// www.eventbrite.com/e/fallworkshop-with-the-ashevilleflorist-tickets-424653930337

MIND, BODY, SPIRIT

COUNSELING SERVICES

ASTRO-COUNSELING Licensed counselor and accredited professional astrologer uses your chart when counseling for additional insight into yourself, your relationships and life directions. Stellar Counseling Services. Christy Gunther, MA, LCMHC. (828) 258-3229

MEDICAL SUPPORT CLINICAL HYPNOTHERAPY John Till CMS-CHt - fears, stress, trauma, stop smoking, behavior modifications, past life regressions, QHHT and more. Free consultations. 760-285-6535 / johntillhypnotherapy.com.

AUTOMOTIVE

AUTOMOTIVE SERVICES

FOR CARS!

FALL WORKSHOP WITH THE ASHEVILLE FLORIST

Come Join The Asheville Florist for a Fall Workshop! Have

the wrong

the surface?

Greg Parks

Sara Disher Ratliff Kim Plemmons Rob Elliot