Reading: Masha Hamilton - 8/20/08 - Wednesday

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Please join us for a reading, discussion and reception for author, Masha Hamilton, the author of three novels: Staircase of a Thousand Steps, (2001) a Booksense pick by independent booksellers and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection; The Distance Between Us, (2004) named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal, and The Camel Bookmobile, (2007) also a Booksense pick. Booksense called the latest novel an excellent book club selection, Booklist called it “a poignant, ennobling, and buoyant tale of risks and rewards, surrender and sacrifice,” and the New York Times said: “Hamilton makes us see how much is really at stake in a poverty-stricken place where every possession carries the weight of significance.”Masha is in town as part of the Spartanburg High School Summer Reading Program.
 

Kudzu Telegraph book release - 9/8/08 - Monday

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Jimmy Buffet has his "Coconut Telegraph," but he's got nothing on nature writer John Lane, who sends his musings into the world each week in a popular newspaper column named after the ubiquitous green vine that's swallowing the South. Lane is a champion of the underdog, and what he seeks to protect is the character and the beauty of the place he lives. Hub City hosts a book launch, reading and signing for John Lane at the Showroom. John is a founder of the Hub City Writers Project, and his book of nature essays is Hub City's 34th title.

Lane, a much published poet and essayist, is a soldier for sustainability and a warrior for wildness. Using both wit and wisdom he takes on the environmental issues of our times, often by simply taking us on a walk through the woods or a drive up the highway. Just when he seems to write best about animals in his South Carolina Upcountry backyard-deer, tree frogs, and, yes, coyotes-he captivates us with a river adventure. He writes with as much intensity about old maps or a favorite pickup truck as he does about the socio-political issues that concern him-land use, urban planning, and conservation.

These four dozen short essays, published by Community Journals in upstate South Carolina, will make you look more closely at the world around you and also, Lane hopes, will make you look ahead: to take actions, large and small, to protect the place you live.

John Lane, an English and environmental studies professor at Wofford College, is the author of eleven books of poetry and prose, including Circling Home (UGA Press, 2007).

Reading & Music: Thomas Rain Crowe - 9/22/08 - Monday

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Historian Bruce Eelman - 11/10/08 - Monday

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Reading: Ron Rash - 12/4/08 - Thursday

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Novelist Ron Rash stops by the Hub City to promote his new book, Serena.

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive from Boston in the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains—but she soon shows herself the equal of any worker, overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes, even saving her husband’s life in the wilderness.

Together, this Lord and Lady Macbeth of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she vengefully sets out to kill the son George had without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pemberton’s intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.

Hub City Bookfest - 12/6/08 - Saturday

10:00 am - 2:00 pm