Wednesday, September 17th
11:00 am – 11:45 am
Ashe County Public Library
This event is free and open to the public, no registration required.
Join us for a reading with Gary Carden with time for audience Q&A. Please note that Gary will be joining us virtually for this event.
Gary Carden is an acclaimed storyteller, playwright, and author from Sylva, North Carolina. A recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature, he is the author of Mason Jars in the Flood, which won the Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year. His plays, including The Raindrop Waltz and The Prince of Dark Corners, have been produced widely and featured on PBS. Carden’s work draws deeply from Appalachian history and folklore, capturing the voices and lives of the mountain South.
About David Volyes: Facilitator
Having taught literature for thirty years, David Allen Voyles is no stranger to weird tales and horror fiction in general. In addition to publishing his stories and novels in print, he is also the creator of the Dark Corners podcast where he narrates many of his original horror stories. Best-selling author and Bram Stoker award winner Paul Kane said of Voyles’ writing, “Maybe it’s because Voyles is an accomplished oral storyteller that you can ‘hear’ the words as you read, but man, can this guy create an atmosphere!”
Voyles brings that same atmosphere and tone to his latest novel Edgar, a tale which imagines one summer in the life of fifteen-year-old Edgar Allan Poe when the young writer experiences a series of terrifying events that would inspire the stories he would write years later.
Readers can follow Voyles on Instagram and via his Dark Corners Facebook group and are invited to subscribe to his free monthly newsletter, Dark Cycles, after clicking the link on his website (davidallevoyles.com) to download a free short story.
Stories I Lived to Tell is more than a selection of stories from revered mountain storyteller Gary Carden—it is a testimony of a distinguished culture, sense of place, and spirit of community that connects the Appalachian past to its present. This memoir-in-stories invites the reader to move beyond stereotypes to experience the scenes, characters, and community of the author’s childhood and formative years, intersecting with the regional folktales and mythologies that fired his imagination. It is not only a fascinating window into an Appalachian community in the middle of the twentieth century but also an insightful reminder of who that community is today, in spite of the external changes.
Featuring an introduction by documentarian Neal Hutcheson, this book is a moving, often funny, collection by a talented storyteller who cuts through cliche and sanctimony with his powerful words.
