Rock the Ranch is a one-day charitable music festival held in Seneca, SC. We established Rock the Ranch for two reasons: to honor the memory of a best friend and bandmate, Michael Gray, who passed away in 2015, and to revive a concert series from the 1970’s that drew thousands of music lovers to the Ranch. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which means we donate all proceeds to these amazing charities: The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and The Shriners Hospitals for Children. Rock the Ranch 2019 will take place Saturday, August 31st at the historic Charlie B. Ranch Arena, located in Seneca, SC. This beautiful family farm boasts rolling hills that forms the perfect natural amphitheater suited for the outdoor concert of your dreams! In the 1970's, Charlie B. played host to a concert series that included: Fleetwood Mac, ZZ Top, The Marshall Tucker Band, James Gang, Atlanta Rhythm Section, and Black Oak Arkansas to name a few!

The Road to Healing is Ken Woodley’s first-person account of his crusade to bring healing to that wound while he was editor of the Farmville Herald, then still owned by the same family. The book’s centerpiece is the eighteen-month fight to create what the late Julian Bond described as the first civil rights-era reparations in U.S. history. If the 2003-2004 struggle to win passage of a state-funded scholarship program had been a roller coaster, it wouldn’t have passed the safety inspection—too many unsafe political twists and turns.

Prince Edward County, Virginia, closed its public schools in 1959 in “massive resistance” to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision of 1954. The editorial pages of the family-owned Farmville Herald led the fight to lock classrooms rather than integrate them. The school system remained closed until the fall of 1964, when the county at last was forced by the courts to comply with Brown-mandated desegregation. Meanwhile, most white children had attended a private, whites-only academy, in part with state-funded tuition grants. But more than two thousand black and a few white students were denied a formal education during the five-year closure. Lives were forever changed.

The narrative unfolds in Virginia, but it is a deeply American story. Prince Edward County’s ongoing journey of racial reconciliation blazes a hopeful and redemptive trail through difficult human terrain, but the signs are clear enough for a divided nation to follow.

Exhibit ending in late September…. Don’t miss this amazing collection of keyboard instruments from the early South!
World-famous Carolina Clavier Collection – more than 40 harpsichords and pianos from 1712 to 1857. These were instruments that told the stories of the people who sold, bought, repaired, played, taught on, and listened to these instruments.

Something weird and wonderful is on the way!

Opening September 13! Treasures from the National Music Museum – The Utley Collection of Brass Instruments.
The exhibit will feature selected pieces from one of the world’s finest collections of over 600 historic brass instruments from the Joe and Joella Utley Collection of Spartanburg, SC. In collaboration with the National Music Museum (NMM) in Vermillion, South Dakota, which will soon house the Utley Collection, Dr. Sabine Klaus, curator of the Utley Collection, will be working closely with Tom Strange, Curator and Artistic Director of the Carolina Music Museum to prepare the exhibit. Daily on Tuesday - Saturday 10-5 -- Sunday 1-5 pm

Join us on Thursday, September 19th at 6pm for an evening of poetry with Tim Conroy and Kathryn Kirkpatrick. Each will read from their new works and sign books. Make it a very-Spartanburg-evening by stopping by RJ Rockers for a beer or grabbing dinner next door at Cribbs after the event!

Tim Conroy – Theologies of Terrain

Tim Conroy is a poet and former educator. His work has been published in journals, magazines, and compilations, including Fall Lines, Auntie Bellum, Blue Mountain Review, Jasper, Marked by the Water, and Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy. In 2017, Muddy Ford Press published his first book of poetry, Theologies of Terrain, edited by Columbia, South Carolina poet laureate Ed Madden. A founding board member of the Pat Conroy Literary Center established in his brother’s honor, Tim Conroy lives in Columbia.

Kathryn Kirkpatrick – The Fisher Queen: New & Selected Poems

Kathryn Kirkpatrick is Professor of English at Appalachian State University where she teaches environmental literature, animal studies, and Irish studies and co-coordinates the Animal Studies minor. She is the author of seven books of poetry, including collections addressing climate change, human illness, and nonhuman animals (Unaccountable Weather (2011) and Our Held Animal Breath (2012)). The Fisher Queen: New & Selected Poems, was published in 2019 by Salmon Press. Kirkpatrick is the editor of Border Crossings: Irish Women Writers and National Identities (U of Alabama Press, 2000) and co-editor with Borbala Farago of Animals in Irish Literature and Culture (Palgrave, 2015).

The Spotlight on the Arts Gala will feature a showcase of artists and entertainers from a variety of art areas. Because the Greer Center for the Arts features spaces for both visual and performing arts, the entertainment will include music, art, dance, theatre, and more! The Gala will include performances by internationally renowned pianist Emile Pandolfi, Greer native singer/songwriter turned musical force Noah Guthrie, and performance painter Jarod Emerson. The evening will be hosted by WSPA-TV host and producer, Jamarcus Gaston.

The Grand Opening for the newly renovated Greer Center for the Arts is Saturday, September 21, 2019! Join us from 11am-4pm for tours of the newest arts center in the upstate. The free Grand Opening event will include inflatables, a magician, a balloon artist, pottery wheel demonstrations, origami demonstrations, resident artist open studios, and more! Food and beverage vendors will be on-site so you can purchase a meal while you enjoy the event!

Additional parking will be located at Victor Baptist Church.

Meet writer Mary Ann Claud while sipping a glass of complimentary wine at the Hub City Bookshop! Read Between the Wines is a monthly event you won't want to miss.

Mary Ann Claud is originally from Lancaster, SC. She began writing in the early 1970s, shortly after moving to Tryon, NC. Claud published her first of four novels to date in 2014 called, The Dancin’ Man, the first installment of her trilogy. She has participated by invitation twice as a presenter at the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival and has previewed all of her books at Spartanburg’s Hub City Bookshop. She is a member of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and is a strong supporter of Independent book stores where she favors appearing.

Hub City Bookshop is thrilled to host author Jon Sealy “a significant new voice in Southern fiction” on October 3rd at 6PM!

His latest novel, The Edge of America, is set in 1984 Miami. Enter the high-stakes world of South Florida’s drug culture, where a businessman with CIA ties is about to risk it all.

Bobby West is on the edge. As chief financial officer for a Miami holding company and a CIA front, he has overleveraged his business in the go-go 1980s financial culture. He turns to a deal-with-the-devil money laundering operation with a local gangster, Alexander French—a deal which quickly goes south when $3 million goes missing. With echoes of Iran-Contra and the Orwellian surveillance state, The Edge of America is a stunning thriller about greed, power, and the limits of the American dream.

Jon Sealy is also the author of The Whiskey Baron (Hub City Press, 2014). His fiction has appeared widely in literary journals and magazines. He currently lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Sip a glass of complimentary wine with author and South Carolina native Andrea Bobotis at the Hub City Bookshop!

Her debut novel The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt, has received acclaim as The New York Post’s best books of the week, Library Journal’s Best Summer/Fall 2019 Debut Novels, BookBub’s 10 Debut Summer Books by Women Everyone Should Read, Coastal Living’s Best Beach Reads for Summer 2019, and Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s Summer 2019 Okra Pick.

It has also been a featured pick in Woman’s Day Magazine, on celebrity Molly Sims’s summer book list, on Deep South Magazine’s Summer Reading List, and as the most-anticipated summer read on Workingmother.com!

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt follows a Southern woman as she untangles the dark legacy of her family's possessions in a South Carolina cotton town. It is a novel steeped in Southern lyricism, tragic family secrets, and suspenseful storytelling.

Join us at the bookshop on Tuesday, October 22nd for a discussion with former Kenyon Review editor David Lynn!

David Lynn recently resigned after 15 years as the editor of the Kenyon Review, an international journal of literature, culture and the arts.

As an author, he received a 2016 O. Henry Award for “Divergence.” His latest collection, Children of God: New & Selected Stories, has been published in 2019 by Braddock Avenue Books. An earlier volume, Year of Fire, was published in 2006 by Harcourt. In a review, Publisher’s Weekly said that “the stories of this collection occupy the gray borderland where betrayal mixes with trust, violence with affection, humiliation with lust. The effect is quietly haunting.” And the New York Times said, “feels his way toward tentative, glancing resolutions that avoid glib epiphanies and leave his characters, like the professor in ‘Life Sentences,’ ‘numb and sad and lonely . . . a still center as the emotional chaos of these people swirled about him, destroying so much.’”

David Lynn is the author of the novel Wrestling with Gabriel, an earlier collection of stories, Fortune Telling, and The Hero’s Tale: Narrators in the Early Modern Novel, a critical study. His stories and essays have appeared in magazines and journals in America, England, India, and Australia. Other awards include the Glimmer Train Short Story Prize 2015, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award Finalist, and the Ohioana Library Association Award for Editorial Excellence.

David Lynn lives in Gambier, Ohio with his wife, Wendy Singer, a distinguished historian of India. He is also Professor of English at Kenyon College.

Hub City Bookshop will host New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry at the Piedmont Club for a literary luncheon on October 25th.

A ticket includes lunch with the author and a copy of her new book The Favorite Daughter!

Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times bestselling author whose novels include The Bookshop at Water’s End, The Idea of Love, The Stories We Tell, and Driftwood Summer.

As Patti Callahan, she’s the author of the USA Today bestseller Becoming Mrs. Lewis. Short-listed for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and nominated multiple times for the Southern Inde¬pendent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award for Fiction, Patti is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups.

As a former nurse, much of Henry’s graduate work focused on injuries of the brain and memory, leading her to deep reflection on what it means for families who must learn to cope with what medical professionals refer to as “ambiguous loss.” How does one grieve for a loved one that still lives on but no longer seems to be the same person? Inspired by her professional experiences with memory loss, Henry wanted to explore the concept further as a novelist, resulting in her new book, The Favorite Daughter—a heart-rending story about a broken family that is forced to rally when tragedy strikes.

Celebrate the start of the weekend with Food & Drink at Greer City Park. Food Trucks, tailgating games, and music. Follow the event for Food Truck announcements and more information.

Thank you to our Food Truck Rollout Series Sponsor Greer CPW

Children under 16 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian at all times.

The Artisan Makers Market: Craft, Food, and Music

ar·ti·san (ˈärdəzən)
noun
*a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand.
*(of food or drink) made in a traditional or non-mechanized way using high-quality ingredients.

The Artisan Makers Market and Greer Farmers Market will host up to 25 makers at Greer City Park; Makers who have worked to perfect their craft and brand themselves well will be chosen to participate in the event.

Food and beverages will be available for purchase onsite.

This literary placemaking workshop is aimed at helping both beginners and established writers tell their stories. The idea is to capture a diverse range of voices and memories that capture the essence of the places we are from.

Hannah Palmer works as an urban designer in Atlanta. She writes about the intersection of southern stories and urban landscapes for venues like CNN, Art Papers, Atlanta Magazine, ATL Studies, and for urban design and planning projects around the world. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, she earned an MFA in creative writing from Sewanee: The University of the South. She lives near the Atlanta Airport with her husband and sons. Her first book, Flight Path: A Search for Roots beneath the World's Busiest Airport, was published in 2017 by Hub City Press.

The worst thing writers do is censor themselves. It takes courage to put words on paper. It’s time to lose your writing inhibitions. As you enjoy a cup of Waller’s coffee, we will discuss what it takes to tell a good story. The class will focus on ways to get started, stay motivated, and be true to your creative voice. We’ll have tips and writing prompts for fiction, essays, and poetry. The class will be facilitated by local author Nicki Salcedo.

Nicki Salcedo is a novelist and freelance writer. She is a regular contributor to Decaturish.com. She has judged the annual Creative Loafing Fiction Contest. Nicki has been on stage in Write Club Atlanta and Bleux Stocking Society. Her book “All Beautiful Things” is a romantic suspense set in Atlanta. She is also the author three collections of essays about life in the South, through grief, and while creating goodness.

What is self-publishing? How does one self-publish a book? This three hour course will serve as an overview of the different methods of self-publishing, updated for the 2019 publishing landscape. It will be facilitated by Meg Reid, director of Hub City Press.

It will cover the process and costs of hiring a designer and editor, printing the actual books and getting them into stores, and how to avoid the many scams and predatory printers that are present in the marketplace. A Q&A period will close out the seminar.

Please reserve your seat early as attendance is capped at 30.

Coming up with creative ideas is one thing, but the ability to pitch your concept in a captivating way is another. That’s why Denny’s partnered with the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce to offer an EmpowerPitch SPEECHCRAFT program (presented by experienced members of Spartanburg Toastmasters) to all underrepresented entrepreneurs and small business owners in Spartanburg County including graduates of the City of Spartanburg’s Amplify program and the Northside Development Group’s StartME initiative.

The EmpowerPitch SPEECHCRAFT program teaches the art of storytelling to capture an audience during six bi-weekly, two-hour sessions. Nine entrepreneurs are graduating from the program after learning public speaking fundamentals through the Toastmasters curriculum, and we’d like to celebrate them.

We are unique in that we have our beautiful local folks and also those who come to us as a destination to enjoy the mountains that cradle us.

We have great vendors both local foods, plants & crafts but we always need more growers. People who want to grow clean, local food and sell their extras with the community.

Join us for the documentary screening on Sunday, August 25th. Enjoy an evening filled with sweet & savory Jewish delights, music by Greenville County Youth Orchestra as well as Bandana Klezmer, and our guest speaker Dr. Jim Dant, Senior Minister at First Baptist Greenville, who will highlight the diverse impact of this film.

An evening of traditional Irish music, Americana and contemporary songs. Admission is free.

Have you defined your personal brand?   Are you consistently living your personal brand every day? Most people would answer no to those questions, but personal branding is the means by which people remember you. It's more than a business card; it is how you present yourself online and offline to potential clients, customers and future employers. Your personal brand can build your business, but it still centers around you as an individual. This presentation will offer useful tips and stories on how personal branding can be a key part of your success, in leadership and in life.

Which Home Cook has got what it takes to bake? Plate 108 and I are partnering to raise money for Make A Wish charity. On September 21st, teams of two will compete head to head to see who can make the best cupcake. Bring the kids, cheer on your favorite team, and be taste testers of the cupcakes. Judges will pick the winner and you will be crowned The Greatest Greer Baker.
Team fee $45
Audience fee $10 purchase at the door or through eventbrite

A charity concert event at the Younts Center for Performing Arts in Fountain Inn, SC to benefit Prisma Health Children’s Hospital Upstate. Be a part of a great night of fun and music and help support the everyday miracles occurring at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital Upstate. Your tax deductible sponsorship will go directly to our local Hospital. Checks payable to Prisma Health Children’s Hospital Upstate – tax information available.

A culinary tour of Turkey, right here in the Upstate! Check back to the Facebook event page as details will be added.

Bring a friend, daughter, or niece and join us for a delicious brunch and a program guaranteed to inspire and unite!

Thanks to the generosity of Denny’s Corporation this event is free! Pre-registration via Eventbrite is required for admission**. Meet on the ground floor for check in. The event will be held on Denny’s beautiful 17th floor with a soaring view of the upstate.

Attendees MUST register through the Eventbrite link provided.

The Greenville Zoo will be here for the August Family Fun Day as we explore the animals of Wonderland! Meet the "Mock Turtle" and "Frog Footman" from 10am - Noon. Throughout Family Fun Day enjoy games, craft stations, story times, and play time in our other summer exhibit, "Thomas & Friends: Explore the Rails."

GREENVILLE ZOO: 10:00 a.m. - NOON

ADMISSION:
$10 - Adults
$9 - Senior Adults & College Students
$8 - Kids (ages 4-18)

Join author Marie Benedict as she discusses her acclaimed new novel, The Only Woman in the Room. She will also explore the common theme throughout all her books – women who play pivotal roles in history but go unnoticed. A reception and book-signing will immediately follow the event.

In her most recent work of historical fiction, Benedict looks at the remarkable life of Austrian-born American film actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. The New York Times raves, “ a novelist who’s made a career writing about ‘the only woman in the room’… In Benedict’s telling, the story is a ready-made thriller as well as a feminist parable.”

Go Over the Edge for Cancer Association of Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties!

What is Over the Edge?
Friday, October 18th join 100 “Edgers” who are brave enough to raise a minimum of $1,000 to rappel over the edge of a 10 story building for the Cancer Association.

Who:

100 participants (men, women, children; 100 to 300 lbs)

What:

Raise a minimum of $1,000 for the chance to rappel down a 10 story building

When:

Friday, October 18, 2019

Where:

AC Hotel and Level 10

Why:

To raise funds to support services for local cancer patients in our area.