On Friday, October 3 at 7:00pm, City Lights Bookstore in Sylva is sponsoring an author event launching the publication of a book featuring two prominent western North Carolina residents: artist Robert Johnson and author Thomas Rain Crowe. Johnson, whose work is shown and sold through Blue Spiral 1 Gallery in Asheville, and who is a resident of the Celo community near Burnsville, NC, is noted for his imagistic and imaginary landscape paintings and drawings, and is an ardent environmentalist. Thomas Rain Crowe, also active in regional environmental issues, is an internationally published and acknowledged poet, publisher and non-fiction writer who lives in the Tuckasegee community in Jackson County, NC. He is most noted, perhaps to area residents for his nonfiction memoir Zoro's Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods which won Book of the Year Award in Nonfiction for the state of North Carolina and Best Book of Nonfiction on the Environment from the Southern Environmental Law Center in 2005.
The book being celebrated at the City Lights event, The End of Eden, is a collaboration between the two artists, combining Crowe's essays and articles on the regional environment of western North Carolina over the period of the last fifteen years or more with more than fifteen of the paintings and sketches of Robert Johnson--all of which are of vistas and locations he visited and studied in the southern Blue Ridge Smoky Mountains.
Also appearing for this special event will be Richard Lewis, who is Director of the Touchstone Center and an award-winning author from New York City, whose book of short Zen-like poems Shaking the Grass for Dew will also be launched and released at this event. Mr. Lewis's new book is published by New Native Press which was founded in 1979 by Thomas Crowe. Mr. Lewis will read from his new collection and will also be available to sign copies and meet with people in attendance. Of Mr. Lewis's book, publisher Thomas Crowe says: 'Richard Lewis is writing a kind of poetry unlike anything that is being written in America today. He writes from a place deep in the spirit of nature reminiscent of the Japanese and Chinese haiku poets. These poems and their author are a delight. This is a unique chance for people, here locally, to experience and meet Richard Lewis firsthand. I highly reccommend to everyone that they try to come out for this event.
Books by Thomas Crowe and Richard Lewis will be available for purchase and authors will hold a book signing and casual conversation with those wishing to have copies of these two books signed by the authors. This special two-author event is open to the public and free of charge. Light food and beverage will be served. For further information contact City Lights at 586-9499.