Leicester Library Events for June

Leicester Reads Together
Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis by Beth Macy
June 15 at 6 p.m. at the Leicester Library

Join Commissioner Terri Wells, Buncombe County’s Behavorial Health Manager Victoria Reichard, and the Leicester Library staff for a community reading and discussion of Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis by Beth Macy.

Opioid addiction is an issue that faces every community, and Buncombe County and Leicester are not exceptions. Whether you are personally affected by this crisis or seeking education on the topic, this discussion will provide opportunities for all to share, participate, and learn.

We will discuss Beth Macy’s book and talk about ways Buncombe County is addressing the opioid crisis for people in our community.

Copies of the book are available at the Leicester Library and through the Buncombe County Public Library system. This book club is open to all residents of the Leicester community and surrounding areas of Buncombe County.  Light snacks will be provided. 

Evening in the Garden
Saturday, June 24 at 6:30 p.m. at the Leicester Library

The second annual Evening In the Garden will take place at the Leicester Library on Saturday, June 24, at 6:30 p.m. Join us for mountain music from Buncombe Turnpike, light refreshments, crafts for kids, tours of the Leicester Library Giving Garden, fun outdoor activities and hopefully a beautiful sunset behind the mountains of Leicester. Attendees are encouraged to bring a lawn chair or a blanket and settle in for a sweet summer evening.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Leicester Library and is a celebration of community! It is free and open to all.

Appalachia on the Table: Local Author Talk with Erica Abrams Locklear
June 27 at 6 p.m. at the Leicester Library 

Appalachia on the Table argues, in part, that since the conception of Appalachia as a distinctly different region from the rest of the South and the United States, the foods associated with the region and its people have often been used to socially categorize and stigmatize mountain people. Rather than investigate the actual foods consumed in Appalachia, Locklear instead focuses on the representations of foods consumed, implied moral judgments about those foods, and how those judgments shape reader perceptions of those depicted. The question at the core of Locklear's analysis asks, How did the dominant culinary narrative of the region come into existence and what consequences has that narrative had for people in the mountains?

Erica Abrams Locklear is a professor of English and the Thomas Howerton Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She is the author of Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People and Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment: Appalachian Women’s Literacies. She is a seventh-generation Western North Carolinian from Leicester who loves good food, books, and conversation.

This event is free and everyone is invited.