A deeply personal memoir that unearths a family history of racism, slaveholding, and trauma as well as love and sparks of delight. Marcia Herman’s family moved to Birmingham in 1946, when she was five years old, and settled in the steel-making city dense with smog and a rigid apartheid system. Marcia, a shy only child, struggled to fit in and understand this world, shadowed as it was by her mother’s proud antebellum heritage. In 1966, weary of Alabama’s toxic culture, Marcia and her young family left Birmingham and built a life in North Carolina. Later in life, Herman-Giddens resumed a search to find out what she did not know about her family history. Unloose My Heart interweaves the story of her youth and coming of age in Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement together with this quest to understand exactly who and what her maternal ancestors were and her obligations as a white woman within a broader sense of American family. More than a memoir set against the backdrop of Jim Crow and the civil rights struggle, this is the work of a woman of conscience writing in the twenty-first century. Haunted by the past, Unloose My Heart is a journey of exploration and discovery, full of angst, sorrow, and yearning. Unearthing her forebears’ centuries-long embrace of plantation slavery, Herman-Giddens dug deeply to parse the arrogance and cruelty necessary to be a slaveholder and the trauma and fear that ripple out in its wake. All this forced her to scrutinize the impact of this legacy in her life, as well as her debt to the enslaved people who suffered and were exploited at her ancestors’ hands. But she also discovers lost connections, new cousins and friends, unexpected joys, and, eventually, a measure of peace in the process. With heartbreak, moments […]

SAVE THE DATE: We are co-sponsoring the 2023 State of Black Entrepreneurship in Rural NC hosted by WEBB Squared on Friday, Feb 3rd at 9:30 AM at the Chatham Agriculture & Conference Center. The event will help raise awareness about barriers & opportunities to develop ecosystems to support Black & Brown entrepreneurs in NC. Learn more and get your ticket: https://webbsquared.org/state-of-black-entrepreneurship/

Join us as we unveil our Gallery redesign and the opening of our new show featuring fresh Art for the new year! Mingle with the Artists while enjoying small bites & refreshments. Browse our Gallery to find the perfect, locally made gift for your Valentine. This Event is Free and open to the public.

The Quiltmaker Café will be partnering with Carolina Brewery for their Dining For Dollars event. The Café will receive 5% of the entire day's total sales: Lunch, Dinner, or a Late Night Snack! Check out their menu and mark you calendar!

The transformation of Governor Ralph Northam Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's "blackface scandal" could have destroyed any politician. The photo of Governor Northam purportedly in blackface created a firestorm not only locally but also in every political sphere. What the Eyes Can't See details why Northam's career did not end with the scandal, and how it made him a better governor—and a better citizen. In this book, Margaret Edds draws on unprecedented access to the governor, his aides, and members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, whose initial anger evolved into determination to mine good from an ugly episode. Both scolding and encouraging, they led Northam to a deeper understanding of the racism and pain the photograph symbolized. To Northam's credit, he listened, and more importantly learned the lessons of endemic, systemic racism and applied those lessons to his legislative agenda. Edds provides a revealing examination of race in the nation, how racism might be addressed and reckoned with, and how we all may find a measure of redemption in listening to one another. Margaret Edds is a former reporter and editorial writer for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. She is the author of several books, including We Face the Dawn: Oliver Hill, Spottswood Robinson, and the Legal Team That Dismantled Jim Crow; Finding Sara: A Daughter's Journey; and An Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington Jr. Dianne Jackson,retired educator in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System, a member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, Campaign for Racial Equity, OCCRC, and Bridging the Gap Foundation.

Jazz nights are continuing on Wednesdays so don't miss out on the chance to hear some great holiday jazz this month, sprinkled in alongside your classic favorites. Here are our upcoming performers 02/08- Lauren Meehan Band 02/15- Tony Galiano 02/22- Dave Quick Jazz So make a reservation and join us for dinner tonight! Lounge menu served in the dining room, and the lounge, and our full dinner menu as well.

Each of the ten stories in Have Mercy on Us is an illuminating window into a human life. In the way of all the best fiction, these stories enlarge our understanding of what it means to be alive and to love, with characters who leap off the page. In this award-winning collection, the people are varied in age, race, and origin. An old man travels to a village in Kenya in an attempt to bring his estranged son home; against her mother’s wishes, a young woman attends the funeral of the father she never met, hoping to forge a relationship with her eight siblings; a woman long married to a renowned artist whose infidelity is nearly blatant, takes things into her own hands in a brilliantly realized moment of independence; in an imagined, loving portrait, the writer Zora Neale Hurston is shown near the end of her life in 1948, working as a maid in a motel in Ft. Pierce, Florida. These stories are spare and romantic without being sentimental. The youngest of six children, Lisa Cupolo grew up in the Honeymoon Capital of the World: Niagara Falls, Canada. At thirteen, she was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, and spent much of her teens and twenties battling illness. She has spoken about how this trial was one of the blessings of her life, because it led her to writing. She learned to escape, creating stories when reality got difficult, and she imagined herself living the lives of her characters, and in the real world, she became an observer. Lisa has worked as a paparazzi photographer, photo editor, and literary publicist at HarperCollins in Toronto. She has lived all over the world, but currently calls Southern California home. Lisa holds a BA in philosophy from The University of Western Ontario, a […]

Come out and support your local economy for the first Bazaar Night Market of the year! We have an awesome lineup of vendors, food, beverages and live music. Join the fun November 18th, 4-9pm! brought to you by Reclamation Vintage! Food Trucks, Beverages, Music, Vintage Vendors, Local Artisan Vendors, Music and much more!

Please support Sophie’s Sweets. She will be at SpaRituals on February 14 from 10-2. Homemade cookies for your Valentine.

Enjoy a 3-course prix fixe dinner on Valentine’s Day, February 14th. $80/person with optional wine pairings for an additional charge. Candlelit tables, piano music, and the historic brick mill will be the perfect backdrop for your romantic evening. Join us for leisurely meal with the one you love.

NEW... Valentine's Dinner & Dancing 2/14! Our Valentine's Dinner at The Sycamore is full, so we have partnered with Forest Hall and our Catering company, 39 West to add another great option for the 14th! Join us for a Valentine's Jazz Dinner & Dancing. Inside our historical old mill, just down the hall from The Sycamore. Enjoy live music from Dave Quick Jazz, a catered dinner and dessert from 39 West Catering, and a 30 minute dance lesson from Chatham Social Dance. Champagne pour upon arrival, cash bar, and plenty of time to relax and enjoy the evening with the one you love. Tuesday, February 14th from 6-9pm Menu: • Roasted Pork Loin with Raisin Apple Chutney • Stuffed Chicken Breast with Mushrooms, Roasted Red Peppers and Vermont White Cheddar • Greens with Seasonal Fruit, Roasted Almonds and Bleu Cheese Crumbles w/ Balsamic Basil Vinaigrette • Au Gratin Potatoes • Roasted Broccolini • Assorted Rolls with Whipped Butter • Assorted Mini Desserts $75/person inclusive of tax and tip Get tickets at eventbrite.com or email [email protected] to reserve and pay directly Make a Reservation

Jazz nights are continuing on Wednesdays so don't miss out on the chance to hear some great holiday jazz this month, sprinkled in alongside your classic favorites. Here are our upcoming performers 02/15- Tony Galiano 02/22- Dave Quick Jazz So make a reservation and join us for dinner tonight! Lounge menu served in the dining room, and the lounge, and our full dinner menu as well.

Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King. As she learns more about Cullowee, however, she discovers that he, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side. When she finds she is not the only one threatened, she devises a plan to bring him down. Based on historical facts, The Kudzu Queen unravels a tangle of sexuality, power, race, and kudzu through the voice of an irresistibly delightful (and mostly honest) narrator. Mimi Herman is the author of The Kudzu Queen, Logophilia and A Field Guide to Human Emotions. She codirects Writeaways writing workshops in the United States and abroad, and is a Kennedy Center teaching artist. Mimi lives in a 1925 bungalow in Durham, North Carolina.

Jazz nights are continuing on Wednesdays so don't miss out on the chance to hear some great holiday jazz this month, sprinkled in alongside your classic favorites. Here are our upcoming performers 02/22- Dave Quick Jazz 03/01- Kris Whitenack Trio 03/08- Tony Galiani Band 03/15- Dave Quick Jazz 03/22- Lauren Meehan Band So make a reservation and join us for dinner tonight! Lounge menu served in the dining room, and the lounge, and our full dinner menu as well.

A rock and roll drummer abandons his successful music career to pursue his true passion and discovers a deeper understanding of artistic fulfillment in this episodic memoir of swapping one dream for another In the mid-1990s, fresh out of high school, Nic Brown was living his childhood dream as a rock and roll drummer. Signing a major label record deal, playing big shows, hitting the charts, giving interviews in Rolling Stone, appearing on The Tonight Show—what could be better for a young artist? But contrary to expectations, getting a shot at his artistic dream early in life was a destabilizing shock. The more he achieved, the more accolades that came his way, the less sure Brown became about his path. Only a few years into a promising musical career, he discovered the crux of his discontent: he was never meant to remain behind the drums. In fact, his true artistic path lay in a radically different direction entirely: he decided to become a writer, embarking on a journey leading him to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, publish novels and short stories, and teach literature to college students across the country. Bang Bang Crash tells the story of Nic Brown’s unusual journey to gain new strength, presence of mind, and sense of perspective, enabling him to discover an even greater life of artistic fulfillment. Nic Brown is the author of the novels In Every Way, Doubles, and Floodmarkers, which was selected as an Editors' Choice by The New York Times Book Review. He is the fiction editor of the South Carolina Review, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times and the Harvard Review, among many other publications. As a drummer, he has worked with Athenaeum, Ben Lee, Longwave, Skeleton Key, and Eszter Balint. A graduate of Columbia University […]

The 10 countries that make up Southeast Asia offer a kaleidoscope of cultural and spiritual diversity - wrapped in rainforests, crowned by volcanoes, and studded with ruins of lost civilizations. The tiger is a powerful religious and cultural symbol for the people of Southeast Asia, but the species is also one of the most endangered mammals in the world. Join Carolina Tiger Rescue as we celebrate the tiger and look toward a future when tigers are no longer endangered. Enjoy an evening filled with good friends, fine food and drink, fun silent and live auction items, and dancing! The Annual Black Tie & Tails Ball benefits the amazing animals at Carolina Tiger Rescue.