In the tradition of Notes on an Execution and I Have Some Questions for You, a thrilling, wire-taut debut novel about a murder on a college campus and its aftermath twenty years later. Days after the dawn of Y2K, beautiful, charismatic nineteen-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, those who knew Karlie—and those who just knew of her—remain consumed by her death. Among them is her freshman year roommate, Joy, now middle-aged and mid-divorce, living in the same college town and desperate for a new beginning. When she stumbles upon a twenty-year-old letter from Karlie, Joy becomes convinced the man in prison for her murder was wrongfully convicted. Soon she is diving deep into the dark world of internet conspiracy theorists and amateur sleuth blogs and bouncing off others touched by the long, sensational aftermath of this crime. They include KC, the trans night manager at the building where Karlie was killed; Sheri, the mother of the intellectually disabled man serving time; and Jacob Hendrix, the charming professor with whom, Joy knows all too well, Karlie was romantically entangled before her death. Jumping between 2019 and 1999, Bright and Tender Dark takes us from the era of Reddit threads and online obsession to the evangelism-infused culture of the late ’90s to reveal what really happened to Karlie. It is a compulsively readable, prismatic literary mystery that brilliantly mines the mythology of murder, the power of urban legend, and the psychological urge to both protect and exploit what you love but cannot have. Joanna Pearson is the author of two short story collections and a book of poetry. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and many other publications. She has won the Drue Heinz […]

Exciting Opportunity for Small Business Owners and Aspiring Entrepreneurs! 🚀 📚Are you a business owner or dreaming of starting your own venture? Join us for 5 power-packed sessions with the CCCC Small Business Center! Free and open to the public! 🥳 🗓️ Dates: May 29, June 5, 12, 19, 26 ⏱️Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 📍Location: Red Moose Brewing Company� 🔥 Unlock the secrets to business success! 🧳 Learn essential tools for your entrepreneurial journey. 🌐 Connect with experts and fellow entrepreneurs. 🤝 Network and build valuable relationships. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your business to new heights. To register or for more information, call (919) 545-8015 or scan the QR code in the flyer.

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 6/5 – Combo Platter 6/12 – Tony Galiani Jazz Quartet 6/19 – Lauren Meehan 6/26 – Dave Quick Jazz 7/3 – Steve Hobbs Trio

As urgent, resonant, and essential as The Fire Next Time and Between the World and Me, Nephew is a poetic, raw, and inspirational love letter from the bestselling author of Buck, written to a nephew who was shot nine times and survived—a reflection on life, overcoming odds, finding your voice, and the power of music and family. Waiting in the emergency room at Temple University Hospital in North Philadelphia where his eighteen-year-old nephew, Nasir, lay unconscious after being shot nine times, M. K. Asante began pouring his heart and soul into a series of letters to a beautiful, dying Black boy so full of life. As Nasir fought for survival, M. K. realized there was so much—too much—that he had kept from his nephew, starting with the truth about his father, M. K.’s brother, Uzi, whom Nasir had never met. M. K. could no longer remain silent because in many ways, his nephew was repeating the mistakes of the past. M. K. began his confessional to repair family bonds—to save Nasir from the same streets that stole his father and to introduce him to the man and family history the young man had never known. The result is this beautiful, poignant, and honest family memoir. Nephew introduces us to two men, strangers to each other, whose similarities are astonishing. Both have red hot tempers, both struggle with opioid addiction, and most profoundly, both are lyrical geniuses whose raps are raw, powerful, and autobiographical. Yet neither had ever heard the other’s lyrics. As he tells his family’s story, M. K. draws vivid portraits of both Nasir and Uzi through their songs—lyrics that become the touchstone of their relationship. When father and son eventually meet, they confront each other and share a dialogue through their lyrics. M. K. Asante is an award-winning […]

Grab your popcorn and get ready for Friday Movie Night at MOSAIC at Chatham Park! 🎥🍿 Here's what's on the big screen this month: 🔥June 7: 'Elemental' at 8:30 pm. 🏎️ June 21: It's Movie Night + Car show! Car show starts at 7:30 pm, followed by 'Cars' at 8:30 pm. Don't forget your lawn chair or blanket and arrive early to secure a spot. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/3UZhKhR!

Celebrate firing 111 and explore 1500+ pottery pieces by master potter Mark Hewitt at this Open Studio.

Join us for an afternoon of family fun! Bring the whole family and join conservatives for a vibrant community event celebrating the Spirit of America. There will be food trucks, live music & DJ, face painting, theatrical history lessons, games, and bull rides. Join us for a fun-filled, family oriented day with friends and neighbors as we celebrate the values that make America great! Free admission, donations accepted. Go to www.chathamncgop.com for more information.

Celebrate firing 111 and explore 1500+ pottery pieces by master potter Mark Hewitt at this Open Studio.

Check out the Flyleaf Books page for more information about what's happening at Flyleaf Books!

Check out the bmc brewing events page for more information about what's happening at BMC Brewing!

Check Havoc Brewing Events for more details about specific #HavocHappenings.

Do Jane Austen novels truly celebrate—or undermine—romance and happy endings? How did Jane Austen become a cultural icon for fairy-tale endings when her own books end in ways that are rushed, ironic, and reluctant to satisfy readers' thirst for romance? In Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness, Austen scholar Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey journeys through the iconic novelist's books in the first full-length study of Austen's endings. Through a careful exploration of Austen's own writings and those of the authors she read during her lifetime—as well as recent cultural reception and adaptations of her novels—Brodey examines the contradictions that surround this queen of romance. Brodey argues that Austen's surprising choices in her endings are an essential aspect of the writer's own sense of the novel and its purpose. Austen's fiercely independent and deeply humanistic ideals led her to develop a style of ending all her own. Writing in a culture that set a monetary value on success in marriage and equated matrimony with happiness, Austen questions these cultural norms and makes her readers work for their comic conclusions, carefully anticipating and shaping her readers' emotional involvement in her novels. Providing innovative and engaging readings of Austen's novels, Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness traces her development as an author and her convictions about authorship, novels, and the purpose of domestic fiction. In a review of modern film adaptions of Austen's work, the book also offers new interpretations while illustrating how contemporary ideas of marriage and happiness have shaped Austen's popular currency in the Anglophone world and beyond. Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey is a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the co-founder and director of the Jane Austen Summer Program and Jane Austen & Co., and the principal […]

Exciting Opportunity for Small Business Owners and Aspiring Entrepreneurs! 🚀 📚Are you a business owner or dreaming of starting your own venture? Join us for 5 power-packed sessions with the CCCC Small Business Center! Free and open to the public! 🥳 🗓️ Dates: May 29, June 5, 12, 19, 26 ⏱️Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 📍Location: Red Moose Brewing Company� 🔥 Unlock the secrets to business success! 🧳 Learn essential tools for your entrepreneurial journey. 🌐 Connect with experts and fellow entrepreneurs. 🤝 Network and build valuable relationships. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your business to new heights. To register or for more information, call (919) 545-8015 or scan the QR code in the flyer.

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 6/12 – Tony Galiani Jazz Quartet 6/19 – Lauren Meehan 6/26 – Dave Quick Jazz 7/3 – Steve Hobbs Trio

The dramatic life of Vietnam War hero Roy Benavidez, a Mexican American Green Beret from a working-class family with deep roots in Texas, revealing how Hispanic Americans have long shaped US history. In May 1968, while serving in Vietnam, Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez led the rescue of a reconnaissance team surrounded by hundreds of enemy soldiers. He saved the lives of at least eight of his comrades that day in a remarkable act of valor that left him permanently disabled. Awarded the Medal of Honor after a yearslong campaign, Benavidez became a highly sought-after public speaker, a living symbol of military heroism, and one of the country’s most prominent Latinos. Now, historian William Sturkey tells Benavidez’s life story in full for the first time. Growing up in Jim Crow–era Texas, Benavidez was scorned as “Mexican” despite his family’s deep roots in the state. He escaped poverty by enlisting in a desegregating military and was first deployed amid the global upheavals of the 1950s. Even after receiving the Medal of Honor, Benavidez was forced to fight for disability benefits amid Reagan-era cutbacks. An unwavering patriot alternately celebrated and snubbed by the country he loved, Benavidez embodied many of the contradictions inherent in twentieth-century Latino life. The Ballad of Roy Benavidez places that experience firmly at the heart of the American story.  William Sturkey is an associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Hattiesburg, a finalist for the Benjamin L. Hooks National Book Award and winner of the 2020 Zócalo Book Prize, and the co-editor of To Write in the Light of Freedom. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Daniel Wallace is the author of six novels, including Big Fish, which was adapted and released as a movie and a Broadway musical. His novels have been […]

Enjoy a cup of coffee at Havoc Brewing while snuggling kitties looking for a forever home! There will be raffle prizes and a coffee special.

Fairy Hair June 15 9-2 please email Michelle @MsMicheleLee@gmail.com to sign up

Check out the bmc brewing events page for more information about what's happening at BMC Brewing!

Check Havoc Brewing Events for more details about specific #HavocHappenings.