Join us on Sunday, October 16, at 5:00 pm for a Pay-What-You-Can Community Feast! Gather at The Plant under a fall sunset with friends new and old from the Chatham community. You'll enjoy amazing food, swap stories, and be a part of building beloved community. Plus, you'll get to practice the pay-what-you-can model — the core feature of The Quiltmaker Café, a new nonprofit, fast-casual restaurant coming to Pittsboro in Spring 2023. This event has been organized by a patchwork of incredible community partners, including: The Quiltmaker Café Abundance NC The Local Church Café Root Cellar Postal Fish Company Chatham Health Alliance Fair Game Beverage BMC Brewing Copeland Springs Farm Heart Song Farm Lilly Den Farm Carolina Cravings St. Bart's Community Lunch The Chatham Chuckwagon Communities In Schools of Chatham County ... and many more! Learn more and register at the link provided! All are welcome; all belong.

Acclaimed author Michael Parker tells the searing and unforgettable story of one decision that irrevocably changed the course of a young man’s life. In the early 1970s, in Stovall, Texas, seventeen-year-old Earl—a loner, dreamer, lover of music and words—meets Tina, the new girl in town. Tina convinces Earl to drive her to see her mother in Austin, where Earl and Tina are quickly separated. Two days later, Earl is being questioned by the police about Tina’s disappearance and the blood in the trunk of his car. But Earl can’t remember what happened in Austin, and with little financial support from his working-class family, he is sentenced for a crime he did not commit. Forty years later, Earl is released into a world he can barely navigate. Settling in a small town on the Oregon coast, he attempts to establish a sense of freedom from both bars and razor wire and the emotional toll of incarceration. But just as Earl finds the rhythm he’s always sought, his past returns to endanger the new life he’s built. Steeped in the music and atmosphere of the 1970s, I Am the Light of This World is a gritty, gripping, and gorgeously written story of loss, redemption, and the power of the imagination, perfect for fans of Ron Rash, Rachel Kushner, and Laird Hun. The author of seven novels and three collections of stories, Michael Parker has been awarded four career-achievement awards: the Hobson Award for Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, the R. Hunt Parker Award, and the 2020 Thomas Wolfe Prize. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Oxford American, Runner’s World, Men's Journal, and others. He is a three-time winner of the O. Henry Prize for his short fiction and his […]

Fans of Ruta Sepetys, Monica Hesse, and Malinda Lo will devour this heart-wrenching queer historical YA romance set in the underground Swing Youth movement of World War II Berlin. Charlotte Kraus would follow Angelika Haas anywhere—which is how she finds herself in an underground club one Friday night the summer before World War II, dancing to contraband American jazz and swing music, suddenly feeling that anything might be possible. Unable to resist the allure of sharing this secret with Geli, Charlie returns to the club again and again, despite the dangers of breaking the Nazi Party’s rules. Soon, terrified by the tightening vise of Hitler’s power, Charlie and the other Swingjugend are drawn to larger and larger acts of rebellion. But the war will test how much they are willing to risk—and to lose Nita Tyndall (they/them) is a passionate queer advocate and literary translator who writes the kinds of books they needed in high school. Their translations from the German have appeared in World Literature Today, and they have previously written for outlets like Autostraddle and were part of the Lambda Literary Writer's Retreat in 2017. They live in North Carolina with their partner and a beautifully fluffy cat.

The Chatham Historical Museum functions as an all-volunteer effort, welcoming visitors from far and wide to stop, stay a while and soak up the history of the county. The lifeblood of the museum is its dynamic volunteer corps. The volunteers give a voice to Chatham history--one that brings several hundred visitors to the courthouse every year. Join some of our current volunteers on Wednesday, Oct . 19 between 11 and 1 to chat about how your talents and interests might fit in. Drop in at the Museum, which is located in the Historic Chatham County Courthouse. Think you don’t know enough to help? We can fix that! Training on the museum holdings is provided to all new volunteers, and we also provide a list of people to whom you can refer any questions you are not equipped to answer. You’ll learn Chatham history and help pass it along to other interested people. More info here: https://chathamhistory.org/Museum-Volunteers or contact us at MuseumVolunteers@chathamhistory.org

In a vibrant and illuminating follow-up to her award-winning story collection, Useful Phrases for Immigrants, May-lee Chai’s latest collection Tomorrow in Shanghai explores multicultural complexities through lenses of class, wealth, age, gender, and sexuality—always tracking the nuanced, knotty, and intricate exchanges of interpersonal and institutional power. These stories transport the reader, variously: to rural China, where a city doctor harvests organs to fund a wedding and a future for his family; on a vacation to France, where a white mother and her biracial daughter cannot escape their fraught relationship; inside the unexpected romance of two Chinese-American women living abroad in China; and finally, to a future Chinese colony on Mars, where an aging working-class woman lands a job as a nanny. Chai's stories are essential reading for an increasingly globalized world. May-lee Chai is the award-winning author of eleven books of fiction, nonfiction, and translation, including her latest short story collection, Tomorrow in Shanghai & Other Stories (Blair, 2022). Her prior story collection, Useful Phrases for Immigrants, won the 2019 American Book Award. She previously taught in the MFA program at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and is now chair of the creative writing department at San Francisco State University. Her writing has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman (selected by Tayari Jones), Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, named a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book, and recipient of an honorable mention for the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Book Awards. Her short prose has appeared widely, including in Seventeen, New England Review, Longreads, Paris Review Online, Kenyon Review Online, Los Angeles Times, Best Small Fictions anthology, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and cited as Notable in two editions of the Best American […]

NOTE: Sunday hours are 1-6 Turns out we had an extra weekend in October this year…..so….on this weekend, get $1.00 off admission to the farm for each person who wears something that represents their favorite school. Sorry, this discount is not available with online ticketing.

Passionate about the food + farming industry? Don't miss Innovate Carolina at 79 Degrees West Innovation Hub on Oct 26 from 4-5:30. Network with food-loving #entrepreneurs and learn more about innovation within this industry! Pre-registration required.

Look for the Bazzar Night Market at The Plant, brought to you by Reclamation Vintage! Food Trucks, Beverages, Music, Vintage Vendors, Local Artisan Vendors, Music and much more!

Look for the bright purple tent downtown!

Did you know? Carolina Tiger Rescue attends community events all throughout the Triangle, so if you've ever wanted to learn more about us, come see us at the following events: ~Pittsboro Street Fair - Saturday, October 29 from 10-4 ~Darwin Days - Saturday, November 12 from 10-5 at Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh We can't wait to see you all there!

2022 FALL FESTIVAL This year our farm will be open to the public every weekend beginning Saturday, September 24 through Sunday, October 30. Our hours are: Saturdays 10 am to 6 pm Sundays 1 pm to 6 pm We suggest you plan on at least two and a half to three hours to experience all the farm has to offer. Last admission is always 1 hour before we close, last hayride is always 30 minutes before we close, so come early to enjoy all the fun!

The definitive, behind-the-scenes look at why Pokémon's evolution from a single Japanese video game to global powerhouse captured the world's attention, and how the "gotta catch 'em all" mentality of its fanbase shaped pop culture—and continues to do so today. More than just a simple journey through the history of Pokémon, Daniel Dockery offers an in-depth look at the franchise’s many branches of impact and influence. With dozens of firsthand interviews, Monster Kids covers its beginnings as a Japanese video game created to recapture one man's love of bug-collecting as a child before diving into the decisions and conditions that would ultimately lead to that game's global domination. With its continued growth as television shows, spin-off video games, blockbuster movies, trading cards, and toys, Pokémon is a unique and special brand that manages to continue to capture the attention and adoration of its eager fanbase 25 years after its initial release. Whether it was new animated shows like Digimon, Cardcaptors, and Yu-Gi-Oh!; the rise of monster-catching video games and trading card games; and more, Pikachu, the king of pop culture in the '90s, opened the doors in America to those hoping to capture some of Pokémon's dedicated fans. In Monster Kids, Dockery combines the personal stories of the people who helped bring Pokémon to the global stage with affection and humor, making this book the ultimate look at the rise of the franchise in Japan and then North America, but also the generation of kids whose passion for "catching them all" created a unique cultural phenomenon that continues to make a profound impact today. Daniel Dockery grew up with just a few TV channels and a dusty comic book rack at his local grocery store, but his interest in pop culture led to a career writing for publications like Polygon, […]

We are now open every Wednesday night and will feature live music each week from 6-9pm. Reservations highly recommended. See schedule below and check back for new bands to be added weekly! 11/2- Oakboro 11/9- Dave Quick 11/16- Lauren Meehan Band 11/23- Kris Whitenack trio

Join celebrated authors William deBuys and Bland Simpson in conversation at Flyleaf Books on November 3, in association with the University of North Carolina's Department of English and Comparative Literature. This event is co-sponsored by Flyleaf Books and Creative Writing at Carolina. William deBuys cherishes many associations with Chapel Hill, from his undergraduate days as a Morehead Scholar to directing the North Carolina Nature Conservancy in the 1980s. He has written ten books, the most recent of which, The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss, completes a trilogy that includes The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth’s Rarest Creatures (listed among Christian Science Monitor’s ten best non-fiction books of 2015) and A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest (which won the Weber/Clements Prize for best book on the Southwest in 2012). His River of Traps (with photographer Alex Harris) was a Pulitzer Prize nonfiction finalist in 1991. He has been a Kluge Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress (2018), a Guggenheim Fellow (2008-2009), and a Lyndhurst Fellow (1986-1988). He served as founding Chair of the Valles Caldera Trust (2001-2004), which managed the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve in north-central New Mexico prior to its transfer to the National Park System. He lives and writes on the farm he has tended since 1976 in New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Bland Simpson is Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a pianist for The Red Clay Ramblers, the Tony Award-winning string band. In 2005 he received the North Carolina Award, the state's highest civilian honor.