Acclaimed novelist to read in Tarboro

TGIF

July 23, 2010

Anonymous For The Daily Southerner The Daily Southerner Fri Jul 23, 2010, 11:20 AM EDT

TARBORO — "Liza Wieland understands down to the bone how loneliness and love compel her characters to make their impossible choices. Not only does she have a searing intelligence and wisdom, her prose is by turns graceful and astonishing."

— Jane Hamilton, author of "A Map of the World"

Novelist Liza Wieland pays close attention to the world around her. To be in her company is to watch a novelist on the job: her eyes are constantly at work, slowly gauging the room as she takes in whispered conversations in corners and silent looks between strangers thought to be unwatched. She’s engaged in her surroundings, trained or compelled to absorb the small details of life necessary to any novelist’s success.

And Wieland is also watching the larger world as it suffers through the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. Her novels include reworked looks at the family dynamics of a domestic terrorist ("Bombshell") and the tragedies of lost children in Atlanta ("The Names of the Lost"). She uses actual characters – the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and the victims of Atlanta child murderer Wayne Williams – from history, but her imaginative energy changes them and the people around them into fictional corollaries to history. The events are familiar, but used for her own artistic purposes; she brings the hard-to-comprehend cruelties of major events into the smaller understandable framework of relationships gone wrong.

And Tarboro will see and hear her art on Saturday at 7 p.m. as part of The Sketchy Happening Reading Series. This is the third event in the series and follows readings by poet Al Maginnes and fiction writers Jason Brown and Stephen Jackson.

Recent East Carolina University creative writing graduate Jenna Miller will also read at the Saturday event.

Wieland was born in Chicago and grew up in Atlanta, but lives now in Greenville and near Oriental. She is currently at work on a novel that begins with the D-Day invasion at Normandy and follows her characters through the 1980s.

She has published three novels, "The Names of the Lost" (Southern Methodist University Press, 1992), "Bombshell" (SMU, 2001) and "A Watch of Nightingales," (University of Michigan Press, 2009), two collections of short fiction, "Discovering America" (Random House, 1994) and "You Can Sleep While I Drive" (SMU, 1999), as well as a book of poems, "Near Alcatraz" (Cherry Grove, 2005). A third collection of short fiction, "QUICKENING," is forthcoming from SMU next spring.

Sketchy Happening events take place at 104 1/2 E. Saint James St. and are always free to the public.

Wieland’s books will be available for purchase and she’ll be happy to sign her books as well, but watch what you say or you’ll wind up in a future novel.

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Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. to perform in Tarboro
Edgecombe Community College is pleased present an eclectic evening of classic pop, R&B and gospel music with Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. on Friday, February 24. The concert takes place at 8:00 PM in beautiful Keihin Auditorium on the Tarboro campus, and is the fourth of six concerts in the 2011-12 season of the Edgecombe Performance Series.

February 3, 2012 1 Photo
A Capella Night at Keihin Auditorium
Edgecombe Community College is pleased present a fun evening of a capella singing on Friday, February 17. The term “a capella” (spelled “a cappella” in Italian) is a Latin phrase, meaning “in the style of the chapel.” The modern day use of the term in music is understood to mean “voices without instrumental accompaniment.” The February 17 concert features two of the regions premier collegiate male a capella ensembles, The Clef Hangers of UNC-Chapel Hill and The Pitchforks of Duke University. Both groups feature 12-16 singers who will perform close harmonies in a musical renewal of the famed Tobacco Road rivalry.

January 27, 2012 1 Photo
Joyce Turner
Edgecombe Arts Executive Director, Joyce Turner shares pieces of art from her personal work.

January 16, 2012 3 Photos
New children’s books sparkle any time of year
Last year was a stellar one for picture books, and my personal favorite was “Dave the Potter” winner of the Caldecott Medal for 2011. With illustrations by Bryan Collier, and text by Laban Carrick Hill, the book weaves the story of a South Carolina potter who signed his works merely “Dave.”

January 16, 2012 1 Photo
Americana Singer-Songwriter performs in hometown

Local Americana singer and songwriter, Anna Vaughn Creech will grace the stage 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14 at Saint Anne's Chapel in Tarboro with an acoustic guitar filled night of folk and rock music that is sure to keep audience members highly entertained and on their feet.

January 6, 2012 1 Photo
‘A Christmas Carol’
The Tar River Players opened their seventh season with a gala production of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” this past weekend playing to a capacity crowd in McIntyre Auditorium.
“We were thrilled with the turnout for the first weekend of “A Christmas Carol” and even more excited by the responses we’ve received from those who have attended,” said Director Roberta Cashwell.

December 9, 2011 1 Photo
Award winning S&D Choir to hold concert in Tarboro
Forty-two days after being tagged the, "Best Choir in America," the award winning Salvation & Deliverance Choir of Tarboro is bringing its show home.
At 7 p.m. on Dec. 9, at Keihin Auditorium on the campus of Edgecombe Community College in Tarboro, the Salvation and Deliverance Choir will present, "How Sweet the Tiding" concert featuring David and Tamela Mann. The show is expected to last two hours.

December 2, 2011 1 Photo
The annual Hobson Pittman Holiday exhibition
The works have been selected for the annual Hobson Pittman Holiday exhibition, tentatively titled “Hobson Pittman: the artist’s travel journal”. The show is expected to be ready for public by next Friday.

December 2, 2011 1 Photo
N.C. Symphony takes holiday music across state
Beginning in two weeks, the North Carolina Symphony will travel across the state, from New Bern to Lincolnton and more, for an annual family tradition, the orchestra’s Holiday Pops celebrations.

November 11, 2011 1 Photo
"Alice's Restaurant"
For over 10 years, Tarboro's own Hannah Wilson has been waiting for the perfect opportunity to collaborate with her parents (Kevin and Trish Wilson, owners of Saint Anne's Chapel) on a special theatrical production. This November, her patience will finally pay off.

November 9, 2011 1 Photo
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