Library summer reading program kicks off

Reading is, of course, its own reward. So what could be better than reading and prizes?
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library kicks off its summer reading program Tuesday, June 12. Local businesses are donating nearly $66,000 worth of prizes for those who read the required number of hours.

From now until Aug. 10, you can sign up here to participate and track hours online. The library offers programs for babies/preschoolers, children, teens and adults. Last year, 17,138 children and teens participated and documented more than 184,000 hours read.

Aside from the prizes, here's another good reason to read this summer: Research shows students who read at least 20 minutes daily in the summer are more likely to read at or above grade level when they return to school in the fall.

'Reliable Wife' author Robert Goolrick coming to Charlotte

Bestselling author Robert Goolrick will appear 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 19, at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road, to promote his new novel, "Heading Out to Wonderful."

Goolrick's last book, "A Reliable Wife," was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller when it was published in 2009. In a starred review, Booklist describes "Heading Out to Wonderful" as an "erotically charged tale of of illicit passion."

Bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews at Park Road Books

Mary Kay Andrews will speak and sign books, including copies of her new novel, "Spring Fever," 7 p.m. Friday, June 8, at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.

Andrews' 2011 novel, "Summer Rental," hit it big last year among the beach reading set.

In her new novel, "Spring Fever," she tells the story of a woman who may or may not be over her ex-husband. Publishers Weekly calls it "an enjoyable escape." Andrews, a former journalist at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, lives in Atlanta.

Where to learn to write this summer

Things to do this summer: Grow tomatoes. Hit the beach. Learn to write.

Like sunburns on a 90-degree day, writing workshops are popping up across the Carolinas in coming months. They’ll focus on memoir and nonfiction, boosting creativity, poetry and fiction. And with luck, they’ll teach students to write similes better than the one that opened this paragraph.

Costs vary, from $10 to hundreds of dollars. So do workshop lengths. Some are a single afternoon. Others run several days.

For a county-by-county list of N.C. workshops, you can subscribe to the N.C. Writers’ Network’s weekly email blasts at ncwriters.org/subscribe.

Peruse the list, and you’ll find that the John C. Campbell Folk School offers writing classes through the summer. So does the Writers’ Workshop of Asheville, which holds sessions in Asheville and Charlotte.

In Durham, Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies holds a master nonfiction writing class Aug. 6-11. For students entering grades five through eight, Wake Forest University hosts the Great American Writers’ Camp July 9-14.

Other workshops include:

The S.C. Writers’ Workshop writers’ intensive, June 16 in Rock Hill. It features former Observer columnist Tommy Tomlinson and Irene Blair Honeycutt, a poet and former teacher at Central Piedmont Community College. To register: kim.blumhyclak@gmail.com or 803-289-6491. The price: $10, including lunch.

The N.C. Writers’ Network’s Squire Summer Writing Residency. This year’s residency is July 19-22 at Queens University of Charlotte. Students can choose from workshops in creative nonfiction with Pat MacEnulty (“Wait Until Tomorrow”), poetry with Morri Creech (“Field Knowledge”) or fiction with Robert Inman (“Captain Saturday”).

More information: www.ncwriters.org or 336-293-8844.

The Hub City Writers Project’s Writing in Place conference at Spartanburg’s Wofford College. Set for July 13-15, it offers workshops in multiple genres.

Faculty include Anna Jean Mayhew (“The Dry Grass of August”) in fiction and Ruta Sepetys (“Between Shades of Gray”) in young-adult fiction.

More information: hubcity.org/writersproject/workshops or 864-577-9349.

Writing workshops have proliferated in recent years. N.C. Writers Network Executive Director Ed Southern thinks that’s a good thing. “It shows there’s a great desire to tell stories and communicate in something more than 140 characters,” he says.

Actually, it’s probably only a matter of time before someone offers a tweet-writing workshop. When I hear about it, I’ll let you know.

Charlotte libraries to be closed Monday

All Charlotte-Mecklenburg libraries will be closed Monday, June 4, while the system relocates its library servers.

During the move, Saturday, June 2, through Monday, June 4, many library services, including email, the phone system and many online services, will be unavailable.

No overdue fines will be charged during this period and book drops will remain open. The library system plans to return to business as usual at 10 a.m. Tuesday, June 5.

The library system will also switch to summer hours on Sunday, June 3. That means all libraries will be closed on Sundays until Sept. 9.

On a happier note: North County Regional Library in Huntersville is scheduled to finish renovations and reopen June 9.

More information is here.

Charlotte book news: This week's roundup

Some 1,400 sci-fi and fantasy fans are expected at this year's ConCarolinas, running Friday, June 1, to Sunday, June 3, at the Charlotte Hilton University Place. Attendees include Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt ("Seeker"), along with lots of other writers. Check out details here.

"It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace" is now out in paperback. Its author, Charlotte's Rye Barcott, will read and sign books 2 p.m. Saturday, June 2, at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.As a UNC Chapel Hill student, Barcott spent a summer in Kibera, a mega-slum in Nairobi, Kenya. That experience led him to create a nonprofit called Carolina for Kibera. In this memoir, he tells how he launched and continued to lead the organization while serving as a Marine.

Lawrence Lohr will read from and sign copies of "And Then They Stood: Old Textile Mills of the Carolina Piedmont" at 7 p.m. Monday, June 4 at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road. Lohr's book combines photos with essays on the Southern textile industry.

How many bookstores are left in Charlotte?

This is a trick question. It depends how you define bookstore.

This Friday, June 1, will be the last business day for the nearly 20-year-old BookMark, an independent bookstore in uptown Charlotte's Founder's Hall. Its demise leaves Park Road Books as Charlotte's only independent bookstore. There's also Main Street Books in Davidson.

But bookstores come in a variety of packages. Define the term broadly, and you'll find the Charlotte area still offers many places that sell the printed word.

Mecklenburg County has six full-service chain bookstores -- two Books-A-Million locations, in Cotswold Mall and on Steele Creek Road in Southwest Charlotte, and four Barnes & Noble locations, Sharon Road, The Arboretum, Carolina Place Mall and Birkdale Village.

If you're looking for children's books, you'll find a terrific selection at Black Forest Books & Toys on Seventh Street.

And that's not all. We've got a number of used bookstores, including The Last Word in University City, The Book Rack on Johnston Road and Julia's Cafe & Books, at Habitat for Humanity's ReStore on Wendover Road.

We've also got several Christian stores with good-sized book sections, including Cokesbury Bookstore on Tyvola Road and LifeWay stores in University City and Pineville. And if you want cookbooks, Johnson & Wales University's student bookstore has a nice selection.

What am I missing? If you know of other good bookstores in the Charlotte area, post them here.