Tag: North Carolina

Biltmore Relief Fund for Western NC

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Hurricane Helene

Press Release

Biltmore Estate and its family owners launch Biltmore Relief Fund for WNC, pledging $2 million in immediate localized Helene relief alongside additional resource commitments and employee crisis support.

Asheville, N.C., October 7, 2024 – Amidst the immeasurable challenges our region faces following the devastation of Helene, Biltmore remains steadfast in our commitment to supporting our employees and community on the path to rebuilding.

While the estate remains closed due to storm damage, as well as technology infrastructure, power, and water outages, we are working behind the scenes during this crisis to assist with immediate needs of emergency response teams, our employees, and long-standing non-profit partners in this community.

“Western North Carolina has been our family’s home for more than 125 years, and we are devastated to see Helene’s impact on our region. We remain committed to supporting our employees and neighbors in the aftermath of this unprecedented storm and the long-term recovery efforts. Now more than ever, we must work together to stabilize and rebuild this community,” said Bill Cecil, Jr., President and CEO of Biltmore.

Today, Biltmore announces a financial commitment of $2 million through the newly established Biltmore Relief Fund for WNC to aid in Helene relief efforts.

Inspired by the legacy of George and Edith Vanderbilt, the focus for this fund is to provide critical and immediate financial relief for people in need, including supporting employees in crisis, providing support to area non-profits aiding our region, and investing in the recovery of our community.

Funds will be directed by Biltmore to non-profit organizations for distribution in the Western North Carolina community.

For more info and ways the public can help our community meet the challenge, please see the resources linked on our website.

We will all work together to recover from this unprecedented disaster.

–

Malcolm

My wife and I have visited the Biltmore House many times, beginning in the 1980s.

Kathy Reichs’ ‘Fatal Voyage’

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

In working my way through Kathy Reichs’ forensic thrillers, I’ve reached Fatal Voyage with only a few more pages to read. Her books are well-written, educational, and almost always place the main character, Tempe Brennan, in dangerous situations.

I especially liked this novel because it was set in and around Bryson City, NC, an area I’ve been visiting since the 1950s. It’s fun to see how an author views an area I know well, from Mt. Mitchell to  Clingman’s Dome, to New Found Gap. I’ve hiked through a lot of the area and driven through all of it. Reichs uses the towns and mountains well, adding a lot of local color (real and fictional). One of my brothers used to own several tracts of land near Dillsboro. I once tried to buy an old restaurant in Dillsboro but the plan got vetoed by somebody I won’t name here.

From the publisher

“Buckle up and take this voyage,” says People. The journey begins with Temperance Brennan hearing shocking news on her car radio. An Air TransSouth flight has gone down in the mountains of western North Carolina, taking with it eighty-eight passengers and crew. As a forensic anthropologist and a member of the regional DMORT team, Tempe rushes to the scene to assist in body recovery and identification.

“As bomb theories abound, Tempe soon discovers a jarring piece of evidence that raises dangerous questions—and gets her thrown from the DMORT team. Relentless in her pursuit of its significance, Tempe uncovers a shocking, multilayered tale of deceit and depravity as she probes her way into frightening territory—where someone wants her stopped in her tracks.”

She doesn’t mention all the moonshine stills in the area, one of which was on or near my brother’s property. A free jar of shine would have ensured our silence if we’d ever found one of the stills. Of course, we might have ended up dead, something that happens a lot in Fatal Voyage.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of magical realism, paranormal, and contemporary fantasy novels and short stories. This Kindle “boxed set” includes all four novels of the Florida Folk Magic Series a savings over buying them separately. You can, of course, can also buy them in hardcover, paperback, and audiobook editions.

Jim Wrinn led Trains Magazine with passion

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn railroads

WAUKESHA, Wis. — Jim Wrinn, who aspired since his youth to be the editor of Trains magazine and served in the role for more than 17 years, died at home on March 30, 2022, after a valiant 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 61.

Wrinn’s longevity in the editor’s role was second only to that of the legendary David P. Morgan, who led the magazine for more than 33 years and died in 1990 at age 62. Morgan’s editorship and writings deeply influenced Wrinn, who began reading Trains in 1967 at age 6.

History left it to Wrinn to preside over a challenging, transitional era for Trains, which Kalmbach Media predecessor Kalmbach Publishing Co. launched in November 1940. As editor in chief, Wrinn was fortunate to serve generations of readers who grew up on the print magazine while at the same time broadening the magazine’s appeal to a new digitally oriented audience.

Source: Jim Wrinn led Trains Magazine with passion – TrainsWrinn at the Trains “81 for 81” event at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in October 2021. Under his editorship, the magazine broadened its scope to include events like photo charters. (Cate Kratville-Wrinn)

–

I met Jim Wrinn in the early 1990s when he was a reporter for a North Carolina newspaper and a volunteer at the North Carolina Transportation Museum. At the time, my wife and I were volunteers at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Atlanta. We visited each other’s museums, learned a lot from his experience, drank his beer, and stayed in his house whenever we were in Salisbury, NC. His books and articles were an education in themselves. I will miss him, and the railroading world from professionals to railfans will miss his voice and his leadership.

–Malcolm

Authors Urge Customers and Colleagues not to Boycott NC Bookstores

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn authors1 Comment

From the ABA: When Sherman Alexie announced that he was cancelling an appearance at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café in Asheville, many North Carolina booksellers expressed fear that an author boycott would have a chilling effect on free speech as well as inflict economic damage on booksellers who support LGBTQ rights. To address this fear, the American Booksellers Association has joined several groups in issuing a statement supporting free speech and urging authors and illustrators and their publishers not to boycott bookstores.

The following authors may evaluate attending conferences and festivals in North Carolina, but will still participate with libraries and bookstores;

openletter

Review: ‘Causing Chaos’ by Deborah J. Ledford

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn reviews1 Comment

Causing Chaos (Inola Walela/Steven Hawk Suspense Series Book 4), by Deborah J. Ledford, IOF Productions Ltd (March 31, 2015), 308 pp.

causingchaosDeborah J. Ledford follows Staccato (2009), Snare (2010) and Crescendo (2014) with another powerful mystery/thriller set in the western North Carolina world of the Smoky Mountains and the Eastern Band Cherokee trust lands of the Qualla Boundary.

The story begins in blood, “Red streaks on the lower cabinets, an overturned chair, the oven door. An arc of crimson, the entire height of one wall.”

While Cherokee artist Paven Nahar works in his studio, his wife Shellie argues with two art dealers in the couple’s house who insist on acquiring the sculpture in progress. When Paven returns to the house later, he finds a bloody kitchen, a shattered pottery urn and no sign of his wife.

Paven, who is soon on the run, quickly becomes the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance and presumed murder. Inola “Hummingbird” Walela, the only Cherokee in the Bryson City police department is tasked with the capture of the man who was her closest childhood friend.

The story is also defined by blood, blood as represented by the often conflicting love and drama within a family, and blood as a force of heritage and loyalty for members of the Cherokee Nation. Walela’s case is potentially related to an unsolved series “Qualla Ghosts” cases of missing women on tribal lands. This increases the pressure on Walela while ramping up the suspense for readers.

While each novel in this very cohesive series has developed the characters of Walela and her boyfriend Steven Hawk, Causing Chaos belongs to Hummingbird in every possible way. While the novel is aptly categorized as a police procedural and thriller, it is also a deeply personal story for Walela as multiple layers of her past and her family/tribal relationships come to light. Among these is a childhood incident, a source of nightmares and latent fears, that may somehow be related to the fate of Paven and Shellie and to the puzzling Qualla Ghost cases.

Causing Chaos is a cop story with great depth and a heartbreaking psychological undertow.

–

On a personal note, I have been hiking and vacationing in western North Carolina since childhood and have a deep fondness for the Smoky Mountains, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the sacred waters of the Oconaluftee River. Ledford’s novels not only fit hand-in-glove within this setting, but enhance it for those of us who know it well.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of contemporary fantasy and magical realism fiction, including “Conjure Woman’s Cat.”

Review: ‘Crescendo’ by Deborah J. Ledford

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, reviews1 Comment

crescendoIn music, “crescendo” indicates a gradual increase in force or loudness. If Deborah J. Ledford’s three-book Steven Hawk/Inola Walela Thriller Series (Staccato, 2009, Snare, 2010, Crescendo, 2013) were a concerto, the audience would leave the concert hall at the end of the performance electrified by the force of the third movement and the virtuosity of soloist Inola Walela.

Crescendo (Second Wind Publishing, January 27) begins with great force when antagonists Preston Durand and private investigator Hondo Polk push Billy Carlton to tell them what he knows about the location of Durand’s son and ex-wife. The book’s volume increases when Inola’s partner is killed during a traffic stop by a bullet that might have come from her gun and a female passenger in the stopped car is struck and killed by another vehicle just after she says, “I got you the money.  Where is my son?”

Though she’s a decorated Bryson City, North Carolina police officer, Inola is put on administrative leave pending a departmental investigation into the deaths at the scene. She’s told to stay away from the investigation, including trying follow up on her gut feeling that the woman’s son has been kidnapped.

Inola’s fiancé Steven Hawk, now the county sheriff, wants to play everything by the book. He tells Inola that there’s no evidence of a kidnapping and the city police and county sheriff’s departments can’t take action until evidence and leads, if any, materialize—and she is to stay home.

Readers of the Steven Hawk/Inola Walela Series were introduced to Inola in Staccato when Hawk, who was a sheriff’s deputy then, first became aware of her: “Hawk had noticed Inola Walela, the only female cop on the Bryson City police force. She was captivating, beautiful, smart, tough, exactly what he hoped to find in a woman.”

Inola, who played a larger, but secondary, role in Snare, is Ledford’s on-the-hot-seat protagonist in Crescendo. She comes into her own in this tense novel as a three-dimensional, risk-taking police officer who needs to find the young woman’s son and who has kidnapped him even though she may be suspended or terminated regardless of what she learns.

This is a richly told psychological and physical thriller. Ledford, who knows her characters and her settings well, increases the volume of this story until the last shot is fired.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of contemporary fantasy novels, including “Sarabande’ and “The Sun Singer.”